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

[Colbinii]

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.

I don't think you should be using 2024 Statistics but maybe the project allows this partial season to count.

I think he would rank around 140th in VORP prior to this year.

[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.

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.

… But he did. He objectively did. That does not mean he was not a good scorer otherwise; that was never stated. That does not mean he did not score well against the Celtics; that was also never stated. That does not mean he did not elevate his scoring in the postseason as a general statement; that too was never stated. But Hagan has two postseasons, across three series, where he eclipsed 52% true shooting — and here as well, this is not me saying 52% is an easy bar for the era. One of those series was the 1958 Finals, where he averaged 56.4% true shooting — but specifically averaged 69.4% true shooting in the two double-digit losses and 49.5% true shooting in the four close wins. And of course Russell was absent for the second of those losses. In the other two series, both against 33-win teams, his true shooting was 58.9% and 58.3%.

Now, he did recreate that level in one later series: the 1961 Finals. 58.3% true shooting there too. It was also a series where the Hawks were outscored by twelve points a game. Hagan was outstanding in the team’s one win, but if we want to talk about effect on the team, I find it pretty interesting how — excluding his rookie season here — Hagan averaged 23.75 on 52.4% true shooting in wins against the Celtics and 27.3 on 54.7% true shooting in losses against the Celtics (all of which were by at least 8 points). Pettit shows the opposite signal, with 24.7 points per game in losses against the Celtics (now I am counting 1957 because that was his prime) and 33 points per game in wins against the Celtics. Not taking the time to calculate the respective true shooting because I think the point disparity speaks enough for itself, but what I am emphasising here is that Hagan was broadly thriving when games were less competitive while Pettit was the more reliable producer in wins.

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.

But again the bar is not merely “was essential making the Finals”. The bar is not also just being an efficient scorer. Dantley was the most efficient scorer on the 1987/88 Pistons, and I do not think the team is as successful if he had been entirely absent, but I am not going to imply he deserved comparable billing to Isiah or was even de facto more valuable to the team than Bill Laimbeer was — and you very explicitly made a show of backing Hagan over Dantley. You constantly praise Hagan’s contribution to a title team, but I am looking and seeing an inverted one-way Worthy playing in a worse era for less meaningful time, and Worthy is barely going to get in as is.

[trex_8063]

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.

I don't think you should be using 2024 Statistics but maybe the project allows this partial season to count.

I think he would rank around 140th in VORP prior to this year.

No, this project absolutely is NOT inclusive of this current season (which is why it's called the 2023 Top 100 Project). Active players coming into consideration in the 90s should not bear advantages that players in 10s/20s did not have.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

I don't think you should be using 2024 Statistics but maybe the project allows this partial season to count.

I think he would rank around 140th in VORP prior to this year.

Speaking officially:
It does NOT let you count totals from this season.
This is a project that goes through the ends of the 2022-23 season.

[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.

… But he did. He objectively did. That does not mean he was not a good scorer otherwise; that was never stated. That does not mean he did not score well against the Celtics; that was also never stated. That does not mean he did not elevate his scoring in the postseason as a general statement; that too was never stated. But Hagan has two postseasons, across three series, where he eclipsed 52% true shooting — and here as well, this is not me saying 52% is an easy bar for the era. One of those series was the 1958 Finals, where he averaged 56.4% true shooting — but specifically averaged 69.4% true shooting in the two double-digit losses and 49.5% true shooting in the four close wins. And of course Russell was absent for the second of those losses. In the other two series, both against 33-win teams, his true shooting was 58.9% and 58.3%.

Now, he did recreate that level in one later series: the 1961 Finals. 58.3% true shooting there too. It was also a series where the Hawks were outscored by twelve points a game. Hagan was outstanding in the team’s one win, but if we want to talk about effect on the team, I find it pretty interesting how — excluding his rookie season here — Hagan averaged 23.75 on 52.4% true shooting in wins against the Celtics and 27.3 on 54.7% true shooting in losses against the Celtics (all of which were by at least 8 points). Pettit shows the opposite signal, with 24.7 points per game in losses against the Celtics (now I am counting 1957 because that was his prime) and 33 points per game in wins against the Celtics. Not taking the time to calculate the respective true shooting because I think the point disparity speaks enough for itself, but what I am emphasising here is that Hagan was broadly thriving when games were less competitive while Pettit was the more reliable producer in wins.

It doesn't make any sense to try to impugn Hagan's performance as lesser based on weak defensive opponents, implying he couldn't do it against strong defensive opponents, when we his offensive performances in the Finals against the Celtics were extremely impressive.

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.

But again the bar is not merely “was essential making the Finals”. The bar is not also just being an efficient scorer. Dantley was the most efficient scorer on the 1987/88 Pistons, and I do not think the team is as successful if he had been entirely absent, but I am not going to imply he deserved comparable billing to Isiah or was even de facto more valuable to the team than Bill Laimbeer was — and you very explicitly made a show of backing Hagan over Dantley. You constantly praise Hagan’s contribution to a title team, but I am looking and seeing an inverted one-way Worthy playing in a worse era for less meaningful time, and Worthy is barely going to get in as is.

I really don't see the rationale in me having to argue Hagan over Dantley long after Dantley got voted in. Yeah, I happen to think Hagan was better than Dantley, but you don't have to believe that to think that Hagan is a serious candidate.

Re: inverted one-way Worthy and Worthy barely going. I'll note first that I'm either the only one, or one of the few, who has been voting for Worthy in the Nominee vote. So I'm all for you arguing for Worthy in earnest rather than just using him to try to tear down Hagan.

I will say first that in practice Hagan was more of a self-creator than Worthy - who benefitted from arguably the GOAT facilitator of all-time, and despite this Hagan was considerably more efficiency relative to his era in the regular season.

Let's also just keep some perspective on the volume of these two guys.

Number of regular season 30 point games:

Worthy 52 (out of 926)
Hagan 93 (out of 839)

Number of playoff 30 point games:

Worthy 13 (out of 143)
Hagan 12 (out of 95)

Number of 40 point games total:

Worthy 0
Hagan 12

If you want to make an argument for Worthy as the better all-around player, cool.
If you want to point out that Worthy may well have done more big time scoring in another situation, cool.

But trying to equate the scoring they actually did just isn't right.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Re: inverted one-way Worthy and Worthy barely going. I'll note first that I'm either the only one, or one of the few, who has been voting for Worthy in the Nominee vote. So I'm all for you arguing for Worthy in earnest rather than just using him to try to tear down Hagan.

I will say first that in practice Hagan was more of a self-creator than Worthy - who benefitted from arguably the GOAT facilitator of all-time, and despite this Hagan was considerably more efficiency relative to his era in the regular season.

Let's also just keep some perspective on the volume of these two guys.

Number of regular season 30 point games:

Worthy 52 (out of 926)
Hagan 93 (out of 839)

Number of playoff 30 point games:

Worthy 13 (out of 143)
Hagan 12 (out of 95)

Number of 40 point games total:

Worthy 0
Hagan 12

If you want to make an argument for Worthy as the better all-around player, cool.
If you want to point out that Worthy may well have done more big time scoring in another situation, cool.

But trying to equate the scoring they actually did just isn't right.

As someone who has been supporting Worthy, as well as someone who isn't against Hagan getting in, I would point out that if you're comparing scoring volume between the two, pace-inflation in Hagan's era ought to be considered.

[Doctor MJ]

Re: inverted one-way Worthy and Worthy barely going. I'll note first that I'm either the only one, or one of the few, who has been voting for Worthy in the Nominee vote. So I'm all for you arguing for Worthy in earnest rather than just using him to try to tear down Hagan.

I will say first that in practice Hagan was more of a self-creator than Worthy - who benefitted from arguably the GOAT facilitator of all-time, and despite this Hagan was considerably more efficiency relative to his era in the regular season.

Let's also just keep some perspective on the volume of these two guys.

Number of regular season 30 point games:

Worthy 52 (out of 926)
Hagan 93 (out of 839)

Number of playoff 30 point games:

Worthy 13 (out of 143)
Hagan 12 (out of 95)

Number of 40 point games total:

Worthy 0
Hagan 12

If you want to make an argument for Worthy as the better all-around player, cool.
If you want to point out that Worthy may well have done more big time scoring in another situation, cool.

But trying to equate the scoring they actually did just isn't right.

As someone who has been supporting Worthy, as well as someone who isn't against Hagan getting in, I would point out that if you're comparing scoring volume between the two, pace-inflation in Hagan's era ought to be considered.

Fine thing to bring up, but not as easy to just look up and get similarly simple numbers.

I do think it's worth pointing out that Worthy's peak PPG rank was 18th, so it's not like we're talking about someone who was near the top of his own era in scoring volume. There are guys still on the board from Worthy's era who have scoring volume arguments over Hagan - English & King come to mind - but Worthy's really not one of them.

[iggymcfrack]

Vote: Billy Cunningham
Cunningham is someone I wanted quite a while back when I was following the project more closely. He had some of the best WOWY numbers of his era and seems to be the kind of multi-tool player that would fare very well with modern analytics. Luka hasn’t been around anywhere near long enough to get in without even peaking as a top 5 player prior to this season.

[AEnigma]

Pace estimates for Hagan are available, and yes, peak/prime Worthy is ahead of peak/prime Hagan as a per possession scorer, both in the regular season and in the postseason.

This does not mean Worthy is an inherently more “impressive” scorer, because we would expect Hagan to be less purely efficient just as a product of his era, but when we talk about “frequency of thirty point games” or other similarly arbitrary measures, it does seem odd to ignore how one consistently had an extra ten to twenty possessions to do so — especially when such adjustments are commonplace when we talk about scoring feats by Wilt or Oscar.

[Doctor MJ]

Alright so this is awkward: We have 4 people chiming in with the runoff with 2 going for each Cunningham and Doncic, which would typically result in the next phase of tiebreak: An open thread with a poll run for a day which would determine the winner.

However, one of the votes is explicitly using reasoning including '23-24, which is not allowed for consideration in this project, and so by rules that vote shouldn't count, giving the nod to the other player.

The really awkward part of course is that I've been lobbying against Luka and that makes that following the rules, and chopping out the vote attached to the guy I've been lobbying against, makes it look like I'm trying to mess with the rules to move Luka one more spot down.

I'm acknowledging all of this openly before I make my next post, and people can continuing talking about this, but I have to make a decision right now, and I'm going to follow the rules as I see them:

This is a project that is about judging careers through '22-23, so any post that clearly is thinking in terms of '23-24 needs to be tossed.

[Doctor MJ]

Runoff results:

Cunningham - (Colbinii, iggy)
Doncic - (LA Bird)

not counted - (Fundamentals21)

Billy Cunningham is Inducted at #93.

[trex_8063]

Alright so this is awkward: We have 4 people chiming in with the runoff with 2 going for each Cunningham and Doncic, which would typically result in the next phase of tiebreak: An open thread with a poll run for a day which would determine the winner.

However, one of the votes is explicitly using reasoning including '23-24, which is not allowed for consideration in this project, and so by rules that vote shouldn't count, giving the nod to the other player.

The really awkward part of course is that I've been lobbying against Luka and that makes that following the rules, and chopping out the vote attached to the guy I've been lobbying against, makes it look like I'm trying to mess with the rules to move Luka one more spot down.

I'm acknowledging all of this openly before I make my next post, and people can continuing talking about this, but I have to make a decision right now, and I'm going to follow the rules as I see them:

This is a project that is about judging careers through '22-23, so any post that clearly is thinking in terms of '23-24 needs to be tossed.

I support this decision, and not only because I was a Cunningham voter this round. The one run-off vote for Luka felt highly questionable to me, too, seemingly being based in no small part upon inadmissable accomplishments.

fwiw (just as an added comfort to your conscience): Cunningham DID win the first round [in terms of 1st ballot choices], too.

[Doctor MJ]

Pace estimates for Hagan are available, and yes, peak/prime Worthy is ahead of peak/prime Hagan as a per possession scorer, both in the regular season and in the postseason.

This does not mean Worthy is an inherently more “impressive” scorer, because we would expect Hagan to be less purely efficient just as a product of his era, but when we talk about “frequency of thirty point games” or other similarly arbitrary measures, it does seem odd to ignore how one consistently had an extra ten to twenty possessions to do so — especially when such adjustments are commonplace when we talk about scoring feats by Wilt or Oscar.

You might consider posting the data that someone you're in discussion with has said is not that easy for them to assemble.

I would emphasize though that there's a general concentration of shooting primacy into the hands of stars over time that I think needs to be observed with normalization in addition to without. Worthy's scoring volume is less of an outlier in his time than Hagan's is in his in my assessment. Doesn't mean Hagan was necessarily more impressive at it, but Worthy being a guy who generally wasn't a Top 20 PPG scorer in his time makes him not stand out all that much.

Re: odd to ignore 10-20 possessions per game when talking about 30 point games. Worthy's peers didn't have the same troubles he did though. The nature of the NBA in the '80s was that there were a number of guys scoring considerably more than Worthy and breaking those 30 & 40 point thresholds.

[AEnigma]

Pace estimates for Hagan are available, and yes, peak/prime Worthy is ahead of peak/prime Hagan as a per possession scorer, both in the regular season and in the postseason.

This does not mean Worthy is an inherently more “impressive” scorer, because we would expect Hagan to be less purely efficient just as a product of his era, but when we talk about “frequency of thirty point games” or other similarly arbitrary measures, it does seem odd to ignore how one consistently had an extra ten to twenty possessions to do so — especially when such adjustments are commonplace when we talk about scoring feats by Wilt or Oscar.

You might consider posting the data that someone you're in discussion with has said is not that easy for them to assemble.

I am not going to just drop links without permission, and I was also under some impression that this was part of what Elgee provided on his website. But for Hagan specifically, this is what I have saved (per 100 possessions):

I would emphasize though that there's a general concentration of shooting primacy into the hands of stars over time that I think needs to be observed with normalization in addition to without. Worthy's scoring volume is less of an outlier in his time than Hagan's is in his in my assessment. Doesn't mean Hagan was necessarily more impressive at it, but Worthy being a guy who generally wasn't a Top 20 PPG scorer in his time makes him not stand out all that much.

Re: odd to ignore 10-20 possessions per game when talking about 30 point games. Worthy's peers didn't have the same troubles he did though. The nature of the NBA in the '80s was that there were a number of guys scoring considerably more than Worthy and breaking those 30 & 40 point thresholds.

Which is separate from saying that Hagan met a certain threshold x number of times while Worthy only met it y number of times. I do not think it has been disputed at any point that Hagan was a more notable scoring outlier in his own time.

[trex_8063]

Pace estimates for Hagan are available, and yes, peak/prime Worthy is ahead of peak/prime Hagan as a per possession scorer, both in the regular season and in the postseason.

This does not mean Worthy is an inherently more “impressive” scorer, because we would expect Hagan to be less purely efficient just as a product of his era, but when we talk about “frequency of thirty point games” or other similarly arbitrary measures, it does seem odd to ignore how one consistently had an extra ten to twenty possessions to do so — especially when such adjustments are commonplace when we talk about scoring feats by Wilt or Oscar.

You might consider posting the data that someone you're in discussion with has said is not that easy for them to assemble.

I am not going to just drop links without permission, and I was also under some impression that this was part of what Elgee provided on his website. But for Hagan specifically, this is what I have saved (per 100 possessions):

I would emphasize though that there's a general concentration of shooting primacy into the hands of stars over time that I think needs to be observed with normalization in addition to without. Worthy's scoring volume is less of an outlier in his time than Hagan's is in his in my assessment. Doesn't mean Hagan was necessarily more impressive at it, but Worthy being a guy who generally wasn't a Top 20 PPG scorer in his time makes him not stand out all that much.

Re: odd to ignore 10-20 possessions per game when talking about 30 point games. Worthy's peers didn't have the same troubles he did though. The nature of the NBA in the '80s was that there were a number of guys scoring considerably more than Worthy and breaking those 30 & 40 point thresholds.

Which is separate from saying that Hagan met a certain threshold x number of times while Worthy only met it y number of times. I do not think it has been disputed at any point that Hagan was a more notable scoring outlier in his own time.

This appears to be data from my spreadsheet (everything from the exact years I've run for Hagan [both rs and ps], to the title of "PS Pts", to the matching/concurring numbers, to the tendency to round to the nearest tenth, except in instances where it's almost exactly in the middle and I would go with something like "5.25", to the one odd "2.56" [for '59 playoff Ast/100]......all of is exactly as it is on my spreadsheet).

fwiw, it is fine with me if anyone wishes to share that link. I currently have the shared settings to "anyone with link can view".

[AEnigma]

Hah, good to know, and I appreciate you keeping it open and accessible. I bookmark resources over the years but try not to hand them out publicly in case of identifying information, but had I remembered its origin, I would have been less reluctant.

[Fundamentals21]

Oh did I use 2024 stats? That's my bad. Apologize.

[Doctor MJ]

Oh did I use 2024 stats? That's my bad. Apologize.

Just a mistake. So long as you understand the rules and try to follow them, you're good going forward.