RealGM Top 100 List #42

[Owly]

Also one might at this point raise the issue that the ability to volume score at below average efficiency might help pull an awful team towards the middle, but it might also do the same to a good team.

Uh, I'm not sure if you meant to say that it "might NOT" do the same to a good team. If so, I agree (generally so, anyway), and said as much in my post. If that isn't a typo, and you are indeed saying volume scoring on below average efficiency may HELP an already good team.....I could see it being the case in a very limited number of circumstances, but would otherwise ask you to elaborate.
At any rate, that contention seems somewhat out of place within your post, as it would seem to put Hayes's skill-set in higher general regard; whereas the post is otherwise highly critical of him.

Wow, I get

tbh, I feel like you're being petulant here

for using an anchoring argument, and you then lead with it in pro Cousy argument.....(snip)

Sorry if this comes off aggressive, but was pretty tetchy after taking shots for making an argument but getting no real engagement and then seeing the exact same line of reasoning....(snip)

Yeah, it comes off as aggressive. I'm sorry I bruised your ego a bit previously. tbh, I almost prefaced my Bob Cousy post with a disclaimer that it was not meant to be like Owly's Gus Williams post (which---imo, although I'm pretty certain I wasn't alone in this perception---came across as kinda "sour grapes"......which I think is part of why no one really engaged you on the topic). The only reason I didn't make such a disclaimer was out of consideration for you (but I was worried it would be perceived as such).

I'll grant you there are some parallels to be pointed out between Williams and Thomas (though I still disagree that it's any "more similar" than it is to Cousy, other than eras being similar/same).

But ultimately it's the set-up to your comparison of Williams/Thomas wherein lies the primary difference between my Cousy post and your Williams post:
You'd made it painstakingly clear that you felt Thomas had no business whatsoever in the top 40. Almost derisively critical posts about Thomas comprised about 80-90% of the content you were providing throughout the #38 and #39 threads........And then you used a comparison to Thomas (in which you more or less called it a wash) as your support case for Gus Williams.

Added to that: Gus Williams, looked at through a "conventional" lens, or with "status quo thinking" as it were, is not someone who is even going to come up in conversation near the top 50. A statistical analysis certainly indicates that history as under-appreciated him, but still not to the degree of top 50 status.

Now given all of that, can you truly not see how your Williams post came across as sour grapes? You spent five days emphatically arguing that Thomas doesn't belong, and then for the very next spot said, "Here's someone who's basically the same, we should vote him in now." How are we supposed to take that seriously?

Similarities to Thomas (which we can agree to disagree on) aside, THIS (the above) is the big difference between our respective comparisons. I was not the one going on at length about how I felt Thomas had no place. You may note that although I didn't vote for him in the #39 run-off, I didn't vote against him either; I intentionally abstained out of indecision (i.e. to me he was appropriate enough of a candidate for the spot).

And whereas I suspect (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that you don't actually have Gus Williams in the vicinity of #40 on your own ATL (which would make a support argument and vote for him a bit......well, petulant, given the circumstances), I actually DO have Cousy in the vicinity of #40 on my ATL.

1) No typo. Hayes in a large role on O might pull a bad team towards the middle and pull a good team towards the middle.

2) It was clear that I don't have Gus in this ballpark. But sour grapes? Isiah is over. He's in. The point is internal consistency. People made a huge deal of Isiah as the best player on champ, playoff performances (better than RS ones) etc It irritates me that Isiah went that high sure, but it irrates me as much that Gus got crickets and cheap shots. Because they have very similar careers. And if you don't believe that to be true discuss the merit of the point, rather than say its churlish to anchor to players already in and then do it yourself.

Added to that: Gus Williams, looked at through a "conventional" lens, or with "status quo thinking" as it were, is not someone who is even going to come up in conversation near the top 50. A statistical analysis certainly indicates that history as under-appreciated him, but still not to the degree of top 50 status.

This bit baffles me. I make a post about huge similarities in their career shape, and I get "That's not the status quo". Is this this a genuine attempt to engage on Isiah-Williams?

The thing is you're debating my intent and the purpose behind my post (Which you can't, in any case, know. Unless I choose to tell you) rather than my points. I see that you think Isiah where he went is reasonable which is fine I saw people I respect go for him or say he was on their radar. But I didn't get much meaningful engagement on why he went except a little from Drza.

To clarify:
1) My point at the time was Isiah is in. This guy looks similar. He looks similar in career shape (poor longevity into 30s, better in playoffs than RS) he has similar playoff performance, he has similar boxscore performance, he has one playoff title run as the clearcut best boxscore player. Looking at the years they seem to have had significant impact on teams title chances, playoff and RS, they look very similar.

My intent was to cause serious thinking as to whether Thomas could be top 40 and Williams peripheral to the top 100, and what internally consistent set of criteria could give that result.

If you think that that's the wrong place for an anchoring debate with a player already in fine but ...

2) My point now is you're using the same exact device as the primary strand of advocacy for a player.

That you feel fine with Isiah where he was and I didn't is neither here nor there. Either anchoring to guys already in is fine or it isn't.

If the latter then your recent post is hypocritical. If, as I believe, your thinking is the former, then you're saying "How dare you vote for a guy you don't have at the top of your list once?" (a vote which at that time was subject to change). To which you knew/know the answer was to make a point. A point which you didn't then engage with. Why the gulf? Why is Isiah so highly regarded and Gus not? And this was a point painstakingly made. It wasn't a joke

Hey everyone I'm voting Tiago Splitter as number ten all time. Because he's the first Brazillian center to win a title.

no serious reasoning, one line, "Ha ha, I've voted for a silly candidate, that'll show them." vote (I do struggle to see why it would be interpreted as that, or how and why that would be done). This was a hey seriously, I can see a lot of people have Isiah here, that's why he's in and people who didn't vote for him have him on their radar but look there's this guy who looks really similar to me (and I've mentioned him already) and if you value titles and playoffs (and some perceptions of impact), and short prime about Isiah there's this guy who seems similar, maybe he isn't but if not can you tell me why?

If anchoring questions are legit why not engage rather then start ad hom attacks.

[john248]

How was Schayes's defense? I will admit that it's tough for me to support a guy who used a set shot, but at least he was right around league average for his time. The FT% is nice to for end game especially, and he, at least statistically, seemed like a willing passer. His team had some nice season offensively in 52, 53, 59, 60, 63; defensively 52-56, and 62. How much credit does he get here?

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Alonzo Mourning

Wow, so between these two, Zo by a mile for me.

So first off, I was leaning toward Zo anyway. His longevity is something that definitely concerns me, but I haven't seen cases made for other candidates that have put them ahead of him.

Over to Schayes. Bottom line is this:

I have to interpret him as essentially the Dirk of his age...
Except a lot shorter
And dependent on a set shot which simply wouldn't work today
And still not very efficient once league competition picked up even back then.

When I look at guys from back then, I have to ask myself: "Is there a good chance he simply wouldn't be able to play anything like that today and succeed?" Obviously, the bigger that chance, the less confident I am in putting him high up on a GOAT list.

Among the '50s era guys who are likely to come up in this project, Schayes is the one who I have by far the most concerns with, and I say this as a guy with a lot of concerns about MIkan and Cousy.

For perspective here: If Dirk were 4 inches shorter, what is he in the NBA right now? Kyle Korver maybe? I really don't see how you can see him as anything close to a lock to be an NBA all-star. That's the height we're talking about with Schayes, except he's far less proven being that kind of elite shooter - both because he never faced modern NBA defenses, and because he couldn't manage to make his efficiency scale even back then.

[Doctor MJ]

No, just using it has a shortcut.. For 1963-1966 he had best TS% and best scoring average on team. 61 and 62 he led in TS% but not in scoring.

Well right but his TS% wasn't actually very good, and he was playing on a team basically punting on offense in favor of a defensive focus. It's a little bit like championing the top offensive rebounder on a team that makes a point to rush back on defense rather than crashing the boards.

Not saying Sam isn't in my Top 100, because he is, but red flags go off with me when I see arguments along the lines of "he was the lead X on that Celtic mega-dynasty" because it can easily devolve to the point where someone starts thinking "well we haven't voted one of the Celtics in in a while, seems like it's probably time".

[tsherkin]

Not really impressed by Schayes, but definitely impressed by Zo's D, efficiency and J.

VOTE: Alonzo Mourning

[DQuinn1575]

No, just using it has a shortcut.. For 1963-1966 he had best TS% and best scoring average on team. 61 and 62 he led in TS% but not in scoring.

Well right but his TS% wasn't actually very good, and he was playing on a team basically punting on offense in favor of a defensive focus. It's a little bit like championing the top offensive rebounder on a team that makes a point to rush back on defense rather than crashing the boards.

Not saying Sam isn't in my Top 100, because he is, but red flags go off with me when I see arguments along the lines of "he was the lead X on that Celtic mega-dynasty" because it can easily devolve to the point where someone starts thinking "well we haven't voted one of the Celtics in in a while, seems like it's probably time".

True Shooting TS% is all relative; Sam Jones was above league average his
first 11 years:


Sam Lg Diff
1958 0.482 0.449 0.033
1959 0.482 0.457 0.025
1960 0.500 0.463 0.037
1961 0.493 0.469 0.024
1962 0.507 0.479 0.028
1963 0.518 0.493 0.025
1964 0.491 0.485 0.006
1965 0.505 0.479 0.026
1966 0.521 0.487 0.034
1967 0.508 0.493 0.015
1968 0.513 0.498 0.015
1969 0.481 0.491 (0.010)



The difference is you can win a game without offensive rebounds; you can't win
without points. The simple fact is you want to take better shots than your opponents.
And Sam Jones was the guy on the Celtics who did so.

Look at how Sam was the difference, as the Celtics' opponents had a better TS% than
the other Celtics 4 years in a row:

Others Opp Sam

1962 0.480 0.490 0.533
1963 0.441 0.505 0.517
1964 0.433 0.440 0.600
1965 0.465 0.499 0.528

[trex_8063]

Spoiler:

Also one might at this point raise the issue that the ability to volume score at below average efficiency might help pull an awful team towards the middle, but it might also do the same to a good team.

Uh, I'm not sure if you meant to say that it "might NOT" do the same to a good team. If so, I agree (generally so, anyway), and said as much in my post. If that isn't a typo, and you are indeed saying volume scoring on below average efficiency may HELP an already good team.....I could see it being the case in a very limited number of circumstances, but would otherwise ask you to elaborate.
At any rate, that contention seems somewhat out of place within your post, as it would seem to put Hayes's skill-set in higher general regard; whereas the post is otherwise highly critical of him.

Wow, I get for using an anchoring argument, and you then lead with it in pro Cousy argument.....(snip)

Sorry if this comes off aggressive, but was pretty tetchy after taking shots for making an argument but getting no real engagement and then seeing the exact same line of reasoning....(snip)

Yeah, it comes off as aggressive. I'm sorry I bruised your ego a bit previously. tbh, I almost prefaced my Bob Cousy post with a disclaimer that it was not meant to be like Owly's Gus Williams post (which---imo, although I'm pretty certain I wasn't alone in this perception---came across as kinda "sour grapes"......which I think is part of why no one really engaged you on the topic). The only reason I didn't make such a disclaimer was out of consideration for you (but I was worried it would be perceived as such).

I'll grant you there are some parallels to be pointed out between Williams and Thomas (though I still disagree that it's any "more similar" than it is to Cousy, other than eras being similar/same).

But ultimately it's the set-up to your comparison of Williams/Thomas wherein lies the primary difference between my Cousy post and your Williams post:
You'd made it painstakingly clear that you felt Thomas had no business whatsoever in the top 40. Almost derisively critical posts about Thomas comprised about 80-90% of the content you were providing throughout the #38 and #39 threads........And then you used a comparison to Thomas (in which you more or less called it a wash) as your support case for Gus Williams.

Added to that: Gus Williams, looked at through a "conventional" lens, or with "status quo thinking" as it were, is not someone who is even going to come up in conversation near the top 50. A statistical analysis certainly indicates that history as under-appreciated him, but still not to the degree of top 50 status.

Now given all of that, can you truly not see how your Williams post came across as sour grapes? You spent five days emphatically arguing that Thomas doesn't belong, and then for the very next spot said, "Here's someone who's basically the same, we should vote him in now." How are we supposed to take that seriously?

Similarities to Thomas (which we can agree to disagree on) aside, THIS (the above) is the big difference between our respective comparisons. I was not the one going on at length about how I felt Thomas had no place. You may note that although I didn't vote for him in the #39 run-off, I didn't vote against him either; I intentionally abstained out of indecision (i.e. to me he was appropriate enough of a candidate for the spot).

And whereas I suspect (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that you don't actually have Gus Williams in the vicinity of #40 on your own ATL (which would make a support argument and vote for him a bit......well, petulant, given the circumstances), I actually DO have Cousy in the vicinity of #40 on my ATL.

1) No typo. Hayes in a large role on O might pull a bad team towards the middle and pull a good team towards the middle.

2) It was clear that I don't have Gus in this ballpark. But sour grapes? Isiah is over. He's in. The point is internal consistency. People made a huge deal of Isiah as the best player on champ, playoff performances (better than RS ones) etc It irritates me that Isiah went that high sure, but it irrates me as much that Gus got crickets and cheap shots. Because they have very similar careers. And if you don't believe that to be true discuss the merit of the point, rather than say its churlish to anchor to players already in and then do it yourself.

Added to that: Gus Williams, looked at through a "conventional" lens, or with "status quo thinking" as it were, is not someone who is even going to come up in conversation near the top 50. A statistical analysis certainly indicates that history as under-appreciated him, but still not to the degree of top 50 status.

This bit baffles me. I make a post about huge similarities in their career shape, and I get "That's not the status quo". Is this this a genuine attempt to engage on Isiah-Williams?

The thing is you're debating my intent and the purpose behind my post (Which you can't, in any case, know. Unless I choose to tell you) rather than my points. I see that you think Isiah where he went is reasonable which is fine I saw people I respect go for him or say he was on their radar. But I didn't get much meaningful engagement on why he went except a little from Drza.

To clarify:
1) My point at the time was Isiah is in. This guy looks similar. He looks similar in career shape (poor longevity into 30s, better in playoffs than RS) he has similar playoff performance, he has similar boxscore performance, he has one playoff title run as the clearcut best boxscore player. Looking at the years they seem to have had significant impact on teams title chances, playoff and RS, they look very similar.

My intent was to cause serious thinking as to whether Thomas could be top 40 and Williams peripheral to the top 100, and what internally consistent set of criteria could give that result.

If you think that that's the wrong place for an anchoring debate with a player already in fine but ...

2) My point now is you're using the same exact device as the primary strand of advocacy for a player.

That you feel fine with Isiah where he was and I didn't is neither here nor there. Either anchoring to guys already in is fine or it isn't.

If the latter then your recent post is hypocritical. If, as I believe, your thinking is the former, then you're saying "How dare you vote for a guy you don't have at the top of your list once?" (a vote which at that time was subject to change). To which you knew/know the answer was to make a point. A point which you didn't then engage with. Why the gulf? Why is Isiah so highly regarded and Gus not? And this was a point painstakingly made. It wasn't a joke

Hey everyone I'm voting Tiago Splitter as number ten all time. Because he's the first Brazillian center to win a title.

no serious reasoning, one line, "Ha ha, I've voted for a silly candidate, that'll show them." vote (I do struggle to see why it would be interpreted as that, or how and why that would be done). This was a hey seriously, I can see a lot of people have Isiah here, that's why he's in and people who didn't vote for him have him on their radar but look there's this guy who looks really similar to me (and I've mentioned him already) and if you value titles and playoffs (and some perceptions of impact), and short prime about Isiah there's this guy who seems similar, maybe he isn't but if not can you tell me why?

If anchoring questions are legit why not engage rather then start ad hom attacks.

Will respond to a few points.....

1) It was clear that I don't have Gus in this ballpark. But sour grapes? Isiah is over. He's in. The point is internal consistency. People made a huge deal of Isiah as the best player on champ, playoff performances (better than RS ones) etc It irritates me that Isiah went that high sure, but it irrates me as much that Gus got crickets and cheap shots.

A fair point regarding internal consistency.

As to Gus getting "crickets and cheap shots"......your approach (for me, at least, and I suspect for others) was off-putting. There are plenty of players to discuss at each spot, and many of us spend too much time posting on this forum already......so we might not be willing to spend additional time engaging you to discuss: a) one player who is already in (and who I think for many was a relief to be past his induction, after multiple threads of spirited disagreement), b) another player who we know is not a serious candidate; especially given c) the context (groundwork laid in previous threads), which may have made some feel as if they were being baited.


2) This bit baffles me. I make a post about huge similarities in their career shape, and I get "That's not the status quo". Is this this a genuine attempt to engage on Isiah-Williams?

No, this was not an attempt to engage on the Isiah-Williams topic. It was merely an added bit of explanation as to why people might be uninterested in engaging on the topic (i.e. "status quo tells me it's not close, so why waste the time?"). More on status quo thinking toward the end.....


3) The thing is you're debating my intent and the purpose behind my post (Which you can't, in any case, know. Unless I choose to tell you) rather than my points.

I saw your points, and I did more or less correctly deduce the surface of what you were saying. What I misinterpreted was your motive or WHY you were making this comparison. I thought you were irritated by Thomas's induction, and were simply blowing off steam by pointing out many glaring similarities to a player you know hasn't a snowball's chance in you know where of getting in any time soon (and thereby discrediting Thomas's placement). But in fact, you were making a point about internal consistency:

My intent was to cause serious thinking as to whether Thomas could be top 40 and Williams peripheral to the top 100, and what internally consistent set of criteria could give that result.


An intriguing point. A lot of it goes back to the status quo, and although I wasn't supporting Thomas that early, I suppose I'm "guilty" of not veering overly far from the status quo (or at least not all at once).

While there are a lot of "noisy" factors that can contribute to the status quo (media narrative, accolades, popularity, luck, etc), I'd like to believe some of those things (the narratives and accolades) aren't manifested out of thin air. I'd like to think that part of reason Isiah was so vaunted (and Gus was not) has some basis in reality, some impression of impact or actual impact (that is only intangible to us now because the data didn't exist then).

I realize that based on the statistical info we have for these two, Gus looks completely in the same league as Thomas. However, there are ample examples of where the boxscore and boxscore-based metrics don't adequately tell the whole picture. A great example is Jason Kidd.

Kidd's efficiency was highly criticized (is even worse than Thomas's), and he only twice had a PER >20, peaking at 22.5; prime PER around 19, career of 17.9. WS/48 rate him perhaps marginally better.
Yet in RAPM he was 5th in the league for three consecutive years ('02-'04), and then 6th in the league the year after that. His PER was >20 only one of those years. In '02 he was 5th in RAPM, and 2nd in MVP voting.....but his PER and WS/48 that year were just 19.1 and .140 respectively. During his "statistically best" year ('99: PER 22.5, .188 WS/48), he was only 24th in the league in RAPM.

And for these "big impact" years, his very nice RAPM's weren't all from defense. Yes, his DRAPM was good, but the majority of his + came on the offensive end (in spite of his poor efficiency and "run-of-the-mill All-Star" boxscore metrics). Here is his league rank in ORAPM by year during that stretch:

'02--->tied for 4th
'03--->tied for 4th
'04--->tied for 10th
'05--->tied for 9th

His ORAPM rank during his best "statistical" year ('99): 11th.

We all know there aren't any really good and consistent boxscore metrics to gauge defense; but there are character studies like this which imply that the offensive metrics can leave much to be desired, too.
But it seems like this impact (which we now have something which attempts to quantify it) was somehow perceptible back in '02, for instance, when Kidd finished 2nd in MVP voting (in spite of being just 36th in PER, 59th in WS/48, and his individual ORtg was not even in the top 150 (yet his ORAPM was tied for 4th).

There are certainly other examples where impact data far exceeds what we see in standard and advanced metrics (Rasheed Wallace, Steve Nash---and in Nash's case, the perception of his value/impact was there: ahem, 2 MVP's).

So looping back to Isiah, I'd like to believe that some of his reputation, his accolades, and ultimately his "status quo" ranking has its roots in a perception of impact (which is hopefully at least partly real/justified). And for Gus, perhaps this level of impact was not perceived at the time (and perhaps that perception was correct).

I realize I'm grasping at hypothetical straws to justify the status quo here. But I do genuinely believe those notions about some of these players came from somewhere, that the entire basketball world didn't simply "have it all wrong" at the time. Where we lack the impact data, I do think we should accept the perception of the media and professional peers of the time as having some degree of value and correctness.

I hope that's an adequate explanation of how I feel about the status quo. Am I saying we take it, and we take all of his accolades at face value? No, I am most certainly not saying that. But nor do I think these things should be utterly disregarded (particularly for those players of pre-databall eras).

It is this part of things (plus the 1-2 more prime seasons Isiah has on Gus) that separates the two. Should that account for 50-60 places? No. And I (perhaps many of us) need to re-evaluate where we have Gus (and Isiah??, whom I don't have in my top 40, fwiw).

[Moonbeam]

Over to Schayes. Bottom line is this:

I have to interpret him as essentially the Dirk of his age...
Except a lot shorter
And dependent on a set shot which simply wouldn't work today
And still not very efficient once league competition picked up even back then.

When I look at guys from back then, I have to ask myself: "Is there a good chance he simply wouldn't be able to play anything like that today and succeed?" Obviously, the bigger that chance, the less confident I am in putting him high up on a GOAT list.

Among the '50s era guys who are likely to come up in this project, Schayes is the one who I have by far the most concerns with, and I say this as a guy with a lot of concerns about MIkan and Cousy.

For perspective here: If Dirk were 4 inches shorter, what is he in the NBA right now? Kyle Korver maybe? I really don't see how you can see him as anything close to a lock to be an NBA all-star. That's the height we're talking about with Schayes, except he's far less proven being that kind of elite shooter - both because he never faced modern NBA defenses, and because he couldn't manage to make his efficiency scale even back then.

I think this is a little unfair to Schayes. The set shot worked well enough for him to be a highly efficient scorer. Why assume he couldn't adapt, or play small forward in the modern game? I'm not sure I can get behind cross-era portability concerns, because they are based on hypothetical scenarios.

It's true enough that his efficiency edge disappeared in the early 60s, but he was still above league average until he was 33, and at least 3 TS% higher than league average for each of his first 11 seasons through 1960. I'm not sure it's fair to knock him for dropping off in his twilight years when he was player under 27 MPG.

This was a guy who had a streak of 706 consecutive games and was renowned as a top 10 player for 12 seasons. I understand that being a top 10 player back then wasn't as difficult due to the vastly reduced player pool, but I think he's a rightful legend.

I can completely understand voting for Mourning, though. He and Dwight are likely to be my next votes.

[trex_8063]

Vote: Alonzo Mourning

Wow, so between these two, Zo by a mile for me.

So first off, I was leaning toward Zo anyway. His longevity is something that definitely concerns me, but I haven't seen cases made for other candidates that have put them ahead of him.

Over to Schayes. Bottom line is this:

I have to interpret him as essentially the Dirk of his age...
Except a lot shorter
And dependent on a set shot which simply wouldn't work today

In an era with a 3pt-line?
And at any rate, you've tried in the past to paint this picture of Schayes as a guy who could ONLY score with a set shot, apparently unable to put it on the floor, soft and afraid of contact, etc. But it just doesn't wash; he's got a pretty good foul-draw rate. Here's his FTA/g league rank by year:
'50--->6th
'51--->2nd
'52--->6th
'53--->3rd
'54--->3rd
'55--->4th
'56--->3rd
'57--->3rd
'58--->3rd
'59--->4th
'60--->6th
'61--->6th

That's 12 consecutive years he's no lower than 6th, once as high as 2nd (to only George Mikan that year), SIX times in the top 3. This is NOT something that happens to someone "dependent" on a set-shot.

And still not very efficient once league competition picked up even back then.

When his efficiency fell below league average he was 33 years old. He was still marginally above league average at age 32 (just barely slipping into post-prime) in a league with Russell, Wilt, Baylor, Pettit, Sam Jones, and rookies West, Wilkens, and Robertson.

[penbeast0]

Schayes has consistency, longevity, and a good defensive rep. Clearly good FT shooter with the ability to get to the line. However, he's not head and shoulders above his contemporaries like Mikan and Pettit; he's more on the level of a Larry Foust or Neil Johnston (behind Johnston statistically); give that the league is much weaker, I discount a great deal for that otherwise Mikan rates higher.

Zo is also a great tough player with a good defensive rep and some evidence of unusually good defensive impact. He is clearly the more efficient relative to the league even without discounting the 50s. The big downside (as it is for Dwight), however, is his poor passing ability out of the post. However, given his superior offensive and defensive impact from what I can tell during his prime, I still have to vote for Alonzo Mourning here.

[Doctor MJ]

No, just using it has a shortcut.. For 1963-1966 he had best TS% and best scoring average on team. 61 and 62 he led in TS% but not in scoring.

Well right but his TS% wasn't actually very good, and he was playing on a team basically punting on offense in favor of a defensive focus. It's a little bit like championing the top offensive rebounder on a team that makes a point to rush back on defense rather than crashing the boards.

Not saying Sam isn't in my Top 100, because he is, but red flags go off with me when I see arguments along the lines of "he was the lead X on that Celtic mega-dynasty" because it can easily devolve to the point where someone starts thinking "well we haven't voted one of the Celtics in in a while, seems like it's probably time".

True Shooting TS% is all relative; Sam Jones was above league average his
first 11 years:


Sam Lg Diff
1958 0.482 0.449 0.033
1959 0.482 0.457 0.025
1960 0.500 0.463 0.037
1961 0.493 0.469 0.024
1962 0.507 0.479 0.028
1963 0.518 0.493 0.025
1964 0.491 0.485 0.006
1965 0.505 0.479 0.026
1966 0.521 0.487 0.034
1967 0.508 0.493 0.015
1968 0.513 0.498 0.015
1969 0.481 0.491 (0.010)

Right, when I say "not very good", I mean that we're making a GOAT list here and Jones' relative TS numbers aren't anything that would typically be considered a wow factor. Being 2-3% above league average while not even shooting legit volume is not something that in any era will make you a truly standout scorer. We've got all sorts of guys left with much more impressive numbers on this front.

The difference is you can win a game without offensive rebounds; you can't win
without points. The simple fact is you want to take better shots than your opponents.

That's not actually a valid way to look at things because whatever team you're on, they will score points without you, they'll just be a little less efficient about it, which means a little less effective offense...which is the exact same thing that less offensive rebounds would have.

Now, scoring is something that takes up more energy for most players than offensive rebounding, so I'm not discounting your point entirely. I made my analogy to emphasize the issue, and hence chose something that exaggerates it a bit. Fine for you to note that, as long as you also accept the fact that the lead scorer on a team with an incompetent offense isn't by any means converting nothing to something. There's just not that much worse it can get.

And Sam Jones was the guy on the Celtics who did so.

Look at how Sam was the difference, as the Celtics' opponents had a better TS% than
the other Celtics 4 years in a row:

Others Opp Sam

1962 0.480 0.490 0.533
1963 0.441 0.505 0.517
1964 0.433 0.440 0.600
1965 0.465 0.499 0.528

First thing: I'm not actually sure what you're numbers refer to. They aren't Sam's RS or PS numbers. Are you referring to the finals?

Beyond that let me first acknowledge that I think Jones was the best scorer on the team, and that helped make an important part of what they did.

But at the same time, this wasn't a guy shooting at high volume all the time. This was a guy that Russell reported had said didn't feel comfortable carrying the heavy load every night. Just didn't have the mentality for that. When you add that factor together with the fact that the Celtic offense sucked and could have really used someone who constantly brought the scoring, it makes me all the more uncomfortable looking at Jones as the guy who put the team above water. He was valuable yes, but he didn't "make it all okay". This was a team with a poorly performing offense where no particular player shouldered an utterly massive load, and so no player should be characterized as if what he was doing was in any way "just as important".

My apologies with that if you feel I'm putting words in your mouth. That's not my intent. I know full well that this is spot 42 not spot 3 where Russell got voted in. My focus here is simply that it's easy for an analyst to fall back on mysticism at any stage in the process, and what I want us all to stay focused on is that Jones was a guy doing X, Y, and Z just like other guys were.

Put another way: The fact that Jones was better at volume & efficiency than his own teammates is not a substitute argument to overcome Player X if Player X shot at higher volume, better efficiency, and led better offenses simply because Jones and his teammates won a lot of titles.

I'll note specifically Adrian Dantley at this point. I don't have a problem with people voting Jones over Dantley to be honest - I can see arguments based on being an all-around teammate - but the arguments you're making here don't seem to me to be relevant at all to that type of rival comparison. And by contrast: For the guys Jones can claim superior objective individual data, the narrative angle you add isn't much needed anyway.

[Clyde Frazier]

In the first 8 seasons of mourning's career he missed significant time in 3 seasons:

94 - 22 games
97 - 16 games
98 - 24 games

This was before the kidney problems (that started going into his 9th season). On average, he missed 11.25 games per season over those first 8 seasons. Mourning was tough as nails, but he was injury prone throughout his prime.

He had an impressive peak (2x DPOY, 2 top 5 MVP finishes, 2x all NBA), but again longevity comes into question here.

In 94, the hornets failed to make the playoffs. In 98, the heat got eliminated in the first round. In his best playoff run with the heat, he had a poor showing getting eliminated in the ECF by the bulls (5 games):

15.6 PPG, 9.4 RPG, .8 APG, .8 BPG, 5.4 TOPG, 46.8% FG, 64.7% FT, 56.2% TS

[Scored 19.8 PPG on 57.8% TS in reg season]

Yes, it was against the eventual champion bulls, but the heat still ranked 4th in SRS that season. The assists vs. TOs is kinda crazy, and embodies how the heat unraveled against the bulls.

[Doctor MJ]

Over to Schayes. Bottom line is this:

I have to interpret him as essentially the Dirk of his age...
Except a lot shorter
And dependent on a set shot which simply wouldn't work today
And still not very efficient once league competition picked up even back then.

When I look at guys from back then, I have to ask myself: "Is there a good chance he simply wouldn't be able to play anything like that today and succeed?" Obviously, the bigger that chance, the less confident I am in putting him high up on a GOAT list.

Among the '50s era guys who are likely to come up in this project, Schayes is the one who I have by far the most concerns with, and I say this as a guy with a lot of concerns about MIkan and Cousy.

For perspective here: If Dirk were 4 inches shorter, what is he in the NBA right now? Kyle Korver maybe? I really don't see how you can see him as anything close to a lock to be an NBA all-star. That's the height we're talking about with Schayes, except he's far less proven being that kind of elite shooter - both because he never faced modern NBA defenses, and because he couldn't manage to make his efficiency scale even back then.

I think this is a little unfair to Schayes. The set shot worked well enough for him to be a highly efficient scorer. Why assume he couldn't adapt, or play small forward in the modern game? I'm not sure I can get behind cross-era portability concerns, because they are based on hypothetical scenarios.

It's true enough that his efficiency edge disappeared in the early 60s, but he was still above league average until he was 33, and at least 3 TS% higher than league average for each of his first 11 seasons through 1960. I'm not sure it's fair to knock him for dropping off in his twilight years when he was player under 27 MPG.

This was a guy who had a streak of 706 consecutive games and was renowned as a top 10 player for 12 seasons. I understand that being a top 10 player back then wasn't as difficult due to the vastly reduced player pool, but I think he's a rightful legend.

I can completely understand voting for Mourning, though. He and Dwight are likely to be my next votes.

2 things:

1) The set shot is, imho, inherently easier than the jump shot for most people just as it's easier to catch & shoot than it is to shoot on the run. Just simpler motions that are easier to practice. I think Schayes could have been a strong jump shooter, but I expect he wouldn't do it with as high a raw ability as the set shot.

2) Schayes didn't maintain his relative efficiency with the set shot. That's the problem really. His efficiency saw an absolute plateau, and thus a practical relative falloff from the age of 24 on, and an absolute falloff when he hit his 30s. This despite the fact as a kind of sharpshooter, he's exactly the type of guy you'd help would see his effectiveness hold strong at a more advanced age.

My issue is that I already see in the history from a half century ago the stuff that I'd be afraid of happening with someone like him today.

Re: Still above average efficiency until 33. Dirk was about 6% TS above league average last year while shooting a considerably larger volume at the age of 35 last year.

I understand he doesn't need to be as good as Dirk to get this spot, but I'm talking about the scale of the issue here. My issue with Schayes isn't that he was inefficient compared to his peers, it's that he wasn't particularly efficient compared to his peers once the competition rose despite the fact there are very clear reasons to think that those defenses weren't anywhere near as ready to stomp all over Schayes' shooting as more modern defenses would be.

If I'm going to considering a power forward from back then who plays like Dirk but released the ball over a foot closer to the ground than Dirk does, I'd like at the very least to see him really, really, really separate himself from all average peers form half a century ago.

Re: Top 10 player for 12 years, rightful legend. Oh absolutely, but when we compare guys in a project like this, we have to ask how they scale to other eras. And this is an issue with all the guys from the '50s to be clear, it's just that some get hit worse than others.

Pettit tends to fair the best, why? Because he was a hyper-motor 6'9" power forward with a delicate shooting touch. That still works today. It's very, very easy to see Pettit as an all-star in any era as a result. Schayes is on the other end of the spectrum because if you describe what he was as a player and try to sell that description as a prospect, no one would draft him. Schayes, were he to become a star today, would do so by adapting and taking on a very different role than he'd ever done before. Could he do it? It's possible, but far from a given.

Let me put it in another context.Consider the '04-05 Illinois Fighting Illini in college basketball. This was a 3 star team with Dee Brown, Luther Head, and Deron Williams. All were star guards, but Brown and Head were the two leading scorers and scored with vastly superior efficiency than Williams while not actually assisting way less or having other clear statistical issues. Brown was the one given the Conference Player of the Year award.

Now, perhaps some advanced stat will come along at some point and tell me otherwise, but on the face of it, I have no reason to object to Brown being considered the superior college basketball player. Yet it was Williams who the scouts drooled over, Williams who can drafted high, and Williams who became a max level player while the other guys barely made a scratch in the NBA.

Why? Because when you get to the NBA, size becomes a problem in ways that it often isn't for some guys in college, and hence while Williams was able to transition to the NBA roughly keeping his role intact, the other two guys weren't. No shock really, when you're a college shooting guard and your realize your point guard is 3 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than you, that's a really bad sign.

Brown was probably the better college player, but everybody knew Williams was a vastly superior pro prospect.

This is my allegation with Schayes. By using the same logic on old era players that pro scouts use on college prospects (and college scouts use on high school players), Schayes comes out looking far more suspect relative to his 1950s level of efficacy than some other guys.

[Moonbeam]

Over to Schayes. Bottom line is this:

I have to interpret him as essentially the Dirk of his age...
Except a lot shorter
And dependent on a set shot which simply wouldn't work today
And still not very efficient once league competition picked up even back then.

When I look at guys from back then, I have to ask myself: "Is there a good chance he simply wouldn't be able to play anything like that today and succeed?" Obviously, the bigger that chance, the less confident I am in putting him high up on a GOAT list.

Among the '50s era guys who are likely to come up in this project, Schayes is the one who I have by far the most concerns with, and I say this as a guy with a lot of concerns about MIkan and Cousy.

For perspective here: If Dirk were 4 inches shorter, what is he in the NBA right now? Kyle Korver maybe? I really don't see how you can see him as anything close to a lock to be an NBA all-star. That's the height we're talking about with Schayes, except he's far less proven being that kind of elite shooter - both because he never faced modern NBA defenses, and because he couldn't manage to make his efficiency scale even back then.

I think this is a little unfair to Schayes. The set shot worked well enough for him to be a highly efficient scorer. Why assume he couldn't adapt, or play small forward in the modern game? I'm not sure I can get behind cross-era portability concerns, because they are based on hypothetical scenarios.

It's true enough that his efficiency edge disappeared in the early 60s, but he was still above league average until he was 33, and at least 3 TS% higher than league average for each of his first 11 seasons through 1960. I'm not sure it's fair to knock him for dropping off in his twilight years when he was player under 27 MPG.

This was a guy who had a streak of 706 consecutive games and was renowned as a top 10 player for 12 seasons. I understand that being a top 10 player back then wasn't as difficult due to the vastly reduced player pool, but I think he's a rightful legend.

I can completely understand voting for Mourning, though. He and Dwight are likely to be my next votes.

2 things:

1) The set shot is, imho, inherently easier than the jump shot for most people just as it's easier to catch & shoot than it is to shoot on the run. Just simpler motions that are easier to practice. I think Schayes could have been a strong jump shooter, but I expect he wouldn't do it with as high a raw ability as the set shot.

2) Schayes didn't maintain his relative efficiency with the set shot. That's the problem really. His efficiency saw an absolute plateau, and thus a practical relative falloff from the age of 24 on, and an absolute falloff when he hit his 30s. This despite the fact as a kind of sharpshooter, he's exactly the type of guy you'd help would see his effectiveness hold strong at a more advanced age.

My issue is that I already see in the history from a half century ago the stuff that I'd be afraid of happening with someone like him today.

Re: Still above average efficiency until 33. Dirk was about 6% TS above league average last year while shooting a considerably larger volume at the age of 35 last year.

I understand he doesn't need to be as good as Dirk to get this spot, but I'm talking about the scale of the issue here. My issue with Schayes isn't that he was inefficient compared to his peers, it's that he wasn't particularly efficient compared to his peers once the competition rose despite the fact there are very clear reasons to think that those defenses weren't anywhere near as ready to stomp all over Schayes' shooting as more modern defenses would be.

If I'm going to considering a power forward from back then who plays like Dirk but released the ball over a foot closer to the ground than Dirk does, I'd like at the very least to see him really, really, really separate himself from all average peers form half a century ago.

Re: Top 10 player for 12 years, rightful legend. Oh absolutely, but when we compare guys in a project like this, we have to ask how they scale to other eras. And this is an issue with all the guys from the '50s to be clear, it's just that some get hit worse than others.

Pettit tends to fair the best, why? Because he was a hyper-motor 6'9" power forward with a delicate shooting touch. That still works today. It's very, very easy to see Pettit as an all-star in any era as a result. Schayes is on the other end of the spectrum because if you describe what he was as a player and try to sell that description as a prospect, no one would draft him. Schayes, were he to become a star today, would do so by adapting and taking on a very different role than he'd ever done before. Could he do it? It's possible, but far from a given.

Let me put it in another context.Consider the '04-05 Illinois Fighting Illini in college basketball. This was a 3 star team with Dee Brown, Luther Head, and Deron Williams. All were star guards, but Brown and Head were the two leading scorers and scored with vastly superior efficiency than Williams while not actually assisting way less or having other clear statistical issues. Brown was the one given the Conference Player of the Year award.

Now, perhaps some advanced stat will come along at some point and tell me otherwise, but on the face of it, I have no reason to object to Brown being considered the superior college basketball player. Yet it was Williams who the scouts drooled over, Williams who can drafted high, and Williams who became a max level player while the other guys barely made a scratch in the NBA.

Why? Because when you get to the NBA, size becomes a problem in ways that it often isn't for some guys in college, and hence while Williams was able to transition to the NBA roughly keeping his role intact, the other two guys weren't. No shock really, when you're a college shooting guard and your realize your point guard is 3 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than you, that's a really bad sign.

Brown was probably the better college player, but everybody knew Williams was a vastly superior pro prospect.

This is my allegation with Schayes. By using the same logic on old era players that pro scouts use on college prospects (and college scouts use on high school players), Schayes comes out looking far more suspect relative to his 1950s level of efficacy than some other guys.

Thanks for the detailed response. I think our approach to ranking players is a little different. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your ranking takes into consideration who you would want to draft for your team across any era, with a crystal ball in tow such that it is possible to know each guy's career trajectory (assuming all careers stop in 2014). That's a perfectly viable ranking mechanism, but it's a bit different to mine. My ranking criteria don't include cross-era portability at all, because as I said, I have a hard time with the hypothetical conjecture. My biggest criterion is how a guy played relative to this league environment. Of course, I try to take into account the strength of that environment where I can, which is also somewhat hypothetical but feels more comfortable for me for some reason. That's why I generally consider a player's top 8 seasons, and then expand out relative to perceived league norms with regard to longevity - I don't want to slam a guy from the 50s who retired after 9 seasons when the financial and medical environment is not nearly comparable to a player from even the 70s. Hence, when I see Dolph Schayes, I see a player who excelled for a long time in his league environment, with great durability and notable longevity, who upped his performance in the playoffs. I concede that a player like Schayes would have to adapt his game more (perhaps much more) than other contemporaries to succeed in today's game. But that doesn't matter to me.

Furthermore, I'm with trex in that I'm not sure I can buy that his offense was completely reliant on the set shot - he had a very food foul draw rate. He is noted for having "an exceptional ability to drive to the basket" if defenders tried to intervene with his set shot. From the same source, it appears that Schayes played almost an entire season with a broken right arm in a cast, forcing him to learn to shoot with his left.

Furthermore, the plateau in relative efficiency was at 5% above league average. That's pretty good, and his highest Z-score actually came in 1957, with a tie between 1954 and 1958 for second place.

[Doctor MJ]

And dependent on a set shot which simply wouldn't work today

In an era with a 3pt-line?[/quote]

Absolutely. Couple things:

1) Watch the role players who only get passed to when open. They still take jump shots, and they still often come close to getting it blocked.

2) As mentioned in my Location, the proliferation of the 3 is about the realization that its a shot that has a much bigger effect on role players than stars. A star taking a lot of 3's is taking contested shots. It's better than a contested long two, but it's still not a good team strategy with the possible exception of Steph Curry.

Hence any argument relying on Schayes ability to take 3's is to me an argument along the lines of "He could probably be a role player today", to which I'd say "Yeah, he probably could."

And at any rate, you've tried in the past to paint this picture of Schayes as a guy who could ONLY score with a set shot, apparently unable to put it on the floor, soft and afraid of contact, etc. But it just doesn't wash; he's got a pretty good foul-draw rate. Here's his FTA/g league rank by year:
'50--->6th
'51--->2nd
'52--->6th
'53--->3rd
'54--->3rd
'55--->4th
'56--->3rd
'57--->3rd
'58--->3rd
'59--->4th
'60--->6th
'61--->6th

That's 12 consecutive years he's no lower than 6th, once as high as 2nd (to only George Mikan that year), SIX times in the top 3. This is NOT something that happens to someone "dependent" on a set-shot.

Good you bring that up. It's not a contradiction of what I've said in evaluating his shooting, but yes, his ability to draw fouls is a very nice thing. I don't think it makes up for the fact though that even that aspect of his game was based on a size advantage that he wouldn't be able to count on today.

And still not very efficient once league competition picked up even back then.

When his efficiency fell below league average he was 33 years old. He was still marginally above league average at age 32 (just barely slipping into post-prime) in a league with Russell, Wilt, Baylor, Pettit, Sam Jones, and rookies West, Wilkens, and Robertson.

Well first remember who you're talking to: I'm the guy who argued until his face turned blue against Baylor very much unimpressed with his efficiency. He was still well above Schayes in efficieny at that point while having to take on a far heavier load. Absolutely fine for you to disagree with me, but it should be no surprise that I'm skeptical of Schayes based on how I've argued in the past.

Beyond that there's the reason for my bla attitude toward Baylor's efficiency: There's really nothing impressive to me about being more impressive than the line of mediocrity in early '60s basketball of which dozens of players were above when we're talking about this stage of a GOAT list. West and Wilt and Oscar earn their place on this list by being WAY outliers compared to their peers at scoring among other things, and of course Russell wouldn't be on this list if it was due to his scoring.

I feel like people see that "better than average" and think "okay, so efficiency wasn't an issue". It doesn't work like that. Every miss hurts. Every shot you make rather than miss helps that much more. The guys who were seen as superstars a half century ago due to their scoring should have been running circles around the average, not simply edging past it, and that's not simply a "because standards of average players have gone up" type of thing - though that is indeed the case - it's also simply holding them to similar standards that we hold guys to today.

Consider that for much of his career, Schayes was a guy scoring maybe a bit over 20 points per 100 possessions with a TS% maybe 3 above league average. If I do a search of guys hitting that 20/+3 threshold while playing over 2000 minutes last year, do you know how many guys make the cut?

27.

Now, am I arguing that literally there were 27 guys last year who had scoring seasons as dominant as Schayes had back then? No. He's better than that. The point is those numbers that people are clinging to with Schayes to say "see, efficiency wasn't a problem", we don't actually view modern player through the same lens.

What I see is people who seem to be trying to find a reason why an old guy like Schayes is "okay", and to me okay just isn't good enough to really be seen as a serious threat to the other serious contenders we're talking about right.

But y'know maybe I'm wrong, if someone has a well-thought out case to make for why they'd seriously consider drafting Schayes over anyone else not yet inducted on to our list, that would be great to include in this discussion.

[Notanoob]

I cast my runoff vote for Alonzo Mourning. I like Mourning as a really dominant defensive big who could score, and I'm uncomfortable voting for Schayes because I really think that he'd struggle to translate more than some of the other 60s and 50s era guys who we voted in earlier- even taking into account that his height is given barefoot, he's still on the small side for a PF. I don't want to knock him too hard for playing in his era. And Zo had a huge impact pre-injury, mostly on defense.

[Doctor MJ]

Thanks for the detailed response. I think our approach to ranking players is a little different. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your ranking takes into consideration who you would want to draft for your team across any era, with a crystal ball in tow such that it is possible to know each guy's career trajectory (assuming all careers stop in 2014). That's a perfectly viable ranking mechanism, but it's a bit different to mine. My ranking criteria don't include cross-era portability at all, because as I said, I have a hard time with the hypothetical conjecture. My biggest criterion is how a guy played relative to this league environment. Of course, I try to take into account the strength of that environment where I can, which is also somewhat hypothetical but feels more comfortable for me for some reason. That's why I generally consider a player's top 8 seasons, and then expand out relative to perceived league norms with regard to longevity - I don't want to slam a guy from the 50s who retired after 9 seasons when the financial and medical environment is not nearly comparable to a player from even the 70s. Hence, when I see Dolph Schayes, I see a player who excelled for a long time in his league environment, with great durability and notable longevity, who upped his performance in the playoffs. I concede that a player like Schayes would have to adapt his game more (perhaps much more) than other contemporaries to succeed in today's game. But that doesn't matter to me.

Furthermore, I'm with trex in that I'm not sure I can buy that his offense was completely reliant on the set shot - he had a very food foul draw rate. He is noted for having "an exceptional ability to drive to the basket" if defenders tried to intervene with his set shot. From the same source, it appears that Schayes played almost an entire season with a broken right arm in a cast, forcing him to learn to shoot with his left.

Furthermore, the plateau in relative efficiency was at 5% above league average. That's pretty good, and his highest Z-score actually came in 1957, with a tie between 1954 and 1958 for second place.

I think the approach of essentially making a function with inputs:

1) how dominant was he in his era
2) overall, how strong was his era

Isn't a crazy one.

2 things I'll say:

1) Are you truly okay with punishing guys who played in eras that weren't yet geared to their skills? This would mean that in your rankings, if somehow we had the same player in two different eras, you'd be totally fine with having them ranked totally differently on your list. For me this really is a bother. Both philosophically, and because in practice I have to ask whether I'm just letting narrative and luck shape my thinking.

2) One of my issues with guys like Schayes and Baylor is that they didn't seem to adjust to the league as it matured. The implication of an approach like yours to me, is that it doesn't make sense to knock a guy for would-be weaknesses that they may very well have addressed if it was an issue at the time. If you're doing that though, then to me being on the look out for the wherewithal to truly adapt proactively seems like it should be a pretty big thing to you, because if the player in question didn't develop his specific game based on what was needed, then what we're really talking about is dumb luck.

And again, maybe that doesn't bother you, but it does me.

[john248]

Not entirely sure if I should cast a vote given how little I know of Schayes outside his stats and looking him up for what I could find is a whole minute on YouTube. I don't think I can get behind his offense either. I mentioned the set shot when I asked about him, and then there are guys like Pettit, Arzin, Macauley, and Yardley who look better statistically, asked about his defense but haven't heard anything in terms of his impact on the game on that end. Much of the support seems to be on the offensive end where other players come off better. Schayes has a longevity advantage. In any case, all I found was that he played with a broken right arm in 52 and used his left which explains him using his left in the YT clip.

I'll just vote Alonzo Mourning mainly because I know he was great defensively while at least providing value on the offensive end. I probably would've voted Dwight, but Zo isn't a bad alternative.

[Quotatious]

My runoff vote goes to Alonzo Mourning.

The argument is based on his all-time great defense. I don't see Schayes as an all-time great in any area (except free throw shooting for a bigman, but it's rather irrelevant, compared to Mourning's D). They're very similar in terms of scoring, era-relative, but Zo seems to have a slight efficiency edge. Dolph's longevity edge (and it was more difficult to have a long career in the 50s/60s, compared to 90s/2000s) makes it close, but Alonzo is my guy here, because I can say that he's a truly elite player in at least one area, which I can't say about Schayes.

A bit surprised to see Alonzo over Dwight, at this point in Howard's career, but I'm totally fine with that, and I think he's very deserving here (also one of my all-time favorite players).

[Moonbeam]

Thanks for the detailed response. I think our approach to ranking players is a little different. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your ranking takes into consideration who you would want to draft for your team across any era, with a crystal ball in tow such that it is possible to know each guy's career trajectory (assuming all careers stop in 2014). That's a perfectly viable ranking mechanism, but it's a bit different to mine. My ranking criteria don't include cross-era portability at all, because as I said, I have a hard time with the hypothetical conjecture. My biggest criterion is how a guy played relative to this league environment. Of course, I try to take into account the strength of that environment where I can, which is also somewhat hypothetical but feels more comfortable for me for some reason. That's why I generally consider a player's top 8 seasons, and then expand out relative to perceived league norms with regard to longevity - I don't want to slam a guy from the 50s who retired after 9 seasons when the financial and medical environment is not nearly comparable to a player from even the 70s. Hence, when I see Dolph Schayes, I see a player who excelled for a long time in his league environment, with great durability and notable longevity, who upped his performance in the playoffs. I concede that a player like Schayes would have to adapt his game more (perhaps much more) than other contemporaries to succeed in today's game. But that doesn't matter to me.

Furthermore, I'm with trex in that I'm not sure I can buy that his offense was completely reliant on the set shot - he had a very food foul draw rate. He is noted for having "an exceptional ability to drive to the basket" if defenders tried to intervene with his set shot. From the same source, it appears that Schayes played almost an entire season with a broken right arm in a cast, forcing him to learn to shoot with his left.

Furthermore, the plateau in relative efficiency was at 5% above league average. That's pretty good, and his highest Z-score actually came in 1957, with a tie between 1954 and 1958 for second place.

I think the approach of essentially making a function with inputs:

1) how dominant was he in his era
2) overall, how strong was his era

Isn't a crazy one.

2 things I'll say:

1) Are you truly okay with punishing guys who played in eras that weren't yet geared to their skills? This would mean that in your rankings, if somehow we had the same player in two different eras, you'd be totally fine with having them ranked totally differently on your list. For me this really is a bother. Both philosophically, and because in practice I have to ask whether I'm just letting narrative and luck shape my thinking.

2) One of my issues with guys like Schayes and Baylor is that they didn't seem to adjust to the league as it matured. The implication of an approach like yours to me, is that it doesn't make sense to knock a guy for would-be weaknesses that they may very well have addressed if it was an issue at the time. If you're doing that though, then to me being on the look out for the wherewithal to truly adapt proactively seems like it should be a pretty big thing to you, because if the player in question didn't develop his specific game based on what was needed, then what we're really talking about is dumb luck.

And again, maybe that doesn't bother you, but it does me.

I guess I'm more comfortable given my comparatively limited knowledge to evaluate players within the context of their eras.

As for evaluating the exact player differently due to era difference, that doesn't bother me so much. If a guy developed a deadly shot from 3-point distance but it only counted as 2 points in his era and as such he didn't shoot it very often, it doesn't phase me to place him according to my perception of his in-era impact. Ultimately, we're talking about professional basketball players who grew to become the very best in the world due to the respective skills they developed. I understand the point about continuing to evolve with the league, but I don't think it's luck for a guy like Schayes who was consistently well above average for at least 11 seasons. Can you suggest some examples of players with valuable skillets that were notably more suited to other eras?

Relating to your search for players scoring ~20 PP100 on +3TS, I think that undersells scoring volume. By the very nature of lower era efficiency, players from the 50s and 60s will all tend to have lower PP100. When I get the chance, I'll have a look at Schayes' relative PP100. Given he was routinely in the top 10 in scoring, I think he'll come out as a high-volume/high-efficiency guy within his era. I recall the discussion of West vs. Karl Malone, and Karl's per 100 scoring was notably higher, but West seemed to standout more within his era. Were stars sharing the load more early on, perhaps due to the high pace? It's hard to say, but if we're going to adjust efficiency for era, I think we should adjust per possession scoring for era, too.