RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #93 (Billy Cunningham)

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Billy Cunningham
Vote 2 - Cliff Hagan
Nomination 1 - Gus Williams
Nomination 2 - Carmelo Anthony

Cunningham's contributions to the incredible '67 sixers in only his second season was impressive. Elite athlete, versatile skillset at his size and a reasonably efficient volume scorer for his time. Jumped to the ABA later in his career, winning MVP in '73. The cougars would lose to the pretty stacked colonels (gilmore, issel, dampier, mount) in the finals (7 games). His longevity is average at best, but as we round out the project, I don’t think there are many players left as talented and accomplished as him.

[Doctor MJ]

My personal vote:

Induction 1: Bob Davies
Induction 2: Billy Cunningham

Continuing to side with Davies. Race came down to Cunningham & Doncic, so yeah, Cunningham for me there. I expect Luka will pass him up in the near future, but I don't think he's there yet.

Nomination 1: Chris Bosh
Nomination 2: James Worthy

Think I voted for these two last time. Note dead set on them - I know I've mentioned Zelmo a few times and could see going in that direction - but they are getting some love and I definitely respect their careers more than I do Gus'.

[Doctor MJ]

Tallies:

Induction 1:

Cunningham - 5 (AEnigma, Samurai, trex, OSNB, Clyde)
Tatum - 2 (beast, hcl)
Luka - 4 (falco, f4p, Ohayo, ShaqA)
Davies - 3 (trelos, eminence, Doc)

Continuing with Cunningham vs Luka:

Cunningham - 2 (eminence, Doc)
Luka - 3 (beast, hcl, trelos)

Billy Cunningham 7, Luka Doncic 7.
Run-off.

Nomination 1:

Gus - 5 (AEnigma, falco, Ohayo, OSNB, Clyde)
Daniels - 1 (beast)
Lucas - 1 (Samurai)
Bosh - 3 (trex, eminence, Doc)
Gasol - 1 (hcl)
Porter - 1 (trelos)
Worthy - 1 (ShaqA)
none - 1 (f4p)

Continuing with Gus vs Bosh:

Gus - 1 (hcl)
Bosh - 0 (none)
neither - 5 (beast, Samurai, f4p, trelos, ShaqA)

Gus Williams 6, Chris Bosh 3.
Gus Williams will be added to Nominee list.

[Doctor MJ]

Alright folks, we need your help with a runoff, and it would be great if you could join us the rest of the way.

Billy Cunningham vs Luka Doncic. Choose one. I'll check the result tomorrow morning.

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[Doctor MJ]

As someone who has literally your same votes and noms with the reverse order (funny coincidence) i wanna inquire a bit on tatum vs luka, as well to other tatum voters in general

How big do you actually think the longevity gap needs to be for the quality edge to be overcame?

Cause the way i see it the gap is not even particularly big and it actually feels bigger than it is

Tatum was a really good player for the 2017 and 2018 celtics but more in the category of above average wing/borderline all star

by 2019 rookie luka may have not made the playoffs coming into a lottery team but he already is a comparable at worst player to tatum

By 2020 he already outperformed tatum as he honestly may have dome every other season since

Even tatum crwoning achievement of beating the (injured) bucks in 2022 is matched by luka performance to take down to the 60+ wins suns the same season

How high do you guys actually value a couple years at 2017/2018 tatum level when compared with a half decade of both players at their primes where one has performed clearly better, specially post season?

If you had to choosw between 5 years of both in their primes but tatum got his 3 first seasons (16-18) too would it really be a deal maker to pick tatum instead?

So I’ll chime in to say:

Keep in mind that Tatum has ranked higher by POY in the last couple years and has more POY shares total.

This then to say, for those who agreed with those assessments, why would Luka have a quality edge at all? Tatum’s literally just been expanding his lead in Luka through the time that this project covers.

Of course for those who disagree with those earlier votes that’s different, and I think that’s the place for discussion in that particular debate.


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As someone who doesn't really want to see either of them in this Top 100, I would ask how much Tatum's team success played into those POY assessments. I only ask because Tatum has been in a better situation than Luka from day one. Tatum joined a team that had been in the ECF the year before, whereas Luka joined a lotto team. Tatum has had a clear and dependable #2 from day one, Luka is still looking for his. Tatum has had, on the whole, better management, better coaching, and better rosters for his whole career. He's never needed to carry his team the way Luka has from day one.

Luka's box composites clear Tatum's pretty heavily(though those are offense-slanted stats and Tatum's defense certainly closes the gap if not more), and he has a higher PO on/off.

Not necessarily saying I take Luka over Tatum, but these are reasons why someone might.

Oh I think it's pretty clear why folks would favor Luka over Tatum, and he's likely to get in this round.

To your points:

- The "but he plays on a better team" thing is a reason to look at scoreboard family data (+/-, On/Off/ etc), where Tatum's generally had a clear edge over Luka, along with most anyone else Luka would be compared with. Arguments about Luka just having a terrible supporting cast just don't really hold up to deeper analysis.

I will say that the Mavs have been great lately and I think that speaks to Luka's need for the right fit around him. With that fit, looks like Luka can be a true MVP candidate. Without it - which was during the time frame this project covers - he wasn't. As I say this I'll note that in my conversations on the GB it became clear to me that people don't really tend to think about how fit should matter in debates of accomplishment. Supporters would point to Luka thriving with the Gaffords of the world as proof Luka was always an MVP because the Gaffords aren't that good, but the acquisition of a guy like Gafford wasn't about giving Luka superior talent around him, but about giving Luka a player that he fits with.

- Luka better playoff On/Off. Indeed Luka looks great by that metric, but it also amounts to a total of one playoff series that he's led his team to victory. I'm not betting against Luka as a scary-as-hell playoff guy, but I'm personally not willing to let that dictate him being over players with considerably more playoff success.

As I say all of this, I think the ship has sailed on me. I'm guessing most of the people who come in for the runoff will be siding with Luka because they'll just see him as a considerably better player than Cunningham, and that's certainly understandable.

[Colbinii]

Billy Cunningham

Prefer Luka's 2020-2023 to Cunningham's best 4 year stretch, though I think Cunningham from 1969-1973 has a good case as equal or greater to Luka's campaign [Luka having less years]. Cunningham also has some good complimentary seasons around his prime [not many, short career] and Luka likely jumps to the 70s or 60s in this project if we simply counter 2024.

Honestly, I could be underrating Luka already with his career as is and each season he adds is going to be vaulting him up rapidly but that discourse should come in 2026.

[Owly]

The Colonels had a .67 SRS and 0.9 Net drop when Issel arrived. So a very marginal drop in the same year they went through three coaches and had some other lesser roster changes too(Goose Ligon and Darel Carrier's minutes were cut some to make room for the newly added Cincy Powell). I don't know that one can draw any big conclusions about Issel from that, especially when there was a much bigger signal when Issel left Kentucky.

But anyway, the weaker conference thing is fair, but they didn't just make the Finals and get trounced. They took three games off a much stronger(by SRS and Net) Utah Stars team, losing in 7.



That's a fair question. The Raptors were awful for most of Bosh's time there. It's just that a significant part of Bosh's case seems to rest on how impressive you think his time as Toronto's #1 was. I am not overly impressed by it, but by all means, if you disagree, make the case.



If you look at RS and PO for 1987-1991, that's ten samples. You found one of the two where Scott is ahead of Worthy(the other being the 1991 playoffs when they were both hurt). Worthy tops Scott in eight out of ten samples, usually by significant margins int the playoffs.

1987 RS
Worthy: .158/2.6
Scott: .136/1.1

1987 PO
Worthy: .190/5.0
Scott: .119/-0.7

1988 RS
Worthy: .143/2.3
Scott: .168/3.4

1988 PO
Worthy: .148/4.3
Scott: .125/1.7

1989 RS
Worthy: .158/3.0
Scott: .125/1.0

1989 PO
Worthy: .175/5.1
Scott: .139/2.2

1990 RS
Worthy: .172/3.8
Scott: .111/0.6

1990 PO
Worthy: .106/2.2
Scott: .093/1.6

1991 RS
Worthy: .143/2.5
Scott: .120/0.9

1991 PO
Worthy: .048/0.2
Scott: .100/1.0



It's a fair point, but all throughout this project primacy, particularly in high levels of team success, has mattered. Being #1 on a title team carries more weight than being #2, #2 carries more weight than #3, and so on.



I'm really only comparing Worthy's 1986-87->1990-90(and 91 if you want to include it) to Bosh's 2010-11->2013-14, i.e. Worthy's years of greatest primacy winning championships to Bosh's most successful years. It's not that I'm not considering everything they did, I'm just saying I'm more impressed by Worthy's contributions to those championships than Bosh's to his.

Now, if you want to argue that Bosh's time as #1 in Toronto eclipses Worthy's time as a #3 from 1982-1986(though Worthy's statistical output in those earlier years is not much different than his later years, and to the extent it is, it could be chalked up to lower minutes), and/or that Worthy's post-1990 dropoff hurts him to a prohibitive point, you can, but I'd disagree.

The marginality of Kentucky's drop was I think, repeatedly acknowledged. It's as much that 0 SRS was your own threshold and you highlight finals but don't note something held against Bosh, despite arriving in a better position to do it than Bosh. So I'm not saying I draw strong conclusions off though if there aren't other big causes it may provide some support to the idea he can post box (mainly offensive) numbers without generating what might be considered commensurate impact.

I realize I said that about Bosh's time in Toronto, but many of the SRSs his Toronto teams posted were much further into the negative than that Kentucky team. And as for Issel's impact, the SRS dropoff when he left Kentucky(with all the other major players still there) still stands.

Regarding Scott, Worthy ... it's wasn't a big point but fwiw. You were talking 87-89. Assuming you mean (per conventions here) 86-87 to 88-89 that's 3 seasons. In the bulk part of one of those ... as I say Scott looks better across all Reference composite box aggregates. It depends what you meant by "Worthy was legitimately #2 in 87-89" and on average that's true but there are readings that could be taken from that phrasing that aren't supported.

I mean, he had better numbers for 2/3 regular seasons and more importantly all three postseasons, right? He was, effectively, the #2 option from 86 or so until Magic retired.

I don't know, contributions to what happened to be championships (or more, championship adjacent years I think?)... granting that you say you're not ignoring the rest ... I'm still just not that enamored with that framework. John Salley contributed more to his title teams than Bob Lanier or Karl Malone did to theirs but ... I'm not sure it helps evaluate them (and yes you're saying similar role but ... like I say I don't see the virtue of the framework). And as I said before looking at full career playoffs it didn't look like there was some great separation between the two (see earlier post).
But if we are separating it out, If the question is .. do I take ...
Bosh's 18815 minutes, 21.3 PER, .158 WS/48 (61.8 WS), 2.1 BPM (19.6 VORP) +5.7 on-off, plus the partial 15 and 16 seasons over
Worthy's 9535 mp, 17.8 PER, .144 (28.6), 1.9 (9.3) impact unknown plus the ... less than scintillating late career Worthy years ...
then yes there's a difference in quality and quantity (with a tradeoff that I'll get into). Worthy is also playoff unavailable in an otherwise quality year. Bosh's minutes are up and averages down off the first year or two which are more marginal (especially y1), so one could get a larger rate production gap trading down the minutes and cumulative advantages ... either framework seems to me to suggest a Bosh advantage.

I don't really know what you're basing the notion that Sally was more important than either of those guys on.

But after looking at the numbers, I can agree that Bosh's Toronto tenure appears to hold marginally more value than Worthy's earlier years based on the rate metrics(and more than that if you weight longevity heavily). But I still think 87-89 Worthy's playoff production is more consequential than Bosh's 11-14.

We may have to agree to disagree.

I don't mind to much on point one. As before the 0 SRS bar was your measure ... it made sense to point out that the team hyped as a finals team didn't meet that bar (and the above that they had before). As before, "impact" on arrival is a (very) crude barometer it's not a huge deal to me. I would grant they do appear to get worse on departure though the league average is artificially raised by one team contracting entirely (raising the real average standard by increasing depth with the dispersed players whilst the absence of the weak team pushes where average is higher) and then another 2 weak teams each playing 16 or fewer games. If one were to take SRS change at face value (and we can't for the aforementioned reason) Denver adds eventual rookie of the year (I'd suggest the perceived best rookie in the world - and Thompson had also been the NBA's 1st pick) ... and Issel ... and got worse - now they lost Robsich, Calvin and Green ...still, adding two "stars".... In short there's an awful lot going on with the contraction of the league and also roster changes to attempt to parse out an individual's impact via those SRS movements from 75 to 76, even beyond the normal level of noise in such measures.

Regarding Worthy versus Scott, I'm not disputing Worthy as aggregate better, just that the full picture isn't necessarily given by just calling Worthy 2 across the span without clarification or specificity. Fwiw, with regard to "more importantly all three postseasons" ... it depends what one is measuring. If it's the career they happened to have ... I'd rather have a career with good postseasons because I know they get the postseasons. If it's the player and we're looking at a narrow window within their career ...
96-98: Cassell's playoff PER is 9.0; WS/48 is -0.060; BPM is -4.3.
01-03: it's 14.9; .073; -1.4
In a narrow window and evaluating the player ... I'd rather have the larger sample. Now the above isn't exactly apples to apples, Cassell's samples are shorter and each includes a non-playoff year. Scott versus Worthy ... they're both getting good size runs each year. Although it also depends on why one prizes the playoff ... fwiw, from memory LA's in conference opponents weren't always sterling which might inflate all Lakers' stats for those runs versus more typical opposition.

In terms of "option" ... that would tend toward primacy and usage. As ever rank isn't that important to me. Just taking Reference's shooting-centric usage he's at 23.0% for the 86-91 spell cited here. That's above average but perhaps a little under what I think might be expected from a typical "second option"? Fwiw, this ignores efficiency, an area of strength for Worthy ... I wouldn't want to seem to suggest he'd be better if he just missed a few extra shots ... but I don't thing, with regard to "option" the usage load was that great (how much he scored in transition or off Magic might ... though I wouldn't assume without closer inspection ... lessen the creation burden lower than surface numbers suggest).

Regarding Salley, Malone, Lanier, see the text.

contributions to what happened to be championships

Malone didn't play on any champs. Lanier didn't play on any champs. Salley played on 4 - two of which he was an important piece on. It is therefore a given that Salley's contributions to champs would be greater. As before that's not your exact criteria in years to focus on as yours is more specific (I ventured last time, "more, championship adjacent years" - and some other criteria I don't know in choosing - you put it " Worthy's years of greatest primacy winning championships to Bosh's most successful years" ... there's a non-title strong team playoff performance year included but another such year with high primacy '91, still with Magic, isn't included ...) ... still yeah I don't see the virtue of chopping things up this way and whilst you do say other years aren't ignored ... I feel equal scrutiny to those earlier Bosh versus Worthy numbers would have flagged up that the production gap isn't super close especially in terms of cumulative value added and that - I would argue - makes the question why the focus on a particular spell more important (especially if some of the early spell may be being dismissed as mere "longevity" - 06-10 Bosh plays 13288 minutes - even just outright ignoring years one and two - this spell is significantly longer than Worthy's equivalent 9535 early career minutes in the framework you provided ... Bosh is at 23.3 PER, .176 WS/48; 3.2 BPM ... nearly 4000 additional minutes with production that is on average better than the bulk of any of Worthy's individual seasons in that spell ('86 Worthy does top those WS/48 and BPM marks at .185 and 3.9) mostly pretty clearly so (cf Worthy's averages for the selected span previously posted).

As you say this may not be something that we'll see eye-to-eye on and so agree to disagree.

[AEnigma]

If he doesn't make it in before, it feels like Hagan should get to be #100 just to not suffer the indignity of being nominated for like half the project and not making it. Especially as a probable Finals MVP. Of course I haven't been voting for him either.

Separate from the Luka/Cunningham conversation, but was reading back and realised I had overlooked this.

He was absolutely not winning Finals MVP. Game 1 he has a case for the best performer on the Hawks, but it is not at all clear over Pettit.

Game 3 was Pettit’s.

Game 5 was probably Slater Martin’s (fun name for previous top 100 consideration, although that time has passed), and I would take Pettit’s performance over Hagan’s barring some accounts of Hagan suddenly showing up as a notable defender that game.

And then in Game 6 Pettit put up one of the all-time greatest performances in Finals history, astounding as an isolated statline and even more astounding by comparison with the rest of his team.

Hagan’s Finals averages stand out because he excelled in uncompetitive losses in Games 2 and 4 while everyone else struggled, but as far as who won that series, it was Pettit without question. Hagan’s overall playoff averages that season are even better because of how thoroughly he eviscerated the 33-39 Pistons, but personally hard for me to weigh that much when assessing championship responsibility.

Much is also made of the 1957 miserably close loss, but there too I would pretty comfortably favour Pettit had the Hawks pulled off the Game 7 win, even if largely because Pettit played 93 more minutes across those seven games while Hagan played fifth-man minutes.

[Ambrose]

I would love to vote my favorite player Luka Doncic in but I am not familiar enough with Cunningham's game to be a legitimate vote here.

[Owly]

As someone who doesn't really want to see either of them in this Top 100, I would ask how much Tatum's team success played into those POY assessments. I only ask because Tatum has been in a better situation than Luka from day one. Tatum joined a team that had been in the ECF the year before, whereas Luka joined a lotto team. Tatum has had a clear and dependable #2 from day one...

Doc proabably knows more and cares more here but my cliffnotes would be

- As Doc alludes to Tatum has consistently looked superb in terms of impact. I know one poster's calculations looked particularly strong ... any way you look at it though +8.2 on-off for eligible career with a nearly 15000 minutes on sample ... I'm not sure how much the team goodness can be ... he landed on a good team. That figure puts his offcourt time as slightly negative (+7.9 "on" so circa -0.3 "off") - now an average team might expect to be below 0 when their best player is off but it would seem unlikely that the Celtics were generally exceptional and Tatum merely a beneficiary given the imbalance. Their goodness hasn't happened with him off court.

With regard to "ECF the year before" ... there's turnover going on: production-peak Isaiah Thomas and probably impac-peak Crowder were on the previous team. Boston time flipping them well but Boston lose some depth and Kyrie ... is Kyrie.

Circling back to Kyrie he and Porzingis may be the biggest "stars" either has had ... and both have now had both (I would grant here "stars" isn't goodness - I like Jrue [but in age 33 season] and White). But I assume given " Luka is still looking for his" I assume you share some concerns on Kryie.

I suppose the "clear and dependable #2 from day one" is Jaylen Brown? If so ...
Brown's shared career with Tatum up to the eligible period (i.e. year two to end of 2023 season) sees him post 17.1 PER, .107 WS/48, 0.7 BPM and an on-off of +1.0 (actually better than his full RS career of -0.7). This is, on average, I believe, clearly below the expected level of a "#2" (especially one on a good team) and at times has been pretty ugly (see 2019).

The Doncic impact question is being discussed more ... at a time when his impact actually starts seeming more pronounced but I think "smart" fans had higher priors on Doncic and got immediate box-justification. It has taken (up to this season) a very significant, consistent, long-term impact signal for Tatum to get into this type of conversation.

This isn't to say all else is exactly equal but I'm not sure happening to land in a better spot stands up to scrutiny.

He's never needed to carry his team the way Luka has from day one.

See above. But if carry refers to a manner of play (helio-ball) ... I don't think Doncic doesn't want to play this way and "has to" because of circumstance. People smarter than me also seem to suggest he isn't super active off ball, so more of that may make him not only less productive but also less useful. Insofar as "carry" refers to team performance, my understanding is until this season (which in itself isn't included though the information gained may color impressions of earlier seasons) his impact signal was quite ... pedestrian (though already picking up in '23) - playoffs looking better but in what is still a small sample so subject to a lot of noise.

[f4p]

If he doesn't make it in before, it feels like Hagan should get to be #100 just to not suffer the indignity of being nominated for like half the project and not making it. Especially as a probable Finals MVP. Of course I haven't been voting for him either.

Separate from the Luka/Cunningham conversation, but was reading back and realised I had overlooked this.

He was absolutely not winning Finals MVP. Game 1 he has a case for the best performer on the Hawks, but it is not at all clear over Pettit.

Game 3 was Pettit’s.

Game 5 was probably Slater Martin’s (fun name for previous top 100 consideration, although that time has passed), and I would take Pettit’s performance over Hagan’s barring some accounts of Hagan suddenly showing up as a notable defender that game.

And then in Game 6 Pettit put up one of the all-time greatest performances in Finals history, astounding as an isolated statline and even more astounding by comparison with the rest of his team.

Hagan’s Finals averages stand out because he excelled in uncompetitive losses in Games 2 and 4 while everyone else struggled, but as far as who won that series, it was Pettit without question. Hagan’s overall playoff averages that season are even better because of how thoroughly he eviscerated the 33-39 Pistons, but personally hard for me to weigh that much when assessing championship responsibility.

Much is also made of the 1957 miserably close loss, but there too I would pretty comfortably favour Pettit had the Hawks pulled off the Game 7 win, even if largely because Pettit played 93 more minutes across those seven games while Hagan played fifth-man minutes.

reading your comment it occurs to me i may have confused hagan with someone else from the 50's (though i'm not sure who ) when i said that, as i would have said pettit should be the finals mvp if i had been thinking of it correctly.

[AEnigma]

Not sure why we are implicitly challenging Tatum landing in a better spot. Trading Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder for Kyrie does not make the team comparable to the 2018 Mavericks…

Even ignoring the very, very obvious disparity in rookie environment, since being drafted, Tatum’s team has played at a +3.5 level in 41 games without him (underperforming by record at 21-20), while Luka’s has played at a -1.3 level in 78 games without him (slightly underperforming by record at 33-45). Generally I lean more toward the net rating here than the win percentage when representing the teams, but either way that is somewhere between a 7-win disparity in support on the low-end and a 13-win disparity on the high end, all without even attempting any seasonal filtering or real consideration of what it means to join the 2017 Celtics rather than the 2018 Mavericks.

[Fundamentals21]

Vote: Luka Doncic

Luka Magic's numbers...

86th in VORP
79th in O Rating
4 time All NBA
8th in Triple Doubles
5 time all star
4 time MVP award shares contestant
Most career 3's for under 25ers
PTS, ASSIST, REBOUND tally to rival Durant and LeBron at that age.

Luka has had an impressive half career or so. Needs another 5 years or so before we can call it a full career. His impact is eye popping by any standards, and he's routinely mentioned in the Top 5 of the league. He's also a phenom internationally even though he's yet to win there. He's likely missing some good playoff runs before he can be catapulted to the Top 50, where his trajectory is actually headed. His actual reputation is generally that he can even surpass Mavs GOAT Dirk Nowitzki. He deservedly should be in the Top 100.

[Owly]

If he doesn't make it in before, it feels like Hagan should get to be #100 just to not suffer the indignity of being nominated for like half the project and not making it. Especially as a probable Finals MVP. Of course I haven't been voting for him either.

Separate from the Luka/Cunningham conversation, but was reading back and realised I had overlooked this.

He was absolutely not winning Finals MVP. Game 1 he has a case for the best performer on the Hawks, but it is not at all clear over Pettit.

Game 3 was Pettit’s.

Game 5 was probably Slater Martin’s (fun name for previous top 100 consideration, although that time has passed), and I would take Pettit’s performance over Hagan’s barring some accounts of Hagan suddenly showing up as a notable defender that game.

And then in Game 6 Pettit put up one of the all-time greatest performances in Finals history, astounding as an isolated statline and even more astounding by comparison with the rest of his team.

Hagan’s Finals averages stand out because he excelled in uncompetitive losses in Games 2 and 4 while everyone else struggled, but as far as who won that series, it was Pettit without question. Hagan’s overall playoff averages that season are even better because of how thoroughly he eviscerated the 33-39 Pistons, but personally hard for me to weigh that much when assessing championship responsibility.

Much is also made of the 1957 miserably close loss, but there too I would pretty comfortably favour Pettit had the Hawks pulled off the Game 7 win, even if largely because Pettit played 93 more minutes across those seven games while Hagan played fifth-man minutes.

Without opining on FMVP which can be narrative driven ... (and Pettit's final game is the "story" as well as an exceptional performance).
Regarding Hagan I'm not sure it's fair to dismiss performances where his teammates were poor. It doesn't matter to the original poster's FMVP contention but in terms of "championship responsibility" ... credit for the first round ... I don't know how into the weeds it helps to get in such things but fwiw it seems Hagan was good for every game. Whilst a couple of later wins were routs St Louis win the first two games by three points each. Have Hagan play a little worse in each of these and St Louis are looking at being at worst 0-3 or giving them the benefit of holding latter wins constant 2-3 (or 0-2 holding nothing after the flipped games) ... even granting the Pistons as weak opponents it seems unlikely in any of these scenarios that the Hawks advance, just because of the hole they're in.

It depends what one is seeking to measure and as I imply I'm not sure how much splitting it up this much helps but an even pull down on Hagan's round one performance would seem to leave St Louis in a hole.

[Owly]

Not sure why we are implicitly challenging Tatum landing in a better spot...

Not sure anyone did.

[AEnigma]

That can be said to some degree of most players in tight series. What if Slater Martin were a bit worse defensively (btw overall minutes leader for the team). The contention is not that Hagan was bad, it was that Pettit was the player most responsible for securing the win. Looking at performance in losses is fine for a predictive hypothetical — e.g. in an average game, who would make for a more reliable scorer — but when looking at what happened, yes, Hagan’s averages in the losses comfortably outpaced what he produced in the wins (where Pettit was more consistently the star).

The reason Hagan is on this ballot at all is disproportionately because for three consecutive series he posted gaudier scoring averages than Pettit did. But two of those series were against quantifiably bad teams, and his production in the other was skewed toward games the team lost. I think that matters when assessing this narrative of him as the secret driving force of the team, yes.

[Owly]

That can be said to some degree of most players in tight series. What if Slater Martin were a bit worse defensively (btw overall minutes leader for the team). The contention is not that Hagan was bad, it was that Pettit was the player most responsible for securing the win. Looking at performance in losses is fine for a predictive hypothetical — e.g. in an average game, who would make for a more reliable scorer — but when looking at what happened, yes, Hagan’s averages in the losses comfortably outpaced what he produced in the wins (where Pettit was more consistently the star).

The reason Hagan is on this ballot at all is disproportionately because for three consecutive series he posted much gaudier scoring averages than Pettit did. But two of those series were against quantifiably bad teams, and his production in the other was skewed toward games the team lost. I think that matters when assessing this narrative of him as the secret driving force of the team, yes.

If games are close then of course it doesn't matter which player we make worse (or better) to flip them.

My thinking is if the concern is with what actually happened ...

As it is Hawks win 4-1.

Hagan plays very well.

Assumption is this against a "quantifiably bad team" and so doesn't matter.

But dropping Hagan evenly means the Hawks probably lose. If what happened to happen is super important drop Hagan just a little and the probability is that championship turns to dust. You still have to beat the bad teams and without Hagan at that level ... as it was ... (and with him at a lower level in however many remaining games) that seems unlikely.

To me the idea that the Pistons are bad would be a point from the weighing average performance angle. But in reality at any of the above points for stopping our changed-Hagan world (0-2, 0-3, 2-3) Detroit being bad matters only to the extent that it affects the odds of the remaining games. That the Hawks shouldn't need strong performances from Hagan to avoid being in a hole, I would think, wouldn't matter to a "as it happened to happen" angle: they did need them.

[LA Bird]

Runoff vote: Luka Doncic

Haven't been following the project closely but I am surprised by how Cunningham somehow leapfrogged Hagan who's been stuck in nomination forever. Comparable longevity but Hagan clears him in peaks. And one generally improves in the playoffs statistically while the other is a paper tiger. The ABA accolades and stats are nice but don't really change much for me.

[Doctor MJ]

If he doesn't make it in before, it feels like Hagan should get to be #100 just to not suffer the indignity of being nominated for like half the project and not making it. Especially as a probable Finals MVP. Of course I haven't been voting for him either.

Separate from the Luka/Cunningham conversation, but was reading back and realised I had overlooked this.

He was absolutely not winning Finals MVP. Game 1 he has a case for the best performer on the Hawks, but it is not at all clear over Pettit.

Game 3 was Pettit’s.

Game 5 was probably Slater Martin’s (fun name for previous top 100 consideration, although that time has passed), and I would take Pettit’s performance over Hagan’s barring some accounts of Hagan suddenly showing up as a notable defender that game.

And then in Game 6 Pettit put up one of the all-time greatest performances in Finals history, astounding as an isolated statline and even more astounding by comparison with the rest of his team.

Hagan’s Finals averages stand out because he excelled in uncompetitive losses in Games 2 and 4 while everyone else struggled, but as far as who won that series, it was Pettit without question. Hagan’s overall playoff averages that season are even better because of how thoroughly he eviscerated the 33-39 Pistons, but personally hard for me to weigh that much when assessing championship responsibility.

Much is also made of the 1957 miserably close loss, but there too I would pretty comfortably favour Pettit had the Hawks pulled off the Game 7 win, even if largely because Pettit played 93 more minutes across those seven games while Hagan played fifth-man minutes.

reading your comment it occurs to me i may have confused hagan with someone else from the 50's (though i'm not sure who ) when i said that, as i would have said pettit should be the finals mvp if i had been thinking of it correctly.

Probably Arizin. Understandable slip.

[Doctor MJ]

That can be said to some degree of most players in tight series. What if Slater Martin were a bit worse defensively (btw overall minutes leader for the team). The contention is not that Hagan was bad, it was that Pettit was the player most responsible for securing the win. Looking at performance in losses is fine for a predictive hypothetical — e.g. in an average game, who would make for a more reliable scorer — but when looking at what happened, yes, Hagan’s averages in the losses comfortably outpaced what he produced in the wins (where Pettit was more consistently the star).

The reason Hagan is on this ballot at all is disproportionately because for three consecutive series he posted gaudier scoring averages than Pettit did. But two of those series were against quantifiably bad teams, and his production in the other was skewed toward games the team lost. I think that matters when assessing this narrative of him as the secret driving force of the team, yes.

So let me first say I absolutely agree that Pettit would have been the Finals MVP when they won the title, and I think that's pretty cut & dry.

Re: Hagan here because of 3 series he posted gaudier scoring averages against bad teams on average. I don't think that's a fair characterization of the trend of his career. Consider:

Hagan averaged more PPG in the 4 finals series he played in, 25 games total, than he did in any other round, despite the fact that that total is weighted down by the fact that that includes a series from his rookie season in which he was a 14.5 MPG player in the regular season.

In Hagan's other 3 finals appearances (always against the Celtics remember), he averaged 25.7 PPG on 54.2% TS.

For perspective, Hagan - who was one of the most efficient major scorers of the era in the regular season - peaked in the regular season with in '59-60 with a PPG of 24.8 PPG, when he did so on 52.2% TS% which was good for an elite +209.7 TS Add.

So Hagan in general, on the biggest stage, against the most dominant defensive dynasty of all time consistently outperformed his scoring performance of even his best regular season, and the idea that Hagan padded his numbers against soft competition just couldn't really be more wrong.

Hagan has forever had a reputation take as being able to take his game to another level in the playoffs, and close examination of it has never left me with any doubts about this. I have no specific explanation for the fact that the small sample of WOWY doesn't show Hagan in a heroic light, but I do think he was absolutely essential to the success those Hawks had reaching the finals in 4 out of 5 years.