RealGM Top 100 List #96 Only 5 spots left!

[penbeast0]

PG: Tim Hardaway, Mark Price, and maybe Mookie Blaylock are the players I'm looking at . . . should mention Penny Hardaway though he never impressed me as much as he did the TV guys of his day.

Wings: Marques Johnson has the most impressive peak. Bailey Howell, Chet Walker, Jamaal Wilkes and Bob Dandridge had longer careers, if lower peaks, and also come to mind. Bill Sharman has been brought up too.

Bigs: Amare Stoudamire and Jerry Lucas bring great scoring and rebounding respectively but defensive questions (Neil Johnston maybe even better numbers in the weak 50s but defensively questionable too). Bill Walton has the highest peak (though that's it for true career value -- 1 year then failed to stay healthy to the playoffs the next and 1 year as a reserve role player). Sean Kemp and Yao Ming should get mentions though neither played with a high BBIQ.

Compare --
Hardaway, Price, and Blaylock as the top PGs;
Walker, Wilkes, Dandridge, and Hornacek as the top wings
Howell, Amare, Lucas, Johnston, Kemp, and Walt Bellamy as top scoring bigs
Yao Ming, Marques Johnson, Penny Hardaway, or Gus Williams as the top short peak players

I was looking more at top complimentary players but I read a blog post by one of our outstanding posters which showed the most dominant players ever by decade. Had terrific graphs and everything . If someone can link this for me, I'd appreciate it. Neil Johnston statisically blew away the 50s, more than even Pettit did. His peak wasn't long but in that peak, he was truly a dominating force and, with Paul Arizin, brought the Warriors a title.

Vote: Neil Johnston

[Moonbeam]

I'll be quick to hop on the Neil Johnston train. I think he had an incredible statistical peak, and while his longevity leaves a fair amount to be desired (and perhaps his defense did as well), he appears to have been dominant. He ranks #2 in career Score+ and is way up there in Win Shares, too. Decomposing offensive win shares for his teams did not appear to suggest that he "got his" at the expense of his teammates too much.

[Quotatious]

Vote: Bill Sharman

Best shooter of his era, one of the first jumpshooters, sort of a prototypical Reggie Miller/Ray Allen, has a pretty good defensive reputation, as well. Efficient scorer for his era (usually about +5% above league average TS% throughout his career), looks like a pretty good playoff performer, too. Decent longevity, especially by 50s standards (much longer career and much better playoff performer than Neil Johnston, for example).

It's been a while since we had the last 50s player selected (Cousy at 71), and I think the gap between Sam Jones (selected at 68) and Sharman is already too big.

[penbeast0]

ouch, that playoff differential is pretty impressive. May switch over; convince me someone!

[Quotatious]

ouch, that playoff differential is pretty impressive. May switch over; convince me someone!

Well, Johnston's playoff sample size is very small (just 23 games, compared to 78 for Sharman), so there's a chance that he just had bad luck.

[Owly]

Happy with either of these choices but I'll vote Sharman.

I’ve had some advocacy for both.
Johnston has a huge range on these types of lists. If you aren’t making any adjustments for era (or a friendly one, e.g. accepting longevity is typically and reasonably less at that time), take the numbers at face value, value peaks highly and find crummy teammates to be responsible for team failures he could go really high. If you are more cynical on his numbers on poor teams, note that most Cs had good numbers in that era (not necessarily as good as his, but Mikan, Groza, Macauley, Foust, Lovellette all have very), are cynical on era, are more longevity based, weigh playoffs highly etc then you can more or less dismiss him. I am probably closer to more positions on list one than two, but there’s enough unknown to make one hesitant.
With Sharman, he is now the last guy who’s the best of his decade at his position who isn’t in (since DeBusschere filled the 60s PF spot). If you think you need a player at each position (or at least require certain skill sets fulfilling over the team, given Sharman’s strengths as a shooter and wing defender) then Sharman’s clear, substantial differentiation from his peers makes him a strong candidate. Here’s what I’d argued before (much overlap, but perhaps more fleshed out) ...

Bill Sharman

One of only two best players of (complete) decade at a position that isn't in yet (the other would be 60s PF, assuming you consider Pettit primarily 50s, and Baylor a SF, though if you move Baylor you just make it SF the position that isn't represented). And unlike the alternate spot (where I have Howell, but others will prefer others) Sharman is clearly ahead of the rest of the pack.

Sharman is one of only a handful of 50 at 50 guys still on the board (Dave Bing, Dave DeBusschere, Jerry Lucas, Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Bill Walton, Lenny Wilkens and James Worthy, I believe are the others).

Prior reasoning

As before I've a number of viable candidates but I'm going to

vote Bill Sharman

My rationale last time

Best shooter of his era. Best player at his position of his decade (OTOH the last one of these left, and a good distance ahead of the pack). Good athlete - committed to conditioning; good defender; very tough/competitive (including getting into/winning fights); good basketball mind (his coaching career, including titles in the ABL, ABA and NBA offers support for this).

To expand on best player at his position of his decade (and here I'll assume only one decade for each player), that wasn't quite true, looking at it we don't yet have a 60s PF yet (assuming Baylor is considered a small forward), which would give me another reason to support Bailey Howell. And obviously neither of those guys are at these guys level. And it's not to suggest that these people were good or ranked highly (solely) because they separated themselves from their peers at their position (inevitably most of the top 25 will will be top of their position-decade ranking).

50s
C Mikan (24)
PF Pettit (21)
SF Arizin (63)
SG
PG Cousy (71)

60s
C Russell (3)
PF
SF Baylor (33)
SG West (15)
PG Robertson (12)

70s
C Abdul-Jabbar (2)
PF Hayes (58)
SF Erving (14)
SG Gervin (38)
PG Frazier (28)

80s
C M Malone (19)
PF McHale (44)
SF Bird (10)
SG Moncrief (66)
PG Magic Johnson (8)

90s
C O'Neal (6)
PF K Malone (17)
SF Pippen (27)
SG Jordan (1)
PG Stockton (26)

2000 (to present because of incomplete decade)
C Howard (43)
PF Duncan (5)
SF James (7)
SG Bryant (13)
PG Nash (25)

Still, I think there is some value in being the best at your position or role in your time, because unless you think you can field a team exclusively of bigs then you need to put someone at each position (or it least in each role and fill out different skill sets). And Sharman isn't narrowly the best SG of the 50s (whereas whilst I have Howell at the top of 60s PFs I see that others might take Lucas, DeBusschere, Heinsohn or Connie Hawkins), he's a good distance ahead of the pack (particularly if you don't consider Ramsay a SG, Carl Braun is probably the next best SG). I just think Sharman therefore added significantly to his team's title chances.

Obviously era competition is a factor but I'd suggest that he's been sufficiently docked for that.

The more "pure" off guards of the 50s and 60s don't have blow you away metrics in part because of their role. But versus say Greer is it better to be the best in a weaker era or 3rd (West, S Jones voted above him) in a slightly stronger one. Sharman's metrics are clear that he is consistently adding value over "good" by the metrics, Greer isn't; part of that could be the SG role limiting boxscore output but that hurts Sharman too. Greer has longevity but if part of that is the league playing 82 game seasons rather than 70 how much help is that? How much value does longevity hold when your boxscore output peaks at .0.1651 WS/48 and PER peaks at 17.7 (with .124 and 15.7 career numbers)? Okay there's non boxscore stuff too but Sharman was committed to conditioning and a strong defender. Other anchoring arguments might involve Cousy (same era, broadly similar metrics overall, holding up better in the playoffs and being better on D) or Miller (similar roles as floor spacer shooter, on high-ish volumes but not renowned off the bounce creators).

Sharman as best shooter at the guard positions of his era ...

Clearcut best shooter at guard in his era, see for instance :

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... rder_by=ws
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... rder_by=ws
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... =ws_per_48
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _by=ts_pct
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _by=ft_pct

[trex_8063]

I'll switch over from Lucas and hop on the Neil Johnston bandwagon. As noted in the statistical comp I did in last thread between him, Stoudemire, Lucas, and Bellamy, he's the most statistically dominant player of all of them (would have been so if we included Shawn Kemp and Bill Sharman in the comparison, too).
His numbers pretty well rival George Mikan (voted in at #24) in years of overlapping primes (per 100 possession, relative TS%, and adv metrics):

'53
Mikan: 27.9 pts, 19.5 reb, 3.9 ast @ +3.51% rts
PER 28.5, .264 WS/48 in 37.9 mpg
Johnston: 25.0 pts, 15.6 reb, 3.1 ast @ +8.93% rts
PER 25.9, .232 WS/48 in massive 45.2 mpg

'54 (late prime for Mikan)
Mikan: 28.4 pts, 22.3 reb, 3.8 ast @ +2.39% rts
PER 28.7, .254 WS/48 in 32.8 mpg
Johnston: 28.7 pts, 13.0 reb, 3.3 ast @ +8.85% rts
PER 25.6, .267 WS/48 in massive 45.8 mpg


Cumulative prime vs. prime (though we only have this data for '52-'54 for Mikan):
Mikan ('52-'54)
Per 100 poss: ~28.5 pts, ~19-19.5 reb, 3.8 ast @ +2.64% rts
PER 27.9, .264 WS/48 in 36.8 mpg
Johnston ('53-'58)
Per 100 poss: 26-26.5 pts, 15 reb, 3-3.5 ast @ +8.64% rts
PER 25.2, .249 WS/48 in 39.9 mpg


Now obviously I would never suggest that Johnston was anywhere near Mikan as a defender. But amalgamation of offensive and rebounding production indicates he was otherwise basically as dominant as George Mikan, and with BETTER longevity, too.
We didn't hold Mikan's poor longevity against him---at least to any large degree---due to era-specific factors (poor medicine, lesser physical training practices, poor shoe quality, little financial motive to stretch your career out, etc). I personally don't think we should suddenly be holding longevity against Johnston too much now, for the same reasons. That's not to say we declare his longevity equal to Bill Sharman (same era) or Walt Bellamy; I'm merely suggesting that labeling it as "poor" is perhaps not entirely fair.

Vote: Neil Johnston (if that wasn't clear)

[penbeast0]

How do you factor in Quotatious's point about Sharman's much stronger playoff performances (and Sharman, unlike Johnston, has quite a large playoff resume)?

[trex_8063]

How do you factor in Quotatious's point about Sharman's much stronger playoff performances (and Sharman, unlike Johnston, has quite a large playoff resume)?

Well, there's a few tacks I could take on that point; one which Quotatious himself pointed out: small sample size for Johnston, so "bad luck" could be a part of it (i.e. one bad series can spoil the sample). For example: that 2-game series in '57 is single-handedly bumping his playoff WS/48 down by about .025. More on a "single series influence" below.

Another point one could argue is that Johnston never had someone like Bob Cousy creating mis-direction and feeding him the ball on offense.

Another point one could argue is that Sharman never had to deal with the level of offensive primacy that Johnston had to shoulder. Or that Johnston rarely had offensive cohorts as strong as Cousy/Macauley, and never had cohorts as strong as Cousy/Jones/Heinsohn/Ramsey to take the pressure/focus off of him.

Another point one could argue is that Johnston spent five of his playoff games (more than 20% of his total) playing H2H against Bill Russell (safe to say that Sharman never faced a defender of that caliber, much less for 20+% of his playoff sample). Indeed, Johnston averaged "only" 13.2 ppg during that series against Boston (and perhaps not surprisingly, the one game the Warriors won was the one game in which Johnston managed to go off for 25 pts against Russell).

So those would be a few things I'd mention.

[penbeast0]

Actually, I wasn't as persuaded by the Johnston playoff numbers as by the Sharman playoff numbers. If his regular season numbers equaled his playoff numbers, I would have voted for Sharman. He really stepped it up, and with Ramsey's numbers having blown up even more, I had missed it. It's a powerful argument

[trex_8063]

Well, some of those same arguments can be applied. Not to take anything away from Sharman in that regard; he was indeed an impressive playoff performer.

I was looking at an aspect of the "Cousy effect", and noted that the majority of Celtics saw their shooting efficiency take a dip in '64 (the first year learning to function without Bob Cousy): Jones (both of them), Loscutoff, Heinsohn, Lovellette, Ramsey, Havlicek, Satch all saw their rts take a dip from the previous year(s).
Below is the Celtics team relative TS% by year. They were generally not that good in this regard (Auerbach strat to just get the shots up in a hurry, regardless of shot quality); but note how '64 is the worst of all surrounding years (by >/= 0.7%), despite ridding themselves of Cousy's high volume/meh efficiency shooting (which he took heavy criticism for in this project):

'51: +1.3%
'52: +2.1%
'53: +2.2%
'54: +2.9%
'55: +1.8%
'56: +1.1%
'57: -0.1%
'58: -0.4%
'59: -0.4%
'60: +/- 0.0%
'61: -2.0%
'62: -0.9%
'63: -1.8%
'64: -2.7%
'65: -1.6%
'66: -1.7%
'67: +0.9% (first year where Auerbach isn't coach, and team pace below league avg)
'68: -0.6%
'69: -1.1%
'70: -1.1%

I know Cousy's long since been voted in, but I find this interesting. And perhaps has some relevance when evaluating Sharman.

[penbeast0]

How does that explain the strong and consistent rise in efficiency by Sharman in the playoffs (and consistent worsening efficiency by Cousy, at least in the Russell years)? Cousy was there both in the regular season AND in the playoffs.

And yes, going from a great passer like Cousy to a non-playmaker like KC Jones should produce a drop in team efficiency. Russell and Havlicek aren't better playmakers than the likes of Oscar, West, Wilkens, etc. even if above average for their position.

[trex_8063]

It doesn't "explain" it. What I was implying (or at least asking if it's conceivable) is that having a play-maker like Cousy (among other factors, such as not carrying the burden of primacy, etc) make it "easier" to maintain your rs level of play in the playoffs.

[trex_8063]

Also, I don't know about the claim of a "consistent rise in efficiency" for Sharman in the post-season. His post-season shooting efficiency was worse than his rs shooting efficiency in '53, '56, '57, '58, and '60. His career playoff TS% is just 0.4% better than his rs ts% over the same time period. And his playoff PER and WS/48 were 17.1 and .174 (in 33.0 mpg) vs. 18.2 and .178 (in 32.0 mpg) in the rs.

Johnston's career playoff numbers, for comparison: PER 21.0, .159 WS/48 in 30.5 mpg. Basically still quite comparable (one might say Johnston's post-season decline brings him down to Sharman's level); meanwhile the rs comparison is not close (though Sharman has a better defensive reputation, as well as a little longevity edge).

[penbeast0]

Ah, somehow I had the .564 of his final year overwriting the sum total of .502 for playoff ts% in my spreadsheet. . . big difference! Thanks and I feel a LOT better about my Neil Johnston v. Bill Sharman vote now.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Neil Johnston

The debate between Johnston and Sharman is a quality one. I have a strong sympathy for Sharman as someone who I think might actually be a more valuable player than Cousy against more modern competition with Cousy playing as inefficiently as he did, but the fact remains that Johnston took on a much heavier role. I also feel skeptical about Johnston given his penchant for putting up big numbers on a bad team, and his playoff falloff when his team actually won it all, but I don't feel like I have a truly substantial argument against him.

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Neil Johnston

He and Arizin formed a dynamic 1-2 punch in the Pre-Russell era and did great things, especially in 1956. I was a proponent of Arizin before, and when I was checking him out, Johnston obviously kept popping up as well. I came away impressed by his efficiency. Statistically a very strong player, especially in the REG SEA. The debate between he and Sharman is a good one. Sharman was a great player as well.

[penbeast0]

Johnston it is.