RealGM Top 100 #90

[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

NOTE: PEOPLE HAVE NOT BEEN POSTING DISCUSSION FOR THEIR CHOICES RECENTLY. LISTS WITHOUT DISCUSSION WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE FINALS VOTE

Dave DeBusschere

Hall of Fame 1983
1x All-NBA 2nd Team
2x NBA Champion
6x All-Defense 1st Team
8x All-Star

Newest addition: Joe Dumars

Hall of Fame 2006
1x All-NBA 2nd Team
2x All-NBA 3rd Team
4x All-Defense 1st team
1x All-Defense 2nd team
Finals MVP 1989
2x NBA Champion
6x All-Star

Tim Hardaway

1x 1st Team All-NBA
3x 2nd Team All-NBA
1x 3rd Team All-NBA
5x All-Star

Carmelo Anthony

1x All-NBA 2nd
3x All-NBA 3rd
4x All-Star


Gus Williams

1x 1st team All-NBA
1x 2nd team All-NBA
NBA Champion 1979
2x All-Star

Bill Laimbeer

2x NBA Champion
4x All-Star


Brad Daugherty

1x NBA 3rd Team
5x All-Star


Larry Nance

1x NBA All-Def 1st team
2x NBA All-Def 2nd team
3x 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


NOTE: PEOPLE HAVE NOT BEEN POSTING DISCUSSION FOR THEIR CHOICES RECENTLY. LISTS WITHOUT DISCUSSION WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE FINALS VOTE

[penbeast0]

VOTE:
The best offensive numbers belong to Jerry Lucas – He scores at a rate close to any of the other prime scorers except Carmelo and with excellent efficiency as a stretch big which Dirk has showed is very valuable offensively. In addition he provides rebounding at a level few other players in NBA history have matched (and none of those here) with good passing skills as well. Hardaway does bring playmaking but his inefficiency is a weakness here. Carmelo is the only one that has appreciably more offensive firepower than Lucas but his firepower has not translated as of yet into team success where Lucas was one of two constants on the offensively great Royals teams.

Defensively, Dumars, DeBusschere, Nance, and Laimbeer stand out but DeBusschere and Laimbeer are well behind the other two offensively. Dumars has more playoff chops than Nance; Nance is the better scorer . . . it’s very close.

Lucas v. Dumars or Nance . . . I think Lucas is one of those guys who you may not like much. Like Michael Jordan or Wilt, he was focused on his own stats and unlike them, he wasn’t a good defender, but his numbers are so much more dominant than any of his competition here, I think you have to accept his limitations and vote him in. He’s Kevin Love with a long prime of years like last year – that’s a HOF player.

[penbeast0]

To me, the nomination right now is a 3 man contest. None of the guards quite comes up to that level with Chris Mullin being the most impressive, at least offensively. Nor do any of the centers leap forward; Amare being my favorite over the always injured Yao Ming or 50s star Neil Johnston but again, purely an offensive player.

The forwards are stronger -- Shawn Marion had a great two way game with a monster 2006 season. Yes, he benefitted from playing with Steve Nash, as players like Worthy and McHale benefitted from playing with Magic and Bird but he has several other 20+PER seasons without Nash making up for lower efficiency (though still the best efficiency among Phoenix starters) with extra pts/reb. Terry Cummings is also in the running with offensive seasons at Marion's level though not quite up to his level defensively but just a little behind. The dark horse is Cliff Hagan who didn't have regular seasons to match the others but was one of the greatest playoff studs in NBA history (Frank Ramsey was another from that era that did the same).

NOMINATE Shawn Marion

[therealbig3]

Vote: Nance

For Nance, I mentioned him a while ago, and I changed my mind on him back then, but I think this is the right time for him. During the regular season, he was a solid 20ish ppg scorer with good defense. Very efficient too. I'm not much of a fan of how he didn't really seem to be able to step up his scoring in the playoffs, but it's not like he disappeared either. He still maintained his efficiency, he still maintained decent scoring.

Nominate: Pressey

I'm mainly nominating him because of bastillon's great posts about him in previous threads and other topics, and I found it very convincing. Basically, he was a defensive superstar, with monster impact. There's evidence that he was more important to the Bucks' defense than Moncrief. And he was an excellent all-around player too...pretty efficient double-digit scorer, very good rebounder, very good playmaker. Combine all that with his excellent defense and evidence of big impact, I actually think he's been slept on at this point.

[penbeast0]

I know that ElGee and Bastillon didn't like him, but the Bucks became a top 2 defense in the league when Moncrief came into his prime and stayed that way until he was injured -- they held it together with Pressey and Cummings leading the team for one year then started slipping back into the pack. I loved Pressey but if you watched them play, he wasn't the kind of shutdown defender that Moncrief was (few were).

[ThaRegul8r]

Vote: Nance

For Nance, I mentioned him a while ago, and I changed my mind on him back then, but I think this is the right time for him. During the regular season, he was a solid 20ish ppg scorer with good defense. Very efficient too.

Did You Know:

“[H]e’s one of only 6 players to average 17 PPG, 8 RPG, 2 BPG, and post a career TS% > .580. The other five? Only some guys named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Artis Gilmore, Shaquille O'Neal, David Robinson, & Alonzo Mourning.”

[penbeast0]

Jerry Lucas averaged 17ppg and 15reb . . . only others to ever do that were Wilt Chamberlain and Bob Pettit. Doesn't put him in their class but does make it clear that he's got some pretty impressive statistical accomplishments of his own.

[ronnymac2]

I hate arbitrary cutoffs.

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Gus Williams

Nominate: Amar'e Stoudemire


Same reasons as last time. Gus was a force to be reckoned with for his clubs in the playoffs and almost always performed well. Tim and Melo are good, too, but it appears Gus was a bit more consistent. He's got the hardware to back it up, too, FWIW.

Amar'e averaged 37 ppg against the 2005 Spurs. Now, people say that San Antonio focused on offense and shutting down everybody else outside of Nash and Amar'e in order to beat PHX. However, doesn't that say something when an all-time great defensive dynasty basically waives the white flag and says "we can't stop you two, so we'll just find another way to win"? They treated Nash/Amar'e as a two-man playoff Constant. Nash was the catalyst, but Amar'e had a large role as well. It was a perfect offensive pairing: no diminishing returns or alpha issues, only efficient, explosive offense.

[penbeast0]

So . . . Lucas v. Amare. Two second stars on two of the great offenses in history that featured weak defenses and never won titles (though Lucas did get one later filling in for Willis Reed in NY).

Scoring goes to Amare, clearly. More explosive, more efficient, and more versatile although Lucas had better range and very good efficiency as well.

Rebounding goes to Lucas -- by a ridiculous margin. Lucas is the 4 greatest rebounder of all time and while a lot of that is era related, it is clear that he was a dominant rebounder -- better than Nate Thurmond, Willis Reed, etc. among his contemporaries. And this was as an outside shooting big man. Amare, on the other hand, is a below average rebounding big, especially as a C where he has spent most of his career.

Playmaking goes to Lucas. Better passer both from the post and in keeping it moving around the perimeter.

Defense goes to Lucas -- yeah they were both bad but Lucas was better as a post defender and was actually pretty solid in NY where the team culture was about team defense.

So, Amare does give you more scoring but that's about it; Lucas blows him away as a rebounder which is one of the keys to big man play and winning plus has a slight advantage elsewhere.

[Doctor MJ]

Really kind of surprised by the Gus Williams push. Dennis Johnson was the guard on those Seattle teams who got more accolades (Finals MVP, all-star nods, All-D nods), and was more associated with their defense, which was the reason why they were winning. (And always got more attention in previous Top 100s) Gus scored more, but it's not like he did it efficiently.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Nance

Sticking with Nance. Afraid I don't have that much more to say on the topic. It's not a blowout in my mind, but I believe that Nance's unique game had a major impact and would have such an impact most teams.

Nominate: Cliff Hagan

I would imagine this will be the last old, old school guy I vote for, but dude seems quite legit to me. His playoff performances stand out even amongst the bigger stars of his day. I feel more certain about him than I do the other choices available.

[Dr Positivity]

Vote Gus Williams

Williams has a large offensive impact because of the value of penetration/defense collapsing, he runs the fastbreak, passes reasonably well. In the playoffs he came up huge a lot and the Sonics had similar regular season results after DJ left with Gus and Sikma, but were a 34 W team the year he sat out. Williams' career is a rich man's version of Tony Parker's career to me as a hard to guard fast, scoring guard who performed we in big games

Nominate Lou Hudson

Elite shooter, can bring it inside, fits with almost any other players with his range, great character guy. I could see the argument for Mitch Richmond over him but it seems like Lou's offensive game was a bit more dynamic. He's someone that champion teams like the 60s Celtics, 70s Bucks or 70s Bullets would've loved in the same way they loved Sam Jones or Bob Dandridge

[ThaRegul8r]

Williams' career is a rich man's version of Tony Parker's career to me as a hard to guard fast, scoring guard who performed we in big games

Dennis Johnson also made the comparison:


The thing that impresses three-time NBA champion point guard Dennis Johnson about Tony Parker is that he has the smarts and temperament to be a champion. Oh, and he has the kind of skill that reminds Johnson of Gus Williams, Johnson's teammate with the Sonics: "First off, he is a smart point guard -- running (Gregg) Popovich's offense takes a hell of a lot. And Pop keys on him more than anyone because he is the guy who has to set it all up. But he is such a quick point guard, too, it's almost impossible for players to stay in front of him. Gus Williams played a lot like that, with that kind of quickness, though Gus was a better player in the open court than Tony is. But Tony knows how to use his quickness in the halfcourt, and he has really worked on his jumper."

[Doctor MJ]

Williams' career is a rich man's version of Tony Parker's career to me as a hard to guard fast, scoring guard who performed we in big games

Eh, he scored more, less efficiently, on a far less successful team. Had he been on the Spurs, it's pretty much a given that his scoring volume would fall to Parker's level, and no given that he'd have been as able to fit in as well as Parker did.

If I'm picking point guards from that Gus' era, DJ and Mo Cheeks still seem like guys I'd rather have.

[penbeast0]

I liked Mo more than Dennis Johnson actually . . . speaking of Seattle, another guy who got a lot of All-NBA awards is Spencer Haywood . . . and he had a really ridiculous rookie season in the ABA (mainly rebounding like he never did in the NBA which does put a question mark in front of Mel Daniels and Connie Hawkins's rebounding totals for me). He is sort of a big numbers on bad teams guy but his numbers are pretty Amare like with better defense (I still prefer Amare though which is why he hasn't been on my nominations lists).

[penbeast0]

AS we come to the last 10 we are down to the hardcore posters . . . I will switch to Larry Nance in my vote; I think he was better than Gus Williams. As for the nomination, I'll leave it a 5 way tie and see if we can't get some traction for a candidate next time. I will say that I favor Amare over Hagan; his playoff numbers are actually a bit better though Hagan's defense was superior. Still, Hagan put up lesser numbers playing through the 62 season which was the most inflated in NBA history. Hagan is my favorite over Hudson or Pressey of the SF candidates behind Marion.

VOTE

Jerry Lucas – penbeast0,

Larry Nance – therealbig3, Doctor MJ

Gus Williams –ronnymac2, Dr Mufasa


NOMINATE

Shawn Marion – penbeast0

Paul Pressey – therealbig3

Amare Stoudamire – ronnymac2

Cliff Hagan – Doctor MJ

Lou Hudson – Dr Mufasa