Re: RealGM Top 100 List #39

[penbeast0]

BIg Man is pretty wide open, some serious short peak stars may start getting consideration, I'm not in anyone's camp yet.

a. Dikembe Mutombo (or Ben Wallace) is the best defensive big left though Nate Thurmond has an argument. However, Mutombo is at least something of a positive on offense, the other two are zero or active negatives. Neil Johnston or Bob McAdoo are the best offensive bigs left. For two way players, Zo, Dwight or maybe McHale (but I have questions about his rebounding). Would love to see some good big man comps among this set. I don't see Reed or Cowens here yet (I have a quick note comparing at least their box score impact in #36). I really would love someone (someone else) to throw McHale up against Dwight and a couple of others and make a strong comp.

b. Paul Pierce, Reggie Miller, or the great SFs of the 80s (English, Dantley, Nique, etc.) seem the frontrunners on the wing. Sam Jones has been mentioned too; in his day he was considered behind Hal Greer but I've always preferred Jones; Paul Arizin would be another old time name to mention. Sid Moncrief, Tmac, or Connie Hawkins are the highest peak left but just couldn't sustain it.

c. In terms of PGs, Isiah is certainly the default choice now. I'm not a fan of Iverson's game at all; same goes for Bob Cousy, Nate Archibald had the most incredible numbers but only for 4 years and for that length of time, I'd certainly rather argue for Moncrief. KJ is another with a nice peak but injury issues. Hardaway, Price, Billups . . . . not sure we are ripe for even discussing them yet.

[ronnymac2]

**** me!


Vote: Isiah Thomas

1990 Finals MVP with one of the great performances by a PG ever. The legendary Game 6 3rd quarter against LA in 1988. 16 points in like, 94 seconds against New York. 24-10 in the playoffs from 1984-1987. Great skillset for the playoffs. Aggressive, creative, arguably GOAT ball-handler, great passer. Underrated strength for finishing. Detroit was normally top 10 in offense with Isiah at the helm.

[trex_8063]

**** me!

**** you?!? I hardly know you.

[Basketballefan]

**** me!


Vote: Isiah Thomas

1990 Finals MVP with one of the great performances by a PG ever. The legendary Game 6 3rd quarter against LA in 1988. 16 points in like, 94 seconds against New York. 24-10 in the playoffs from 1984-1987. Great skillset for the playoffs. Aggressive, creative, arguably GOAT ball-handler, great passer. Underrated strength for finishing. Detroit was normally top 10 in offense with Isiah at the helm.

Thomas is not liked on this site so it shouldn't surprise you.

As i said before, Thomas it overrated by the media and casual fans but underrated on realgm.

[penbeast0]

I think this is a very reasonable spot for Isiah, he is one of the guys I am looking at strongly. Far from a sure thing; there are a lot of great players still on the board, especially if you favor peak over longevity, but Isiah's certainly a contender and he will get in soon.

[trex_8063]

Vote: Paul Pierce.

Pierce gives you very very good scoring, very good play-making from the SF, pretty good rebounding, and entirely decent (probably underrated) defense.
He can scale it up on a poor or mediocre team, yet has the portability to fit in as #2 (or 1B) on a more talent-laden contender. With the exception of one awful series in '04, he pretty consistently upped his game in playoffs during his prime, and in the last handful of years has (imo) been one of the most clutch guys in the league.

His RAPM data is on par with someone like Dwight Howard, and he's had excellent longevity to boot. Looks good via WOWY data, too.

Couple other tiny statistical tid-bits (other aspects have been previously covered):
He's 25th all-time in career rs WS.
He's 38th all-time in career playoff WS.

[RSCD3_]

Definitely between Miller and Isiah

Question because Dumars and Thomas was a rare 2 point guard lineup how would miller do on the pistons with Dumars as the 1 and Reggie as the 2.

Would it improve the pistons?

From Reggie advocates such as Doctor MJ his offense is more valuable and his defense is a lot better than Isiah who is described as a zero at best.

Holding Reggie to be the better player here and a more natural fit

would Reggie help the pistons more and how much more?



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[ronnymac2]

Definitely between Miller and Isiah

Question because Dumars and Thomas was a rare 2 point guard lineup how would miller do on the pistons with Dumars as the 1 and Reggie as the 2.

Would it improve the pistons?

From Reggie advocates such as Doctor MJ his offense is more valuable and his defense is a lot better than Isiah who is described as a zero at best.

Holding Reggie to be the better player here and a more natural fit

would Reggie help the pistons more and how much more?



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I would say absolutely not. The Pistons didn't have reliable full-court ball-handlers at the 3, 4, and 5. They needed Isiah to do a huge amount of ball-handling and playmaking while Dumars assumed secondary responsibilities. It's true that Dumars and Thomas would trade off being on ball and off ball when one of them got hot (for instance, if Dumars is hot with his J, Isiah will assume control and continue to hit Dumars coming off screens, and vice versa), but this was not a 50/50 split. Forcing Dumars to assume that type of ball-handling primacy by trading Isiah for Reggie leaves the offense susceptible to stagnation and aggressive perimeter defenses. The team would be more turnover-prone because players at the 3, 4, and 5 would assume ball-handling responsibility they were not equipped to handle.

This of course is not an indictment on Reggie Miller. Playing the "how would Player A do in Player B's role" game rarely makes Player A glow. Isiah for instance couldn't do what Reggie did as an off-ball shooter on Indy.

[Warspite]

Definitely between Miller and Isiah

Question because Dumars and Thomas was a rare 2 point guard lineup how would miller do on the pistons with Dumars as the 1 and Reggie as the 2.

Would it improve the pistons?

From Reggie advocates such as Doctor MJ his offense is more valuable and his defense is a lot better than Isiah who is described as a zero at best.

Holding Reggie to be the better player here and a more natural fit

would Reggie help the pistons more and how much more?


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Reggie being the defensive stopper on MJ, Bird and Magic is a recipe for disaster.

Are you just looking at stats or have you ever seen Reggie Miller and the Bad Boys play? Reggie is James Harden on defense and has less dribble skills than Dirk. The Bad Boys were just too up tempo for Reggie and they liked to bring there big men outside or low post. Reggie needs a double or a triple screen to get an open shot since he cant create his own offense.

[Owly]

**** me!


Vote: Isiah Thomas

1990 Finals MVP with one of the great performances by a PG ever. The legendary Game 6 3rd quarter against LA in 1988. 16 points in like, 94 seconds against New York. 24-10 in the playoffs from 1984-1987. Great skillset for the playoffs. Aggressive, creative, arguably GOAT ball-handler, great passer. Underrated strength for finishing. Detroit was normally top 10 in offense with Isiah at the helm.

To the general points
"Arguably GOAT ball handler" - Way too many turnovers. Creative ball-handler sure. Big role creating for himself and others, sure but ... He's not elite in either turnover % or assist to turnover ratio. You'd have to call him an awful decision maker to say his raw ball handling skills were GOAT.

"Strength for finishing" - Is there data for this? In any case his overall shooting efficiency was mediocre. So again to point out any one strength you have to say his choices negate the effectiveness advantage brought by that strength.

"Normally top 10" - In a field of usually 23 teams. Usually at least slightly above average. That's the bar?
'82: 17th of 23
'83: 11th of 23
'84: 1st of 23
'85: 9th of 23
'86: 7th of 23
'87: 9th of 23
'88: 6th of 23
'89: 7th of 25
'90: 11th of 29
'91: 12th of 29
'92: 15th of 29
'93: 18th of 29
'94: 23rd of 29

So yeah normally a bit above average, sure. Equally though, very rarely in the top quarter. To me that's not proof of causing good offenses it's correlation with above average offenses.

The moments
Yes he's had big moments. And they show up in the boxscore. I don't want to post every down moment, firstly because I don't think they help much about the big picture, as other things do; in part because it's hassle time wise and finally because it may look like baiting the Isiah voters.

The first one is the big one, he's been good in playoffs for sure. But better than Gus Williams, Billups etc?

[Laimbeer]

self-delete

[penbeast0]

Definitely between Miller and Isiah

Question because Dumars and Thomas was a rare 2 point guard lineup how would miller do on the pistons with Dumars as the 1 and Reggie as the 2.

Would it improve the pistons?

From Reggie advocates such as Doctor MJ his offense is more valuable and his defense is a lot better than Isiah who is described as a zero at best.

Holding Reggie to be the better player here and a more natural fit

would Reggie help the pistons more and how much more?



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"his defense is a lot better than Isiah" -- can you post the quote where you saw this? Isiah was a tough, hardnosed, sometimes dirty defender. Reggie was pretty passive, though his length could bother other guards. I am not the biggest Isiah fan here but Isiah had the stronger defensive rep from what I remember.

[Basketballefan]

Vote: Paul Pierce.

Pierce gives you very very good scoring, very good play-making from the SF, pretty good rebounding, and entirely decent (probably underrated) defense.
He can scale it up on a poor or mediocre team, yet has the portability to fit in as #2 (or 1B) on a more talent-laden contender. With the exception of one awful series in '04, he pretty consistently upped his game in playoffs during his prime, and in the last handful of years has (imo) been one of the most clutch guys in the league.

His RAPM data is on par with someone like Dwight Howard, and he's had excellent longevity to boot. Looks good via WOWY data, too.

Couple other tiny statistical tid-bits (other aspects have been previously covered):
He's 25th all-time in career rs WS.
He's 38th all-time in career playoff WS.

This is a solid argument even though i won't be voting Pierce here.

[Basketballefan]

Vote Isiah Thomas.

Thomas gives you solid scoring, great play-making and decent defense from the point guard position.

Thomas' Peak: 21 5 14 53 ts% then 24 4 11 on 57 ts% in the playoffs that year(second round exit)

I find it odd that Thomas' peak is so quickly dismissed, aside from scoring efficiency how far off is it from Cp3's 08 & 09 seasons?

On top of that Thomas is a leader that won 2 championships as the best player, yes the defense deserves a lot of credit but sorry that team goes nowhere without Isiah there to run the offense.

[RSCD3_]

Definitely between Miller and Isiah

Question because Dumars and Thomas was a rare 2 point guard lineup how would miller do on the pistons with Dumars as the 1 and Reggie as the 2.

Would it improve the pistons?

From Reggie advocates such as Doctor MJ his offense is more valuable and his defense is a lot better than Isiah who is described as a zero at best.

Holding Reggie to be the better player here and a more natural fit

would Reggie help the pistons more and how much more?



Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

"his defense is a lot better than Isiah" -- can you post the quote where you saw this? Isiah was a tough, hardnosed, sometimes dirty defender. Reggie was pretty passive, though his length could bother other guards. I am not the biggest Isiah fan here but Isiah had the stronger defensive rep from what I remember.

I've just heard it a lot that he was the weakest defender on the starting five who were all good to very good, one being a point guard if you subscribe to the small-wing-big positional impact theory.

There's not any RAPM values we have for Isiah and while being pesky and certainly not a harden on that it's been hammered into my head reading a lot of posts about him and from the games I've watched he doesn't standout much on that end.


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[Quotatious]

Vote - Isiah Thomas

Good scorer (makes up for his unimpressive efficiency with elite shot-creation abilities off the dribble), very good playmaker/facilitator and overall offensive player. Very good playoff performer, good longevity. Elite intangibles/competitiveness/leadership (I don't really like this argument because it's very difficult to measure things like that objectively, but with regards to Isiah, that's something pretty obvious, and it definitely works in his favor), apparently pretty solid offensive impact (led the best offensive team in the NBA in 1984, and top 10 offensive teams for 6 straight seasons, from 1984 to 1989).

Why Isiah over Pierce? Better playoff performer, that's pretty much the only reason.

[DQuinn1575]

Definitely between Miller and Isiah

Question because Dumars and Thomas was a rare 2 point guard lineup how would miller do on the pistons with Dumars as the 1 and Reggie as the 2.

Would it improve the pistons?

From Reggie advocates such as Doctor MJ his offense is more valuable and his defense is a lot better than Isiah who is described as a zero at best.

Holding Reggie to be the better player here and a more natural fit

would Reggie help the pistons more and how much more?



Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

"his defense is a lot better than Isiah" -- can you post the quote where you saw this? Isiah was a tough, hardnosed, sometimes dirty defender. Reggie was pretty passive, though his length could bother other guards. I am not the biggest Isiah fan here but Isiah had the stronger defensive rep from what I remember.

Isiah was an above average defender who gets downgraded when compared to dumars rodman and mahorn. He was quick, a good leaper, and schooled well in high school and college.

Reggie miller has one skill, that he did exceptionally well, get yourself open for shots and convert. He didn't pass dribble rebound or play much defense.

I've been voting for Sam jones- a very good all around player who was the scoring leader on a true dynasty, and was second best player on 5-6 champ teams. I really don't see a good case for Reggie or pierce over sam. For Isiah I have to downgrade dumars and the rest of the Pistons to get there, and I guess I can't quite get there.

The celts won as many titles as magic and Jordan combined and we have pippen and jabbar in. From the celts besides russell we have Havlicek, who contributed less to the 11 titles than Sam.
And remaining in the top we have worthy rodman to get in along with maybe Cousy.

Vote for SAM JONES




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[penbeast0]

I've just heard it a lot that he was the weakest defender on the starting five who were all good to very good, one being a point guard if you subscribe to the small-wing-big positional impact theory.

There's not any RAPM values we have for Isiah and while being pesky and certainly not a harden on that it's been hammered into my head reading a lot of posts about him and from the games I've watched he doesn't standout much on that end.


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When he was playing, we used to have a lot of Isiah v. Stockton debates and generally even the Stockton fans considered Isiah to have a slight defensive edge.

Stockton got more All-Def votes though; either because of his high steal totals or because the people voting were better judges of defense than those of us more casual fans; RAPM seems to confirm Stockton as a pretty good defender if I remember right.

[Jaivl]

Vote: Dikembe Mutombo

Well, this is hard for me. I've been voting for Mutombo the last 5 spots or so, but right now my favourite player (Isiah) is being championed at this spot. Still, the points still stand.

-Dikembe is more capable of carring a good defense than Isiah is of carring a good offense, despite having way worse support. Huge dRAPM numbers confirm this as well.

Spoiler:

Isiah's relevant offenses (all strong casts):

('81 without Isiah: 23th of 23)
'82: 17th of 23

'84: 1st of 23
'88: 6th of 23
'89: 7th of 25

'93: 18th of 27
'94: 23rd of 27 (decline)
('95 without Isiah: 24th of 27)

Mutombo's relevant defenses:

('91 Denver without Deke: 27th of 27)
'92: 13th of 27
'94: 5th of 27

('96 Atlanta without Deke: 16th of 29)
'97: 3rd of 29
'99: 2nd of 29

'02: 4th of 29
'03: 1st of 29 (strong cast)

-Isiah is a strong playoff performer, but Mutombo is too:

Spoiler:

'94 playoffs: 13.3 points, 12.0 rebounds, 5.8 blocks, upset the #1 seed and take the Karl/Stock Utah to 7 games.
'97 playoffs: 15.4 points, 12.3 rebounds, 2.6 blocks on 67.4 TS%, Jordan (50.6 TS%) and Pippen (52.4 TS%) couldn't score in the paint).
'01 playoffs: 13.9 points, 13.7 rebounds, 3.1 blocks, -14.1 defensive on/off, gets destroyed by Shaq on the peak of his powers.

-Longevity: 1196 games (997 as a starter), against Thomas' 979 (921 without the '94 season).

-Way more portable impact, can fit on nearly every team.

[Owly]

Definitely between Miller and Isiah

Question because Dumars and Thomas was a rare 2 point guard lineup how would miller do on the pistons with Dumars as the 1 and Reggie as the 2.

Would it improve the pistons?

From Reggie advocates such as Doctor MJ his offense is more valuable and his defense is a lot better than Isiah who is described as a zero at best.

Holding Reggie to be the better player here and a more natural fit

would Reggie help the pistons more and how much more?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Reggie being the defensive stopper on MJ, Bird and Magic is a recipe for disaster.

Are you just looking at stats or have you ever seen Reggie Miller and the Bad Boys play? Reggie is James Harden on defense and has less dribble skills than Dirk. The Bad Boys were just too up tempo for Reggie and they liked to bring there big men outside or low post. Reggie needs a double or a triple screen to get an open shot since he cant create his own offense.

What question were you reading? Because I saw something to the effect of "What happens if you replace Thomas with Miller and shift Dumars (and implicitly Vinnie) to the one?"

You appear to have read "Reggie could blanket Larry Bird" and "How would Reggie do if Detroit decided to set no screens for him?" Then there's the explicit statement that Reggie "needs" 2 or more screens, and "can't create his own offense.
Incidentally ...

If defenders crowd him, has confidence in both his midrange jumper and soon-to-be-patented floater: a high-arching job launched on the move off one foot ... Will pull up on the break and hit the three-pointer or get jumper off screens, but also can create his own shot

In the last several years, he’s markedly improved his ability to get to the hoop with either hand, draw the foul, and make the foul shot

Yes, he remains one of the league’s most potent and prolific three-point shooters (40.9% on about five attempts per), but he’s also and aggressive driver, who can go both ways, gets to the line frequently, and makes his foul shots (88% during the regular season, 7th in the league)

And while primarily a jump shooter, Reggie can take it to the hole with either hand and frequently gets fouled on his ventures to the hoop (5.6 free throws per, and, as we’ve seen, he doesn’t miss free throws).

etc
So whilst I’m not so bullish as others on his ability to scale up and create for himself more than he consistently did as others here are, the notion that he can’t create his own offense is clearly ludicrous.

Then there’s the notion that “The Bad Boys were just too up tempo for Reggie”.
The "Bad Boys" label refers first and foremost to the ’89 championship team (with Mahorn).
1989 Detroit Pistons Pace: 95.5 (possessions per 48), 25th out of 25.
Their other title year they’re 26th of 27 behind only Bill Musselman’s “I call all the plays, keep it slow and the score will look respectable” expansion Timberwolves.
There was a time when Detroit played a fast pace, but they were neither the “Bad Boys” teams nor real contenders. The claim that Reggie couldn't keep up with that pace just doesn't stand up to any examination.

Vote - Isiah Thomas

Good scorer (makes up for his unimpressive efficiency with elite shot-creation abilities off the dribble),

Does he though? Apart from '86, when he combines his best years for foul drawing and fg% and his third best for ft%, his ts% is never so much as average (which hovers around .540 over the 80s)

Nor even within the context of his times was he a floor spacer (72nd of 105 in 3pt % from his rookie year to '90 amongst those taking 200 or more during that span, and with an notably worse ft% than many around him casting further doubt about his credibility as a shooter).
cf: http://bkref.com/tiny/Sqke3

very good playmaker/facilitator

Prolific passer from '84-'86. But even then with substantial turnovers. But at that point maybe it's an acceptable by product of the burden. Thereafter the turnover% goes up but the assist % goes down and it starts to look less impressive.

and overall offensive player.

Based on the above I don't think I'd describe the offensive package as "very good" with the exception of the three peak offensive/boxscore years.

Very good playoff performer

Fine but by what bar? Would this describe Gus Williams? Shawn Kemp? Dolph Schayes?

good longevity

Really? What (how many) years do you have him as noteworthy, impactful on championship odds calibre player?

Elite intangibles/competitiveness/leadership (I don't really like this argument because it's very difficult to measure things like that objectively, but with regards to Isiah, that's something pretty obvious, and it definitely works in his favor),

If this is purely off court I'll just say what I said last thread and say fine he was competitive, but we don't really know the impact and there was a HoF coach and other tough competitors (Laimbeer, Dumars, Mahorn etc).

But given the apparent confidence in this argument ("elite" "obvious" etc) the discussion of the relevence of him as a GM in thread 35 might be worth looking at ...

Spoiler:

I also have to bring up - and I know a lot of people don't see this as fair - Isiah's time as GM. Because aside from being one of the worst GMs in modern history, what was noteworthy was his obsession with guys whose best attribute was scoring. He was in love with Marbury saying he could be among the handful of greatest point guards in history. Brought in Francis, drafted Nate "I can't tell if you're open because I can't see you" Robinson. And that was just among point guards. The trend continued elsewhere.

To me that's not the behavior of the super-IQ playmaker, nor the tough-as-nails galvanizer of defenses. That's the behavior of a guy who most saw the game through a lens of scoring. And if he did, well then all the more reason to say he was lucky as hell to be with a coach and a team that emphasized his playmaking and focused on defense.

To put it simply, I don't see how his time as a GM should have any effect on his ranking. This project is about playing careers, not coaching or GMing. You're making assumptions about his mindset as a player based on actions he made after his playing career was over.

-----

I'm curious to see how you feel about this.

And for the record, i'd love to penalize isiah for his horrendous time as a GM in NY. After so many grating press conferences over the years, I have a hard time even watching him on NBA TV these days. I can't see holding that against him in this project, though.

I don't think anyone should say he's a bad GM therefore his playing career is worse than it would have been without that.

But if the case is that he somehow sacrificied his individual numbers (when his usage numbers 87-90 are a little higher than his three year boxscore peak, his assist % numbers are down and his turnover % numbers generally a little up) but made the team better and the evidence is thin and based on some notion he had a special understanding of the game (this not at any one poster here but is, more generally, the implied, Isiah sacraficed, he was the main cause argument) then I think looking at his other basketball ventures is legitimate. If people aren't arguing for that (Isiah equals remarkable BBIQ related intangiables), then the GM stuff is probably irrelevant, but if they are then perhaps it isn't.

Owly gave a great response, but in my own words:

1. I'm totally fine with you brushing this factor off.

2. I'm not saying anyone should put a direct penalty on a player if he does a bad job as a GM.

3. But when so much of a player's case is based on intangibles, we're already making our guess as to what was going on in his head while he played. If his time as a GM gives us better visibility into his head, I don't see how it makes sense to ignore that.

And in Isiah's case it's a very specific issue. I don't think much of McHale as a coach or a GM, but it's hard for me to see how that's relevant when looking at a career where he put up numbers that are so indisputable in a successful cause. But if you're making any argument along the lines of "You have to understand, Isiah was far better than someone like Iverson because first and foremost he was a guy who understood what was going on around him and doing just what was needed to be done", you have to at least admit that it was weird that Isiah didn't seem to be looking for that kind of ability at all from his players and instead focused on individual scoring ability in pretty much exactly the way we'd expect a casual fan, or Iverson, or anyone else who didn't understand the nuances of team basketball to do if he were a GM.

With Isiah I always come down saying that I'm not trying to sell him short. I see the stats and the accolades. I'm fine rating him in accordance to what those things say. But there's always been a vocal group of supporters who like Isiah saw him as the #4 player of his era, with a not so big gap between him and the Big 3 (Bird/Magic/Jordan) and a clear gap between everyone else, and that's the group that requires a leap of faith in Isiah that I just don't see any reason to take.

As I say all of this, I could see someone coming back at this stage saying, "Well sure but we aren't voting for Top 10 guys any more, it's time for Isiah to get in." That's understandable, I just still have some other guys not in yet I rate ahead of him.

apparently pretty solid offensive impact (led the best offensive team in the NBA in 1984, and top 10 offensive teams for 6 straight seasons, from 1984 to 1989).

In a 23 team league. So sure, solid. I'm just not sure that's the bar at this point.

Why Isiah over Pierce? Better playoff performer, that's pretty much the only reason.

For me, the thing is Pierce has so much else over him (mainly, what I percieve as the much better, longer, more impactful prime, reflected in clearly superior career metrics and I believe a better defender).But hey, each to their own.