Post#2 » by penbeast0 » Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:19 am
VOTE: George Mikan. Yes, he played in a smaller, appreciably weaker NBA without the great black stars of his day. However, he dominated his league in a way that no one left, not even Shaq, matches. I am willing to switch my vote if (a) someone does a good analysis of his impact v. that of Shaq/Hakeem or (b) someone convinces me that Bird/Kobe/other deserves to be in ahead of Shaq/Hakeem. It's a bit of a cheat since I know he has no support, but I want him to be in the conversation. He was considered the best offensive player of the day AND the best defensive player and had a run of title teams similar to MJ without the hiatus. Of course, then you have to discount for his era . . . figure the talent of about 1 division in Jordan's day, and even less today where the league has greatly expanded it's talent base. However, even in Mikan's day, if you were close to 7 foot tall, you at least considered a basketball career so the talent differential is less than at other positions.
ardee wrote:
Could you repost the stats comparing Mikan to Jordan?
1951 is the first year we have rebounding stats available and, according to Win Shares, the last year of his true prime (WS averaged 21.8 for the 3 years up to that, 13.9 for the 3 years after that, then he retired except for a short, aborted attempt at a comeback in 56). So let's take that and compare it to Jordan's best year of 1991(according to WS, it's either 88 for highest total or 91 for WS/48 and just behind 88 for total because he "only" played 3081 minutes).
In terms of raw averages:
Mikan averaged 14.1reb, 4.1ast, 28.4pts on a ts% of .509 v. a league ts% of .428 on a pace of 94.8
Jordan averaged 6.0reb, 5.5ast, 31.5pts on a ts% of .605 v. a league ts% of .534 and a pace of 95.6
The pace is not that different, nor are the raw numbers taking into account the positions they played; the key is the ts%. But, using a simple ratio, Mikan's equivalent ts% relative to 1991 league numbers is .634! So, rather than being inefficient, you can see that for his time he was extremely efficient. Nothing fancy, but it's always a shock how much efficiency changes from the 50s to the 60s.
Alternate: By the numbers, Oscar, Kobe, or Karl Malone, by the eye test, Jerry West, by advanced statistics Garnett or David Robinson . . . my secondary pick is Jerry West. There are 4 players in the 1960s who were a clear level above the league, the way LeBron and Curry (and maybe Durant if healthy) have been the last 3 years. They are (in my order) Russell, Wilt, West, and Ocar . . . then there's a big dropoff to Bob Pettit (5th best) and Elgin Baylor (6th best) . . . then another droppoff to anyone else. Pettit (and to a lesser extent Baylor) was more dominant in the 50s so he gets a big boost there v. the Walt Bellamy, Sam Jones, Hal Green types. I consider the 60s to be a strong era in NBA history due to the talent being packed together on a relatively few teams, as high or higher than the 80s and 90s, so there isn't the era penalty that makes Mikan so difficult to judge.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
