LA Bird wrote:A -0.4 defensive support isn't exactly some major to write about. And if TS% is the way to judge offense...
Knicks minus Ewing: 53.0% TS
Sixers minus Barkley: 53.2% TS
... doesn't look too different to me.
It is something major when the other team has Charles Oakley, Gerald Wilkins, and a bunch of bad defenders. My point was mainly that the Sixers had a way better defensive supporting cast. And I didn't just mention TS% for no reason but mentioning that every rotation player had above average overall efficiency and all but 3 had good scoring efficiency is a quick way to say they weren't bad. Individually his offensive supporting cast was pretty good and way better than Ewing's.
We have Barkley's +/- for that year and an estimate of his on/off. He has a +8.9 ORTG and +0.6 DRTG that year but looking at the rest of the starting lineup Hawkins and Mahorn both had higher on/off estimates.
As far as I am aware, those aren't adjusted RAPM numbers so I didn't read too much into them.
So only adjusted RAPM numbers have any type of meaning? No one is saying this is a checkmate statistic but I think it shows Hawk and Rick and that defense they brought with them was more valuable than you'd think for this team.
Like Charles' 93 Suns, Knicks had multiple players at ~25 minutes, which deflates their box scores. Strickland/Jackson/Cheeks were all productive box score wise in the minutes they had. Barkley had a slightly better supporting cast (as shown in the original VORP data I posted) but it does not justify the huge difference in terms of team performance. I personally don't see how either of Smith or Brooks factor into this discussion. Derek Smith lost all his athleticism and explosiveness after the injuries (I did extensive research on him for the non-all-star draft a while ago so I know him quite well
) while Brooks was a lifetime bench player.
Cheeks was moderately productive statistically but that doesn't mean he was great. 12/3/7 on 65 TS per 36 but he was on his last legs by this time and 91 would be his last year starting. Strick and Jackson weren't productive by any method. Strick was bricking everything and MJ was getting booed and lost his starting job for 2 seasons. VORP is based off a stat that had Chuck as the best defender on the team by a distance so I don't think its really accurate and I've never thought it was really worth a salt past being better than WS. And Brooks and Smith were good bench players like I said that's where they factor into this unless you want to argue bench players don't matter?
That was a cool read thanks.
Where do you rank 07 KG against other all time peaks? Do you factor in his defensive impact in 2012 (anchoring a -6.4 D) and project it 5 years ahead to imagine what his defense would be like in 2007 while being younger and far more mobile?
Who in the world is doing that? What we are doing is mentioning Ewing's bad defensive sidekicks (outside of Oak of course) and his non defensive coach and saying he was still a great defender. Some people don't trust you blindly saying that about such a young player so it makes sense to point to his defensive play earlier in his career which was also good as it makes it easier to believe he was a great defender from 89-91 if he was a great defender before and after that period. Unless you want to argue he wasn't good defensively or top 5 defender level that season I don't see why you would contest anything I've said so far and if you don't think he's a good defender I'd want to know why? He protected the rim well, got in the passing lanes well, defended the pick and roll well, and defended the post well. I mean you even mentioned that poll but on that poll under "Akeem" Ewing is tied for second in best interior defender votes with the DPOY winner and nearly consensus top 10 defender ever Dennis Rodman.
Personally I wasn't high on 90 Ewing or even Ewing in general (I thought, for example, Clyde Fraizer was better) until I watched his old games and saw how great he was defensively.
Agree with this to a certain extent but I would like to see data supporting this just out of interest.
I do have data showing superstars don't lose TSA volume as quickly as the pace falls but I don't remember where. Either way its pretty easy to see just by looking at a players like CP3, Blake, or Melo who switched paces majorly and didn't see any difference in volume.
90 Pat scored 29 ppg for a 13th ranked offense with terrible guard play. The year before when the team was healthy and Rod/Mark were performing well (a combined 26/7/13 per game on 54 TS with a 112 combined ORTG from the PG spot compared to 20/7/12 per game on 49 TS with a 105 combined ORTG pre trade) the Knicks had the 6th ranked offense with Pat only averaging 22.7 ppg and 2.4 apg on 60.7 TS% with a 115 ORTG (he finished 4th in MVP voting in 89 too).
So the argument is that 1990 Ewing with a competent supporting cast could theoretically lead a top offense plus a dominant defense just because he had proven he could do so in other non peak years? That's not how a "peak" works and if that is really true, we should all have been voting for 90 Ewing a long time ago. There is no player who is judged based on his impact other than the year that is being argued for (and definitely not a combination of 2 years) and I see no reason to treat Ewing differently.
No one is judging him off other years instead we are using them to help apply context. We did the same for Wade who played 7 playoff games in 09 and was good in those games but also has a career of good postseason performances. We all are voting for 90 Ewing simply because his defense is high level and so was his offense. Having a bad team doesn't really matter when his teammates weren't good.
I don't see how a player who was already seen as top 5 and on or around Chuck's level in 89 took such a huge step forward while Chuck took a small step forward (if he even took a step forward) and didn't get better than him.
The thing is that Ewing wasn't on Barkley's level in 1989. He was a defensive leader who was credited for the offensive success of the Knicks (+3.3 O, -0.3 D) similar to how 2011 Rose was credited in the MVP votes for the defensive success of the Bulls despite his impact primarily coming on offense.
So Ewing wasn't producing well as the first option for the 89 Knicks? 23 ppg on 61 TS but I guess other players he outproduced offensively had more to do with their success? I'd like to hear an explanation for that one because looking at that team he looks like the best player on both ends of the floor pretty easily.
Barkley with or without a defensive big leads a +5 offense. If a GM can add a big of Mahorn's caliber (which isn't too uncommon), you will end up with a pretty good team with an elite offense centered around Barkley. OTOH, Ewing wasn't leading a dominant defense with or without better support in that same period. Knicks were -0.3 and -0.1 on defense in 1989 and 1990.
But his support didn't get better it got worse because Oakley missed 21 games so what are you talking about here? I don't get the point you were going for here at all. Barkley is the one who saw his team improve around him, Ewing is the one who's supporting cast got steadily worse until Coach Riley came into town.
Knicks got worse because their offense dropped. Instead of brushing it aside, the question that should be asked then is: How much of an offensive impact is Ewing actually providing if the decline of his teammates (mainly Mark Jackson) is such a huge problem for the Knicks offensively. Just as a fictional example, if Magic upped his scoring on high efficiency in 1990 after Kareem retired but the Lakers' offense tanked, the first response should be to revise our previous thoughts on Magic's offensive impact relative to Kareem's. Now, I am not campaigning for Mark Jackson as some super impact player (he is not) but if his decline in 1990 is the main reason for the Knicks dropping even before the injuries and trades, that should raise concerns about Ewing's offense.
Should it? Injuries and sharp decreases in production from second best players tend to have a negative effect on offenses. This isn't just a case of Mark Jackson getting worse its a PG going from the second or third best offensive player on the team to being booted out the the starting lineup while his backup plays so bad he's traded. Pat wasn't the reason they played bad either so its not like he deserves the blame for the offense when he did his part plus some by becoming a way more reliable post presence.
IMO, Ewing's offensive impact is not really close to what many here are proposing (eg. Quotatious calling him a damn good offensive centerpiece). Very rarely has a great team offense been built around a post centric volume scoring center and in general, their offensive impact appears to be much lower in RAPM data than what would be expected strictly looking from the box score (prime example being Yao Ming). Ewing should be judged first and foremost on his defense and despite being less mobile, I think he was more impactful defensively later on than he was in 1990.
Al Jefferson led a team where rookie Gordon Hayward was his 3rd option to the 6th best offense in Utah. Dwight routinely led Orlando to good offensive finishes. Patrick Ewing in the previous season led NY to the 6th ranked offense. I think you're mistaken. Only using RAPM data as a standard is pretty absurd too.
