RealGM Top 100 List #32

[Laimbeer]

I wonder if Wilkins or Carter would have been mentioned as early or as prominently if not for their dunking prowess- Carter especially.

[colts18]

Here is a comparison between Gasol and McHale:

% of team points scored:
Gasol 19.1% (18.8 PPG)
McHale 16.1% (17.9 PPG)


TS%:
Gasol .579 TS% (+4.6%)
McHale .605 TS% (+7.8%)

TRB%:
Gasol: 14.5 (9.1 Reb/game)
McHale: 13.2 (7.3 Reb/game)

AST:
Gasol: 15.9% (3.2 AST)
McHale: 8.1% (1.7 AST)

BLK:
Gasol 3.5%
McHale 3.2%

PER:
Gasol 22.1
McHale 20

WS/148:
Gasol: .179
McHale: .180

Gasol was brilliant in the 09 and 10 title runs. In a combined 46 games, he averaged 19-11-3 with 2 Blks. He had a .610 TS%. He lead the NBA in playoff win shares in 2010. In 09 to 10, he also lead the NBA in playoff WS. He was 2nd behind LeBron in O rtg-D rtg differential. The guy made a huge impact in those 2 title runs (arguably more than Kobe).

[penbeast0]

I'd like to propose one comparable player that HAS to be in before AI as they share many of the same negatives.

Adrian Dantley

Both incredible scorers, both have a rep for not being team first guys, both more effective without great second scorers though both did work as second bananas late in their careers, both have a finals appearance, neither played good defense, both were undersized guys willing to sacrifice their body on the floor.

One difference . . . Adrian Dantley is one of the MOST efficient super scorers in history, Iverson is one of the least. For all the crap Dantley gets, he belongs here before Iverson.

[Dr Positivity]

McAdoo vs Howard vs Mourning

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?) I wanted to take a closer look at Howard vs McAdoo. Then, after some consideration, I added Mourning to the mix as well. And it breaks down pretty evenly longevity-wise, with Howard having 7 seasons in the league, 'Doo' falling off after his 7th season, and Mourning running into his kidney ailment after his 8th season. As a quick stats back-drop, here's a link to a B-R comp of Howard and McAdoo's first 7 seasons and Mourning's first 8:

I also think Grant Hill and Willis Reed should be in the same group as Mourning and McAdoo as high peak, non extended primes.

The difference between Frazier and Reed's longevity and Frazier and Reed in general, has been very overstated IMO. I'd vote Reed before Mourning too

As for Hill, he had his rookie season and then 5 All-NBA seasons in his prime, which isn't that bad - more KJ than Penny. Then he had another 20 PER season in Orlando and 4 excellent role player seasons in Phx. I'd probably vote Hill before Tmac

[FJS]

Vote: Clyde Drexler
Nomination: Hayes

[ElGee]

vote: Gary Payton
nominate: Chris Paul

Coin flip right now between Paul and Reggie Miller for me. Going to default to my pattern of siding with peak...and I'd probably have CP3 higher up a draft board (with the benefit of the doubt going to him that at year 7 he won't shut down). I've made 3 fairly long, detailed post on Miller, so I just want to sum up why I think so highly of him, despite a borderline all-nba peak:

(1) Tremendous longevity and consistency. He's giving you potentially 13 seasons (!) in that peak play range.
(2) Offensively, he makes the game easier for his teammates (namely, bigs and other shooters) by the angles on his screens and attention subtly drawn to him off the ball bc of his shooting. This is highly efficient offense, and indeed he consistently played on excellent offensive teams.
(3) Do we judge him more on his PS play? I think so, in the sense that there was something about his game/style that allowed for consistently excellent postseason results on offense, which are reflected in his team's playoff performances over and over and over...
(4) Just like with Ray Allen, he's very valuable and easy to build around because (a) he doesn't need the ball and (b) is so deadly as a shooter. I love teams with guys like this, even in supporting roles.
(5) Turns out his raw offensive numbers, despite the aforementioned notes about his non-statistical, team effect, are still excellent as a scorer.

--

I'm also fascinated at this point in the project by how diverse the opinions are. (Wish we had a different voting method now more than ever.) People are mentioning guys I have in the 60s or lower. I get really confused when basically no one has mentioned Bob Lanier, but Wes Unseld is being discussed. It's like the bizarro universe in here.

Dantley and Iverson
And I can't disagree more with the AI vs. Dantley comment by Penbeast. Dantley was arguably a negative because there's no stat for "ball-holding that kills an offensive possession." I'm still looking into Dantley's career in detail, but I've defended Iverson in the past because people have become obsessed with efficiency in a vacuum and have overlooked context:
http://www.backpicks.com/2011/05/23/mor ... ive-teams/
http://www.backpicks.com/2011/02/12/var ... s-part-ii/

Note that in a season like 2005, Philly's offense was 106.1 with AI and just 97.4 without him. The following year, one of AI's best arguably, they were 109.8 with him and 99.1 without him. This supports Iverson's Law -- that despite looking like a chucker, he was actually helping that team because they literally had no other players to generate offense. Without AI, they had to generate offense off turnovers, OREB or in the team offensive sets...none of which are atrocious at an NBA level, but they weren't cracking a point per pos either (bad). It doesn't make Iverson Steve Nash, but it certainly makes him a positive offensive force.

(People give AI a bad rap then for not fitting as well in a mutlipolar setting...but in his defense, again, he played one full year in Denver, his efficiency saw an expected increase and the team's offense went to elite with him on the court -- from 104.5 to 112.5.)

McAdoo/Mourning/Howard
Weighing in on McAdoo (who I do have next to Walton right now), I liken him to Amare. http://www.backpicks.com/2011/01/18/ama ... -position/ You are losing something defensively by basically playing him out of position, which is what happened in Buffalo. But his offense *was* awesome and impacting by all accounts...and his scoring rate, I believe, was the highest in NBA history before the merger (like 26.7 pts/75 in 1975).

But Howard and Mourning are coming up for me and a great debate right now. Actually, Howard, Lanier, Hayes and Mourning are all jammed together for me. All this negative talk about Hayes is a little nonsensical...his biggest flaw was shot selection; He was prone to taking a bad 18-footer once or twice a game, which hurt his efficiency. But do those shots, and subsequent small dent to the offense, nullify all the good he does (scoring, rebounding, good help defense)? No way. He was a top-10 player for many years, was he not?

On topic, I like Howard's offense more than Zo's. I'm not really that smitten by Zo's offense -- it's like a worse version of Ewing's laboring post game. Then again, Zo's an amazing defender, and I've really come around on him lately. I'll take Howard's peak, but after that it's close. I'd love a good statistical argument for Mourning...

PS I wish we'd really never mention PER for the duration of this project as anything more referential than ppg.

[Dr Positivity]

Eh screw it - I'll change my nomination to Grant Hill after looking at it. The other guys on my board are McAdoo, Reed, Cowens, Mourning and Hill's longevity isn't much of a weakness there. So I'll choose whom I think is the best player and after pouring it over, I'll go with Hill.

[Doctor MJ]

Coin flip right now between Paul and Reggie Miller for me. Going to default to my pattern of siding with peak...and I'd probably have CP3 higher up a draft board (with the benefit of the doubt going to him that at year 7 he won't shut down)

I don't understand what you mean by this. When I talk about thinking about things from a draft perspective here, I'm talking about assuming no future play. I certainly expect Paul to play and make any comparison with Miller silly, but that's for a future ranking.

Dantley and Iverson
And I can't disagree more with the AI vs. Dantley comment by Penbeast. Dantley was arguably a negative because there's no stat for "ball-holding that kills an offensive possession." I'm still looking into Dantley's career in detail, but I've defended Iverson in the past because people have become obsessed with efficiency in a vacuum and have overlooked context:
http://www.backpicks.com/2011/05/23/mor ... ive-teams/
http://www.backpicks.com/2011/02/12/var ... s-part-ii/

Note that in a season like 2005, Philly's offense was 106.1 with AI and just 97.4 without him. The following year, one of AI's best arguably, they were 109.8 with him and 99.1 without him. This supports Iverson's Law -- that despite looking like a chucker, he was actually helping that team because they literally had no other players to generate offense. Without AI, they had to generate offense off turnovers, OREB or in the team offensive sets...none of which are atrocious at an NBA level, but they weren't cracking a point per pos either (bad). It doesn't make Iverson Steve Nash, but it certainly makes him a positive offensive force.

(People give AI a bad rap then for not fitting as well in a mutlipolar setting...but in his defense, again, he played one full year in Denver, his efficiency saw an expected increase and the team's offense went to elite with him on the court -- from 104.5 to 112.5.)

Yeah I was going to say something along these lines.

I realize sometimes people think I put a crazy amount of weight into efficiency, and it's true that as a default it's pretty major for me. However, to me it's just part of telling the full story. When I was writing my "Chamberlain Theory" I almost named it "Dantley Theory" because really Dantley is the best example of a high volume/efficiency guy killing most of his impact with things not shown in the stats not Wilt. Thing is though, you can give people epiphanies by showing how Wilt became incredibly impactful when he changed his ways, but Dantley really never showed any signs of helping any team significantly.

Iverson on the other hand really is telling the story of the pros and cons of a high volume low efficiency guard. When Larry Brown had his defensive oriented team in place, truly Iverson had pretty huge impact. The problem with Iverson though is that's the only way he can really function as a star. He can't make use of other offensive talent, and so the actual number of years he had a star's impact is small. Like Bob McAdoo small.

I'll still have to think more about Dantley vs Iverson. My opinion is not set in stone, but I can't use the "all things being equal, go with the efficiency guy" tiebreaker because all things aren't at all equal.

[Doctor MJ]

Oh, one thing I will say though is it seems weird to me that TMac is already nominated and Iverson isn't. I'll take TMac's peak over Iverson any day, but that was basically one year. Their average efficiency is basically the same, both showed signs of struggling to make use of talent around them, both had issues with being a good leader, and Iverson played a lot more.

[Doctor MJ]

Also, since Paul is being mentioned...where exactly does D-Will rank?

How far apart are Williams and Paul in most people's eyes?

Because personally, I do think Paul's clearly superior peak gives him a considerable edge in terms of all-time ranking, but Williams for the last 3 years has been arguably better. He doesn't take care of the ball like Paul, and he doesn't quite get the volume of assists that Paul does (close though), but he seems to be a more potent scorer, and a better post-up PG. He also seems to have consistently run better offenses. The APM numbers don't really give Williams strong support though.

Pretty far apart. And I say this as someone who think Deron's evolved into a legit superstar over the last couple years. It's just at this point I have him as having no Top 5 seasons, and only one Top 10 season to go along with his short career. Where Paul has 2 top 5 seasons and another Top 10 season and an established peak that let's us have the peak vs longevity debate, Deron hasn't earned that right yet. So guys like Kevin Johnson or Tiny Archibald are clearly easily ahead of Deron and he's not on my radar right now.

[Doctor MJ]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

[Doctor MJ]

All this negative talk about Hayes is a little nonsensical...his biggest flaw was shot selection; He was prone to taking a bad 18-footer once or twice a game, which hurt his efficiency. But do those shots, and subsequent small dent to the offense, nullify all the good he does (scoring, rebounding, good help defense)? No way. He was a top-10 player for many years, was he not?

I know people get the impression that I and others pour it on Hayes, but truthfully he's certainly on my radar now and he's not getting any massive penalization in my book.

MVP voting says he was Top 10 6 times. I've got him POY Top 10 4 times, with strong longevity, so he could be my nomination soon. Although I will say, when I think about "scoring" longevity, I also through in a healthy dose of intangibles. When you're with organizations for a long time providing leadership, stability, and adapting to find a valuable niche, that's something I really value. I have trouble seeing Hayes that way.

[drza]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

[ElGee]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

The thing about "Doctor MJ" (an RPOY joke!) is that he is a legit 6-9. He doesn't fudge his height upward like many vertically gifted people, who just assume that mere mortals can't gauge their altitude past a certain point. I'm ~ 6-3, and I've met many a 6-8 and 1/4 folks who push for the 6-9. I've stood next to many an NBA player who wishes he were 6-9. Doc's the real deal.

Andre and his weight comment...lol

[ElGee]

Oh, one thing I will say though is it seems weird to me that TMac is already nominated and Iverson isn't. I'll take TMac's peak over Iverson any day, but that was basically one year. Their average efficiency is basically the same, both showed signs of struggling to make use of talent around them, both had issues with being a good leader, and Iverson played a lot more.

Interesting observation. For me, as of now, I just see McGrady as having consistently better "other" seasons (besides the huge peak), and of course his 02-04 play (and even the second half of 05 maybe) was really quite excellent. I don't think there was a point in that stretch when I thought Pierce was better...maybe close at times (02 or 05), but despite the TS% numbers, McGrady was a borderline stud for many of those years.

I'm not sure Iverson's peak ever as valuable as Mac's "other" seasons, because McGrady could play better D/rebound better and arguably was a better creator on offense in a vacuum.

Nonetheless, it's an interesting comparison because BOTH of these guys have been historically underrated for all the typical reasons: bad teams, bad facial expressions, bad TS%. Ugh.

Iverson earned the only non-Shaq MVP vote in 2000 and won the MVP handily in 2001 (wrong on both accounts, but I'm referencing popular perception here). People act like he was a negative or a cancer. T-Mac had 3 top-8 MVP finishes...in Houston, and finished with 7 all-nba team nods.

It's fair to think perception was radically off, but I've never seen any significant evidence for that for either of these guys (faces, bad teammates and TS% are not evidence). If anything, my digging suggests they were underrated because of Losing Bias.

Your thoughts?

[Doctor MJ]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

Well, weight 255 lb (not ripped though, with current level of muscle would be better if I were 235-ish), US shoe size 15.

[Doctor MJ]

Interesting observation. For me, as of now, I just see McGrady as having consistently better "other" seasons (besides the huge peak), and of course his 02-04 play (and even the second half of 05 maybe) was really quite excellent. I don't think there was a point in that stretch when I thought Pierce was better...maybe close at times (02 or 05), but despite the TS% numbers, McGrady was a borderline stud for many of those years.

I'm not sure Iverson's peak ever as valuable as Mac's "other" seasons, because McGrady could play better D/rebound better and arguably was a better creator on offense in a vacuum.

Nonetheless, it's an interesting comparison because BOTH of these guys have been historically underrated for all the typical reasons: bad teams, bad facial expressions, bad TS%. Ugh.

Iverson earned the only non-Shaq MVP vote in 2000 and won the MVP handily in 2001 (wrong on both accounts, but I'm referencing popular perception here). People act like he was a negative or a cancer. T-Mac had 3 top-8 MVP finishes...in Houston, and finished with 7 all-nba team nods.

It's fair to think perception was radically off, but I've never seen any significant evidence for that for either of these guys (faces, bad teammates and TS% are not evidence). If anything, my digging suggests they were underrated because of Losing Bias.

Your thoughts?

It's interesting because I would absolutely say that TMac is typically underrated. While I throw in the fact that he had trouble making Houston come together, people use the 1st round thing to make it sound like he sucked in the playoffs. Far from it. And while I throw in the leadership/work ethic thing, I don't think any amount of work ethic would have saved him from his body's deterioration.

On the other hand, I didn't think it was as clear cut that Iverson was underrated. I thought he was extremely overrated for a long time, but now opinion might have overcompensated. Bottom line is that while he needed a very well designed team to become extremely valuable...the revisionist history that says Mutombo was the secret MVP of the 76er EC champs is totally bogus. And if people have come to the conclusion that McGrady is clearly ahead of Iverson, well then Iverson may well be more underrated than McGrady.

As far as McGrady's other top years, well, I will say that it was basically a lock for him to go for 30 PPG & 55% TS in the playoffs each year. Iverson managed that only once in his whole career, and it was in a first round series where his opponent basically coasted to victory. So me saying TMac had only 1 year above Iverson probably isn't fair.

I guess the thing is with how I see TMac is that I was always felt like he needed to do a bit more to solidify his place in history. '02-03 was great, but after a "throw in the towel year" the next year in Orlando followed by the trade to Houston, I basically thought "Okay, now he needs to put it all together and show us what he's capable of." But of course, Houston never actually improved that much.

The question then is whether it's rational to say "he has to give us some accomplishment to solidify his legacy" in this context. I don't think there's any doubt that Iverson means a hell of a lot more to the 76er organization than TMac means to either the Magic or the Rockets. There's some luck involved with that, and sentiment, both of which need to be watched like a teenager by a liquor cabinet, but we're also fooling ourselves if we think we can remove all luck from this evaluation. After all, removing luck necessitates playing the "what if" game to infinity.

[drza]

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

Well, weight 255 lb (not ripped though, with current level of muscle would be better if I were 235-ish), US shoe size 15.

Ha! I knew it! 276 as of my last physical 2 months ago, baby! And all of it pure, home-grown out of shape man! You got me on the shoes by 1 size (US size 14), though once in high school my Uncle Wally gave me some hand-me-down 15.5s and I wore them for most of my senior year. That has to round up!

Silliness aside and on-topic, I find the entire swing man debate over Iverson, McGrady, Pierce, and even Carter to be fascinating. I agree that shooting efficiency has become more of a holy grail than it should be...my understanding is that the focus on scoring efficiency came from statisticians running regression analysis which shows that scoring efficiency has a correlation with winning. The thing is, "regression" and "correlation" both by definition indicate "estimate"...as in a general trend, not a written in stone law. Wilt and Dantley seem to be good examples of volume scoring at high efficiency that weren't as positive on team impact as they should be, and conversely I'd argue that TMac and Iverson have both become underrated due to it.

The question is, how much? And how to quantify their value, especially in the years before we have any +/- data?

It's an on-going question. All I know is, there were times when I believed (then) that Allen Iverson and/or Tracy McGrady were on the extremely short list for best players in the NBA. And, years later, after a boom in available advanced stats and another decade of basketball analysis, I still believe that, in fact, Iverson and McGrady did have those times of greatness...on a level that Pierce never actually achieved.

Pierce, too, has likely been underrated for a long time...on these boards people don't really put much stock in Dave Berri, but I remember years ago (definitely pre-Big Three era) when Berri wrote his Tragedy of Paul Pierce (found here: http://wagesofwins.net/2007/01/12/the-t ... ul-pierce/ ) that spoke of how underrated that he was and that, according to Wins Produced, he was very comparable with Kobe. And of course, as I've followed the Celtics pretty closely for the past 4 years, I've really watched intently to get a feel for how good he is. Before the '08 season I thought Ray Allen was better than Pierce, but at least in '08 Pierce certainly took on a more important role on the team. But the point is, I've been at the "Pierce is underrated due to team success" party for quite awhile now, and I've been looking hard at his advanced stats for years. So, and perhaps this is hubris on my part, but I really don't think that I'm in the camp that would be underrating Pierce. I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on his game, and what he can do.

I say all of the last paragraph as background to say that, despite all of that, I STILL just don't think that Pierce was ever quite as good as TMac at his best nor Iverson at his. And while I give Pierce credit for modifying his game a bit to play a different role on a championship team, I can't really use this as much of an advantage over TMac or Iverson just because they never got that opportunity.

Thus, bringing it back to the recent DocMJ/ElGee convo, I agree that it's somewhat surprising to see some of the current nominees in the pool before Iverson. Only, for me, I think the surprise is more that it's Pierce that's so clearly ahead of him in these rankings more-so than it being McGrady.

[ElGee]

What's surprising to me is where I have Iverson in all of this. That, and the listed weights of realgm's finest.

I agree with drza that Iverson and Pierce have comparable peaks. Iverson, certainly, in 2001 (and 1999) received a top-5 POY vote from me...something Pierce never did. To retroactively treat him like he wasn't one of the league's best is just off.

I'm like Doc here in that I used to think Iverson was grossly overrated...something about an obsession with ppg and highlight crossovers. But I came to appreciate him, and in recent years have been impressed with what he's done by looking at it from statistical perspectives. (I think in the 01 RPOY thread I broke down his team's scoring in detail.)

So I look at my big board and ask why are Pierce and T-Mac locked in top-40 spots and Iverson is closer to 60. Well, at this stage of the game that doesn't represent a huge gap necessarily (we are farther from the edge of the Bell Curve, so the population density is greater). But maybe more than anything, it's my massive inability to find Iverson a good fit in many team settings.

Yes, I appreciate what he did. Yes, I defend him constantly to those that are slaves to TS%. But when I incorporate that draft element, despite his little warrior heart and (at times) very valuable skills, it's hard for me to take him over so many guys in the 40s and 50s on my list. I give him a little credit for his 2008 season in Denver, but it wasn't that impressive. He's a guy who needs the ball a lot, and if he doesn't have it, he's a 5-11 2-guard, so he needs a big, defensively oriented "point" on offense. Those can be hard to find. And what kind of game/offense does he fit well with? He's not a great spot-up shooter, and the PnR doesn't seem to open up his game.

One of the reason I call it Iverson's Law, is because since his Georgetown days, he just seems built as a basketball player to help weak offensive teams in the same way. Put him on the 86 Celtics and I'm not sure he has the same value...and I certainly don't feel that way about Pierce (especially) nor McGrady. Iverson is the classic example of a flat skill curve, and I think, for good reason.

(And Doc, to your question about drafting Paul...I look at team fit, health and mental issues when putting together my big board. So when I say Paul is getting a boost, I mean I'm giving him a little more credit than just his career so far because I think "great fit, awesomely powerful PG, don't see any mental issues, and maybe some health stuff with the knee." But he's already on year 7, so it's hard for me to drop him down the board because he hasn't proven he can still go in 2012 or 2013. )

[Doctor MJ]

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

Well, weight 255 lb (not ripped though, with current level of muscle would be better if I were 235-ish), US shoe size 15.

Ha! I knew it! 276 as of my last physical 2 months ago, baby! And all of it pure, home-grown out of shape man! You got me on the shoes by 1 size (US size 14), though once in high school my Uncle Wally gave me some hand-me-down 15.5s and I wore them for most of my senior year. That has to round up!

Funny story about hand me downs.

So obviously I'm huge now, but I had a very late growth spurt. I'm a foot taller than I was in 9th grade. I was a solid point guard at the time, but and that I'd grow some more, but I was quite sure I'd never be able to play college ball so I really just focused on other things. Now part of my draw to basketball is a "what might have been thing".

But the smack-hand-to-forehead thing is that I didn't realize I'd grow to be quite tall, because I have a much older brother who is 6'3", and by the time I was in 7th grade I had bigger feet than he did. There were really several clear signs that I might end up being quite large, but I just didn't think about them that much. I just never really took seriously the notion that sports was something I could go places with because I was athletic but not whiz-bang athletic (and I had asthma).

Had I known that I'd end up the tallest kid in my high school, and then grow 3 more inches after that in college and grow into a sturdy frame, I'd have taken basketball a little more seriously. I remember when I realized I had become more like a PF in build than a swingman. Broke my heart a bit. (Whoa, maybe I wouldn't have been too slow...)

Silliness aside and on-topic, I find the entire swing man debate over Iverson, McGrady, Pierce, and even Carter to be fascinating. I agree that shooting efficiency has become more of a holy grail than it should be...my understanding is that the focus on scoring efficiency came from statisticians running regression analysis which shows that scoring efficiency has a correlation with winning. The thing is, "regression" and "correlation" both by definition indicate "estimate"...as in a general trend, not a written in stone law. Wilt and Dantley seem to be good examples of volume scoring at high efficiency that weren't as positive on team impact as they should be, and conversely I'd argue that TMac and Iverson have both become underrated due to it.

The question is, how much? And how to quantify their value, especially in the years before we have any +/- data?

It's an on-going question. All I know is, there were times when I believed (then) that Allen Iverson and/or Tracy McGrady were on the extremely short list for best players in the NBA. And, years later, after a boom in available advanced stats and another decade of basketball analysis, I still believe that, in fact, Iverson and McGrady did have those times of greatness...on a level that Pierce never actually achieved.

Pierce, too, has likely been underrated for a long time...on these boards people don't really put much stock in Dave Berri, but I remember years ago (definitely pre-Big Three era) when Berri wrote his Tragedy of Paul Pierce (found here: http://wagesofwins.net/2007/01/12/the-t ... ul-pierce/ ) that spoke of how underrated that he was and that, according to Wins Produced, he was very comparable with Kobe. And of course, as I've followed the Celtics pretty closely for the past 4 years, I've really watched intently to get a feel for how good he is. Before the '08 season I thought Ray Allen was better than Pierce, but at least in '08 Pierce certainly took on a more important role on the team. But the point is, I've been at the "Pierce is underrated due to team success" party for quite awhile now, and I've been looking hard at his advanced stats for years. So, and perhaps this is hubris on my part, but I really don't think that I'm in the camp that would be underrating Pierce. I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on his game, and what he can do.

I say all of the last paragraph as background to say that, despite all of that, I STILL just don't think that Pierce was ever quite as good as TMac at his best nor Iverson at his. And while I give Pierce credit for modifying his game a bit to play a different role on a championship team, I can't really use this as much of an advantage over TMac or Iverson just because they never got that opportunity.

Thus, bringing it back to the recent DocMJ/ElGee convo, I agree that it's somewhat surprising to see some of the current nominees in the pool before Iverson. Only, for me, I think the surprise is more that it's Pierce that's so clearly ahead of him in these rankings more-so than it being McGrady.

Well, like I say, you can go to far with the efficiency fetish, but when you look the fine difference between good & bad offense, and the +/- leaderboards, it becomes clear that the difference between players is actually quite small in general. It is entirely plausible for a guy to score massive points and have no net impact, and while efficiency does not prevent that, lack of efficiency is a read flag that says "We have no basic indicator that says this guy was a superstar. Tread carefully."

I share your fascination with the AI/TMac/Pierce/Carter combo.

Something I will say is that the more I look at Pierce the more he stands. You look at the efficiency of those 4, and you realize one of these is really not like the others. Pierce was always efficient, while the others weren't. I tend to hope that efficiency will mean that you can play well with other talent, and of course, when Pierce got other talent, he blended right in (which the other guys did not).

Also if you look at the multi-year +/- data, Pierce consistently looks quite strong. In those 3 studies I've quoted about KG's defense, Pierce never ranks below 11th among big minute guys. That puts him in a club with a very select group where the only "questionable" player is Ginobili. Carter, McGrady, and AI aren't anywhere near that level in any of the studies (nor are Kidd or Allen). I realize that those studies doesn't include these guys entire career, but the do encompass quite a lot.

Before the project I I knew I'd vote for Pierce well before where he ranked last time and wondered if he'd be in my top 50, but the more I look at him, the tougher it is to put him behind any of the "B list" guys among current players, and the "A list" guys are all either Top 25 on this list or are young (Howard & Paul).