RealGM Top 100 #36

[Laimbeer]

I agree this is too high for Pierce. Never made a first team, highest MVP finish 7, never considered capable of being the guy on a title team. I'm pretty comfortable that Hayes and Cowens are above him, and as much as I dislike him as a team player, Iverson belongs higher for some of his individual accomplishments. All of those were far more impactful in their prime.

Vote: Elvin Hayes
Nominate: Mookie Blaylock (protest vote re:absence of Cousy)

[cpower]

Vote: Pierce
Nominate: KJ

So Pierce has done nothing in the last 2 years but he's got a huge boost from no.76 to now 30 sth?
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=880916

It kind of annoys me how people continue to look at past rankings to decide where people should rank now, especially when I've already responded to people bringing up past rankings. Havlicek was ranked 14th last time...he dropped to 29. Cousy hasn't even been nominated yet, and he was 29th last time. Gilmore was actually ranked higher in 08, yet people act like he got this huge boost in rankings now that we are looking at individual ability. Dirk didn't make top 40 in 08. The point I'm making is that it's not like everything else has stayed consistent, so to act like that list serves as a reference point at all doesn't make sense to me.

1. That ranking you're referring to was about career accomplishments (IOW, not ranking how good of a player a guy was), so it's pretty much two entirely different criteria, which is why we're coming up with two entirely different lists.

2. Pierce has always been underrated, so him being low on a previous list means nothing to me.

3. It sounds to me you're just saying to yourself "Well, he can't possibly jump 40 spots from last time!", without actually evaluating him (and again, you're comparing him to a list that for all intents and purposes is irrelevant to this one).

If the above is true, I just think you're doing a disservice to the project, as is anyone who continually refuses to follow the project criteria of "judge a player by how good he is"...it's fine to disagree, and to think another player should be ranked higher...but citing MVP awards, All-NBA honors, rings, and generally positive media perception doesn't cut it as "evidence" imo. All of that can easily go to an inferior player...look at Rose vs Wade in 2011...Rose is not as good as Wade, yet Rose made 1st team over him and won MVP. Again, I can see someone using that last sentence as "evidence" that Rose actually was better...but nothing objective backs that up, as far as I can tell.

Pierce has always been underrated in the past but if he is the 34th best player in the history of the game he is going to be the most overrated player here. Players like AI used to dominate the game the way Pierce could never imagine.

[Fencer reregistered]

For the nomination:

PG -- It is between the great playmaking but inefficient even for his era (especially in playoffs) Bob Cousy, and the young gun with 2 great years but only 5 1/2 years total, Chris Paul. If someone can do a comp to show me Cousy was actually reasonably efficient either individually or in terms of team offense in the period from 58-62, I'll vote for him easily, otherwise . . . Other candidates include Kevin Johnson, the surprisingly efficient Chauncey Billups, and possibly Lenny Wilkens from the 60s or the purely offensive Nate Archibald or Pete Maravich from the 70s.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y5=1959 is a comparison of assist leaders in the 1958-59 season who are listed as guard (as opposed to, say, guard-forward).

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y5=1959 is the same comparison for that season only.

Cousy beats everybody else on win shares in any comparison. He looks good on efficiency against most of them, but not against single-season Richie Guerin, nor (more arguably because of the volume differential) single-season Dick McGuire.

As for team efficiency -- I've argued that offensive rebounding, defensive efficiency, and fatigue-from-pace can all serve to make team efficiency numbers misleading.

I further note that the Celtics were #1 in overall points scored, as well as #1 in overall wins, as well as #1 in the post-season, all of which might provide some context for their supposedly deplorable shooting efficiency.

[penbeast0]

Did Arizin actually invent or reinvent the jumpshot? That would move him up the rankings in my opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_shot_%28basketball%29 shows that in he in no way truly invented it, but if he was the first guy to use it effectively, that would count in my book as well.

In his own words, it was not, Pitchin' Paul's invention
Joe Fulks, Kenny Sailors are among those, predecessors that he mentions
As pioneering the art of leaving your feet before you shoot
But Paul with the ball was most accurate of all, and an NBA Champ to boot.

I always thought it was Hank Luisetti, though when I put in "Who invented the jump shot" I get several names including Sailors (who I had never heard of before) while it says that Luisetti perfected the "running one-handed push shot while in the air" . . . mmm, not the same thing I guess?


Oh and for the long term RAPM studies. Was it Billups who had terrible numbers in it? I keep seeing it referenced for Paul v. Moncrief debates which seems a bit unfair since there are no such numbers for Moncrief (like saying Hakeem is a great shotblocker by his numbers when comparing him to Russell defensively).

[Fencer reregistered]

Ya know, one thing that is said to have DECLINED from the old days (I haven't actually checked the numbers) is FT%.

Meanwhile, I noticed that Cousy's (for example) motion shooting from the floor was really little different than his FT motion.

Coincidence? Hmm ....

[ElGee]

Players like AI used to dominate the game the way Pierce could never imagine.

Can you provide an example? Of maybe more than 1 games length? A series or collection of games at least...

[drza]

Comparing Sidney to Chris Paul

Volume – Paul averaged 19.2ppg, Moncrief averaged 21.0ppg
Efficiency – Paul averaged .575, Moncrief .598ts%

And Moncrief did it on a much more balanced team which means he didn’t have as many opportunities as Paul (on the other hand he didn’t face as many defenses stacked against him).

Playoffs –
Volume – Paul 21.9, Moncrief 18.8 so they did switch volumes in the postseason
Efficiency – Paul .577, Moncrief .573ts% -- Moncreif slipped but only to a Chris Paul level

Moncrief does fall off in the playoffs (from facing Dennis Johnson and Maurice Cheeks every year?) but only down to Paul’s level of efficiency and not much behind him in scoring . . . and his team had more success over the 5 year peak than Paul’s, even beating the Bird/McHale/Parish/DJ Celtics once.

Paul does have much better assist numbers since he is a ball dominant PG rather than an off the ball SG, but are his offenses really better? Over the last 5 years, the NO offense has a averaged 15th ORTG in the league with only 1 top 10 year; Milwaukee was the 8th ranked offense in Moncrief’s period (and improved after Terry Cummings and Randy Breuer replaced Marques Johnson and Bob Lanier so it probably isn’t star power) with 2 top 10 years. Paul doesn’t seem to have a Steve Nash type effect here.

And defensively, Moncrief, the 2 time DPOY is considerably better than pretty much any other guard although I really like Paul’s defense. I love Chris Paul, but Moncrief was the better player.

A few things re: Moncrief vs Paul.

1) Raw scoring. You reference Moncrief with a small advantage in points/game over Paul in his 5-year prime, but you don't mention that the Bucks played at a much higher pace (99.7 vs 89.7) and that his team averaged almost 13 more ppg (109.2 ppg vs 96.7 ppg) than the Hornets during Paul's career. When you look at percentage of team points scored, Paul actually matches Squid in the regular season (19.3% of team's totals for both).

In the playoffs, as you mention Paul has a higher average scoring rate than Squid. When you account for pace and team totals in the postseason, Paul actually then should have a pretty decent volume scoring advantage in the postseason.

2) Scoring efficiency and Team offensive rating. You allude to Squid playing on a better, more talented offense than Paul. Also, Paul sets up most of his own shots off the dribble more than Moncrief does. All of those would contribute to Squid having all of the advantages as far as scoring efficiency and team results...and even with that, Paul still almost matches his efficiency in the regular season and catches him in the playoffs.

3) You can't just gloss over Paul's assists/ability to run a team like it's some sort of positional disclaimer. That's like describing Duncan then saying "oh yeah, he has a defensive advantage because he plays center". Paul is one of the best distributing PGs in the game, and his offensive impact is great. His offensive APM over the last six years (Engleman 06 - 11 study) of +5.1 is one of the top marks in the NBA over that stretch, giving strong support to the eye test. He's a maestro out there, making the most out of team pieces that don't exactly scream offensive juggernaut.

When you put those things together, Paul clearly has a big offensive advantage over Moncrief in my opinion. Moncrief was a good offensive player, Paul is a great one. Moncrief may have a defensive advantage, but I think Paul's offensive one is more impactful given their team roles. And since a) I'm not huge on longevity and b) Paul has just as much longevity as Moncrief does as an elite player, I will likely be nominating Paul before I get to the Squid.

[Doctor MJ]

I propose we give Cousy the Mikan treatment and eliminate him from consideration. It's pretty obvious the era is being held against him to the extent it's not a realistic comparison.

Maybe players born before 1930 should be exluded? There seems to be a radically different perception of guys before that line.

I completely understand where you're coming from and it makes sense given the similarity to Mikan's situation. I'm vehemently opposed to removing Cousy from the project, but I felt the same about Mikan so nothing new here.

The 2 things I will say though:

1) Obviously, it weakens a projects credibility to have a player in the running for 35 threads only to exclude him after part of the voting body spent quite a few of their votes on them.

2) I just think everyone needs to really look at Cousy compared to his contemporaries and ask themselves why Cousy is light years ahead of everyone else. That assumes of course that people feel that way, but is there anyone who will go on record saying that Dolph Schayes should have been nominated a long time ago like they do with Cousy?

The only argument I could ever see for Cousy being way ahead of Schayes is the "how would there game translate today?" argument. However, even using that argument is highly controversial, and of course it hasn't really come up as a serious question regarding Schayes because Schayes hasn't come up in the conversation at all.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Pierce
Nominate: KJ

So Pierce has done nothing in the last 2 years but he's got a huge boost from no.76 to now 30 sth?
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=880916

Well, clearly the difference is based a change in perspective. The re-thinking of players that relates to Pierce has probably been the most noteworthy thing in this entire project.

[Doctor MJ]

Going to hold off on voting for the moment.

We've truly reached a tier boundary. I typically think the embrace of such tiers is counterproductive and unnatural, but after Gervin it seems unquestionable that everyone not already voted in either has significant peak limitations or significant longevity issues.

I don't feel strongly about any one candidate and will listen to the buzz of the crowd intently.

Nomination: Reggie Miller once again.

Not really sure what argument to make at this point.

[lorak]

I give Cousy huge credit for innovation.

What he innovated? Andy Phillip was doing the same things Cousy did, but before Cousy.

[Doctor MJ]

Ya know, one thing that is said to have DECLINED from the old days (I haven't actually checked the numbers) is FT%.

Meanwhile, I noticed that Cousy's (for example) motion shooting from the floor was really little different than his FT motion.

Coincidence? Hmm ....

Eh, it's a plausible theory, but I don't think the evidence backs it. Here's the list of best career FT shooters:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... areer.html

It's basically dominated by the best jump shooters of today. The top "old school" guy is Barry, who shot FTs granny style.

Also of note is that the #2 old school guy, AKA the #1 old old school guy, is Cousy's teammate Bill Sharman who typically scored about as much as Cousy with drastically higher efficiency, which brings up one of those fundamental things that always bother me when I see in point guards: You've got a teammate who is simply a far better shooter by any conceivable metric, yet you call your own number much more than you call his. Why is that?

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Tracy McGrady

Nominate: Bernard King

McGrady is the best all-around peak player.

My King nomination is just to allow people to see his name out there and decide whether it looks right. Dude was a mega-efficient volume scorer who had some seriously amazing playoff runs. Possibly the best peak out of King/Dantley/English/Wilkins.

[lukekarts]

@ drza.

The impact of poor efficiency, with respect to these players, is easily negated by the other positives, both tangible in statistics and intangible in leadership and defensive ability.

Let's take a dividing figure, Jason Kidd. Everyone looks at his FG% and question it, perhaps rightly so. His career average FG% is 40.1%; and he's taken an average of 11.7 FG per game. Career highs being 44.4% and 16 FGA, in separate seasons. Broadly, 41% and 14 FGA was the consistent average in his prime.

So let's analyse those 14 shots. At 41%, it means he's making 5.6 shots a game. With a fantastic efficiency of 50%, he'd be making 7 shots per game. So that's a difference of 1.4 Field Goals Made, or missed, depending on how you look at it. Ultimately, he'd be giving the opposition 1.4 extra possessions, or opportunities per game through defensive rebounds, than a super efficient guy. That probably equates to less than 2pts per game, on average.

It's really not a lot, not a legitimate argument to write off someone like Kidd; because I'm certain his defence, rebounding and passing more than makes up for 2ppg on any other point guard left in this comparison.

The 2.8 points per game you just outlined, **by themselves** represent about 8 wins per season. On average, it's the difference between a 41 and 49 team. It's not an insignificant number.

Just to be clear, the issue with Kidd is his overall offensive impact. And the closest argument we've seen in all these threads is drza pointing to a few good years in the middle of the decade of on/off numbers...which I suggest has to do with (a) Kidd being a good offensive player and (b) it being easier to elevate really bad offenses, especially given Kidd's skills/circumstance. (Note, for instance, in Kidd's only good run of in/out in 2005, the Nets ALSO didn't have Vince Carter for the first 16 games.)

But when you're "replacing" Kidd with Randy Livingston and Lucious Harris and you see little change in the offense, it suggests something, does it not?

- I didn't mention 2.8 points per game. I mentioned 1.4 possible extra possesions for the other team, which unless they're shooting at 100%, are not going to be 2.8 points. Possibly something like 1.6 pts on average, allowing for 3 pointers.

In response to the bolded section:
- Firstly offensive ratings are flawed, in the sense that more FGA = better rating, regardless of other metrics. And that's the problem with stats, you can't measure sports comprehensively using stats because there is so much that isn't quantifiable.
- New Jersey were average at all but defence. But they were a much weaker without Kidd, defensively. To me, that suggests that systematically they were a defensive orientated team and Kidd was leading that on the court.
- we assume that defence and offence are mutually exclusive - they're not. How a team defends often defines how they attack, and you could easily make a case that Kidd was one of the best, if not best players transitioning from defence to attack. That doesn't mean the team is going to be statistically most efficient offensive team, but I'd expect it would translate well into statistics if you were able to single out Kidd's defensive stops and how efficient his team on the successive possession.

by that logic if Iverson had improved his chucking 25 shots a game at ~42% up to a more respectable 45% like Kobe, Tmac, Pierce, Vince, etc. he would only be making 1 extra bucket a game. Take away those 2 points and make him a 28-29ppg instead of a 30-31 ppg... doesn't he deserve to get more love hereabouts?

Iverson is getting consideration now; but you have to acknowledge he was still a one dimensional player, much more so than Kidd, Pierce etc. who are the front runners at this point.

[Fencer reregistered]

I give Cousy huge credit for innovation.

What he innovated? Andy Phillip was doing the same things Cousy did, but before Cousy.

Winning with them?

Very few people remember Andy Phillip today. I didn't know who he was until he came up in this discussion, and even now I don't know enough to agree/disagree with your claim.

[Fencer reregistered]

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/ ... y-heinsohn

Tommy Heinsohn on the Celtics' system and so on. Frankly, it does NOT call out anything that would particularly be an excuse for a PG being a high-volume, low-efficiency shooter.

JM: Now after your first championship, the team, you know, went on to win many more, as we all know, and you were part of 8 total championships, did you guys know after that first championship that you had something special, that you were going to go on and have one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports?

TH:What I knew was a little more than the fans here in Boston knew and a little more than even my teammates knew about Bill Russell cause I had played against him in college in the Holiday Festival and they beat my Holy Cross team and he did it with his great athletic ability so when I was drafted and signing my contract a lot of people talked to me about what kind of player Russell was going to be because people didn’t believe that he could play in the NBA at the time and I said “you will be surprised, he will make this team (better), he is a terrific rebounder and a shot blocker.” So I knew how important he would be because Cousy was a one-man offense. If you kept cutting to the basket if you ran off picks whatever you did in an aggressive way and you were a threat to score he would get you the ball if you had half a step on your man. As soon as you were no longer a threat he’d turn to somebody else. So you put that great offensive player and chef of the offense, who’d stir everybody into the mix, and you put Bill Russell who protected everybody’s gambling type defense and we ended up, and you could tell it even in our first year, with the best offense, best potential offense, and best potential defense and I didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t keep that going.

JM: Now Rajon Rondo is a very, very good point guard in the NBA and he keeps getting better and he just broke a record that Bob Cousy held for 50 years and you played with Bob Cousy, a great point guard. How does it feel, as a scorer to be playing with a guy like Bob Cousy and what do you think Rajon Rondo is going to do for some of the guys on his team?

TH:Well we ran, when he was chasing the record, Cousy’s record, we started running some split screen iso’s on Cooz from his heyday and Rondo currently, and believe it or not, they imitated each other the same type of passes the same recognition of what the defense was doing so he is a modern day Bob Cousy. And he is a one-man offense and without him the Celtics would not be the team that they are right now. He creates the whole system, he creates the pace of the game, he’s the rabbit for the greyhounds and they’ll chase him pretty good, and they have been, and he’ll rewards them when they catch up.

[Fencer reregistered]

Here's a great one by Bill Sharman on why efficiency was so low in the old days. One reason is major differences in the equipment -- e.g., the balls weren't perfectly round, and players might have their fingers messed up by the condition of the floor.

And of course game-day shoot-arounds weren't standard until they were invented by ... well, by Coach Sharman.

http://samcelt.forumotion.net/t599-bob- ... ercentages

BILL SHARMAN: "Dolph Schayes, the great forward for the old Syracuse Nationals team, who might have been the greatest outside shooter of all time, only had a career shooting percentage of 38 percent. Bob Cousy's career average was 37 percent. Even George Mikan, who played with the six-foot free-throw lanes and who took most of his shots in close under the basket, only shot 39 percent. Probably the most remarkable stat is the great Hall of Famer Joe Fulks, who was considered the best shooter and scorer in the NBA during his time in the early years of the league, only shot 30 percent for his whole career.

"I think that some of the unusual and unrecognized reasons for the lower shooting percentages are as follows:

"Most of the basketball buildings and arenas were very old and run-down, which made it extremely difficult to play in. In Baltimore, we used to play in a roller-skating rink. In Syracuse, we played in an old building at the fairgrounds that had a leaky roof, a warped floor, and very little heat. They had very few basketball arenas as they do today and most of them had poor lighting, all kinds of different, inadequate floors, bad temperatures, et cetera. Many were used for hockey and we would play right over the ice with no insulation except the basketball floor itself. Suffice to say, with cold, stiff hands and fingers, it certainly didn't help the shooting touch and percentages.

"Also, the basketballs were not molded until the late fifties and were often lopsided and not even round, which made them more difficult to dribble and shoot with.

"Transportation was another problem and certainly a factor in the early years. Especially before they started using the jet airplanes. We often would leave on a lot of road trips by trains, cars, buses, et cetera, and travel all night just to get to the next game on time.

"Another thing is that with less running and team movement, the officials used to allow a lot more pushing, shoving, holding, hand-checking, et cetera. I believe that this is why they had so many fights in those early years.

"However, like everything else in sports today, with the younger players getting better coaching and exposure at a much earlier age, there is no doubt that today's athletes are bigger and better. But I just wanted to point out some of the reasons that there is definitely not that big a difference in shooting ability between today's players and those in the early years of the NBA, at least as is indicated by their shooting percentages."

Dark, cold arenas. Warped floors. Lopsided balls. Pushing and shoving. Rigorous travel. Better coaching and conditioning of modern players. All these can be added to the mix and still there is no definitive answer. For example, Sharman didn't mention the jump shot or the influx of black athletes.

[penbeast0]

Comparing Sidney to Chris Paul

Volume – Paul averaged 19.2ppg, Moncrief averaged 21.0ppg
Efficiency – Paul averaged .575, Moncrief .598ts%

And Moncrief did it on a much more balanced team which means he didn’t have as many opportunities as Paul (on the other hand he didn’t face as many defenses stacked against him).

Playoffs –
Volume – Paul 21.9, Moncrief 18.8 so they did switch volumes in the postseason
Efficiency – Paul .577, Moncrief .573ts% -- Moncreif slipped but only to a Chris Paul level

Moncrief does fall off in the playoffs (from facing Dennis Johnson and Maurice Cheeks every year?) but only down to Paul’s level of efficiency and not much behind him in scoring . . . and his team had more success over the 5 year peak than Paul’s, even beating the Bird/McHale/Parish/DJ Celtics once.

Paul does have much better assist numbers since he is a ball dominant PG rather than an off the ball SG, but are his offenses really better? Over the last 5 years, the NO offense has a averaged 15th ORTG in the league with only 1 top 10 year; Milwaukee was the 8th ranked offense in Moncrief’s period (and improved after Terry Cummings and Randy Breuer replaced Marques Johnson and Bob Lanier so it probably isn’t star power) with 2 top 10 years. Paul doesn’t seem to have a Steve Nash type effect here.

And defensively, Moncrief, the 2 time DPOY is considerably better than pretty much any other guard although I really like Paul’s defense. I love Chris Paul, but Moncrief was the better player.

A few things re: Moncrief vs Paul.

1) Raw scoring. You reference Moncrief with a small advantage in points/game over Paul in his 5-year prime, but you don't mention that the Bucks played at a much higher pace (99.7 vs 89.7) and that his team averaged almost 13 more ppg (109.2 ppg vs 96.7 ppg) than the Hornets during Paul's career. When you look at percentage of team points scored, Paul actually matches Squid in the regular season (19.3% of team's totals for both).

In the playoffs, as you mention Paul has a higher average scoring rate than Squid. When you account for pace and team totals in the postseason, Paul actually then should have a pretty decent volume scoring advantage in the postseason.

2) Scoring efficiency and Team offensive rating. You allude to Squid playing on a better, more talented offense than Paul. Also, Paul sets up most of his own shots off the dribble more than Moncrief does. All of those would contribute to Squid having all of the advantages as far as scoring efficiency and team results...and even with that, Paul still almost matches his efficiency in the regular season and catches him in the playoffs.

3) You can't just gloss over Paul's assists/ability to run a team like it's some sort of positional disclaimer. That's like describing Duncan then saying "oh yeah, he has a defensive advantage because he plays center". Paul is one of the best distributing PGs in the game, and his offensive impact is great. His offensive APM over the last six years (Engleman 06 - 11 study) of +5.1 is one of the top marks in the NBA over that stretch, giving strong support to the eye test. He's a maestro out there, making the most out of team pieces that don't exactly scream offensive juggernaut.

When you put those things together, Paul clearly has a big offensive advantage over Moncrief in my opinion. Moncrief was a good offensive player, Paul is a great one. Moncrief may have a defensive advantage, but I think Paul's offensive one is more impactful given their team roles. And since a) I'm not huge on longevity and b) Paul has just as much longevity as Moncrief does as an elite player, I will likely be nominating Paul before I get to the Squid.

I do consider assists a "lesser" stat that isn't as important to winning as scoring efficiency, defensive efficiency, turnovers, even scoring volume. As far as I know, every study I've seen shows little to no correlation between PG assist totals and winning -- it's more about how much the offense puts the ball into the hands of the lead guard.

I love Paul and did consider him, along with Cousy, KJ, and Chauncey Billups, as possible choices for best PG left; I don't think his offensive impact relative to his peers is greater than Moncrief's was in the regular season and although his numbers per playoff game are better, I don't think his playoff impact with the years he didn't make it to the playoffs and the lack of series victories was great offensivley either. It also helps to be guarded by an aging Derek Fisher and Steve Blake in 1/3 of your playoff games rather than being guarded by Dennis Johnson and Maurice Cheeks in half your playoff games during the relevant years.

I do think the defensive difference is much greater than any potential offensive impact. Moncrief was the closest thing to a shutdown wing defender as has ever existed (nobody puts MJ in a corner, or most of the other great scorers but they can be made more inefficient). Paul is an exciting defender and good in the passing lanes but not in that league.

On the other hand, I am a bigger fan of defense than most, believe that Moncrief and Bobby Jones may be the two most deserving NBA players not in the HOF, and that was one of the periods where I was watching a lot of ball (I watch a lot less now). I do understand that people differ on this and respect your opinion. I just don't agree with it on this particular comp.

[Lever2Beaver]

RE: Andy Phillip

I think your mistaken one classic guard for another
I'm pretty sure your thinking of Bob Davies Motherfunkers
Phillip was a dandy, and I am certain of that
and he and Cousy have a tie in involving Max Zaslofsky and a hat
But while Phillip was a Whiz Kid during his collegiate days
It was Davies who took street to the league before Phillip ever played
Andy's most famous and most controversial claim to fame
is that he was alleged to have dealt with gamblers and thrown a finals game

[lorak]

RE: Andy Phillip

I think your mistaken one classic guard for another
I'm pretty sure your thinking of Bob Davies Motherfunkers

You are right.