Justin, I think this is great! For me, the key is comparing apples to apples: RS seasons to the same PO season, which is what you do here. Too many commentators just compare overall RS to overall PO. I love what you did here!
However, I'd take it a step farther and compare RS to PO in two ways: First, compare PO performance to a standard FOR EACH SEASON. For example, I used playoff standards of 22.7 PER, .180 WS/48, AND 6.5. Then, find how often a player exceeded those standards. For example, Jordan in 13 playoffs exceeded those standards 36 of 39 POs (92%), which was the highest percentage of the top 25 players I examined. After MJ:
87% LeBron
77% West
72% Magic
65% Wilt
63% Durant
63% Kawhi
63% CP3
58% Robinson
57% Duncan
Second--and this is more directly connected to your article--I compared playoff PER, WS/48, BPM to regular season PER, WS/48, BPM (adjusting for the difference in RS and PO; for example, I found PER in PO averaged 0.94 of RS PER; I think this is the same adjustment that you found). Then, I examined how often PO exceeded PO. Jordan's PO (adjusted) exceeded his (raw) RS in PER, WS/48, PER in 32 of 39 times (82%), which was the highest. Next highest were:
81% Kawhi
77% West
70% Isiah
69% Russell
69% Olajuwon
67% Dirk
63% Durant
60% LeBron
60% Oscar
58% Wilt
Jordan and West rank high in both exceeding the standard and also their own PO > RS. Isiah and Russell were each low in meeting the standard but high in their own PO > RS. Lowest in both meeting the standard and PO > RS were Karl Malone (no surprise) and ... Larry Bird!!! Kobe was also near the bottom in both!
Justin, I think this is great! For me, the key is comparing apples to apples: RS seasons to the same PO season, which is what you do here. Too many commentators just compare overall RS to overall PO. I love what you did here!
However, I'd take it a step farther and compare RS to PO in two ways: First, compare PO performance to a standard FOR EACH SEASON. For example, I used playoff standards of 22.7 PER, .180 WS/48, AND 6.5. Then, find how often a player exceeded those standards. For example, Jordan in 13 playoffs exceeded those standards 36 of 39 POs (92%), which was the highest percentage of the top 25 players I examined. After MJ:
87% LeBron
77% West
72% Magic
65% Wilt
63% Durant
63% Kawhi
63% CP3
58% Robinson
57% Duncan
Second--and this is more directly connected to your article--I compared playoff PER, WS/48, BPM to regular season PER, WS/48, BPM (adjusting for the difference in RS and PO; for example, I found PER in PO averaged 0.94 of RS PER; I think this is the same adjustment that you found). Then, I examined how often PO exceeded PO. Jordan's PO (adjusted) exceeded his (raw) RS in PER, WS/48, PER in 32 of 39 times (82%), which was the highest. Next highest were:
81% Kawhi
77% West
70% Isiah
69% Russell
69% Olajuwon
67% Dirk
63% Durant
60% LeBron
60% Oscar
58% Wilt
Jordan and West rank high in both exceeding the standard and also their own PO > RS. Isiah and Russell were each low in meeting the standard but high in their own PO > RS. Lowest in both meeting the standard and PO > RS were Karl Malone (no surprise) and ... Larry Bird!!! Kobe was also near the bottom in both!
The reason to compare by seasons is to give less weight to outlier seasons.
He's only at 1049 minutes, but could you calculate Luka's figures for me? Playoff Luka is a thing, right? 🔥✌🏼
I decided to drop the minimum to 1,000 minutes and rerun the whole thing. Luka ranks fifth with a standardized residual of 2.73.