RealGM Top 100 List #34

[penbeast0]

Criteria: Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball.

Voting Will End In 2 Days at 10PM EST

Please vote and nominate

Newest addition:


Elvin Hayes

Hall of Fame (1990)
NBA Champion (1978)
3× All-NBA First Team Selection
3× All-NBA Second Team Selection
2x All-Defense Second Team Selections
12× All-Star


Dominique Wilkins

Hall of Fame (2006)
1x All-NBA 1st Team
4x All-NBA 2nd Team
2x All-NBA 3rd Team
9x All-Star

Kevin McHale

Hall of Fame 1999
3 NBA Championship Teams
1 All NBA 1st Team
3 All-Defense 1st Team
3 All-Defense 2nd Team
2 Sixth Man of the Year Awards


Tracy McGrady

Most Improved (2001)
2x1st Team All-NBA
3x2nd Team All-NBA
2x3rd Team All-NBA
7xAll-Star

Paul Pierce

NBA Champion 2008
2008 NBA Finals MVP
1x All-NBA 2nd Team
3x All-NBA 3rd Team
9x All-STar



Dwight Howard

4x All-NBA 1st Team
1x All-NBA 3rd Team
3x NBA DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
3x NBA All-Defensive 1st Team
1x NBA All-Defensive 2nd Team
5x All-STar



Jason Kidd

NBA Champion 2011
5x All-NBA 1st Team
1x All-NBA 2nd Team
4x All-Defense 1st Team
5x All-Defense 2nd Team
10x All-Star
Rookie of the Year 1995


George Gervin

5x All-NBA 1st team
2x All-NBA 2nd team
2x All-ABA 2nd Team
12x All-Star (3 ABA, 9 NBA)
All-Star MVP (1980)
Hall of Fame (1996)



Artis Gilmore

ABA MVP 1972
ABA Champion 1975
ABA Playoff MVP 1975
5x All-ABA 1st Team
4x ABA All-Defense 1st Team
1x NBA All-Defense 2nd Team
ABA All-Star Game MVP 1974
5xABA All-Star
6xNBA All-Star
ABA Rookie of the Year 1972
Hall of Fame 2011

[penbeast0]

Voting Candidates
The PGs: Kidd's scoring efficiency was terrible through most of his career and I haven't seen anything that makes me think he affects the rest of the offense to a sufficient degree to match up with someone like Gilmore or Gervin.

Among the wings, there are no top defenders although Wilkins and Gervin were unusually offense oriented. Gervin didn't pass the way all the others did but is the best scorer of the bunch and that's the main attribute for each of them. Advanced numbers support Gervin or Pierce who is surprisingly strong. Accolades indicate that contemporary observers were less impressed with Pierce and support Gervin as the most dominant. I'm not a huge fan of Gervin as a piece of a championship team (although I never thought Kobe could win twice with that Laker team either) but the RPOY project has him surprisingly strong whereas guys like TMac got their big numbers on bad teams. Nique is in here too early, he brings little but scoring and that is relatively inefficient.

REGULAR SEASON – Of the 2, Gervin is the volume scorer
Gervin 5.8reb 2.8ast 27.1pts .566ts%
Pierce 5.9reb 3.7ast 21.6pts .569ts%

PLAYOFFS – Both perform at a similar or even better rate in their playoffs (in 38-41 mpg)
Gervin 7.0reb 2.9ast 27.1pts .560ts%
Pierce 6.5reb 4.0ast 21.4pts .559ts%

ADJUSTED (pace adjusted points and efg adjusted ts%) -- Pierce really is helped by the pace adjustment but that may overstate his scoring as TrueLAFan has posted about pace adjusting lead scorers http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1114378
Gervin (league average 109.2) =24.7adj ppg (.482 league efg) .585 adj ts%
Pierce (league average 97.0) = 22.0adj ppg (.485 league efg) .584 adj ts%

ACCOLADES -- No questions contemporaries rated Gervin the highest
Gervin – 5x1st, 2x2nd All-NBA, 2x2nd All-ABA, .991 MVP Shares (2nd in 78 and 79, 3rd in 80)
Pierce – 1980 Finals MVP, 1x2nd, 3x3rd All-NBA, .040 MVP Shares (best is 7th in 09)



I still prefer Artis Gilmore to any of the other big men out there despite the various posts on him (almost all of which ignore his ABA prime to focus on his NBA years). Although his NBA career isn't overwhelming for anything but scoring efficiently, still a 20ppg scorer who it the MOST EFFICIENT PLAYER IN NBA HISTORY is pretty damned intriguing. Dwight Howard is also a damn good candidate here but with peak not as impressive as Gilmore's ABA peak (though in a tougher environment to dominate as a center) and Gilmore has a solid, if not equally spectacular, NBA career in addition. McHale is no more efficient than Gilmore despite playing on a team with two other great scoring bigs and a weak rebounder (also affected by playing next to Parish and Bird); Hayes has issues with efficiency and personality.

Gilmore's ABA numbers over last 5 years (closest years in talent to NBA)
41.5min 17.1reb 3.0ast 3.4to 3.8bl 22.3pts on .557fg% .686ft% .591ts% (.643ts% in his NBA career)
5x1st All-ABA, 5x1st All-Def, 1x MVP, 1xPlayoff MVP, 1xChampionship

So, for peak, it's Gilmore and Howard with Gilmore having a long solid career that Howard hasn't yet matched (though I think he will given health). Both are best in league centers for a solid 5 year peak (Gilmore in ABA) with incredible athleticism and strong efficienct scoring to go with dominant defense. And, though it's less true today, a dominant two way center of the type Gilmore was in Kentucky has an impact on both ends to the floor that exceeds their numbers.

VOTE Artis Gilmore

[penbeast0]

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. Other candidates include the injury prone 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. Paul and Archibald are superb but only for a short time and that isn't always translating into team success. Posts by therealbig3 made me look closer at KJ, he was injured almost every year but not for the playoffs. Combine that with his good scoring and playmaking and he's my PG choice.

Wings -- On the wings, there are still great scorers left . . . I like Alex English's consistency and all around play over the more spectacular but less consistent Bernard King, Mark Aquirre, or David Thompson, or the statistically most efficient Adrian Dantley. Not sure where to rank Hal Greer or Sam Jones's early 60s play and Ray Allen or Reggie Miller's may be the best offensive weapons of them all -- I am open to persuasion on this. Defensively, I love Moncrief (and Dumars and Bobby Jones have a shot too but Moncrief was the most dominant at his peak) though the shortness of his peak (5 years then a major falloff) is a big issue. Still, we voted Wade in based on the same, and not even consecutive, peak . . .

Alex English v. Dominique Wilkins
Longevity peak (10 years with Denver, call it 8 year peak v. 11 years with ATL, call it 9 year peak) even
Scoring Volume -- peak never under 25 peaked at 29.8 v. 8 years in a fast paced balanced motion offense v. peak never under 25 peaked at 30.7 in a slow paced isolation offense featuring him -- even
Scoring Efficiency -- English consistently had a shooting efficiency about 30pts higher -- ENGLISH
Playmaking -- English was a more willing passer with better assist/turnover rates -- ENGLISH
Rebounding -- English started out even or better but slipped while Nique stayed strong -- WILKINS
Defense -- Nique often didn't care, English was above average -- ENGLISH
Intangibles -- Both had reps as classy men and good team leaders -- even
Team Impact -- As offensive stars, the team ORTGs (which ignore pace) averaged 4.0 for Denver during English's 8 year peak, 8.67 for Atlanta during NIque's 9 year peak -- ENGLISH
Accolades -- Contemporaries clearly favored the Human Highlight Film -- WILKINS
To me, both were classy offensive machines but the efficiency, defense and passing give it to English

Big Men -- The bigs left all have some issue with their games. Zo had health issues and was always a step behind the best like Shaq/Robinson/Duncan/etc. Willis Reed and Wes Unseld weren't as individually dominant and broke down faster too, while Neil Johnston and Mel Daniels played against inferior competition during their primes and were more limited besides. Dave Cowens was an inefficient scorer and not a great help defender though a super hustle guy. Bob McAdoo while his 5 year peak is spectacular, didn't play big man defense and his teams didn't dominate; Bob Lanier and Walt Bellamy had nice numbers but their teams weren't that much either and Detroit with Lanier sucked defensively for 9 of Lanier's 10 prime years which I consider pretty bad. Finally there is Dikembe Mutombo who was a great shot blocker and consistent player for years. Finally, Bill Walton had one great year (not that much better than Wes Unseld's MVP year) but every other year he broke down and left the Portland and San Diego teams which had built around him destroyed until he made another 1 year comeback as a top reserve. I wouldn't choose a one in eight shot at catching lightning in a bottle at the expense of a virtually guaranteed team crash the other seven over most of the above named players.

At PF, Bobby Jones and Dennis Rodman may be the greatest pair of defensive forwards but Jones, while extremely efficient, didn't score or rebound that much while Rodman had no offense and for 1/2 his career, left his man at times to pad his rebounding stats at the team's expense. On the offensive end, Amare Stoudamire and Chris Webber just have too many issues to rank about Jones or Rodman.

Let me explain why I am voting for Sidney Moncrief here. His peak is short, only 5 full years from 82-86 and those years coincided with the peak years of both the Bird/McHale/Parish/DJ Celtics and of the Moses/Erving/Toney/Cheeks Sixers (as well as the Showtime Lakers) so he never made it past the ECF but in those peak years he led Milwaukee, a Don Nelson coached team with no consistent center, to be one of the best defensive and an above average offensive team. Individually he was a consistent 20ppg scorer with excellent passing and rebounding skills who is widely considered the greatest man-up perimeter defender to ever play winning the first two ever awarded DPOY awards in this 5 year stretch.

Milwaukee's leaguewide ratings, even in those years of great dynastic teams, were

82 Moncrief 6.7reb/4.8ast/19.8pts on .601ts% incredible for a guard before wide use of the 3pt shot
9th in offense, 1st! in defense -- Marques Johnson was the second star only scoring 16ppg, center was good offense, mediocre defensive aging Bob Lanier, the other biggest minutes were PG Quinn Buckner (excellent defender) and Brian Winters (offense only pure jump shooter)

93 Moncrief 5.8reb/3.9ast/22.5pts on .602ts% 1st DPOY award (82 was actually better defense)
10th in offense, 6th in defense -- Marques Johnson had a great year, Alton Lister replaced Bob Lanier

94 Moncrief 6.7reb/4.5ast/20.9pts on .591ts% 2nd DPOY award
12th in offense, 2nd in defense -- Lanier came back to split time with Lister and Marques's last year

95 Moncrief 5.4reb/5.2ast/21.7pts on .594ts%
6th in offense, 2nd in defense -- Terry Cummings took over for Marques as the other star, Lister split time with Randy Breuer at center, 3pt specialist Craig Hodges split time with Paul Pressey and Junion Bridgeman

96 Moncrief 4.6reb/4.9ast/20.2pts on .604ts%
4th in offense, 2nd in defense -- Breuer became the starter still splitting time, Pressey as point forward

Moncrief was an incredible two way player. In a slightly weaker era, he might have led his team to one or two championships like a Chauncey Billups or Isiah Thomas but the one year they beat the Celtics (with great performance by Sid), they then ran into the "fo fo fo" Sixer team. But he was the clearly acknowledged leader of Milwaukee teams and led them to terrific defensive performances despite average defensive big men (Cummings doesn't have a good rep but is underrated but before him the starter was journeyman Mickey Johnson though Don Nelson liked to use Marques Johnson as PF and play 3 guards more than using Johnson).

Comparing Sidney to Chris Paul since he’s the one getting the most support over their 5 year peaks. (Answer to therealbig3 claiming Paul both outscored and creates far better offense than Moncrief)

Volume – Paul averaged 19.2ppg, Moncrief averaged 21.0ppg (and in a more balanced attack) 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 – Moncrief made it every year in his peak, Paul only 3 out of the 5 (and only won one series so his team impact is more questionable).
Volume – Paul 21.9, Moncrief 18.8 so they did switch volumes in the postseason
Efficiency – Paul .577, Moncrief .573ts%

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, beating the Bird/McHale/Parish/DJ Celtics.

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 been the 15th ranked offense 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). 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.


NOMINATION: Sidney Moncrief

[penbeast0]

mysticbb from a list

VOTE -- Artis Gilmore

NOMINATE -- Reggie Miller

[Fencer reregistered]

You've now lost a second bracket in the OP.

[JordansBulls]

Vote: Dominique Wilkins
Nominate: Dave Cowens

[Doctor MJ]

Beast, you missed my nomination of Paul on page 2 of the last thread. Looks to me like he should have gotten the official nomination there.

I think DavidStern caught my mistake -- penbeast0

[ElGee]

vote: George Gervin
nominate: Chris Paul (Miller if Paul was supposed to win last time)

The vote, I suppose, is between Gervin, Pierce and McGrady. I give Ice the edge of the bunch. Was actually a little impressed by him during the RPOY project, despite being one-dimensional. He, like the spacing/off-ball players seems to have a large offensive impact, and he had some great playoff performances in the 78-83 stretch.

1978 stood out to me and was a pretty darn good peak year from Gervin. 2nd best offense in the league for SAS, so he's doing something right (or at least, his scoring isn't doing anything wrong). There is another good correlation in Ice's scoring value (maybe the second best one-dimensional scoring value behind Bernard King, IMO) when he shot 63% from the floor over a 22 game stretch from December to February. The Spurs went 18-4 (+8.7) in that stretch, with some of the following games:

The Spurs were losing to the Golden State Warriors by 13 points at the conclusion of three quarters in Oakland and Gervin had been held to nine points. In the fourth period, however, the Iceman made 10 of 12 shots and scored 23 points, including the basket that sent the game into overtime. Ice then scored five more points and the Spurs won 131-122. In the locker room all the upstart visitors could do was laugh and laugh.

Gervin has not confined his escapades to the West Coast. In New York he connected on 14 of 20 and scored 35 points. In Kansas City he made 19 of 25 and finished with 42. Then to show the home folks what he could do, Ice threw 17 for 18 (37 total points) all over the Chicago Bulls' bewildered heads. Run that by again? Seventeen for 18. One miss. One. Moe took him out for the whole last quarter. Was Ice hot about that? "Naw, man," Gervin says. "Whereas I ain't hungry, whereas it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Otherwise Ice be cool."

In the 78 PS, Gervin scores 33 ppg in 38 mpg on 60% TS (pre 3-point line)! Yikes. The Spurs ORtg was 104.3 (almost identical to 2nd-best RS average) although Washington did have a slightly above average defense so one can argue SAS performed better in the PS...

[penbeast0]

It's coming down to what people value. The efficiency types are lining up behind the likes of Reggie Miller, Sidney Moncrief, Zo, Kevin Johnson, etc. Then they split into longevity over peak guys (Miller) and defense v. offense (Moncrief, Zo) or even playmaking v. defense (KJ). The "efficiency is overrated" types are pushing Hayes, Iverson, Nique (already in), etc. . . . again splitting on the value of defense (Hayes) v. scoring alone (Iverson, Nique). Then there are the "winning is what it is all about" types pushing guys with great intangibles like Unseld, Reed, Cowens, etc. who don't put the flashy stats but were leaders and winners.

It's an oversimplification of course but it's why you can see people arguing past each other rather than engaging directly in the nomination battles and why things split so broadly there.

[therealbig3]

Vote: Pierce

Nominate: KJ

It's between KJ, Iverson, Miller, and Mourning for the nomination for me. To stay consistent, I'll go with KJ, but I'll change votes if any one of those guys need a tiebreaker.

[penbeast0]

Can you make a post comparing KJ to Paul and Moncrief? You usually have good arguments but you were saying last thread that peak KJ and Paul both outscore Moncrief among other things to compensate for Moncrief's large defensive advantae (they don't) plus I think his impact on Milwaukee's defense (and offense as the consistent best player) match or exceed those of KJ and Paul though I think KJ has more team success to back him up than Paul does.

[therealbig3]

Can you make a post comparing KJ to Paul and Moncrief? You usually have good arguments but you were saying last thread that peak KJ and Paul both outscore Moncrief among other things to compensate for Moncrief's large defensive advantae (they don't) plus I think his impact on Milwaukee's defense (and offense as the consistent best player) match or exceed those of KJ and Paul though I think KJ has more team success to back him up than Paul does.

I went back and looked at Moncrief after that, and came away more impressed (you were right, they didn't score more than Moncrief (about the same), and Moncrief looks a little more efficient).

But I was basically saying that overall, even looking past points and assists, KJ and Paul, as the PGs for their team, anchor the offense, and without them, the team's offense suffers a lot. I don't really know what Moncrief's offensive impact was, so I'd be interested in seeing those numbers if someone has it, but it's hard for me to believe that it was on the level of KJ or Paul. I tried looking at ElGee's In/Out data, but Moncrief isn't one of the players listed.

It comes down to Moncrief's elite defense and solid offense vs KJ's/Paul's elite offense and solid defense. I usually take the offensive guy in that scenario.

[therealbig3]

Also if there's no official nominee from last thread, then I'll change my nomination from KJ to Paul. Still not wholly convinced about KJ vs Paul, but it seems that KJ isn't on anyone's radar yet, so I'll contribute towards the Paul vote.

Nominate: Paul

[Doctor MJ]

So with Pierce now having a real possibility of getting voted in shortly, I wanted to just put some thoughts out there:

1st, on the whole, I've been convinced. I very much underrated Pierce. There is reason to think that his game translated better to making use of other great talent than guys like AI or TMac did, so it's not just luck and longevity that's on his side.

I went back through +/- data also and was very much impressed by how consistently solid he does. He's not a Tier 1 guy, but truly for the data we have, he beats Jason Kidd pretty soundly. Kidd's been in the league longer and so we don't know as much how Kidd would stack up in earlier years, but truly we know that Kidd's impact in Jersey was overrated and that Phoenix actually did fine with Marbury when Kidd left. All-in-one stats like PER don't give Kidd the nod over Pierce, so in the end what exactly do we have to say Kidd even deserves to be ranked higher than Pierce? Accolades. That's it.

And what's interesting is that the more I look at things, the more I think there's an unofficial pull to include point guards in the All-NBA teams higher up because everyone knows that a real team should not have 2 shooting guards and no point guards. So if we have a guy racking up big assists on a solid team, that gets people's attention more than just another volume scorer (albeit one with pretty strong efficiency, which voters largely ignored at the time).

Okay though, with that said: Was Pierce EVER a top 5 player in the game? I don't think he was. If you disagree, I'd love to hear you talk more about this. However, if you're never a top 5 guy, then what are you doing getting voted in above guys who were top 5 guys with strong longevity?

Of course that begs the question: Doc, who exactly are you referring to with that last question. I'll fully admit that there aren't a lot of those guys left still not voted in so I expect to vote for Pierce not too long from now. Gilmore and Gervin though, are two of those guys, so they seem pretty clear choices over Pierce. If you disagree with those assessments, that's fine, I'd love to see more critiques along those lines.

[JordansBulls]

Why Chris Paul over guys like Walton and Cowens? Guys who won league MVP's.

[therealbig3]

Why Chris Paul over guys like Walton and Cowens? Guys who won league MVP's.

Because he was a better player than Cowens, and you could make the case that he was better than Walton too (that's very close)...but Walton also only had a super 1-year peak, and then didn't do much else as a franchise player.

Although drza has made points about Walton receiving modern medical treatment, his career could have been lengthened by 3-4 more years, possibly. But even then, there's so many what-ifs involved with that whole scenario, I feel more comfortable in seeing what we got from Walton and compare it to what we get from Paul...I like Paul a lot more.

[therealbig3]

So with Pierce now having a real possibility of getting voted in shortly, I wanted to just put some thoughts out there:

1st, on the whole, I've been convinced. I very much underrated Pierce. There is reason to think that his game translated better to making use of other great talent than guys like AI or TMac did, so it's not just luck and longevity that's on his side.

I went back through +/- data also and was very much impressed by how consistently solid he does. He's not a Tier 1 guy, but truly for the data we have, he beats Jason Kidd pretty soundly. Kidd's been in the league longer and so we don't know as much how Kidd would stack up in earlier years, but truly we know that Kidd's impact in Jersey was overrated and that Phoenix actually did fine with Marbury when Kidd left. All-in-one stats like PER don't give Kidd the nod over Pierce, so in the end what exactly do we have to say Kidd even deserves to be ranked higher than Pierce? Accolades. That's it.

And what's interesting is that the more I look at things, the more I think there's an unofficial pull to include point guards in the All-NBA teams higher up because everyone knows that a real team should not have 2 shooting guards and no point guards. So if we have a guy racking up big assists on a solid team, that gets people's attention more than just another volume scorer (albeit one with pretty strong efficiency, which voters largely ignored at the time).

Okay though, with that said: Was Pierce EVER a top 5 player in the game? I don't think he was. If you disagree, I'd love to hear you talk more about this. However, if you're never a top 5 guy, then what are you doing getting voted in above guys who were top 5 guys with strong longevity?

Of course that begs the question: Doc, who exactly are you referring to with that last question. I'll fully admit that there aren't a lot of those guys left still not voted in so I expect to vote for Pierce not too long from now. Gilmore and Gervin though, are two of those guys, so they seem pretty clear choices over Pierce. If you disagree with those assessments, that's fine, I'd love to see more critiques along those lines.

I think it might be unfair to simply count how many times a player was top 5 in the league. Competition plays a factor. Pierce has played in a notoriously strong era for wings, so he hasn't gotten much recognition. I think it's better simply to compare Gervin and Pierce straight up, and to measure how much they helped their teams. I haven't really seen what Gervin's team impact was, but he seems a lot like Reggie Miller, from the posts I've read about him.

Gervin's pace adjusted scoring numbers really aren't that much better than Pierce's, and Pierce does hold a large advantage pretty much everywhere else. As an offensive player, I think Pierce gives you more value.

And I don't really know what to make of Gilmore. Early on, when he was being nominated, I was impressed, because he seemed like a Dwight Howard with longevity, or at least that's how he was presented.

But more recently, and I think it was mainly a post by DavidStern, a lot of legitimate questions about Gilmore came up. Was he really a defensive beast? I think I read he was on some of the worst defensive teams of the time. And was he really a dominant low-post scorer that you could build an offense around? I think it was ronnymac2 who wrote that you couldn't build an offense around Gilmore, and that he was more of an opportunistic scorer.

And maybe a lot of that is unfounded, but it seemed that their arguments were more convincing. So is he a Dwight Howard with longevity, or does he put up kind of empty 20-10 numbers? If he's closer to the latter, then I don't really see his case over Pierce at all. Of course, if he's the former, then he should definitely go over Pierce. If he's somewhere in the middle, then I think him vs Pierce is a good debate, and you can go either way.

[Lever2Beaver]

Why Chris Paul over guys like Walton and Cowens? Guys who won league MVP's.

Because he was a better player than Cowens

Opinions are nice but I'll take what actually happened
Chris Paul better than Cowens? You got me laughin'
Cowens belongs amongst the NBA's all-time best
CP3 doesn't belong in the top one hundred and ten

The guy had two very good years but never even touched great
No reason to pick him while Cowens, Reed and Walton wait
You play the game to win, not to accumulate stats
I'm not sure why anyone would come to a conclusion other than that

[Sasaki]

I know he doesn't seem to be actually up for the vote, but I would like to discuss why T-Mac is nominated at this point, as I don't view him as a top 50 player. My understanding was that he was around 70 the last time we did this thing, and it's not like he's done anything in the last 3 years.

And I would ask those who nominated him: how adversely is McGrady's reputation affected by his 08-09 season, the season where things really crashed and burned between him and us?

[Doctor MJ]

I know he doesn't seem to be actually up for the vote, but I would like to discuss why T-Mac is nominated at this point, as I don't view him as a top 50 player. My understanding was that he was around 70 the last time we did this thing, and it's not like he's done anything in the last 3 years.

And I would ask those who nominated him: how adversely is McGrady's reputation affected by his 08-09 season, the season where things really crashed and burned between him and us?

For the record, McGrady was 55 last time.

(Personally, I'm not offended by his nomination here - it's not that bad - but I do think it was too early)