RealGM Top 100 List #77

[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 -- Please vote and nominate

Newest addition:

Connie Hawkins

Hall of Fame 1992
ABA MVP 1968
(ABL MVP 1962)
2x All-ABA 1st Team
1x All-NBA 1st Team
ABA Champion 1968
5x All-Star


Jerry Lucas

3x All-NBA 1st team
2x All-NBA 2nd team
1 NBA Championship 1973
Rookie of the Year 1964
7x All-Star


Mark Price

1x All-NBA 1st Team
3x All-NBA 3rd Team
4x All-Star


Shawn Kemp

3x All-NBA 2nd team
6x All-Star


Hal Greer

Hall of Fame 1982
7x All-NBA 2nd
1x NBA Championship
10x All-Star


Adrian Dantley

Hall of Fame 2008
2x All-NBA 2nd Team
Rookie of the Year 1977
6x All-Star


Chauncey Billups

1x ALL-NBA 2nd
2x ALL-NBA 3rd
2x All-Defense 2nd
Finals MVP 1987
NBA CHampion
5x All-STar


Bobby Jones

1x All-ABA 2nd team
NBA Champion 1983
10x All-Defense 1st team (2x in ABA)
1x All-Defense 2nd team
Sixth Man of the Year 1983
5x All-Star

[penbeast0]

VOTE:

Shawn Kemp and Jerry Lucas were both big F/Cs. Kemp was athletic and active defensively although foul prone; Lucas was a great rebounder with outstanding shooting range who the voters of his day put into the HOF over Willis Reed among others; the high BBIQ choice.

Bobby Jones was more a SF/PF mix although he played some C and even some SG. Unparallelled defensive accolades are his calling card with 10 straight 1st team All-Def awards, something no one else has ever approached; but also a super team player who sacrificed minutes and scoring when asked and a very efficient shooter among the league leaders.

Connie Hawkins was, with Elgin Baylor, the Dr.J/Michael Jordan of the 60s. Though limited to only about 2 and a half peak years by a gambling scandal and knee injuries, he was a great player who electrified everyone who saw him -- he's the Bill Walton of the ABA. Adrian Dantley was one of the greatest scorers ever. High volume at efficiency only approached by the Charles Barkley/Reggie Miller's of the world. That's it though, as his defense and team ethos were frequently questioned.

At guard, Hal Greer was a consistent 20ppg threat in the 60s, Chauncey Billups one of the most efficient guards of the last decade with his 3 point shooting, ability to draw fouls, and extremely low turnover rates, and Mark Price was another efficient shooting PG though without the defense of Greer and Billups.


VOTE BOBBY JONES

[penbeast0]

Point Guards -- not seeing these guys yet, the other positions are stronger
Tim Hardaway
Lenny Wilkens
Dennis Johnson
Tony Parker?
Gus Williams?

Shooting Guards -- About ready for any of these guys except Richmond
Joe Dumars
Bill Sharman
Earl Monroe
Chris Mullin
Mitch Richmond

Shooting Forward -- Probably the deepest spot left:
Shawn Marion
Connie Hawkins
Cliff Hagan
Carmelo Anthony? Dandridge/Wilkes/Wise?

Power Forward -- Not sure how much to value Paul Silas/BuckWilliams/Bill Bridges types
Larry Nance
Terry Cummings
Elton Brand
Amare Stoudamire
Paul Silas

Centers: see no real argument for Brad Daugherty over Daniels, Sikma, Johnston, or even Bellamy
Mel Daniels
Jack Sikma
Neil Johnston
Walt Bellamy
Yao Ming

Looking at the candidates -- Marion and Nance give the best combination of longevity and superb 2-way play (very similar careers). For peak, Connie Hawkins was the best player to play in the ABA pre Erving (and yes, that includes Rick Barry) but his tragic story kept him out of the NBA until age 27 after a serious knee injury (the first of several). Mel Daniels won TWO MVP's and 3 championships in the ABA -- yes it was an inferior league and his career wasn't that long but it was better ball than the NBA in the 50s and he was basically Alonzo Mourning as a player with better rebounding but less shotblocking -- similar offense and attitude. He'd be a star even today though probably not a 20ppg scorer.

Love to see more analysis of Dumars v. Sharman, Dandridge v. Hagan, Nance v. Marion, TCummings v. EBrand.


Peak year comps:

Sharman 1956 37.5min 3.5reb 4.5ast 19.1pts .508ts% (5th in MVP) -- league ave 99.0pts on .458ts%
Dumars 1991 38.1min 2.3reb 5.5ast 20.4pts .552ts% (10th in MVP) -- league ave 106.3pts on .534ts%
adjusted, Sharman is clearly the better offensive player; as Dumars is clearly better on D

Hagan 1959 37.5min 10.9reb 3.4ast 23.7pts .516ts% (9th in MVP) -- league 108.2pts on .457ts%
Dandridge 1979 33.7min 5.7reb 4.7ast 20.4pts .553ts% (5th in MVP) -- league 110.3pts on .530ts%
Hagan looks like the better offensive player, Dandridge the better defender though it is closer

Nance 1987 37.2min 8.7reb 3.4ast 22.5pts .591ts% (no MVP votes) -- league 109.9pts on .538ts%
Marion 2006 40.3min 11.8reb 1.8ast 21.8pts .607ts% (.001 MVP votes) -- league 97.0pts on .537ts%
I'm tempted to use 01 or 03 for Marion since they are nearly as good and without Nash but 06 was the year he carried the team with Amare injured. Marion is clearly better this year.

Cummings 1985 34.5min 9.1reb 2.9ast 23.6pts .536ts% (5th in MVP) -- league 110.8pts on .543ts%
E. Brand 2006 39.4min 10.0reb 2.6ast 24.7pts on .580ts% (7th in MVP) -- league 97.0pts on .537ts%
Brand looks better here but Cummings peak was longer.

I go back and forth among several candidates -- Sharman, Hagan, Marion, Nance, and Daniels being the top of my list. For now, I will tentatively go for Shawn Marion -- people see only his lack of handles and forget just how great he was at everything else. Basically LeBron without the handles and with better rebounding.

[JordansBulls]

Vote: Shawn Kemp
Nominate: Brad Daugherty

[Dr Positivity]

Vote: Hmm... leaning towards Price or Greer. Still feel concerned about Jones MP, I don't trust Kemp mentally, Dantley's impact is seriously questionable, and Price's game is more tight than Billups on ball and shooting

Price has a higher peak than Greer, but for about half as long. I like Greer's all around solid play here for good 11 or so years. I think if you put him with a big around this range like Sikma or Ben Wallace you would have a solid chance of contending at a level not far off from a prime Price, enough to make me take him

Vote Hal Greer

Nominate Jack Sikma

I'll stick with Sikma until I see how the votes are shaking out. My case for Sikma is still that while he isn't dominant, he can do everything - defend, rebound, score inside, score outside/space the floor, big man pass. I put Pierce and Gasol higher than a lot of players more dominant than them at 1 or 2 things for the same reason - if you contribute everywhere it makes you easy to build around and win with. From a drafting perspective I feel more comfortable taking Sikma than the uglier offensively Ben Wallace and Mel Daniels (the other Cs close to this range for me) and generally over the perimeter players left on the board. Gus Williams and Elton Brand give me the biggest pause

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Bobby Jones

Sticking with my Jones vote, although I will say that I'm feeling high enough on Hawkins, I might be ready to vote for him now.

Nominate: Bill Sharman

Yeah, I'm with LG. Hard to feel that a guy like Sharman deserves a particular spot because he's so hard to compare. I do think quite highly of him though. I'd expect he'd have an easier time in the modern game that Cousy.

[penbeast0]

Dr Mufasa, you looked at Greer v. Sharman? I think Sharman may be the better player relative to the league there too.

And Marion's 2006 was as good or better than Elton Brand's; about even statistically but Marion was more versatile and had a bigger team impact as Marion really dominated his defenders nightly (Hint -- it wasn't Boris Diaw) . . . beat Brand and the Clips in the playoffs too though Brand was terrific (beat Kobe's Lakers as well).

[Doctor MJ]

Dr Mufasa, you looked at Greer v. Sharman? I think Sharman may be the better player relative to the league there too.

And Marion's 2006 was as good or better than Elton Brand's; about even statistically but Marion was more versatile and had a bigger team impact as Marion really dominated his defenders nightly (Hint -- it wasn't Boris Diaw) . . . beat Brand and the Clips in the playoffs too though Brand was terrific (beat Kobe's Lakers as well).

I don't think there's any way to look at the '06 WCSF series and say someone other than Brand was the MVP. Granted that's because of how crippled the Suns were, but still, by no means did anyone beat Brand.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 6_WCS.html

[Laimbeer]

Vote-Lucas
Nominate-Daniels

[bastillon]

Dr Mufasa, you looked at Greer v. Sharman? I think Sharman may be the better player relative to the league there too.

And Marion's 2006 was as good or better than Elton Brand's; about even statistically but Marion was more versatile and had a bigger team impact as Marion really dominated his defenders nightly (Hint -- it wasn't Boris Diaw) . . . beat Brand and the Clips in the playoffs too though Brand was terrific (beat Kobe's Lakers as well).

I don't think there's any way to look at the '06 WCSF series and say someone other than Brand was the MVP. Granted that's because of how crippled the Suns were, but still, by no means did anyone beat Brand.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 6_WCS.html

wow beast didn't really think that through.

[penbeast0]

Brand played great but it's hard to be the MVP if you are the loser . . . Jerry West is the only one that ever got Finals MVP off a loser that I remember though there are probably more.

[colts18]

Maybe I missed the discussion but why hasn't Dumars been voted in let alone nominated?

[ThaRegul8r]

Jerry West is the only one that ever got Finals MVP off a loser that I remember though there are probably more.

No, there are not.

[Doctor MJ]

Brand played great but it's hard to be the MVP if you are the loser . . . Jerry West is the only one that ever got Finals MVP off a loser that I remember though there are probably more.

Yeah, West is the only losing Finals MVP, which frankly is irrational. I personally think Dwyane Wade was the most impressive player in last years finals, and that didn't even go 7 games.

In the PHX-LAC series, it went 7, and Elton Brand was essentially unstoppable the entire time. Actually that series is part of the reason I'm as ambivalent about Sam Cassell as I am. Here you had a matchup where the injured Suns had absolutely no answer on the interior, and in Cassell's alien point guard mind that him conclude that he should jack up more perimeter shots than normal. And Cassell was the best teammate Brand had.

Here's the combined box score for the series:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 6_WCS.html

Brand's scored 31 PPG on 63% TS, 4 APG, 3 BPG. About the only thing normal about him in the series was his 10 RPG, but when your team is killing the opposition on the boards like the Clippers were, this clearly is not a referendum on him not getting you the rebounds you need.

lol, /rant

So as I said: That series was a special case. Phoenix was such a crippled team at that point that it's simply astonishing that they won one playoff series let alone two and threatened to win the WCF, but I had no doubt that with the two teams as they were, Brand could do much more damage than anyone else on either team.

[therealbig3]

Vote: B. Jones
Nominate: nothing yet

I've been nominating Dandridge, but he hasn't picked up any momentum yet, so I'll check out the arguments for other players.

[lorak]

vote: Jones
nominate: Ben Wallace

[therealbig3]

And I'm with colts18 with regards to Dumars...how come nobody is really mentioning him? He got a few votes in a couple of threads a few votes ago, and now it's like he's invisible.

His prime was probably 89-95. During that time, he played 519 games, or about 74 games/season, so solid durability. He averaged 37.5 mpg, so he's a big minutes guy as well. And he's one of the best glue guys and 2nd options of all time, people are big on that at this point. His per 36 numbers in both the regular season and playoffs look like this:

Regular season: 18.9 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 4.7 apg, 2.3 TOpg, .552 TS%

Playoffs: 17.4 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 4.4 apg, 1.8 TOpg, .542 TS%

In addition to that, he was an excellent defensive player, one of the best ever at the SG position, and he gave a guy like MJ fits.

In terms of impact, here are his SIO numbers:

94 (13 g): 7.2 to -6.6
90 (7 g): 6.6 to 6.6
95 (15 g): 5.7 to -6.2
89 (13 g): -0.7 to 7.1
89-91 (22 g): 0.6 to 5.3

I'm seeing good impact there. On terrible teams, he can provide decent lift, and make them considerably less terrible. Over a 22 g sample from 89-91, on title contenders, he added a little bit of lift to make them slightly better.

To me, this is an extremely valuable player to any team, one of those guys that you can add to any team and expect him to fit right in and improve the team. And he was a legitimate star in his own right, not just a role player. Had some pretty big playoff performances, was close to a 20/5 player on good efficiency, and he was a defensive stud.

To be honest, I'm not even nominating him yet, still about 3 players on my list that I want to nominate before I get to Dumars, but he deserves serious consideration at this point I would think.

[therealbig3]

And I'm really not that high on Marion or Lucas to be honest, I think they're getting overrated quite a bit.

Marion to me is clearly a product of Steve Nash, at least the super-efficient Shawn Marion. From 01-04, here are Marion's scoring numbers, per 36:

17.6 ppg, .525 TS% (league average was around 52% during this time, so Marion was an average efficiency scorer)

From 05-07, per 36 (with Nash):

18.1 ppg, .580 TS% (league average was around 53-54%, so Marion was considerably above average with Nash)

And in the playoffs, without Nash, Marion's efficiency was dreadful, and although 18 ppg on average efficiency seems like it's pretty good, keep in mind that Marion did play with Marbury, who, as maligned as he is now, was a pretty good player back then and an overall pretty good PG. He was widely considered the 2nd best point in the league at the time.

Marion to me, without an elite set up guy, is an almost useless offensive player, who is a very good, but not elite, defensive player, and an elite rebounder for a SF. And you'd think that his "do it all" style of play would be able to fit in anywhere and do extremely well, but it didn't work out in Miami in 08 when he got traded there, and it didn't work out in Toronto. It did work in Dallas, but that's because Marion really didn't have to do much, and he was clearly a role player at that point.

To me, Marion is barely a top 100 player of all time, I think he's sitting at 95 on my list.

Jerry Lucas is another guy I don't think highly of, I think he's at 93 on my list, and in danger of dropping. bastillon has made a few posts mentioning Lucas and describes him as a glorified Troy Murphy, a guy who only cared about rebounding stats, thus giving up position and easy 2nd chance points to opposing big men...a poor defensive player, with a seemingly poor BB IQ. And he does poorly in the SIO numbers that ElGee posted.

I may be saying some very controversial things here, and I might be completely wrong, but this is the impression that I have of these guys so far, and I'd very interested in more pro-arguments for these guys (I know penbeast0 is high on both of these guys, but I disagree with his assessment of them). They're mid-90's guys to me as of right now.

[penbeast0]

Shawn Marion ipre Nash

2000, he's a rookie playing only part time but showing a lot of promise

2001, playing SF next to big 5's (Dudley/Tsakalidis) and Cliff Robinson at 4 and with Jason Kidd at PG, he leads the team in scoring (17) and rebounding (11) at .532 ts% -- which may not sound that impressive but it led all PHO starters in efficiency as well.

2002, playing with Starbury at point, aging gunner Penny at SG, and Tsakalidis leading a revolving door of players inside, he again leads the team in rebounding (10), is second to Starbury in scoring (19), but his efficiency does drop to .517, just higher than his career low of .511 as a rookie.

2003, Amare is a rookie, Starbury is the PG, Marion is again 1st in rebounding (10) and second in scoring (21) while playing more PF (Tsakalidis and Joe Johnson were the 5th and 6th starters). Efficiency is .538 which, again, doesn't sound great but leads all Phoenix starters.

2004 Amare and Starbury get the press, Marion still gets 19/9 playing in a multi-point offense with Joe Johnson too but on mediocre efficiency.

2005 Nash comes in and whole team's efficiency takes a jump including Marion (19/11) to .556. So, before Nash, you had a teamwide inefficient offense (Kidd didn't help teammates offensively like Nash) and Marion was around league average (though he was the most efficient player on those teams half the years).

Nash comes in and Marion's efficiency does go way up but, he's not know for being a superefficient score like a Bobby Jones . . . Marion is known for being a SF who can be a 20/10 guy within the context of an offense focused on other people (Starbury, Amare, etc.) while providing great rebounding (one of the best SFs of the modern era) and very good defense (particularly help defense).

And, I loved the defensive job he did on LeBron in last year's finals. LeBron looked tentative but he wouldn't if he was getting free and exploding on people like he did in the Cleveland years.

[drza]

Vote: Mark Price
Nominate: Ben Wallace