Dr Mufasa wrote:Going through Price's years -
88 - Solid 16/6 but clearly pre prime, and in general I have a hard time trusting impact until the 3rd year. Which makes sense here particularly because the Cavs explode success wise in Price's 3rd year
89, 90, 92, 93, 94 - Prime Price. Bad in the 94 playoffs but small sample size
95 - 48 Gs at a level below his usual, and shoots 30% in the playoffs. Hard to put a ton of value into this season
Deron -
07 - Similar to Price's '88
08, 09, 10 - Prime Deron
11 - Was in his prime first half of the year, had wrist issues afterwards but still all-star season
If you include their soph seasons it's about 6.5 relevant seasons for Price vs 5 for Deron. It's enough for me to give Price a clear edge but it's a reasonably similar window, I think one more 20/10 year for Deron would make me call it a virtual tie in longevity
As for WS, for one what really matters is the gap in OWS since we all know Price is replacement level at best defensively. Price is at 51.9 and Deron is at 35.8. Price has 5.5 OWS between 16 G 91 and 96-98 (reasonable player but for this project I don't care much about years after falling off so much). If you discount those, it brings it down to 46.4 vs 35.8. Considering both these guys are at a 7.5-8 OWS per full season pace, that basically perfectly fits the model of 6.5 prime yearsish for Price vs 5 for Deron. So again, slightly more for Price but not a ridiculous gap especially if you don't put a ton of value into 94 and 95 Price with the way he shot the ball in the postseason
And again, this is win shares we're talking about, which is at best a useful tool to ballpark value. I'd feel more confident breaking it down to Deron's 5 year window vs Price's 6.5 like in the comparison above, making the assumption that they're pretty close as players, and calling it as Deron a season behind Price's career, which is something but not enough to say it's the gap between top 80 player and below Tony Parker who was a top 20 player in the league for about one season and who belongs in the top 100 as much as Joe Johnson does (both guys have an outside chance, I haven't written down the next 30 guys to see who'll be hanging in the last 5 spots)
I think you make some good points. A few things keep popping in my mind though:
-Deron's only been an all-star twice.
-Deron has made All-NBA twice which is a bit more impressive, but I'm only even sure he deserves it once.
By comparison
-Durant's also been an all-star twice, once in a season where his team traded him for spare change
-Durant's been All-NBA twice
-Either of Durant's two years are more impressive than anything Deron's done
I realize that bringing Durant in the conversation complicates matters, but I just think we need to hammer in how little accolade love Deron's actually won at this point. To even have a case over 22-year old Durant, we have to rely on what he did while not making all-star. That's kind of insane for someone you're arguing has had 5 relevant seasons in hopes of saying that longevity isn't a major issue.
Now, I do understand that you'd probably say Deron should have had a couple more all-star appearances, and that's fine. My perspective is though that I didn't see Deron as such a lock that I can't fathom how he got snubbed, which makes elevating Deron in those years above Parker & Price hard to swallow.
Bottom line is that there are a variety of factors saying Deron is very young as an elite player, and needs to do more for longer before we think about him as someone who a regular top 10 type of player, and until he's done that, I won't see him as someone whose done more than Price, or Parker for that matter.
.jpg)
