RealGM Top 100 List #24

[Laimbeer]

Are we really stepping back and taking a big picture look here? Steve Nash at this level qualifies as a WTF moment. Elgin Baylor ranks *thirty* spots over Steve Nash on the consensus all-time list, and while not a final authority, it's enough of a gap that we should take pause.

Baylor dominated his position in a way Nash didn't. He made first team in 10 of 11 years, Nash has 3. There are the two MVPs, but Baylor finished top 5 seven times, while Nash has done so three times. From the small forward position, he was a top ten rebounder 8 times and top ten in assists 6 times. He was top four in scoring 8 times. The guy was a beast. If you like PER as a measure of efficiency, which gets jawboned endlessly here, he was top 7 eleven times.

Neither guy has much to recommend in terms of defense, intangibles, or translating their games to playoff success. It's comparing two resumes in terms of regular season impact and excellence. This is pretty easily Baylor.

[Doctor MJ]

For Nash/Pierce fans. Do any of you really think ANY NBA GM would rather have either of these two players than Dwight Howard? Really?

(not to say that's the final argument but if Dwyane Wade has been chosen, Howard has enough years to be considered)

Well, Howard and Chris Paul as well are on my horizon. Their longevity remains an issue, but certainly not something that's going to keep them out of the top 100. Won't be at all surprised if they're in my top 50.

One thing though - I'm voting for Nash now...but Pierce is a ways away. I don't know if he'll be ahead of Howard/Paul.

[Doctor MJ]

Are we really stepping back and taking a big picture look here? Steve Nash at this level qualifies as a WTF moment. Elgin Baylor ranks *thirty* spots over Steve Nash on the consensus all-time list, and while not a final authority, it's enough of a gap that we should take pause.

Baylor dominated his position in a way Nash didn't. He made first team in 10 of 11 years, Nash has 3. There are the two MVPs, but Baylor finished top 5 seven times, while Nash has done so three times. From the small forward position, he was a top ten rebounder 8 times and top ten in assists 6 times. He was top four in scoring 8 times. The guy was a beast. If you like PER as a measure of efficiency, which gets jawboned endlessly here, he was top 7 eleven times.

Neither guy has much to recommend in terms of defense, intangibles, or translating their games to playoff success. It's comparing two resumes in terms of regular season impact and excellence. This is pretty easily Baylor.

Well I think the bigger question here is about Baylor not Nash. 10 All-NBA 1st team awards put him in an extremely select group that if you went literally by that Baylor would have been selected a long time ago.

By contrast, having Nash around the same as Frazier, and 7 spots below Dirk, seems frankly pretty obvious. People might disagree a bit, but looking at the accolades, it should not be unexpected.

So people absolutely should be thinking about Baylor and know how they think of him.

My opinion? There were a handful of guys in the 60s basically given the greenlight based on perceived talent, and they were basically a lock for accolades every year. Baylor was obviously one of those, despite being inefficient, and incredibly inefficient compared to his far superior teammate. We also know that he was never really able to synergize with West, or West & Wilt. One can put some blame on the other guys for that, but if you're the worst of the bunch you should be the one finding a new role.

Getting back to guys with similar accolades to Nash, Barkley's not terribly far off. Only 5 All-NBA 1st teams for Sir Charles. And yet, I look at Baylor vs Barkley, and there's zero doubt in my mind that Barkley was a far more special scorer, and that if he were around in the 60s he'd be in that greenlight club before Baylor.

So this is where I come from: I rate Baylor clearly below the Barkley's of the world, so anyone who I don't see too far off from Barkley is going to get ranked ahead of him.

I'll be voting for Rick Barry above Baylor as well, and possibly Hondo & Pippen who played very different roles, but y'know, actually made themselves really useful given their team's needs.

[ElGee]

Vote: Steve Nash
Nominate: Clyde Drexler

Drexler before Gervin...haven't heard a convincing argument otherwise.

@Fencer. It's a weird question to entertain, because (1) I don't think Howard's peak is a good as Nash's, (2) The longevity issue is fairly large when talking about what GMs get (to this point) and (3) Yes, many GMs would rather have Nash running the show and plug in a cheaper, defensively oriented center. I mean, a healthy Suns team could easily win 3 titles in a row with a Theo Ratliff playing next to Stoudemire.

[Laimbeer]

Are we really stepping back and taking a big picture look here? Steve Nash at this level qualifies as a WTF moment. Elgin Baylor ranks *thirty* spots over Steve Nash on the consensus all-time list, and while not a final authority, it's enough of a gap that we should take pause.

Baylor dominated his position in a way Nash didn't. He made first team in 10 of 11 years, Nash has 3. There are the two MVPs, but Baylor finished top 5 seven times, while Nash has done so three times. From the small forward position, he was a top ten rebounder 8 times and top ten in assists 6 times. He was top four in scoring 8 times. The guy was a beast. If you like PER as a measure of efficiency, which gets jawboned endlessly here, he was top 7 eleven times.

Neither guy has much to recommend in terms of defense, intangibles, or translating their games to playoff success. It's comparing two resumes in terms of regular season impact and excellence. This is pretty easily Baylor.

Well I think the bigger question here is about Baylor not Nash. 10 All-NBA 1st team awards put him in an extremely select group that if you went literally by that Baylor would have been selected a long time ago.

By contrast, having Nash around the same as Frazier, and 7 spots below Dirk, seems frankly pretty obvious. People might disagree a bit, but looking at the accolades, it should not be unexpected.

So people absolutely should be thinking about Baylor and know how they think of him.

My opinion? There were a handful of guys in the 60s basically given the greenlight based on perceived talent, and they were basically a lock for accolades every year. Baylor was obviously one of those, despite being inefficient, and incredibly inefficient compared to his far superior teammate. We also know that he was never really able to synergize with West, or West & Wilt. One can put some blame on the other guys for that, but if you're the worst of the bunch you should be the one finding a new role.

Getting back to guys with similar accolades to Nash, Barkley's not terribly far off. Only 5 All-NBA 1st teams for Sir Charles. And yet, I look at Baylor vs Barkley, and there's zero doubt in my mind that Barkley was a far more special scorer, and that if he were around in the 60s he'd be in that greenlight club before Baylor.

So this is where I come from: I rate Baylor clearly below the Barkley's of the world, so anyone who I don't see too far off from Barkley is going to get ranked ahead of him.

I'll be voting for Rick Barry above Baylor as well, and possibly Hondo & Pippen who played very different roles, but y'know, actually made themselves really useful given their team's needs.

I'm really not getting your linking Nash to Barkley, Frazier or Dirk. You just say it's obvious Nash go here in relationship to Dirk and Frazier's spots without really saying why (Frazier is a tad high IMO anyway). Then you link him to Barkley, again for no apparent reason, except Barkley has fewer first teams, just like Nash. You also conclude Chuck is greater than Baylor, simply because he didn't play in the sixties. Without offense, I'm not seeing any clear link from Nash to those guys, or even why they're ahead of Baylor.

Pretty silly to just write off Baylor's success as a guy who has "perceived talent" and was given the green light. It takes real talent to hang up those numbers. Also ironic because a big criticism of Nash is he hung up big numbers because he was given the green light in a go-go system.

Can you tell me what stats you're looking at to conclude Baylor is inefficient?

Also seems unfair to blame the second or third wheel when a great team doesn't come together like it could. Should he have morphed into Pippen? They are what they are, great offensive players (Baylor was a great board guy as well) without a lot of postseason success. I just think Baylor's body of work is better than Nash's, and it's not particularly close.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm really not getting your linking Nash to Barkley, Frazier or Dirk. You just say it's obvious Nash go here in relationship to Dirk and Frazier's spots without really saying why (Frazier is a tad high IMO anyway). Then you link him to Barkley, again for no apparent reason, except Barkley has fewer first teams, just like Nash. You also conclude Chuck is greater than Baylor, simply because he didn't play in the sixties. Without offense, I'm not seeing any clear link from Nash to those guys, or even why they're ahead of Baylor.

Pretty silly to just write off Baylor's success as a guy who has "perceived talent" and was given the green light. It takes real talent to hang up those numbers. Also ironic because a big criticism of Nash is he hung up big numbers because he was given the green light in a go-go system.

Can you tell me what stats you're looking at to conclude Baylor is inefficient?

Also seems unfair to blame the second or third wheel when a great team doesn't come together like it could. Should he have morphed into Pippen? They are what they are, great offensive players (Baylor was a great board guy as well) without a lot of postseason success. I just think Baylor's body of work is better than Nash's, and it's not particularly close.

The linkage between Nash and these other guys is that all of them have clearly weaker accolades than Baylor, and much more in line with each other. Nash is not someone with glaringly weaker credentials being thrown in with a bunch of guys who all have far greater credentials, the reason we are having this debate is because Baylor is slipping. You don't have to agree that he should be slipping, but he is, and that's the takeaway story.

Re: Why Barkley better? How Baylor inefficient?

lol, unfortunately having problems with b-r now so can't give you details. But some things to take a look at:

-West always has much better efficiency than Baylor, as does Oscar.
-West & Oscar improve their efficiency early in their career, but then plateau at levels consistent with modern NBA stars.
-To give Baylor a benefit of the doubt saying "different era" would also seem to make it a must to give West & Oscar major bonuses simply for reaching solid efficiency and maintaining it. West & Oscar seem to be giving us a strong indication that stars had reached the ability to have what we consider reasonable efficiency back in the day...and Baylor just lagged way behind.
-Barkley is the most efficient volume scorer in history. While guys like Kobe, West and Oscar hang out a bit north of 55 TS%, and Baylor was south of 50 TS%, peak Barkley is in the 65 TS% range. Utterly insane.

[lorak]

Can you tell me what stats you're looking at to conclude Baylor is inefficient?

Baylor was pretty efficient during first 5 seasons. His TS% above league average was:

Code: Select all

2,6   1962-63
1,3   1961-62
2,9   1960-61
2,6   1959-60
3,1   1958-59



But after that something happened (injuries?) and his efficiency was around LA or below:

Code: Select all

-1,7   1971-72
-3,8   1970-71
2,6   1969-70
0,9   1968-69
0,7   1967-68
-0,2   1966-67
-3,1   1965-66
-1,6   1964-65
0,2   1963-64


I wonder if anyone knows which games Baylor missed during 1962 season? Because even as a rookie his impact seems to be big as from team that won 19 games he made NBA finalist. Improvement by SRS wasn't as spectacular, but it seems things like NBA finals means a lot for some voters here.

[fatal9]

Vote: Nash
Nominate: McHale

At his peak McHale imo was the best second option ever (would take '86-'88 McHale over '00-'02 Kobe, Pippen etc). So if we're going to give Pippen this much credit, then McHale deserves it too.

His offense was historically efficient (Gilmore fans love this, don't they? ). Only player ever to have a 25+ ppg season shooting 60+%, but usually good for 21-22 ppg on well above 60 TS% (could have undoubtedly averaged more if asked), on top of that we're talking an all-defensive first teamer, 8-10 rebounds (probably more if he isn't playing with Bird/Parish, his orb% was better than KG's for example, but it's tough to boost your average with defensive boards when you have two other 10 rpg guys), a guy who always showed up in the playoffs/finals, played remarkably consistently from game to game, even got enough MVP votes to be a top 4 candidate at one point in his career (despite playing with Bird!), and put up 25/9 on 64 TS% during the championship run of the greatest team ever. The main criticism of him is that he was a blackhole. He actually was a good passer, just not willing, which I don't really have a problem with considering a) his role with the team (not asked to distribute, ask to provide efficient half-court scoring) and b) his ability to score at historical efficiency.

Bird is my favorite player, I don't have a reason to overrate McHale, in fact I should probably bring him down (like most people usually do to teammates of their favorite player), but I can't deny how seriously good he was. McHale would have gotten the recognition he deserved if Celtics won in '85 (if Kareem doesn't pull off an unbelievable performance over the final 5 games). McHale imo would have been the best player in that playoff run for the Celtics and won finals MVP (Bird really struggled after the first round due to injuries). But overall, McHale, based on watching him play, is a guy that could have done a lot more if he was asked, especially as a second banana on a team with less options (higher ppg, rpg, which I guess would get him more respected nowadays), so I hope people keep that in mind.

[ElGee]

In 1962, Baylor missed 32 games due to military service. However I find someone like Bill Simmons' depiction of the season to be completely exaggerated. Elgin had his service duty delayed until after the new year, in which time he served regularly for the second half of the year. With three exceptions for weekend leaves:
(1)3 games at the end of January
(2)2 games in the middle of February
(3)One game in the final weekend of February

So this wasn't someone flying back and forth “moonlighting” all season. He played 42 of his 48 games in succession with the team to start the year.

In those games, the ppg against were almost identical but the offense was about 4 points better for a +4.5 net (4.0 MOV with Baylor).

In 1966, Baylor injured his knee and played much of the second half of the year on a wobbly wheel. I found a few notable games in which he hardly played at all, and included that in his in/out numbers. He was +0.4 bringing the team to 3.2 MOV with him in. Interestingly, LA's offense in 1965 was +4.2 relative to the estimated league average using the simple method. In 66, it was +3.7...hardly a difference. It's not damning to Elgin, but it certainly suggests his offensive boost was nothing magical at the time with that unit led by West. (If you're wondering what the difference was his rookie year, going way back when estimates are fuzzier the team went from -0.9 to +0.6.)

In 1967, with a healthier Baylor, the Lakers offense was only +1.4 relative to league average. Jerry West, playing almost the entire 66 season, missed 15 games that year. The Lakers were +5.6 with West in that year (+1.5 MOV), including 3 games both Jerry and Elgin missed early in the year (LA lost those games by 1, 3 and 25 - the blowout was to Boston.) 67 is still a year marred by knee issues for Baylor, according to most newspaper reports.

Statistically, normalizing his stats using pace estimation, we get per 75's of:
59 18.0 pts 10.9 reb 3.0 ast +3.9%
60 20.9 pts 11.6 reb 2.4 ast +2.6%
61 23.0 pts 13.1 reb 3.4 ast +2.9%
62 24.7 pts 12.0 reb 3.0 ast +1.3%
63 24.4 pts 10.3 reb 3.5 ast +2.7%
64 20.1 pts 9.5 reb 3.5 ast +0.2%
65 20.5 pts 9.7 reb 2.9 ast -1.6%
66 16.2 pts 9.3 reb 3.3 ast -3.1%
67 20.2 pts 9.7 reb 2.4 ast -0.2%
68 20.1 pts 9.4 reb 3.6 ast +0.7%
69 19.6 pts 8.4 reb 4.3 ast +0.9%
70 18.4 pts 8.0 reb 4.1 ast +2.6%

In 1961, I was also able to find 6 games Elgin missed, with a +6.4 improvement to 0.4. All together, coupled with his MVP voting record (great early, then a dropoff) suggests a player having very good (but not great IMO) impact early in his career as a really strong offensive weapon. The knee injury is obviously an issue in the middle of his career, as his impact wanes. And there is little to suggest he is ever a defensive dymano.

I have Baylor coming up actually, but very comfortably behind Nash and my next vote.

[penbeast0]

Let’s adjust the peak seasons for Elgin Baylor and Rick Barry and see how they look compared to today’s players. I have adjusted to per 36 numbers as well because they played such high minutes in the 60s. The rebounding numbers come WAY down and efficiency goes WAY up so they look like the equivalent modern stars.

For Baylor, I will use 1961-65 just after he moves to LA with the Lakers. This does have his military service years but has only one year before West comes to the Lakers and allows adjustment of the most inflated years in NBA history so we can see him a bit more accurately hopefully.

For Barry, I will use his second tour in GS (he only had the one great year before going to the ABA and this will avoid both the arguments about ABA numbers and his lesser years in Houston.

Elgin Baylor – Raw Numbers (league efg) then adjusted per36 numbers
Year Mpg Reb Ast Pts TS% (fg) Reb Ast Pts TS%
1960 42.9 19.8 5.1 34.8 .498 .415 9.7 4.0 25.5 .598
1961 44.4 18.6 4.6 38.3 .492 .426 9.0 3.5 26.6 .575 (only 48g due to military)
1962 42.1 14.3 4.8 34.0 .519 .441 7.8 4.0 25.7 .586
1963 40.6 12.0 4.4 25.4 .487 .433 6.8 4.0 20.8 .560
1964 41.3 12.8 3.8 27.1 .463 .426 7.1 3.5 21.9 .541

2011 Numbers REB=3394 AST-1763 PTS=8163 efg=.498 ft/fga=.229

Rick Barry -- Raw Numbers (league efg) then adjusted per36 numbers
Year Mpg Reb Ast Pts TS% (fg) Reb Ast Pts TS%
1973 37.5 8.9 4.9 22.3 .508 .456 7.0 4.0 19.8 .555
1974 36.5 6.8 6.1 25.1 .515 .459 5.7 5.2 23.3 .559
1975 40.4 5.7 6.2 30.6 .509 .457 4.5 5.0 26.5 .555 (NBA Champion)
1976 38.5 6.1 6.1 21.0 .483 .458 5.0 5.3 18.8 .525
1977 36.8 5.3 6.0 21.8 .500 .465 4.6 5.3 20.0 .535

It is always a bit surprising if you haven’t done it before to see how rebounding shrinks and efficiency grows but Baylor still is an appreciably better rebounder and both higher volume and more efficient than Barry; Barry is the better passer and had more range. Baylor was also a classy guy everyone loved while Barry was a flaming egotistical jerk. I’d take Baylor over him pretty easily – over some more modern players is tougher.

[ElGee]

In the RPOY project, I found Dave Cowens to be quite overrated. First, there are the dynamics of the early 70s league, with expansion and then the fracturing of talent in the split leagues. Second, while a great hustle player and rebounder, he wasn't exactly a great offensive player, nor was a great defensive player (very good for being undersized and with his bounding, but not great). Silas was a very good running mate for him.

I've talked to both my uncles and my dad about Cowens, all of whom lived in Boston in the 70s and followed those teams. The reactions ranged from “overrated to very overrated.” With words like “hustler, “”scrapper” and “media darling” being tossed out. Those were balanced teams to the fullest extent (including Hondo), with guys like Charlie Scott scoring, Jo Jo White and Silas anchoring the glass with Cowens. I could double-check this, but I believe his 1973 MVP is the worst MVP season IMO from doing the RPOY. (Can't think of a weaker one off the top of my head.)

Then, there's the giant issue that his (already overrated) peak was ridiculously short...basically spanning 4 years from 73-76. The few peripheral seasons aren't very good IMO either – heck, any sizeable dropoff from a weak peak isn't exactly helping a team a lot anyway.

In 1975, in the heart of those good years, Cowens missed the first 17 games of the season. The Celtics were +2.6 points better with Cowens, jumping from a +3.7 to +6.3 MOV.

In 1977, Cowens shocked the team by taking a leave of absense/remporary retirement 8 games into the season. He was averaging 18 and 15. Then, in January, Cowens just as suddenly returned for the rest of the season (coinciding with a Charlie Scott injury). In those 30 games, the Celtics were a -2.6 MOV team, only a small decrease from their -1.6 the rest of the season (+0.9 net for Cowens). Maybe Charlie Scott was secretly incredibly valuable? Or maybe Cowens just wasn't that good, and he played on a high-profile, really balanced balanced team.

And for those wondering, there is more a difference in the points allowed than points scored, jibing with Cowens defensive rebounding strength helping the team the most. This was an absurdly dominant rebounding team from 73-76, going +844 (!) +717, +582 and +645 on the glass in that span.

All put together, Cowens overrated peak and short prime put him waaaaay down the list. Certainly well after the glut of big men coming up.

[penbeast0]

Re: Why Barkley better? How Baylor inefficient?

lol, unfortunately having problems with b-r now so can't give you details. But some things to take a look at:

-West always has much better efficiency than Baylor, as does Oscar.
-West & Oscar improve their efficiency early in their career, but then plateau at levels consistent with modern NBA stars.
-To give Baylor a benefit of the doubt saying "different era" would also seem to make it a must to give West & Oscar major bonuses simply for reaching solid efficiency and maintaining it. West & Oscar seem to be giving us a strong indication that stars had reached the ability to have what we consider reasonable efficiency back in the day...and Baylor just lagged way behind.
-Barkley is the most efficient volume scorer in history. While guys like Kobe, West and Oscar hang out a bit north of 55 TS%, and Baylor was south of 50 TS%, peak Barkley is in the 65 TS% range. Utterly insane.

The problem with comparing Baylor to West and Oscar is that they were such ridiculous outliers. In Oscar's rookie year, he led the center oriented league in ts% (career .564). The other 1st team All-NBA guard was Bob Cousy (career .446). West (.550) then became the 2nd great 60s guard with the probable consensus 2nd teamers being Hal Greer (.506) and Lenny Wilkens (.511). Baylor was not super efficient, he was around league average; it is just that Robertson and West were incredibly efficient scorers. Kobe on the other hand, has an efg of .488 (B-R doesn't post league wide ts% anymore), below the league average of .498 -- more like Baylor than like Oscar or Jerry.

[Laimbeer]

@penbeast. great post on Barry/Baylor - I agree Baylor is an easy choice.

[MarJJMar]

Nash is an easy choice here, no idea how in the world its possible that Wade and Frazier were chosen before him.
Overrating of championships.

[Fencer reregistered]

I wonder if anyone knows which games Baylor missed during 1962 season?

Was that the year he played weekends only because he was juggling military service?

Anyhow, your stats support the idea that Baylor's awesome prime was pretty short, after which he was a lesser player (at least relative to what we he was before).

[Fencer reregistered]

Vote: Nash
Nominate: McHale

At his peak McHale imo was the best second option ever (would take '86-'88 McHale over '00-'02 Kobe, Pippen etc). So if we're going to give Pippen this much credit, then McHale deserves it too.

His offense was historically efficient (Gilmore fans love this, don't they? ). Only player ever to have a 25+ ppg season shooting 60+%, but usually good for 21-22 ppg on well above 60 TS% (could have undoubtedly averaged more if asked), on top of that we're talking an all-defensive first teamer, 8-10 rebounds (probably more if he isn't playing with Bird/Parish, his orb% was better than KG's for example, but it's tough to boost your average with defensive boards when you have two other 10 rpg guys), a guy who always showed up in the playoffs/finals, played remarkably consistently from game to game, even got enough MVP votes to be a top 4 candidate at one point in his career (despite playing with Bird!), and put up 25/9 on 64 TS% during the championship run of the greatest team ever. The main criticism of him is that he was a blackhole. He actually was a good passer, just not willing, which I don't really have a problem with considering a) his role with the team (not asked to distribute, ask to provide efficient half-court scoring) and b) his ability to score at historical efficiency.

Bird is my favorite player, I don't have a reason to overrate McHale, in fact I should probably bring him down (like most people usually do to teammates of their favorite player), but I can't deny how seriously good he was. McHale would have gotten the recognition he deserved if Celtics won in '85 (if Kareem doesn't pull off an unbelievable performance over the final 5 games). McHale imo would have been the best player in that playoff run for the Celtics and won finals MVP (Bird really struggled after the first round due to injuries). But overall, McHale, based on watching him play, is a guy that could have done a lot more if he was asked, especially as a second banana on a team with less options (higher ppg, rpg, which I guess would get him more respected nowadays), so I hope people keep that in mind.

Great post on McHale. My only negative on him is that he had a short prime, due to the injury.

I'll add that he was an outstanding offensive rebounder by an eye test, specifically on putbacks. I don't know how those get into the box score, or how consistently, but he would routine get the ball and redirect it back toward the hoop without ever bringing it back down from being way over his head.

As for the passing point -- yeah, there are some pretty slick passes by McHale on the various highlight videos.

[TMACFORMVP]

Vote: Steve Nash
Nominate: Clyde Drexler

[colts18]

Vote: Elgin Baylor. He had a longer prime than Nash
Nominate: Tracy McGrady. Probably the best prime/peak combo left on the board.

[Fencer reregistered]

Vote: Elgin Baylor. He had a longer prime than Nash

I think I'd rather have outside-prime Nash than outside-prime Baylor, especially if you're somehow defining Nash's "prime" to be shorter than Baylor's.

[therealbig3]

Also I think Pierce may suffer from the same argument used against Stockton . . . he doesn't seem to have that extra gear he can shift into like his competitiors. People said that Nash > Stockton because Nash could step up his scoring to another level if needed; similarly, Gervin and Drexler just seem much more capable than Pierce of stepping up their games to another level if needed (though why didn't any of them? I never liked this argument much but want to see it out there). Remember when the scoring title came down to the last day of the season between Gervin and David Thompson, Thompson threw in 73 points and Gervin needed around 48 to keep his title and so he just went to work. He ended with 64 and even then it didn't look like he was working that hard. That's the extra gear Pierce may not seem to have.

Well, regarding that extra gear, Pierce's scoring usually stays pretty consistent, while he steps up his rebounding, defense, and playmaking.

But in the 02 playoffs, in the elimination game against the Sixers, he goes for 46/4/6.

In the 03 playoffs, he went for 30+ 4 times (10 games).

In the 05 playoffs, he went for 30+ 2 times (7 games).

And in arguably his best playoff performance, he went for 41 points in game 7 against the Cavs in the 08 playoffs, effectively canceling out LeBron's monster 45-point game.

Pierce has answered the call to score many times, but he'll have more sub-20 point games than a guy like Kobe, which will greatly lower his overall scoring average for a series, because Pierce can take 25 shots and score 40 points in one game, and then take 12 shots and score 15 points in the next game. No matter what, Kobe will be taking 20-25+ shots per game.