drza wrote:therealbig3 wrote:drza wrote:This vote is fairly easy, as I went David Robinson last thread and will again. But after having nominated Pippen for as long as I remember, for the first time in awhile I'll have to put some thought into a nominee.
Right now I'm leaning towards Jason Kidd. I have always leaned him over Payton, and think his impact all-around is very strong.
That said, I do think there are some folks that haven't gotten much discussion that should be in the pipeline. It seems like more discussion on guys like Cowens and Reed are in order. And if we're going to be talking Pierce, that opens the door for TMac, Iverson and Carter to be discussed from this generation let alone guys like Gervin and Nique. Moncrief and Elvin Hayes as well. Maybe even Mchale or McAdoo. Frankly, I think the Pierce talk is very premature, but this is a discussion project so as long as it's interesting keep it coming.
Well regarding Pierce vs Carter, T-Mac, and Iverson...he's had better longevity than all of them. I think that outside of T-Mac, he peaked highest (and I don't think there's THAT large of a difference between peak Pierce and peak T-Mac). And I think he's clearly been the best playoff performer. Also, in terms of defense, I think he's better than them as well. Iverson and T-Mac are/were better playmakers, while Pierce and Carter are similar to me, according to both the stats and the eye-test. I think those guys got a lot more hype because they were athletic and flashy, while Pierce is almost the opposite, but he's been a more effective player imo.
Gervin and Nique were both one-dimensional players (well Nique was a good rebounder)...and Nique wasn't all that efficient either.
As for Reed, he only played 8 full seasons, and his prime lasted for 7 seasons. He was a high impact player for only 4 playoff runs. It seems like way too short of a career, but I'd be interested in hearing his argument over Pierce. And Cowens was mentioned before, I'd be interested in hearing his case too.
As for Payton, Kidd, Thomas, and Stockton...if we agree they're all in the same boat, I'd be interested in hearing their case over Pierce as well. Throw McHale, Moncrief, Hayes, and McAdoo into the mix too. I've already given my thoughts on Pierce vs Drexler, but that's also a debate that can be had.
I don't think talking about Pierce is premature at all, I just think he's one of many, many, many candidates that can be seriously discussed at this point, but because he's been one of the league's forgotten superstars over the years, I wanted to make sure he wasn't forgotten about here.
For right now, Gilmore might be my pick, but after that, I don't see why not Pierce.
My thing with Pierce at this stage of the game, is that he's not...how do I put this. Those that follow my posts know that I believe in looking deeper when comparing players. Things like accolades and team results, I believe, have to be put into context and shouldn't be used as some type of gospel. By the same token, I do think you can use those general areas to get some broad strokes context. Over a 13 year career, Pierce has only once made even 2nd team All NBA. And when we did the RPoY project and looked in detail at every season, there was never a season where Pierce was ever seriously on the radar as a top-5 player in the league. He put up some good boxscore stats on some generally poor teams during the 2000s, but on that front he didn't distinguish himself from the Iversons, McGradys and Carters of his generation. And Pierce does well in the plus-minus stats, but again doesn't really stand out there. Looking at the various multi-year APM studies (Ilardi's 03 - 09, Engelmann's 05 - 10, and Engelmann's "10 year" study), Pierce tends to hover around the 10th - 15th best APM for his generation.
So to me, Pierce is a very good player and has been for a long time. But he's never even approached the top of his league, and is roughly a top 10 or 15 player for his generation. Considering that players nominated now are looking at roughly top-30 of ALL TIME, I just don't see how Pierce is in that company. And I don't mean that as a diss to Pierce, as he's a key player on the team I currently pull for. But even his own owner and president, Wyc and Danny Ainge, are on record as saying that the reason they made the moves they made in '07 was because they felt that they needed a top-50 all-time player to have a chance at a title and they didn't believe they had that on their roster before their trades. And the Celtics are one of the frontrunner teams in the NBA when it comes to utilizing advanced stats, so it's not like this was just a clueless owner saying nonsense. These are the guys that have appreciated Pierce's services his whole career and have also put some serious study into what makes players great. Of course, they aren't always right either, but their sentiments match the impression that I have as well. It's just...bottom line, I just don't see where Pierce really fits at this stage of the game.
But again, I think some of what you wrote has to do with how generally underrated Pierce is. I think there were several years when Pierce should have made the All-NBA team, but he was snubbed in favor of McGrady and Iverson. Carter is a guy who I think has been snubbed by the media due to them not liking him, because his production warranted selections after 01.
And I'm more impressed with what Pierce was able to do with his Celtics teams pre-08 than what Carter was able to do with his Raptors/Nets, McGrady with the Magic/Rockets, and Iverson with the Sixers. Those guys had better teams to work with imo, especially McGrady in Houston, and they didn't do much outside of 01, when Carter and Iverson advanced pretty far. Pierce got to the Conference Finals in 02, and he led his team to the 2nd round over the favored Pacers in 03. And all the while, he's putting up big numbers. The only playoff run he struggled in was 04, in which his Celtics, who won 36 games and somehow made the playoffs, were just horribly overmatched against the Pacers, who won 61 games and had the best record in the league that year.
And I do put stock into APM numbers, but they're not 100% reliable either, and we don't even have APM numbers for all of the guys you mentioned (outside of Kidd), so for all we know, they could be in the same boat as Pierce.
In Engelmann's 10-year study, Pierce ranks 11th, ahead of Kidd. But Baron Davis, Chris Paul, and Manu Ginobili are 3 of the guys ahead of him, none of whom are a threat to him in this voting, except for maybe Paul, but for argument's sake, let's ignore him for now. So the 10-year study says Pierce is a top 8 player in his generation, and 5 of the guys ahead of him are already voted in, and the other two guys are Wade and Nash, who are already nominated and will likely be voted into the next 2-3 spots.
Pierce ranks 19th in Engelmann's 6-year study, but again, look at some of the names ahead of him: Bosh, Bogut, Davis, Aldridge, Nene, Amir Johnson, Deng, Collison, and Ginobili. Common sense and just watching them play should tell us that Pierce should rank over all of them over this time period. Pierce is now in top 10 territory from 06-11, and focusing on all-time ranking, again, two of the names are Paul and Howard, who I personally don't think have been around long enough to rank over Pierce all-time. So that's top 8 territory, with the same 7 guys ahead of him as in the last study.
The APM studies are useful, but like I said, they're not perfect, since you have a lot of guys being ranked very high that don't deserve to be there, so how do we know how accurately it's measuring Pierce's impact?
I understand we're talking about the top 30 players of all time, and it's exclusive company, but I definitely think Pierce belongs there. I mean, ignoring all accolades, and just breaking down Pierce's game: how many scorers not yet nominated or voted are better than Pierce? How many are better at rebounding for their position? How many are better defensively? How many are better at creating their own shot? How many are better at creating for others? And how many are as reliable in the playoffs? I don't think there are too many players left, if any, that have the all-around package that Pierce brings to the table. I don't think there's really a weakness to his game.
EDIT: And technically, I don't even have Pierce as a top 30 player all time. I have him 31 right now, but I don't know where to rank guys like Cowens, McAdoo, or Hayes, so Pierce might drop to 34 for all I know.
