RealGM

C-izMe wrote:With KJ vs Clyde you said the defensive gap wasn't large. I was always under the assumption that KJ was decent to average defensively (for a PG) and Clyde was good defensively (for a SG). That's a sizable gap IMO.

What I meant was it's not enough to overcome KJ's advantage on offense for me. I don't think it's a small difference defensively, or that it wasn't noticeable, but considering the overall package on both sides of the court, there's a bigger gap offensively imo. For me, KJ has a top 5 PG peak, after Magic, Oscar, Nash, and Paul, in that order. He was a beast offensively, and really lit it up when he needed to. Very efficient, great passer, excellent midrange shooter, really aggressive, some awesome playoff performances. He's like a more consistent, more efficient, and smarter Russell Westbrook, with superior creation and shooting. That's a devastating player. And I was critical about Barkley before when he was still on the board, because I think you could make a good argument that the best offensive player for Phoenix was actually KJ and not Barkley, or at least, they were comparable. When Barkley left after the 96 season, KJ had a big year and led Phoenix to a top 6 offense. When Barkley was missing time and KJ was healthy, he was still leading some very impressive offenses in Phoenix.

Drexler was really good too, but I think it's fair to criticize his handles, and combined with his inconsistent outside shooting, there are legitimate questions about his ability to create in the half court, which is pretty important come playoff time, and pretty important when talking about portability. To be honest, I have a tough time with Pierce vs Drexler, because Pierce is an awesome scorer in the half court, and so he translated better to the playoffs. He also proved that he has excellent portability, and he's a better defender than Drexler.

But where I give Drexler the edge is his ability to pass like a PG, and I think he handles the ball a lot better than most wings, certainly better than Pierce. That extra dimension makes him an overall better offensive player imo, similar to why I rank T-Mac very highly even when he wasn't scoring so efficiently. He was still creating a lot of opportunities for others, and I think Drexler does that to a degree that Pierce can't. For example, we saw Pierce have to play point forward in these past playoffs in game 2 against the Hawks, when Rondo was suspended. He played well, and everyone pointed to how he "carried" the Celtics in that game, but it's not like he was super efficient as a scorer (56.7% TS), and he turned the ball over like crazy (8 TOs) while not really creating a lot of opportunities (4 assists, Boston had a 95.9 ORating). Granted, he's a bit past his prime here, but he's one of those guys who has aged really well, and there's not a huge difference between him today and him in 08, which I think is his peak. And it's not like he was leading the Celtics to great results in that role earlier in his career either, although he was playing with some terrible supporting casts.

I see what your saying and its easy to say Clyde isn't portable and can't score in the halfcourt (which works against him in the PS), especially when both statements SHOULD be true looking at his game, but in his career he was a consistently good PS performer (just as good as img regular season IMO), an he showed his portability when going to play with Hakeem (while a little past his prime). I can see why many would question that but he definetly outplayed his game in his career (odd wording but I'll go with it).

Personally I'll put him over Pierce because I think he's a better first option (PP is the more portable player but barely IMO).

After your KJ explanation I get where your coming from but what Drexler season are you looking at? I'm thinking of 92 when he was pretty amazing offensively and led the 7th ranked offense with comparable offensive players to what KJ had when he led the 6th best offense.

vote: '00 Mourning

therealbig3 wrote:I for one couldn't participate because I had no internet, because of the Hurricane.

Oh wow. How are you doing realbig?

Doctor MJ wrote:

therealbig3 wrote:I for one couldn't participate because I had no internet, because of the Hurricane.

Oh wow. How are you doing realbig?

Yeah, seriously. Hope everything's been okay

Thanks guys, but I can't really complain, I was pretty lucky. My house didn't get damaged, and I never lost my water or gas. I lost power for 9 days, which made things pretty tough (and cold!), but compared to what others have lost, that was just an inconvenience that wasn't really a big deal when you think about it.

Good to know everything's been fine for the most part then. I live on the East Coast as well, but the DC Metro area JUST missed out on the worst of the storm.

Vote: '84 Bernard King

Just a quick thing I'm throwing out there: no Willis talk at all? I don't know too much about his '70 season (if I made a POY ballot for that year West and Kareem would be a clear 1-2), but an MVP-Finals MVP season not even in the top 40?

If we're going till 40, I'm probably going to vote King, Pettit, Willis, Gilmore and maybe KJ or Hill in some order.

Okay so after taking a week break without any deadlines, I'm now planning to go roughly with week-long threads.

So voting here ends next Saturday. This will have meant about 2 weeks for the #36 spot which simply had better be enough.

I'm leaning KJ right now. I think the Zo & King candidacies are strong though.

Re: Reed. Well, I don't want to be down on him simply because we just voted in his teammate since I think the debate between the two of them is a good one to have, but I ended up pro-Frazier pretty decisively. Suffice to say that if you start from looking at him as an MVP, he might be the most overrated MVP in history in terms of his actual peak compared to his perceived peak. The '70 Knicks were really REALLY good, and Reed was a major part of that, but Reed on the Knicks to start with didn't result in clear transformation, and the narrative about Reed is driven by his supposed transformative influence.

Take that away and you've got a solid all around player, but not really top of the line in any facet. He's a big who scores 20 PPG on decent but elite shooting, he's a good passer but not an amazing one, he's a good rebounder but not astonishing, he's a good defender but in the end he's a big who can't impact defense on the scale you're hoping your big can do.

While that kind of jack-of-all-trades could still conceivably add up to an all-timer, none of us would be thinking that way without his MVP & Finals MVPs, and he really shouldn't have any of those.

How do people feel about Hill's 97 campaign vs King's 84 season?

sp6r=underrated wrote:How do people feel about Hill's 97 campaign vs King's 84 season?

I think Hill was better in the season but I like how King played in the playoffs.

sp6r=underrated wrote:How do people feel about Hill's 97 campaign vs King's 84 season?

It's an interesting debate to have.

I feel if you labeled King as x, then you took 1, 1-x gives you Hill.

It's a pretty strange analogy, I know, but it's basically that these are two very, very different players. Hill was one of the purest scorers we've ever seen. I think of him as a billionaire's Carmelo Anthony in his prime. As in, he brought Melo's sheer knack to put the ball in the basket, but minus his ball stopping flaws and inefficiency. King had a crazy jumper and was explosive as hell. He was also a decent rebounder, not great, but not bad either.

Hill is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, to me. He had the LeBron/Magic/Bird gene to control the game with his passing even if he wasn't scoring. He was quicker and able to get to the rim in his younger days, but mostly he played a very cerebral game. His jump shot was an issue at times, but overall he ranged from solid to brilliant on nearly all aspects of the game.

Both were decent team defenders, by no means liabilities.

I think if I were starting a team, I would be inclined to pick Hill, because you can merely choose a greater variety of players around him. I.e. I believe Hill has almost Bird-like portability.

But who I think was a more effective player? Gotta go with King here. GOAT level Playoffs. Just unstoppable.

What do people think about the defensive monsters like Rodman and Wallace? Did they make enough impact on the other side of the ball to merit some consideration?

Come on guys, Doc left the voting open until Saturday for a reason.

I think Rodman would've had a chance in the top 50 but with 40 he has major issues. He literally refused to shoot at times (leading to blown possessions) and a lot of the times he over passed leading to a lot of turnovers. He also was Camby-like in that he gave up defensive position to get boards.


Wallace I personally saw his peak live (not on YouTube Pistons games). He was probably the worst offensive player I've seen get more than 30 minutes a game. Biedrins laughs at his offensive ability. He wasn't good at the rim, a the line, at passing, at shooting from anywhere, at making putbacks, and at times set sloppy screens. Defensively let's say he's a 7 out of 10. He loses 5 of the 7 on offense by itself. He really needs a strong offensive team around him to even be worth playing 36+ minutes a game. I couldn't see him getting top 50 (Rose is over him and Rose wasn't even in my mind yet).

So...what exactly is the argument against KJ here? Great offensive player who stepped it up in the playoffs. And especially since we're discussing other wings here, I don't see how defense could really tip the scales, because I don't think Hill or King are all that close offensively.

What's KJ's peak season? I think its somewhere between 89-92. 91 might have been his best regular season but he laid an egg in the playoffs. 92 was a better playoff than 90 but 90 had double the playoff games and a better regular season. 95 also has a case because he went off in the playoffs.

In 1990, the Suns had a 7+ SRS, good enough for 1st place in the NBA. Their O rating was 3rd in the league (D was 6th). They beat Magic Johnson's Lakers in the playoffs in a huge upset.

Here is the 1990 playoff breakdown

1st round vs. Utah (stockton):
KJ only played 9 minutes in game 1 so I'll look at games 2-5 (Stockton went 16 and 17 in that game)
KJ: 25-10-3, .497 TS%, 104 O rating
Stockton: 15-15-4, .484 TS%, 115 O rating

2nd round vs. Lakers (magic):
KJ: 22-12-6 (3 stls), .562 TS%, 118 O rating
Magic: 30-12-6, .616 TS%, 127 O rating

WCF vs. Blazers (Porter):
KJ: 22-11-2, .608 TS%, 119 O rating
Porter: 19-8-2, .610 TS%, 130 O rating

So KJ held his own offensively against those guys but his defense left something to be desired.

His 95 regular season wasn't great, but he stepped it up in the playoffs averaging 25-9-4, .663 TS%, 130 O rating. He killed the Rockets. He had games of 46-10 (game 7), 43-9-6, 28-8-8, 29-12, 21-13-5

Good question colts, I'll put my vote in but my mind is still open:

Vote: Kevin Johnson '90

I feel like '89 & '90 is basically a tossup, so I'm inclined to go with the slightly more seasoned year.

Regarding '95, the post-season numbers are huge, but this is a team that nearly won 60 games with KJ gone half the year, and then got upset in the playoffs focusing on his gifts. Not saying I blame him, but no, that's not a situation where I feel like ignoring time lost to injury.

Doctor MJ, what about 92 KJ?

I really don't separate 89-92 KJ really, so I'd have no problem going with 90 KJ if you feel strongly that it's superior to 92. But my reasoning for 92 was pretty much why you picked 90 over 89: he was a more seasoned player that was putting up comparable numbers.