RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #73 (Bobby Jones)

[AEnigma]

I think this might be a good time to lay out the top candidates by era, so with this in mind here's the spreadsheet from our by-retirement-year HOF project from 2020.

If we go by each epoch and list out the top vote getters not yet inducted:

1960 - Johnston, Macauley, Martin, Yardley
1965 - Sharman
1970 - Cousy, Hagan, Sam
1975 - Greer (also Chet, DeBusschere, Zelmo, Lucas)
1980 - Cunningham, Daniels (also Hawkins)
1985 - Issel (also Tiny, Dandridge)
1990 - McAdoo, Walton (also Bobby, DJ, Marques, Gus)
1995 - Moncrief, Worthy (also English, Dantley, Sikma, Laimbeer)
2000 - Rodman (also Nique, KJ, Mo, Dumars, Nance)
2005 - Mullin, Grant
2010 - Webber, Iverson (also King)
2015 - Sheed (also Hill, Marion)
2020 - Parker, Bosh

Strikethrough are those I will not support; bold are those whom I support and see as essential inclusions; and italicised are those I could see myself supporting but on a case-by-case basis are not essential inclusions for me.

I will also emphasise that this should not be taken as any type of ranking; if we did this exercise with the top 75, a guy like Rasheed may be italicised while a guy like Ben may be bolded, but that does not mean I personally have Ben ahead of Rasheed.

I notice Vlade Divac is not listed, but he is an italicised name for me. Lenny Wilkens is an italicised name for me. Baron Davis is an italicised name for me. Metta Artest is an italicised name for me. Terry Porter is an italicised name for me. Marc Gasol and Andre Iguodala are italicised names for me but too recently retired to be part of that project. Carmelo Anthony and Joe Johnson are not popular here but would be italicised names for me just off total volume of play. Richie Guerin was not listed and not someone I would seriously consider, but I bring him up because I would much sooner support him than someone like Slater Martin; same with Earl Monroe and Archie Clark.

[Samurai]

Vote for #73: Bobby Jones. Jones has been getting close so hopefully he gets in soon. Yes I have reservations about his lack of longevity and durability. But I'm pretty sure that I would take Jones and his reduced minutes over Draymond if I were drafting a team, so seeing Green get selected convinced me to consider him. Gotta admit that there is bias here since Jones is one of my favorite players of all time. Despite averaging less than 30 minutes/game during his NBA career, he still has ten All Defensive First Team awards and one Second Team selection (in his second to last season averaging only 20 minutes/game). He was nicknamed The Secretary of Defense for good reason. He didn't shoot much but he was highly efficient, leading the league in FG% three times and finishing in the top 20 in TS% nine times. But as good as he was at playing basketball, how he conducted himself may have been even more admirable. He was always a gentleman with honor; he didn't drink, smoke or use profanity, always raised his hand when called for a foul - even telling a ref who mistakenly called a foul on a teammate that he was the one who actually committed the foul, even though that was his fifth foul! When teammates tried to show him ways to "cheat" by grabbing an opponent's jersey or committing a foul when the ref wasn't looking, he adamantly refused to do so. He would reply "if I have to play defense by holding on, that's when I quit." Teammate Dr J described Jones as "a player who's totally selfless, who runs like a deer, jumps like a gazelle, plays with his head and heart each night, and then walks away from the court as if nothing happened." And former teammate Charles Barkley said "if everyone in the world was like Bobby Jones, the world wouldn't have any problems."

Alternate vote: Damian Lilliard. Lilliard can shoot from deeper than any other player I've ever seen outside of Curry. I'd be more comfortable with voting for him if he got extra points for making shots from 30+ feet. 7-time All NBA team member (one first, four seconds and two thirds). 8-time all star. Dynamic scorer averaging over 20 ppg 11 out of 12 seasons, including the current season.

Nomination: Sam Jones. Ten rings but some will take that with a grain of salt for being Russell's teammate. Three-time All NBA Second Team (cursed by playing guard at the same time that Oscar and West were in their primes) and had three top ten finishes in MVP voting. Seven top twenty finishes in both points/game and TS% indicates that he was not only a scoring threat but an efficient shooter as well. I don't have a good feel on how good he was on defense; he had 9 top twenty finishes in DWS but Russell was obviously the primary driver of the team's excellent defense and KC Jones typically drew the assignment of defending the opposing team's primary backcourt scorer. One of the greatest bank shot artists of all-time; he was banking in shots before Tim Duncan was even born.

Alternate nomination: Adrian Dantley. I acknowledge that the 6-time all star can be a polarizing player. But in his prime he was an elite scorer, leading the league twice and finished in the top ten in ppg 5 times. Preferred higher percentage shots closer to the rim rather than hoisting 30-footers, finishing in the top 15 in TS% for a dozen consecutive years. He was also a magnet at drawing fouls, finishing in the top ten in FT attempts 10 times, leading the league twice.

[Clyde Frazier]

Pretty tentative but just getting a vote in for now.

Vote 1 - Bobby Jones
Vote 2 - Damian Lillard
Nomination 1 - Adrian Dantley
Nomination 2 - Allen Iverson

Jones had average longevity but decent durability. Low volume high efficiency scorer who was a great all around player and versatile defensively. Contributed to several deep playoff runs capped off by the title in 83 on one of the best teams ever.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I truly wouldn't be opposed to future projects having some sort of minimum-years-played or minimum-total-minutes-played requirements.

Part of me agrees but then if a player comes in and wins four straight MVPs and Finals MVPs, I would want them on the list. They clearly give me a better shot at a title than someone like Jack Sikma or Terry Porter.

The type of player that would accomplish those things in such a short period of time is very rare. I'd rather that type of player be delayed induction for one go-round than have instances like those I outlined in the last post(i.e. LeBron getting in in 2006, etc).

Well, to be clear, I meant that I'd hope that would be it for active players this go-round, not that other currently active players couldn't or shouldn't potentially get in in the future.

Oh, I understood you. I am saying guys like Lowry and Horford and Klay and even Jrue are pretty much finished. Lowry has maybe a year or two left as a roleplayer, and same for Horford. Both of them are among the ten oldest players in the league. Klay is younger but should probably be moved to the bench next year. Jrue is still productive but there is a reasonable argument Derrick White has surpassed him, which would mean Jrue is done as an all-star. Tatum and Doncic are one thing, but three more years will not offer a meaningful change for anyone established.

You're right, it wouldn't make much if any difference for those guys as their careers are mostly done, same with LeBron, CP3, etc.

But think about this: That list of players that Doc posted in this thread, that you later commented on, has 47 players on it, none of them active. You mentioned another nine or ten that aren't active anymore that might be italicized names for you. Walt Bellamy is guy who made it last time that neither of you mentioned(he probably wouldn't be in my Top 100, but he's been in the discussion). That's pushing 60 names. We have 28 spots left on this list including this thread. When there are that many retired players to consider with half as many spots remaining, I don't think there are any active players left that have a clear enough case to leapfrog all of those other names. I'm not sure I think Gobert even should've.

Last thing I'll say is that I wasn't really critiquing the list for having a recency bias as much as I was saying that the recent rounds + some of the discussion in the general thread were making me feel like the list may be headed in that direction in its later stages. This is based on Dame, George, and Gobert getting on the ballot in quick succession; on some of the mentions I've seen of Tatum/Doncic/Jrue/Lowry/etc; of the fact that guys like T-Mac and Carter got in very quickly once they made the ballot whereas guys from the more distant past like Unseld and Hayes(even though I didn't support him) seemed to take awhile and Bobby Jones and Hagen have been on the current ballot for awhile.

First I will reiterate that we went 16 rounds without inducting any 21st century draftees. Obviously the numbers are going to catch up with you. Imagine trying to argue we are in danger of being insufficiently big-focused because we voted in a bunch of guards and wings following that long string of inducted bigs.

Second, Hayes and Unseld took a while (even though I voted for and largely started the push for both) because it was hard to make a compelling case for them outside of, “They were successful stars who played for a long while.” I thought they belonged, but when no one believed they would be anything special in stronger eras, that was inevitably going to hold them back.

Third, Hagan and Jones have been on the ballot for a while because they were both nominated with like three votes. They did not have broad support at all, and Hagan has specifically lost support.

Your points are fair, though I would say that if it was hard to make a compelling case for Unseld, it was in large part because of assumed non-box impact that could not be proven due to non-existence of impact data from that time period, which underlines the next point I made. (Though yes, you could go the other way and suggest it's easier to argue non-box impact when there is no data to disprove it).

Also, your point about Hagan and Jones not having broad support when they were nominated is true, but that's basically true for more players than not at this point. Every round there's like four or five players getting one vote apiece.

Another thing is in the later stages, players will be closer together, and since there is impact data for more recent players that doesn't exist for (most) older players, it makes it easier to say 'well, I'm not sure about this older player's true impact beyond the box, but this newer player's RAPM or on/off looks consistently pretty good, so there you go'.

So it was more a concern for how the remainder of the list would go than a critique of the list so far. I could've been clearer about that, I suppose.

That is less of an active player issue, and I also do not think it is an issue to recognise there are more players in a thirty team league and more top tier players in a league worth billions across the entire world.

For the sake of argument, we can do a crude win share marker (only doing this for illustrative purposes; the metric has next to no other value to me in serious player-to-player comparisons). Highest 30 remaining:

- Dan Issel
- Adrian Dantley
- Horace Grant (plus/minus)
- Walt Bellamy
- Shaun Marion (plus/minus)
- Buck Williams
- Chet Walker
- Al Horford (plus/minus)
- Tony Parker (plus/minus)
- Jeff Hornacek (plus/minus)
- Bailey Howell
- Terry Porter
- Lamarcus Aldridge (plus/minus)
- Dominique Wilkins
- Zelmo Beaty
- Jack Sikma
- Kyle Lowry (plus/minus)
- Larry Nance
- Maurice Cheeks (plus/minus)
- Bill Laimbeer
- Detlef Schrempf (plus/minus)
- Sam Perkins (plus/minus)
- Chris Bosh (plus/minus)
- Carmelo Anthony (plus/minus)
- Elton Brand (plus/minus)
- Andre Iguodala (plus/minus)
- Otis Thorpe
- Jason Terry (plus/minus)
- Hal Greer
- A.C. Green (mostly post-prime plus/minus)

So even by a crude measure like win shares, half of those remaining are from the plus/minus era. And I would not seriously consider half the names listed here — which excludes Iverson, Rodman, Sam Jones, Cousy, Sharman, Dennis Johnson, Dandridge, Cunningham, etc. — but guys like Marion, Parker, Horford, and Lowry are certainly not part of that skepticism.

Forgive my ignorance...what do you mean by "win share marker"? I assumed you meant raw win shares, but the list doesn't jive with that, or WS/48(which I find much more useful than raw win shares).

[AEnigma]

I truly wouldn't be opposed to future projects having some sort of minimum-years-played or minimum-total-minutes-played requirements.

Part of me agrees but then if a player comes in and wins four straight MVPs and Finals MVPs, I would want them on the list. They clearly give me a better shot at a title than someone like Jack Sikma or Terry Porter.

The type of player that would accomplish those things in such a short period of time is very rare. I'd rather that type of player be delayed induction for one go-round than have instances like those I outlined in the last post(i.e. LeBron getting in in 2006, etc).

Walton is the uh triannual test case here. But we also see it to an extent with Penny, and Grant Hill (not many extolling his roleplayer years as the reason to vote for him), and Marques, and Connie...

Well, to be clear, I meant that I'd hope that would be it for active players this go-round, not that other currently active players couldn't or shouldn't potentially get in in the future.

Oh, I understood you. I am saying guys like Lowry and Horford and Klay and even Jrue are pretty much finished. Lowry has maybe a year or two left as a roleplayer, and same for Horford. Both of them are among the ten oldest players in the league. Klay is younger but should probably be moved to the bench next year. Jrue is still productive but there is a reasonable argument Derrick White has surpassed him, which would mean Jrue is done as an all-star. Tatum and Doncic are one thing, but three more years will not offer a meaningful change for anyone established.

You're right, it wouldn't make much if any difference for those guys as their careers are mostly done, same with LeBron, CP3, etc.

But think about this: That list of players that Doc posted in this thread, that you later commented on, has 47 players on it, none of them active. You mentioned another nine or ten that aren't active anymore that might be italicized names for you. Walt Bellamy is guy who made it last time that neither of you mentioned(he probably wouldn't be in my Top 100, but he's been in the discussion). That's pushing 60 names. We have 28 spots left on this list including this thread. When there are that many retired players to consider with half as many spots remaining, I don't think there are any active players left that have a clear enough case to leapfrog all of those other names. I'm not sure I think Gobert even should've.

Klay and Jrue would be italicised for me; I would take both over someone like Joe Dumars for example. Lowry and Horford are very much bolded for me.

Last thing I'll say is that I wasn't really critiquing the list for having a recency bias as much as I was saying that the recent rounds + some of the discussion in the general thread were making me feel like the list may be headed in that direction in its later stages. This is based on Dame, George, and Gobert getting on the ballot in quick succession; on some of the mentions I've seen of Tatum/Doncic/Jrue/Lowry/etc; of the fact that guys like T-Mac and Carter got in very quickly once they made the ballot whereas guys from the more distant past like Unseld and Hayes(even though I didn't support him) seemed to take awhile and Bobby Jones and Hagen have been on the current ballot for awhile.

First I will reiterate that we went 16 rounds without inducting any 21st century draftees. Obviously the numbers are going to catch up with you. Imagine trying to argue we are in danger of being insufficiently big-focused because we voted in a bunch of guards and wings following that long string of inducted bigs.

Second, Hayes and Unseld took a while (even though I voted for and largely started the push for both) because it was hard to make a compelling case for them outside of, “They were successful stars who played for a long while.” I thought they belonged, but when no one believed they would be anything special in stronger eras, that was inevitably going to hold them back.

Third, Hagan and Jones have been on the ballot for a while because they were both nominated with like three votes. They did not have broad support at all, and Hagan has specifically lost support.

Your points are fair, though I would say that if it was hard to make a compelling case for Unseld, it was in large part because of assumed non-box impact that could not be proven due to non-existence of impact data from that time period, which underlines the next point I made. (Though yes, you could go the other way and suggest it's easier to argue non-box impact when there is no data to disprove it).

Also, your point about Hagan and Jones not having broad support when they were nominated is true, but that's basically true for more players than not at this point. Every round there's like four or five players getting one vote apiece.

I am not aware of any others admitted with three votes.

Another thing is in the later stages, players will be closer together, and since there is impact data for more recent players that doesn't exist for (most) older players, it makes it easier to say 'well, I'm not sure about this older player's true impact beyond the box, but this newer player's RAPM or on/off looks consistently pretty good, so there you go'.

So it was more a concern for how the remainder of the list would go than a critique of the list so far. I could've been clearer about that, I suppose.

That is less of an active player issue, and I also do not think it is an issue to recognise there are more players in a thirty team league and more top tier players in a league worth billions across the entire world.

For the sake of argument, we can do a crude win share marker (only doing this for illustrative purposes; the metric has next to no other value to me in serious player-to-player comparisons). Highest 30 remaining:

- Dan Issel
- Adrian Dantley
- Horace Grant (plus/minus)
- Walt Bellamy
- Shaun Marion (plus/minus)
- Buck Williams
- Chet Walker
- Al Horford (plus/minus)
- Tony Parker (plus/minus)
- Jeff Hornacek (plus/minus)
- Bailey Howell
- Terry Porter
- Lamarcus Aldridge (plus/minus)
- Dominique Wilkins
- Zelmo Beaty
- Jack Sikma
- Kyle Lowry (plus/minus)
- Larry Nance
- Maurice Cheeks (plus/minus)
- Bill Laimbeer
- Detlef Schrempf (plus/minus)
- Sam Perkins (plus/minus)
- Chris Bosh (plus/minus)
- Carmelo Anthony (plus/minus)
- Elton Brand (plus/minus)
- Andre Iguodala (plus/minus)
- Otis Thorpe
- Jason Terry (plus/minus)
- Hal Greer
- A.C. Green (mostly post-prime plus/minus)

So even by a crude measure like win shares, half of those remaining are from the plus/minus era. And I would not seriously consider half the names listed here — which excludes Iverson, Rodman, Sam Jones, Cousy, Sharman, Dennis Johnson, Dandridge, Cunningham, etc. — but guys like Marion, Parker, Horford, and Lowry are certainly not part of that skepticism.

Forgive my ignorance...what do you mean by "win share marker"? I assumed you meant raw win shares, but the list doesn't jive with that, or WS/48(which I find much more useful than raw win shares).

Combined postseason and regular season, to give some boost to those who had regular deep runs in the playoffs.

[trex_8063]

If we go by each epoch and list out the top vote getters not yet inducted:

1960 - (Johnston), Macauley, Martin, Yardley
1965 - (Sharman)
1970 - Cousy, (Hagan), Sam
**1975 - (Greer), Chet, (DeBusschere), Zelmo, (Lucas)
1980 - (Cunningham, Daniels, Hawkins)
1985 - Issel Tiny, Dandridge***
1990 - McAdoo, (Walton), Bobby, DJ, (Marques, Gus)
1995 - (Moncrief), Worthy, English, Dantley, (Sikma, Laimbeer)
2000 - Rodman, Nique, KJ, (Mo, Dumars), Nance
2005 - Mullin, Grant
2010 - Webber, Iverson, King
2015 - Sheed, Hill, Marion
2020 - Parker, Bosh

I've done like AEnigma did: bolding those whom I will support (who I see as "essential inclusions" [or at least nearly so]), putting in parentheses those whom I might support on a situational basis (depending on who the other candidates are, etc; but whom generally are fringe inclusions at best [to me]), and striking through those I cannot see supporting and whom I think are unworthy inclusions.

**Within the 1975 group, nearly all of them are marginal in some what or another: Greer and DeBusschere are super-close to my bolding tier, Chet is close to the parentheses; Zelmo too.

***Leaning slightly toward parentheses on the Tiny and Dandridge.

I'd add (as parentheticals): Walt Bellamy, Jeff Hornacek, Terry Porter, Shawn Kemp, Tim Hardaway, George McGinnis, Kevin Love, Vlade Divac, Elton Brand.
Among more recent players: Kyle Lowry [who leans close to a bolded name for me], as well as Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Al Horford [all bolded for me].
Also Marc Gasol, Blake Griffin, and Amar'e Stoudemire could all be parentheses.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Part of me agrees but then if a player comes in and wins four straight MVPs and Finals MVPs, I would want them on the list. They clearly give me a better shot at a title than someone like Jack Sikma or Terry Porter.

The type of player that would accomplish those things in such a short period of time is very rare. I'd rather that type of player be delayed induction for one go-round than have instances like those I outlined in the last post(i.e. LeBron getting in in 2006, etc).

Walton is the uh triannual test case here. But we also see it to an extent with Penny, and Grant Hill (not many extolling his roleplayer years as the reason to vote for him), and Marques, and Connie...

That's a good point...I was only thinking of players who wouldn't meet a minimum requirement because they hadn't played enough yet, as opposed to retired guys that had their careers cut short to injury or whatever else. But still, it wouldn't be hard to set a requirement that would exclude guys like Tatum and Doncic(right now) while allowing most of the above guys in. Like, if the requirement were, say, 23000 total regular season minutes played, Tatum and Doncic would not get in this round, but everyone above would be eligible other than Walton and Hawkins(and Hawkins would just miss the cut).

Walton is the fly in the ointment. If you lower the requirement enough to let him in, there's no longer any point in having the requirement. So if we did it, we'd just have to make our peace with Walton never getting in.

Oh, and I just checked, if it was 23k, Jokic wouldn't be eligible yet either, he just crossed 20k recently. Hmm.

First I will reiterate that we went 16 rounds without inducting any 21st century draftees. Obviously the numbers are going to catch up with you. Imagine trying to argue we are in danger of being insufficiently big-focused because we voted in a bunch of guards and wings following that long string of inducted bigs.

Second, Hayes and Unseld took a while (even though I voted for and largely started the push for both) because it was hard to make a compelling case for them outside of, “They were successful stars who played for a long while.” I thought they belonged, but when no one believed they would be anything special in stronger eras, that was inevitably going to hold them back.

Third, Hagan and Jones have been on the ballot for a while because they were both nominated with like three votes. They did not have broad support at all, and Hagan has specifically lost support.

Your points are fair, though I would say that if it was hard to make a compelling case for Unseld, it was in large part because of assumed non-box impact that could not be proven due to non-existence of impact data from that time period, which underlines the next point I made. (Though yes, you could go the other way and suggest it's easier to argue non-box impact when there is no data to disprove it).

Also, your point about Hagan and Jones not having broad support when they were nominated is true, but that's basically true for more players than not at this point. Every round there's like four or five players getting one vote apiece.

I am not aware of any others admitted with three votes.

I checked, and while their weren't as many as I thought, Hayes got in with 3 votes(tied with Hagan), and McGrady/Unseld/Big Ben got on the ballot in a three-way tie with two votes apiece.

That is less of an active player issue, and I also do not think it is an issue to recognise there are more players in a thirty team league and more top tier players in a league worth billions across the entire world.

For the sake of argument, we can do a crude win share marker (only doing this for illustrative purposes; the metric has next to no other value to me in serious player-to-player comparisons). Highest 30 remaining:

- Dan Issel
- Adrian Dantley
- Horace Grant (plus/minus)
- Walt Bellamy
- Shaun Marion (plus/minus)
- Buck Williams
- Chet Walker
- Al Horford (plus/minus)
- Tony Parker (plus/minus)
- Jeff Hornacek (plus/minus)
- Bailey Howell
- Terry Porter
- Lamarcus Aldridge (plus/minus)
- Dominique Wilkins
- Zelmo Beaty
- Jack Sikma
- Kyle Lowry (plus/minus)
- Larry Nance
- Maurice Cheeks (plus/minus)
- Bill Laimbeer
- Detlef Schrempf (plus/minus)
- Sam Perkins (plus/minus)
- Chris Bosh (plus/minus)
- Carmelo Anthony (plus/minus)
- Elton Brand (plus/minus)
- Andre Iguodala (plus/minus)
- Otis Thorpe
- Jason Terry (plus/minus)
- Hal Greer
- A.C. Green (mostly post-prime plus/minus)

So even by a crude measure like win shares, half of those remaining are from the plus/minus era. And I would not seriously consider half the names listed here — which excludes Iverson, Rodman, Sam Jones, Cousy, Sharman, Dennis Johnson, Dandridge, Cunningham, etc. — but guys like Marion, Parker, Horford, and Lowry are certainly not part of that skepticism.

Forgive my ignorance...what do you mean by "win share marker"? I assumed you meant raw win shares, but the list doesn't jive with that, or WS/48(which I find much more useful than raw win shares).

Combined postseason and regular season, to give some boost to those who had regular deep runs in the playoffs.

Got it, thanks.

[OhayoKD]

WRT to the bolded - you can make the argument that Maravich and Bing shouldn't have made it in the first place(they're not in my top 100) - but certain players ought to be locks. I wouldn't want to see any Top 50, 75, or 100 list without Russell and Jordan on it, you know?

Last thing I'll say is that I wasn't really critiquing the list for having a recency bias as much as I was saying that the recent rounds +

I mean, if the most recent of the league is underrepresented overall despite being the best in an absolute sense, the only way that gets mitigated is a flurry of "recency bias" picks at some point.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Here's mine:

If we go by each epoch and list out the top vote getters not yet inducted:

1960 - Johnston, Macauley, Martin, Yardley
1965 - Sharman
1970 - Cousy, Hagan, Sam
1975 - Greer (also Chet, DeBusschere, Zelmo, Lucas))
1980 - Cunningham, Daniels (also Hawkins)
1985 - Issel (also Tiny, Dandridge)
1990 - McAdoo, Walton (also Bobby, DJ, Marques, Gus)
1995 - Moncrief, Worthy (also English, Dantley, Sikma, Laimbeer)
2000 - Rodman (also Nique, KJ, Mo, Dumars, Nance)
2005 - Mullin, Grant
2010 - Webber, Iverson (also King)
2015 - Sheed (also Hill, Marion)
2020 - Parker, Bosh

Other names that have been mentioned:

Vlade Divac
Lenny Wilkins
Baron Davis
Ron Artest
Terry Porter
Marc Gasol
Andre Iguodala
Carmelo Anthony
Joe Johnson
Walt Bellamy
Jeff Hornacek
Shawn Kemp
Tim Hardaway
George McGinnnis
Kevin Love
Elton Brand
Kyle Lowry
LaMarcus Aldridge
Al Horford
Blake Griffin
Amare Stoudamire

[OldSchoolNoBull]

WRT to the bolded - you can make the argument that Maravich and Bing shouldn't have made it in the first place(they're not in my top 100) - but certain players ought to be locks. I wouldn't want to see any Top 50, 75, or 100 list without Russell and Jordan on it, you know?

Last thing I'll say is that I wasn't really critiquing the list for having a recency bias as much as I was saying that the recent rounds +

I mean, if the most recent of the league is underrepresented overall despite being the best in an absolute sense, the only way that gets mitigated is a flurry of "recency bias" picks at some point.

Enigma said something similar to the bolded, and I'll just say, I don't like the idea labeling any era of the league objectively the best.

[trex_8063]

Walton is the uh triannual test case here. But we also see it to an extent with Penny, and Grant Hill (not many extolling his roleplayer years as the reason to vote for him), and Marques, and Connie...

That's a good point...I was only thinking of players who wouldn't meet a minimum requirement because they hadn't played enough yet, as opposed to retired guys that had their careers cut short to injury or whatever else. But still, it wouldn't be hard to set a requirement that would exclude guys like Tatum and Doncic(right now) while allowing most of the above guys in. Like, if the requirement were, say, 23000 total regular season minutes played, Tatum and Doncic would not get in this round, but everyone above would be eligible other than Walton and Hawkins(and Hawkins would just miss the cut).

Walton is the fly in the ointment. If you lower the requirement enough to let him in, there's no longer any point in having the requirement. So if we did it, we'd just have to make our peace with Walton never getting in.

Oh, and I just checked, if it was 23k, Jokic wouldn't be eligible yet either, he just crossed 20k recently. Hmm.

I suspect you're aware of this [reason you picked specifically 23k], but I might point out that Willis Reed barely clears this mark by just 73 minutes. You yourself were making him your primary vote by the #61 thread.

Surely you see the dubiousness of voting one player in the early 60s of the list, while considering another theoretical player [who may be slightly better] ineligible for anywhere in the top 100........because of 74 minutes.


A hardline threshold is not a good solution, at least not unless you're wiling to take a hard look at how you're rating some of the guys who are just barely clearing it.

imo, a better way is to simply structure your criteria in a manner that considers.......shall we say, "career availability"---to your satisfaction.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Walton is the uh triannual test case here. But we also see it to an extent with Penny, and Grant Hill (not many extolling his roleplayer years as the reason to vote for him), and Marques, and Connie...

That's a good point...I was only thinking of players who wouldn't meet a minimum requirement because they hadn't played enough yet, as opposed to retired guys that had their careers cut short to injury or whatever else. But still, it wouldn't be hard to set a requirement that would exclude guys like Tatum and Doncic(right now) while allowing most of the above guys in. Like, if the requirement were, say, 23000 total regular season minutes played, Tatum and Doncic would not get in this round, but everyone above would be eligible other than Walton and Hawkins(and Hawkins would just miss the cut).

Walton is the fly in the ointment. If you lower the requirement enough to let him in, there's no longer any point in having the requirement. So if we did it, we'd just have to make our peace with Walton never getting in.

Oh, and I just checked, if it was 23k, Jokic wouldn't be eligible yet either, he just crossed 20k recently. Hmm.

I suspect you're aware of this [reason you picked specifically 23k], but I might point out that Willis Reed barely clears this mark by just 73 minutes. You yourself were making him your primary vote by the #61 thread.

Surely you see the dubiousness of voting one player in the early 60s of the list, while considering another theoretical player [who may be slightly better] ineligible for anywhere in the top 100........because of 74 minutes.


A hardline threshold is not a good solution, at least not unless you're wiling to take a hard look at how you're rating some of the guys who are just barely clearing it.

imo, a better way is to simply structure your criteria in a manner that considers.......shall we say, "career availability"---to your satisfaction.

I wasn't thinking of Reed at all and didn't realize that about his total minutes until you pointed it out. It's a fair point and does give me pause.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Induction Vote #1: Bobby Jones

Induction Vote #2: Cliff Hagan

Going with Bobby. Ten Defensive First teams, +8.0 rTS for his career, strong playoff box composites, strong regular season on/off, was at worst and elite role player and a best a crucial component of an NBA champion, two NBA Finals teams(and two additional ECF teams) and an ABA Finals team(and an addition ABA Division Finals team). Won more than anyone else on the ballot. Also very durable - Jones played 941 of a possible 988 games in his career - 95.2%.

Induction Vote #1: Adrian Dantley

Induction Vote #2: Allen Iverson(but could go with a number of people here, not really sure).

As always, Dantley's TS Add is ridiculous and I don't know much longer we're going to keep ignoring it.

He also had some strong playoff performances.

1984: 32.2ppg, 7.5rpg, 4.2apg on 60.4% TS, .207 WS/48, 4.5 BPM in 41.3mpg/11 games
1987: 20.5ppg, 4.5rpg, 2.3apg on 60.4% TS, .171 WS/48, 2.9 BPM in 33.3mpg/15 games
1988: 19.4ppg, 4.7apg, 2.0rpg on 60.2% TS, .180 WS/48, 3.4 BPM in 35.0mpg/23 games

[trex_8063]

Just a heads up, Doc, I swapped my two nominations (as I'd said I might, depending on prevailing sentiments). Cousy and Iverson are basically adjacent on my list, but it's Iverson who has a little traction among current nominations, so I've swapped.

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

Induction 1: Bobby Jones
Induction 2: Cliff Hagan

Continuing to side with Bobby. I think the way he has all the green flags to the point that he made Julius Erving look unimpactful is just not remotely normal.

Going to put Hagan as my #2 guy again but continuing to bounce around. I think at the very least it has to be acknowledged that he was one of two clear cut stars on a champion team, and this is not something you can say about the other candidates, which I think shouldn't be dismissed lightly.

Nomination 1: Jayson Tatum
Nomination 2: Sam Jones

Again giving the nod to Tatum. I get the argument that he's longevity is weak, but frankly I think his accomplishments stand up against all active players currently being considered as well as some of those already in.

I'll give the second nod to Sam Jones whose critical role on a dynasty I frankly don't think Dantley or Iverson were capable of.

[Doctor MJ]

Tallies:

Induction 1:

Sheed - 2 (AEnigma, trelos)
Bobby - 5 (beast, Samurai, Clyde, OSNB, Doc)
Lillard - 1 (trex)

Bobby Jones with the majority.

Bobby Jones is Inducted at #73.


Nomination 1:

Iverson - 2 (AEnigma, trex)
Dantley - 3 (beast, Clyde, OSNB)
Nance - 1 (trelos)
Sam - 1 (Samurai)
Tatum - 1 (Doc)

No majority. Going to vote 2 between Dantley & Iverson:

Iverson - 0 (none)
Dantley - 1 (Samurai)
neither - 2 (trelos, Doc)

Dantley 4, Iverson 2

Adrian Dantley is added to Nominee list.