In part I we defined the concept of a CHIP, and applied it to the seasons 2000-01 - 2025-26. Parts II and III covered the seasons 1975-76 to 1999-2000, and 1949-50 to 1974-75. In this article we will look at the final results, consider some critiques of the methodology, and then look at the final CHIP tally alongside a list of all-time greats.
Review of the CHIP Concept
In the first part, I argued that the Hall of Fame criteria should be more selective, and that one simple criterion for admission is winning a CHIP:
CHIP = The Clear Best Player on the Championship Winning Team
To win a CHIP, you need enough help from teammates to win it all, but if one of those teammates is too good, you split the credit. There are no split CHIPS. You need to be the Batman to the Robin, not one of the Wonder Twins. Wonder Twins can enjoy the satisfaction of a team victory, but to get the CHIP, you need to be driving the Batmobile!
To recap the methodology and criteria for earning a CHIP:
- Measure Win Shares plus VORP, double for playoff games
- Compare the second best player’s total to the first’s
- The best player is Batman if his teammate (Robin) scores less than 81% of his total
- If the second best player scores 81% of the first’s total or better, they are Wonder Twins
- Only Batman gets the CHIP
Reviewing our examples:
In the example of the 2024-25 Thunder, J-Dub’s score is only 49% that of Shai’s, a clear Robin performance. This makes Shai the Batman, earning him the CHIP.
Shai: 🪙
The 2013-14 Spurs had two relatively equal contributors, with Duncan easily clearing the Robin Threshold with 95%. Kawhi and Duncan were Wonder Twins here, splitting credit for the title, and neither getting a CHIP.
Applying this idea to every season in the entire history of the NBA, we had 51 Batman/Robin seasons, and 26 Wonder Twin Seasons. Here’s a summary of the CHIPS winners for. the entire history of the NBA:
| Russell | 🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙 |
|---|---|
| Jordan | 🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙 |
| LeBron | 🪙🪙🪙 |
| Magic | 🪙🪙🪙 |
| Mikan | 🪙🪙🪙 |
| Curry | 🪙🪙 |
| Duncan | 🪙🪙 |
| Olajuwon | 🪙🪙 |
| Bird | 🪙🪙 |
| Abdul-Jabbar | 🪙🪙 |
| Wilt | 🪙🪙 |
| Shai, Jokic, Giannis, Kawhi | 🪙 |
| Durant, Dirk, Wade, Shaq | 🪙 |
| Moses, Gus Williams, Walton, Cowens | 🪙 |
| Barry, Havlicek, Frazier, Schayes | 🪙 |
This list doesn’t look too bad. The multi-CHIP winners are the league’s all time greats, and the single CHIP winners from the current era look like worthy recipients. The CHIPS won in the years before the 1980’s look a bit softer, with players like Dave Cowens winning a CHIP, and George Mikan winning 3, but this system treats all seasons as equal.
Can this system be improved? The comments on Reddit from the first few articles produced a few interesting critiques.
Critique 1 - You can’t combine Win Shares and VORP like that
The main criticism of the methodology was the way Win Shares and VORP were combined:
I think you could do a better job with the metrics you have. For starters, VORP has to be multiplied by 2.7 to convert to WARP and be measured on the same scale as WS - u/teh_noob_
and:
Win Shares and VORP are not on the same scale - you cannot just add them together! - u/bbstats
Although this looked bad, I didn’t sweat this critique too much: the metric was only being used to compare teammates, and if they are derived from the same stats, how we combine them shouldn’t make much difference. Indeed, multiplying VORP by 2.7 only flipped one result:
- 1980-81: Bird and Maxwell are Wonder Twins Bird is Batman 🪙
This seems like an improvement, as this season was flagged by a commenter:
surprised bird only got wonder twin status for 81, always figured he was the clear alpha on that team even that early - u/SpecificEmploy6830
As it is the more methodologically correct move, we will keep that one, leveling Bird with Magic at three CHIPS.
VERDICT: Critique accepted, VORP multiplied by 2.7
Bird: 🪙
Critique 2 - You should put more weight on the playoffs
The original methodology doubled the weight on playoff games, striking a balance between treating playoff games as just another game, and giving the playoffs equal weight to the regular season. Some critiques and suggestions:
rather than arbitrarily doubling for playoffs, look at percentage of team total and weight regular season equally…
…equal value means effectively quadrupling the weight of each playoff game, anything else 'feels' arbitrary
…Perhaps you could do playoffs-only, since regular season wins don't mean that much in earning the ring itself - u/teh_noob_
I was a little uncomfortable putting so much weight on such a small sample, but I had to admit that playoff games were so crucial to the overall project of winning a championship. Those games are where legacies are really decided. Quadrupling the value of playoff games flipped three more results:
- 2007-08: Garnett and Pierce are Wonder Twins Garnett is Batman 🪙
- 2001-02: Shaq and Kobe are Wonder Twins Shaq is Batman 🪙
- 1957-58: Hagan and Pettit are Wonder Twins Hagan is Batman 🪙
Garnett is an all-time impact monster, and Shaq certainly looked the part of Batman in the Kobe pairing, so this change seems to fit our intuition. As for “Cliff Hagan”, sure why not! We will keep this change as well.
VERDICT: Critique accepted, playoff games quadrupled
Garnett: 🪙
Shaq: 🪙
Hagan: 🪙
Critique 3 - Win Shares and VORP are basically the same
The final critique was that there was very little point using both Win Shares and VORP, as they are too similar, and derived from the same sources:
Aren't all those early all-in-one metrics also derived from the same combination of stats?There are some differences of course, but its essentially two ways of counting the same types of things - u/Travler18
and:
VORP is just a bit better than WS; WS over-values shooting efficiency - u/bbstats
Of course, for the seasons 1972-73 and earlier, we only have access to Win Shares, so we will use that, but past that let’s see what happens if we use VORP only:
- 2013-14: Kawhi and Duncan are Wonder Twins Kawhi is the Batman 🪙
- 2008-09: Kobe and Gasol are Wonder Twins Kobe is the Batman 🪙
- 1989-90: Isiah and Laimbeer are Wonder Twins Isiah is the Batman 🪙
- 1988-89: Isiah, Laimbeer, and Dumars are Wonder Triplets Isiah is the Batman 🪙
- 1984-85: Magic and Kareem are Wonder Twins Magic is the Batman 🪙
- 1982-83: Moses is the Batman 🪙 Moses and Dr. J are Wonder Twins
- 1979-80: Kareem is the Batman 🪙 Kareem and Magic are Wonder Twins
These updates don’t look like a mixed bag. There may be some merit to giving one to Kobe and another to Magic, but not to 12ppg Kawhi, or Isiah on a defense first ensemble. Taking a CHP away prime-aged MVP and Finals Moses doesn’t feel right, nor does taking one away from Kareem (32ppg in the playoffs) when rookie Magic was his sidekick. Ultimately I rejected this change in favour of continuity with the Win Shares only era, maintaining model diversity, and keeping the CHIP standard pretty stingy.
VERDICT: Critique rejected, continue to blend Win Shares and VORP
Cashing in the CHIPS
With those 4 CHIPS added, we have 55 CHIPS accross 77 NBA seasons. That is, 55 of the 77 championships were driven by a clear best player, a Batman. Let’s calibrate this system against a list of all-time greats. Thinking Basketball has done the deepest possible dive on this topic, and produced a list of Top 40 careers, based on “championship equity”. The list was last updated in 2022, so it won’t have folded in the last few seasons of the active players.
| Rank | Player | CHIPS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | LeBron | 🪙🪙🪙 |
| 2 | Kareem | 🪙🪙 |
| 3 | Jordan | 🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙 |
| 4 | Russell | 🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙 |
| 5 | Shaq | 🪙🪙 |
| 6 | Olajuwon | 🪙🪙 |
| 7 | Duncan | 🪙🪙 |
| 8 | Wilt | 🪙🪙 |
| 9 | Garnett | 🪙 |
| 10 | Bird | 🪙🪙🪙 |
| 11 | Magic | 🪙🪙🪙 |
| 12 | Kobe | |
| 13 | Karl Malone | |
| 14 | Oscar Robertson | |
| 15 | Dirk | 🪙 |
| 16 | Curry | 🪙🪙 |
| 17 | Chris Paul | |
| 18 | Jerry West | |
| 19 | David Robinson | |
| 20 | Julius Erving | |
| 21 | Durant | 🪙 |
| 22 | Barkley | |
| 23 | Nash | |
| 24 | Stockton | |
| 25 | Wade | 🪙 |
| 26 | Pippen | |
| 27 | Moses | 🪙 |
| 28 | Rick Barry | 🪙 |
| 29 | Reggie Miller | |
| 30 | Harden | |
| 31 | Pettit | |
| 32 | Havlicek | 🪙 |
| 33 | Kidd | |
| 34 | Gilmore | |
| 35 | Ewing | |
| 36 | Paul Pierce | |
| 37 | Walt Frazier | 🪙 |
| 38 | Elgin Baylor | |
| 39 | Isiah | |
| 40 | Clyde Drexler | |
| — | Shai | 🪙 |
| — | Jokic | 🪙 |
| — | Giannis | 🪙 |
| — | Kawhi | 🪙 |
| — | Walton | 🪙 |
| — | Cowens | 🪙 |
| — | Gus Williams | 🪙 |
| — | Cliff Hagan | 🪙 |
| — | Schayes | 🪙 |
| — | Mikan | 🪙🪙🪙 |
The concentration of CHIPS at the top is remarkable: every player in the top 11 has won a CHIP, and only Garnett missed out on multiples. I predict that when Curry’s career is complete, his rank will rise to put him in this top group. Those 12 players won 36 of the 55 total CHIPS, accounting for roughly half of all championships. This is the caliber of player that can reliably drive the Batmobile towards a title: the handful of very best players of all time.
Outside of these 12 players, we can see that a strong career peak, combined with the right team and league conditions, can win a player a CHIP. Looking at the recent CHIPS, Kawhi, Giannis, Jokic, and Shai will likely find their way into the top half of this list when it’s all said and done, and Shai may even snag a second CHIP. The only other multi-CHIP winner was Mikan, who played in a league that looks nothinglike today’s NBA.
The point of this exercise was to quantify legacy, fundamentally slippery concept. Did the players who missed out on a CHIP suffer a diminished legacy? For Karl Malone, David Robinson, and James Harden the answer is definitely yes. They are seen as not having the top gear needed to drive a championship. Exceptional guards like Paul, Stockton, and Nash are viewed as too lightweight to do it by themselves, and Pippen will always be branded a sidekick. Robertson, West, and Dr. J are far enough in the rear view to escape scrutiny, while Barkley has partially compensated with a second act as a media personality.
Kobe is the one player who missed a CHIP, but left with his legacy intact. In addition to narrowly missing winning a CHIP, he was a star on 5 championship teams, largely got credit for the ones with Pau Gasol, and was one of the most popular and magnetic players in the history of the league.