I hadn't clicked on any of the hyperlinks for players on the "improved multi-season ranking" page at Jerry's site previously and wasn't aware of the year to year RAPM chart that lies behind them. It is a handy view and I found some interesting things about players quickly by looking at the charts.
Dirk was estimated to have had his best season on offensive, defensive and overall RAPM. James had his first down season, with a drop in offensive RAPM. Garnett is estimated to have had one of his 2 or 3 best seasons overall. Nash continues to set new RAPM highs virtually every year, well above his MVP seasons.
Ginobili got most of the way back to his 2006-7 peak. Collison has only been estimated as exceptional for the last 2 seasons. Wade has seen downward movements before but he too fell of his peak like James. Paul with his lowest FGA per game season has his best RAPM performance. Howard continue upwards but with one of his smallest net gains over the previous season.
Duncan is treading water overall, improving on defensive RAPM but declining on offensive RAPM. Deng set an overall RAPM career high thanks to defense. Amir Johnson has continued to improve on RAPM every season, yet some GMs gave up on him and his present one doesn't seem that sold on him as a key franchise piece.
Kobe had his 2nd worst RAPM in 6 years. Nene picked it up to get his best RAPM estimate just in time to be a free agent after sliding sideways and down most of his last contract. Aldridge, had a career best, but actually only a slight uptick on RAPM. Baron Davis takes a lot of criticism and certainly some is deserved but his career RAPM chart is still better than most starters. Bogut had a career best. Bosh, down a bit. Pierce rebounded a bit but 2007-8 was his peak.
Jeff Foster may be old but he too was still near his career peak on RAPM. Gerald Wallace, career best. Same for Lowry and Milsap. Rashard Lewis has had 2 straight down years but is actually still above the highest RAPM level he had attained before those 2 seasons (for the length of time RAPM is available). Same deal for Odom.
Chandler close to his career best, a level he attained only 2 other times. But he has 3 of his 4 best marks in the last 4 years when it was supposedly so risky to take him.
Dunleavy and Randolph also with career bests. Same for Durant but with less growth than in the previous yr. to yr. changes. Artest, second straight down season. Joe Johnson down slightly.
For all of Battier's reputation as a APM superstar, by RAPM he only has 3 of the last 9 seasons above +2 and only 1 of the last 5. So he had his two best 2 seasons on RAPM in 2004-5 and 05-06, then Houston trades for him and thereafter he only exceeds +2 once, mildly in 2010-11 perhaps because of the new context back in Memphis. Houston bought right at his peak and / or context of use can really matter for RAPM delivered.
Kidd had his worst RAPM in 9 seasons in his first title season. I guess one can say his rating wasn't critical or that maybe a further fall would hurt. Career low for Al Jefferson too, though his rating was negative. Aaron Brooks' offensive RAPM got better every season but his defensive RAPM drifted down then fell even further this season, puling his overall rating to a near career low. It has always been negative and below -2 in every season but one. Jeff Green has been at or below -2 every season but he was a supposed prize, a main reason for doing the Allen deal. Monta Ellis stayed at his career low.
Warrick sure got pretty good money from Phoenix (based on boxscore stats?) for being near or below -4 every season of his career. In the bottom 5 of the all players scored on multi-season RAPM. Hickson dead last and falling year to year. Probably needs not only a different team but a different role / "game", if he plays at all, out of some great hope of becoming acceptable or even good someday. A bad team might be able to afford to play a really bad performer in the short-term but for how long? I guess the Cavs hit their limit, time will tell if it was too soon.
Is this RAPM data and RAPM trend data "useful" or not useful information? I tend to think a lot of it is useful. Some don't of course.
There were a few years that moved against the general trend but almost every player mentioned above was all positive or negative all the time and almost all had a strong multi-season trend.
I looked at the highest and lowest performers. One might suggest that the middle is messier. It might be, but looking at 20 guys in the middle with near neutral ratings, I didn't find any player with a continuous year to year herky-jerky up and down RAPM chart. Most had up to 2 basic trends in their career; in different orders, but it was usually up, down or sideways for several years then up, down or sideways for several more.