RealGM Top 100 List #4

[ThaRegul8r]

All great players had a maturation process or were mentored. I've been doing research and this is for the room's consideration for character issues. The only difference imo is these guys had great supporting casts to help them win and HOF coaches to mentor them and shielded that process, while Hakeem was still playing like an all time great and had to evolve himself with religion.

These posts will be for discussion purposes for the room and not meant to be directed as anything specifically directed at towards you. It's only for consideration when judging these players by character, none of us are perfect including these guys.

Not perfect, sure . . . . character issues that had negative impact on the team, I have not heard anything about Russell or Duncan (and quite a few others further down the list) that showed a serious maturing over time. If anything, Russell went the other way (resting his knees instead of practicing -- the smoking was actually doctor recommended for weight control ). Many of the others had issues, some of which they matured out of (Hakeem), some of which seemed to grow worse as they settled into stardom (Kobe, Oscar). Some of which ebbed and flowed (Kareem, Garnett), and some just never matured at all from what I can tell (Shaq, Barkley). So, I am very interested in your detecting a consistent pattern among the greats . . . especially if it doesn't apply to the average player!

He's just defending his guy, so it's kind of a tu quoque variant about other players rather than a person making an argument. (Tu quoque is "You, too," I don't know what a "them, too" equivalent would be. Enlil quoque?) I don't find that particularly convincing. Wilt is an easy and obvious example, but "all great players..." is false.

[ceiling raiser]

Don't want to derail the thread, but I'd disagree.

Including box-score elements improves predictive value obviously, but you're adding a bias from those stats. RAPM is no longer an orthogonal metric (to the box score) once it becomes a blend, and thus loses explanatory value (for defense in particular, since so little in a box score tells us about defense).

I completely understand your viewpoint, don't get me wrong, but my preferred flavor is standard prior informed RAPM (I think Doc and drza feel the same way).

I can understand why. However, some on the APBR board have done a fine job of driving home the philosophical reasons of preferring prediction in a model, and upon reflection I tend to agree with that viewpoint. (Indeed, explanation is a lower "bar" to jump over, which is why Wins Produced does so extraordinarily well at it. That's also not what the aim is.) The comment about defense is also valid, but it can be argued that it's better to just look at overall impact anyway, instead of separating them as offense and defense.

Now, if one prefers to keep the box score and +/- data separate, that's fine (provided that one dataset isn't used at expense of the other). But were talking about the use of one number, so...

That viewpoint is perfectly valid, and it seems you're very informed on the issue. I have no problem agreeing to disagree.

[Purch]

Waitt shouldn't it be on thread #5 by now?

[90sAllDecade]

All great players had a maturation process or were mentored. I've been doing research and this is for the room's consideration for character issues. The only difference imo is these guys had great supporting casts to help them win and HOF coaches to mentor them and shielded that process, while Hakeem was still playing like an all time great and had to evolve himself with religion.

These posts will be for discussion purposes for the room and not meant to be directed as anything specifically directed at towards you. It's only for consideration when judging these players by character, none of us are perfect including these guys.

It's false that "all" great players have had that particular problem. And I only care about the player in question. His teammates will be evaluated separately.

I judge players by whether they help or hurt their team's chances of winning. As the object of the game is to help one's team win, anything that aids in that goal is a +, while anything that impedes, hampers, diminishes or interferes with it is a -. Especially anything that lies under one's complete control. To go back to that clinching game of the '86 WCF, Hakeem wasn't even on the floor. Not being on the floor hurts your team's chances of winning. And he wasn't on the floor because he couldn't control his temper. One thing one has complete control over is how one handles/reacts to a situation. Staying in the game to help your team win is more important than any macho stupidity. That they won the game without him was no thanks to him. If they'd ended up winning that game and that became the impetus to turn things around to win the series, that would have been a huge minus. As I stated in my criteria, being bailed out by a teammate does not impart any bonus upon that player.

Some jobs have personality evaluations as part of the application, and ask questions like "Do you prefer working as part of a team?" "Do you prefer working alone?", they might ask if you've ever stolen anything from work, etc. The reason it's relevant is because they want to know if the applicant is someone who will help their company.

And "perfection" isn't required. That's a false dichotomy. I categorically reject the notion that it takes nothing short of "perfection" to—to continue with the above example for the sake of simplicity—keep your head to stay in the game to help your team win. Especially when you're the best player.

Hakeem eventually matured and got it. However, that doesn't wipe away the length of time it took to do so, as the totality of that player is being considered, not just one period.

And, yes, Wilt has definitely fallen short on several of the criteria himself.

Fair enough, everyone has a right to their own opinion on personality analysis.

I'm just showing the other guys were comparing him to at the moment for consideration in the comparisons and I'll present others later as well.

I disagree about Hakeem not having anything to do with winning that game. Hakeem although he did get ejected (and I agree that hurts the team's chances) and wasn't there the final minutes, he was crucial in that game and they wouldn't have been close without him. He also dominated that series and they likely would have won regardless imo.

I specifically watched that series in a PC thread this past year. I'm sure you've watched it and have your own opinion, so we can agree to disagree on that point.

(Series highlights for those with short time:)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOCMH_6NMBI[/youtube]

But here's the game (and a full game playlist link below) for the room's consideration for those others who haven't watched it recently:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6wA7LNoc_U&list=PL77909F945BDFD16A[/youtube]

Full game link playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6wA7LNo ... 945BDFD16A


Game 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCG0kQPZ ... DD36EC5782

Game2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBKhqYeX ... FD25796A10

Game 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDc2uQMk ... B3D971C6BE

Game 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jehf-9n4 ... 834ABD5CB7

[E-Balla]

What you are missing is the fact remains that Lebron freaking James is on the court. Just because he had struggled in the series, Dallas was never going to stop focusing on the best player in the world. If Battier or Ariza, both decent role players are in the game, Dallas can essentially ignore them offensively accept for making sure they close out and don't allow them open 3s. This is a far easier task for Dallas which allows them to put their best defenders on Wade full-time.

You are missing how the dynamics change based on who is on the floor. JET shot the ball a lot better than Dirk did in the Finals. But by no means does that mean you can pull Dirk off the floor and put in David West or Serge Ibaka or choose your own good PF and expect Dallas to win.

They didn't stop focusing on the best player in the world he was making them remember 06 with his performance .

But seriously no one was stopping Wade on that team. He was too good and he probably had the best losing performance in NBA Finals history. It is easy to close out on shooters but it's easier to guard someone that isn't a shooter but is camping out on the perimeter. After game 2 it didn't matter what kind of defensive pressure Lebron saw because he was passing up the ball constantly. Look at what Ariza does in the playoffs (look at his whole career in the playoffs if you want to - he usually performs) and there's no doubt I'd want that instead of the horrible performance Lebron had.

I understand the dynamics but I think your forgetting that this is still a Chalmers (who was playing great)-Wade-Ariza (hypothetically)-Bosh-Anthony (yuck) lineup. We aren't talking about replacing Lebron with a scrub but with a guy that makes shots, finishes plays extremely well, and plays above average defense.

Are we really letting this thread turn into a Lebron debate?

Well he does have a vote and people were asking why he wasn't being discussed here. I gave my reason and personally I feel others should too because it helps to give insight into how others see the GOATs.

[Purch]

Lebron's teams have a weird tendency to lose when they're the favorites and have home court. That always strikes me as weird.

Mostly looking at some of his cavs runs and his 2011 run

[ThaRegul8r]

Fair enough, everyone has a right to their own opinion on personality analysis.

I see from the quote that you'd already quoted and was working on the reply before I added this, so you missed it when I edited it in. Reposting for you:

On another—positive—note though, so it doesn't seem like I'm just piling on him, since Hakeem's your candidate, you'll likely find this interesting:

Spoiler:

Hakeem’s Game-Winners

#1) Jan. 12, 1986: Rockets 87, Bullets 86 — “Akeem Olajuwon tipped in a basket at the final buzzer to rally the Rockets to an 87-86 victory over the Washington Bullets that extended Houston’s home unbeaten string to 20. The winning play came after Washington’s Dan Roundfield picked up a loose ball and scored with seven seconds to play for 86-85 lead. The Rockets quickly called time out and after one miss, Olajuwon sent home the winning points” (The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1986).

#2) Dec. 6, 1988: Rockets 106, Cavaliers 105 — “Akeem Olajuwon hit a 12-foot turnaround jump shot with one second left to lead the Houston Rockets to a 106-105 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday night. With five seconds left and Houston trailing 105-104, the Rockets inbounded the ball to Sleepy Floyd, who passed to Olajuwon on the baseline. Olajuwon turned and shot a fade-away jumper to provide Houston with its winning margin and snap a four-game winning streak for Cleveland. Olajuwon finished with 30 points and 15 rebounds, including all six of Houston’s points in the last 3:12 of play” (The Victoria Advocate, Dec. 7, 1988).

#3) Dec. 26, 1988: Rockets 97, Hornets 95 — “Akeem Olajuwon scored 23 points, including a dunk with 1:03 left that gave Houston a 97-95 victory over Charlotte on Monday” (Gainesville Sun, Dec. 27, 1988). “The Houston Rockets blanked Charlotte in a defensive duel down the stretch, defeating the Hornets 97-95. Tyrone Bogues and Kelly Tripucka led a late Charlotte rally Monday night that tied the game 95-95 with 3:24 to play. Then the teams settled into a rugged defensive stuggle that produced just one basket in the last three minutes. It came with 63 seconds left when Houston’s Akeem Olajuwon grabbed a long lob pass from teammate Buck Johnson, and in one motion stuffed the ball into the hoop over Kurt Rambis. Charlotte had three more chances to tie it after that, but never got a shot off” (The Mount Airy News, Dec. 27, 1988).

#4) Feb. 26, 1992: Rockets 118, Warriors 116 — “Hakeem Olajuwon scored 33 points, including the game-winner at the buzzer, rallying Houston from an 18-point halftime deficit to a 118-116 victory over Golden State in Houston […]” (Austin-American Statesman, Feb. 27, 1992).

#5) Mar. 8, 1992: Rockets 109, Kings 108 — “Hakeem Olajuwon dunked a halfcourt inbounds pass from Otis Thorpe with 3.3 seconds left to lift the Houston Rockets to a 109-108 victory over the Sacramento Kings. Mitch Richmond, who scored 30 points for the Kings, made a 16-foot jumper with 3.7 seconds left to give the Kings a 108-107 lead. After a timeout, Thorpe passed the ball deep to a jumping Olajuwon, who scored 19 of his 25 points in the second half. Olajuwon, scoreless in the first quarter, also had 14 rebounds” (The Victoria Advocate, Mar. 9, 1992).

#6) Nov. 27, 1993: Rockets 82, Clippers 80 — “Houston blew a 22-point lead to the Los Angeles Clippers before escaping with an 82-80 victory on Hakeem Olajuwon’s jumper with 22 seconds left Saturday night, giving the Rockets a 13-0 record” (Manila Standard, Nov. 28, 993).

#7) Nov. 8, 1994: Rockets 100, Cavaliers 98 — “At the first regular-season game at new Gund Arena in Cleveland, Hakeem Olajuwon sank the winning shot fallaway jumper from the baseline over Hot Rod Williams. ‘I don’t think anybody in the world stops Hakeem on a shot like that,’ Williams said. ‘You just try to play good defense and just hope he misses’ ” (The Deseret News, Nov 9, 1994).

#8) Apr. 10, 1994: Rockets 93, Nuggets 92 — “At Denver, Hakeem Olajuwon scored 31 points, including a 12-foot baseline jumper with 5 seconds left as Houston rallied to beat the Nuggets. Olajuwon helped the Rockets erase a 17-point deficit midway through the third quarter, scoring 21 of his team’s final 44 points. he also pulled down 12 rebounds” (The Daily Sentinel, Apr. 11, 1994).

#9) Dec. 5, 1995: Rockets 103, Jazz 100 — Olajuwon led Houston with 25 points and “scored the game-winner on a short jump hook” (USA Today, Dec. 6, 1995) to give Houston a 103-100 win over Utah.

#10) June 6, 1995, Game 1 of NBA Finals: Rockets 120, Magic 118, OT — “Hakeem Olajuwon tipped in a missed shot by Clyde Drexler with 0.03 seconds left in overtime to give the Houston Rockets a 120-118 victory over the Orlando Magic in the first game of the NBA Finals.

“Dennis Scott hit a three-pointer with just over five seconds remaining to tie the game in overtime. Drexler drove to the basket on the ensuing play, and the ball bounced over the rim. Olajuwon jumped over Orlando’s Shaquille O’Neal to tip in the winning shot” (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Jun 8, 1995).

#11) Apr. 13, 1996: Rockets 112, Suns 111 — “Hakeem Olajuwon capped his 13th career triple double with a flying 5-foot jumper at the buzzer, rallying the Rockets to a 112-111 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night” (Times Daily, Apr. 14, 1996).

#12) Nov. 14, 1996: Rockets 90, Pacers 88 — “Hakeem Olajuwon scored 9 points in the final 4:32 and blocked Reggie Miller’s layup in the final seconds Thursday night, giving the Houston Rockets a 90-88 victory over the Indiana Pacers. Olajuwon scored 21 points for the Rockets, who trailed 85-76 with 4:32 left. Plagued by foul trouble, Olajuwon snapped an 88-all tie with a baseline jumper with 20 seconds left. The Pacers had a chance to tie, but Olajuwon blocked Miller’s shot and players for both teams wrestled for the loose ball near midcourt as the buzzer sounded” (The Victoria Advocate, Nov. 15, 1996).

#13) Dec. 1, 2001: Raptors 104, Celtics 103 — “Hakeem Olajuwon’s baseline jumper with 1.8 seconds left gave the Toronto Raptors a 104-103 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday. […] Atlanta’s Nazr Mohammed hit two free throws with three seconds left but, after a Toronto timeout, Olajuwon took an inbounds pass from Carter and hit the turnaround jumper for the winning points” (The Albany Herald, Dec. 2, 2001).

[90sAllDecade]

Fair enough, everyone has a right to their own opinion on personality analysis.

I see from the quote that you'd already quoted and was working on the reply before I added this, so you missed it when I edited it in. Reposting for you:

On another—positive—note though, so it doesn't seem like I'm just piling on him, since Hakeem's your candidate, you'll likely find this interesting:

Spoiler:

Hakeem’s Game-Winners

#1) Jan. 12, 1986: Rockets 87, Bullets 86 — “Akeem Olajuwon tipped in a basket at the final buzzer to rally the Rockets to an 87-86 victory over the Washington Bullets that extended Houston’s home unbeaten string to 20. The winning play came after Washington’s Dan Roundfield picked up a loose ball and scored with seven seconds to play for 86-85 lead. The Rockets quickly called time out and after one miss, Olajuwon sent home the winning points” (The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1986).

#2) Dec. 6, 1988: Rockets 106, Cavaliers 105 — “Akeem Olajuwon hit a 12-foot turnaround jump shot with one second left to lead the Houston Rockets to a 106-105 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday night. With five seconds left and Houston trailing 105-104, the Rockets inbounded the ball to Sleepy Floyd, who passed to Olajuwon on the baseline. Olajuwon turned and shot a fade-away jumper to provide Houston with its winning margin and snap a four-game winning streak for Cleveland. Olajuwon finished with 30 points and 15 rebounds, including all six of Houston’s points in the last 3:12 of play” (The Victoria Advocate, Dec. 7, 1988).

#3) Dec. 26, 1988: Rockets 97, Hornets 95 — “Akeem Olajuwon scored 23 points, including a dunk with 1:03 left that gave Houston a 97-95 victory over Charlotte on Monday” (Gainesville Sun, Dec. 27, 1988). “The Houston Rockets blanked Charlotte in a defensive duel down the stretch, defeating the Hornets 97-95. Tyrone Bogues and Kelly Tripucka led a late Charlotte rally Monday night that tied the game 95-95 with 3:24 to play. Then the teams settled into a rugged defensive stuggle that produced just one basket in the last three minutes. It came with 63 seconds left when Houston’s Akeem Olajuwon grabbed a long lob pass from teammate Buck Johnson, and in one motion stuffed the ball into the hoop over Kurt Rambis. Charlotte had three more chances to tie it after that, but never got a shot off” (The Mount Airy News, Dec. 27, 1988).

#4) Feb. 26, 1992: Rockets 118, Warriors 116 — “Hakeem Olajuwon scored 33 points, including the game-winner at the buzzer, rallying Houston from an 18-point halftime deficit to a 118-116 victory over Golden State in Houston […]” (Austin-American Statesman, Feb. 27, 1992).

#5) Mar. 8, 1992: Rockets 109, Kings 108 — “Hakeem Olajuwon dunked a halfcourt inbounds pass from Otis Thorpe with 3.3 seconds left to lift the Houston Rockets to a 109-108 victory over the Sacramento Kings. Mitch Richmond, who scored 30 points for the Kings, made a 16-foot jumper with 3.7 seconds left to give the Kings a 108-107 lead. After a timeout, Thorpe passed the ball deep to a jumping Olajuwon, who scored 19 of his 25 points in the second half. Olajuwon, scoreless in the first quarter, also had 14 rebounds” (The Victoria Advocate, Mar. 9, 1992).

#6) Nov. 27, 1993: Rockets 82, Clippers 80 — “Houston blew a 22-point lead to the Los Angeles Clippers before escaping with an 82-80 victory on Hakeem Olajuwon’s jumper with 22 seconds left Saturday night, giving the Rockets a 13-0 record” (Manila Standard, Nov. 28, 993).

#7) Nov. 8, 1994: Rockets 100, Cavaliers 98 — “At the first regular-season game at new Gund Arena in Cleveland, Hakeem Olajuwon sank the winning shot fallaway jumper from the baseline over Hot Rod Williams. ‘I don’t think anybody in the world stops Hakeem on a shot like that,’ Williams said. ‘You just try to play good defense and just hope he misses’ ” (The Deseret News, Nov 9, 1994).

#8) Apr. 10, 1994: Rockets 93, Nuggets 92 — “At Denver, Hakeem Olajuwon scored 31 points, including a 12-foot baseline jumper with 5 seconds left as Houston rallied to beat the Nuggets. Olajuwon helped the Rockets erase a 17-point deficit midway through the third quarter, scoring 21 of his team’s final 44 points. he also pulled down 12 rebounds” (The Daily Sentinel, Apr. 11, 1994).

#9) Dec. 5, 1995: Rockets 103, Jazz 100 — Olajuwon led Houston with 25 points and “scored the game-winner on a short jump hook” (USA Today, Dec. 6, 1995) to give Houston a 103-100 win over Utah.

#10) June 6, 1995, Game 1 of NBA Finals: Rockets 120, Magic 118, OT — “Hakeem Olajuwon tipped in a missed shot by Clyde Drexler with 0.03 seconds left in overtime to give the Houston Rockets a 120-118 victory over the Orlando Magic in the first game of the NBA Finals.

“Dennis Scott hit a three-pointer with just over five seconds remaining to tie the game in overtime. Drexler drove to the basket on the ensuing play, and the ball bounced over the rim. Olajuwon jumped over Orlando’s Shaquille O’Neal to tip in the winning shot” (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Jun 8, 1995).

#11) Apr. 13, 1996: Rockets 112, Suns 111 — “Hakeem Olajuwon capped his 13th career triple double with a flying 5-foot jumper at the buzzer, rallying the Rockets to a 112-111 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night” (Times Daily, Apr. 14, 1996).

#12) Nov. 14, 1996: Rockets 90, Pacers 88 — “Hakeem Olajuwon scored 9 points in the final 4:32 and blocked Reggie Miller’s layup in the final seconds Thursday night, giving the Houston Rockets a 90-88 victory over the Indiana Pacers. Olajuwon scored 21 points for the Rockets, who trailed 85-76 with 4:32 left. Plagued by foul trouble, Olajuwon snapped an 88-all tie with a baseline jumper with 20 seconds left. The Pacers had a chance to tie, but Olajuwon blocked Miller’s shot and players for both teams wrestled for the loose ball near midcourt as the buzzer sounded” (The Victoria Advocate, Nov. 15, 1996).

#13) Dec. 1, 2001: Raptors 104, Celtics 103 — “Hakeem Olajuwon’s baseline jumper with 1.8 seconds left gave the Toronto Raptors a 104-103 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday. […] Atlanta’s Nazr Mohammed hit two free throws with three seconds left but, after a Toronto timeout, Olajuwon took an inbounds pass from Carter and hit the turnaround jumper for the winning points” (The Albany Herald, Dec. 2, 2001).

Thank your for being even handed in your analysis. I hope others look at both sides as well for all players in this comparison.

[JordansBulls]

Using TheRealBigThree's count on page 18 then adding the subsequent votes I have:


Wilt Chamberlain - 17 (trex_8063, Owly, penbeast0, Warspite, DQuinn1575, Notanoob, magicmerl, fpliii, ardee, DannyNoonan1221, Greatness, Narigo, RSCD3_, TrueLAfan, Gregoire, kayess, SactoKingsFan)

Shaquille O'Neal - 7 (RayBan-Sematra, colts18, therealbig3, HeartBreakKid, O_6, PCProductions, MacGil)

Magic Johnson - 5 (Basketballefan, DHodgkins, GC Pantalones, Clyde Frazier, An Unbiased Fan)

Hakeem Olajuwon - 4 (90sAllDecade, Quotatious, ronnymac2, Dr Positivity)

Tim Duncan - 3 (Baller2014, batmana, Texas Chuck)

Kevin Garnett - 2 (Doctor MJ, drza)

LeBron James - 1 (rico381)

Baller supposedly found another vote for Magic but failed to identify the voter.

I was the one who voted Magic.

[MisterHibachi]

Well said. No one has responded to my question of 'why Magic/Bird over LeBron?'. I hope there is an answer in the next thread and LeBron gets stronger consideration. But, assuming Wilt gets voted in here, Shaq's momentum seems pretty strong so hopefully the sixth slot for number 6.

For me it comes down to one thing: How many rings could you get with Lebron leading your team. Now his prime is great but prior to 08 you definitely aren't winning a ring with Lebron. In 08 he wouldn't win going off his playoff performance. In 09 that's year one he could win. 2010 he seemingly gave up on his team Can't give you that year as great as the regular season was. 2011... we already know the answer. And then there's the last 3 years. Basically Lebron as great as his numbers were is very Wilt-like. In 2011 he proved everyone saying he couldn't win right. It's hard for me to look at his Cleveland career and say he could get those teams to a win if they were adequate because he got on a great team and made them lose. If they had Battier instead of Lebron in that series Wade would've got the W.

Basically I highly value postseason performance and Lebron is lacking compared to the others on my radar.

You basically wrote off 2011 for the poor performance in the latter half of one series, wrote off 2010 for a bad game, and wrote off LeBron's seasons prior to 09. You're saying those years hold no value. That's ridiculous.

No, Ariza or Battier would not have resulted in a championship for Miami in 2011. They would've never got TO the Finals without LeBron James. That is value. You can't write off a whole season because of a small sample size like 3 games. Even worse when you matter of factly say LeBron 'seemingly gave up on his team' in 2010 based on one game.

It always confuses me when people discuss basketball players, yet don't want to discuss basketball itself. If there are reasons for good or poor performances that can be explained by basketball terms and what happens on the court, then why do you need to get into the psychoanalysis.

Any how, if you only want to judge him based on how many years he was a championship caliber team anchor, then you got AT LEAST 07-14, which gives you 8 years. His prime started in 07 and he's given you 8 years as a championship caliber anchor. That's not even mentioning the value added by his 06 season, where he finished second in MVP voting, and his 05 season, where he averaged 27/7/7 and finished 6th in MVP voting. He was an MVP caliber player in 06. If that's not value, I don't know what is.

As for post season performance, rico381 said it better than I can:

Playoff performance: This is one area detractors harp on with narrative-based attacks, but even with a couple hiccups (like everyone has once you've ranked Jordan and Russell), LeBron's performance is as good as anyone's. He won two finals MVPs in very convincing fashion, and was the best individual player in this year's finals, too (admittedly, this was in much less convincing fashion). He's third in career playoff WS/48 and PER, behind only Jordan and Mikan in both cases. I don't have his numbers in elimination games at my fingertips, but I've seen them posted many times, and they are incredible. He might be the all-time leader in PPG in elimination games, or behind only Jordan, if I recall correctly.

And since playoff performance usually goes hand in hand with clutch performance:

Clutch Performance: Part of this is covered in his playoff performances, and another part is about how he performs in late-game situations. Some fans knocked him for this due to his famously passing up some shots to get teammates wide-open threes on the final possessions of the game. The evidence just doesn't back them up, though. What's crazy is, I want to say they're wrong because "hero ball doesn't work; you should just make the right basketball play and find the open man", but that's not entirely accurate. It's more like "Hero ball doesn't work, unless you have LeBron". League efficiency tends to go down in those scenarios, but LeBron's shown a propensity for incredible clutch performances over the years. 82games has been tracking clutch stats for the past six years, with clutch defined as "4th quarter or overtime, less than 5 minutes left, neither team ahead by more than 5 points". By their numbers, in 08-09 LeBron averaged 55.9 points, 14.3 rebounds, and 12.6 assists per 48 minutes of clutch time, on .556/.421/.85 shooting splits (.693 TS%). Cleveland outscored their opponents by 103 points in 111 minutes of clutch time that year, or +45 per 48 minutes. In 09-10, he averaged 66.1-15.9-8.3-3.2-3.2 per 48, on .488/.340/.80 shooting (.630 TS%). Cleveland outscored their opponents by 116 points over 151 minutes in those situations, or +37 over 48 minutes. After relative down years (by his standards), LeBron picked back up at a pretty great pace in 12-13, when he averaged 38.7-15.2-14.9 per 48, on .442/.280/.76 shooting (.555 TS%). While the individual numbers aren't as crazy, Miami outscored opponents by 125 points over 161 minutes of clutch time with LeBron, or +37 per 48 minutes, and this was a big factor in their 26-game winning streak. They could basically take it easy for much of the game, then turn it on in the second half if they needed to and overcome any deficit they might've accrued. I generally don't believe there's much merit to clutch performances, but this is stuff that just should not be possible. 66 points per 48 on .630 TS% for a slow team in the modern NBA, in the most important time of the game? Outscoring opponents by about three or four times as much per minute as the best season-long marks in NBA history, entirely in game-deciding moments? If anyone tries to tell you LeBron wasn't clutch before coming to Miami, or before the 2012 championship run, they could not be more wrong.

If you find LeBron's post season work lacking compared to anyone except Jordan and Shaq, then you're either focusing on narrative or giving too much weight to a very small sample size of games.

[ThaRegul8r]

Thank your for being even handed in your analysis. I hope others look at both sides as well for all players in this comparison.

You're welcome. As I said, I want to look at the pros and cons both in order to see both sides, so I don't want it to come off like I'm ripping him. As another "pro," on ElGee's blog (long down), in 2011 he looked at how players performed in the playoffs against how they might be expected to perform based on defensive quality, and found:

Spoiler:

As we might imagine, most stats decline when the defensive quality increases. Well, except for Hakeem Olajuwon, who significantly outperformed his regular season numbers, yet alone what was expected against tougher competition.

PS Prime PPG RS Diff Exp Diff TS% RS Diff Exp Diff Ortg RS Diff Exp Diff WS/48 RS Diff
Hakeem Olajuwon 27.6 2.2 -0.4 .577 .018 -.009 114 4 -2 .200 .011

[magicmerl]

I have no problem acknowledging Wilt being the better rebounder as I am on record of that on this site. But it's how much better in comparison.

Earlier in this thread I made some assumptions and attempted to generate per100possession stats for Wilt. Across his career he came out with 19.9 rebounds per100. Which is head and shoulders above Duncan at 17.0, who was himself ahead of Shaq/Hakeem. So rebounding is definitely Wilt's elite skill that endures through our advanced manipulations of his raw numbers.

Here was my post

Spoiler:

Now that the clear top 3 are out of the way, it gets interesting again. Before joining RealGM, I had WIlt in the #4 slot, based largely on his absurd scoring numbers. However, I've cooled on him considerably since then on learning about how he chased stats in blowout losses (when he shouldn't even be in the game) and how the higher pace inflated his stats.

Now that we have the per 100 stats for everyone but Wilt, we can attempt to showhorn something in there. Here's the careers of the people I am considering:

All stats are per100Poss
Magic .610TS% 25.4PTS 9.4REB 14.5AST 3.0STL+BLK 5.0TOV 2.9PF
Shaq .586TS% 35.2PTS 16.1REB 3.7AST 4.3STL+BLK 4.1TOV 5.1PF
Hakeem .553TS% 30.3PTS 15.5REB 3.4AST 6.7STL+BLK 4.1TOV 4.9PF
Duncan .551TS% 30.4PTS 17.0REB 4.7AST 4.5STL+BLK 3.9TOV 3.7PF
Wilt* .547TS% 26.1PTS 19.9REB ?AST ?STL+BLK ?TOV 1.7PF

*My methodology for estimating pace for WIlt's era: Possessions end in a made field goal, a defensive rebound, free throws, or a turnover. I assumed 20 TOV a game during the period prior to 1973, 20% of free-throws were on an 'and-1', and that 70% of rebounds were defensive rebounds. This resulted in league pace calculated using the following formula:
League Pace = FieldGoalsMade + 0.7 * TotalRebounds + 0.4 * FreeThrowAttempts + 20 (Turnovers)

The result shows that when you adjust for pace Wilt isn't nearly the scorer that his competition in this thread were, but still a beastly rebounder for the ages.

It's really hard to compare magic with these big men. Obviously his assists and steals are much better, and his rebounds and blocks are worse, but that's just a function of position rather than a reflection that he is better at anything. Similarly, I'm surprised that Duncan has such a relatively high AST total, especially when the narrative was that Shaq is such a good passer out of the double-team.

In the end though, I think that combination of the high scoring totals on excellent efficiency and no real glaring weaknesses makes me lean towards Shaq.

[PaulieWal]

No, Ariza or Battier would not have resulted in a championship for Miami in 2011. They would've never got TO the Finals without LeBron James.

Thanks for pointing this out, Hibachi. I was gonna bring this up in my reply to GC but forgot. With Battier or Ariza Miami may not even be able to beat Boston and/or Chicago. I wish I could And1 this twice.

[ThaRegul8r]

Can one of the Shaq people provide data on Shaq-led offenses if they happen to have it?

[E-Balla]

Well said. No one has responded to my question of 'why Magic/Bird over LeBron?'. I hope there is an answer in the next thread and LeBron gets stronger consideration. But, assuming Wilt gets voted in here, Shaq's momentum seems pretty strong so hopefully the sixth slot for number 6.

For me it comes down to one thing: How many rings could you get with Lebron leading your team. Now his prime is great but prior to 08 you definitely aren't winning a ring with Lebron. In 08 he wouldn't win going off his playoff performance. In 09 that's year one he could win. 2010 he seemingly gave up on his team Can't give you that year as great as the regular season was. 2011... we already know the answer. And then there's the last 3 years. Basically Lebron as great as his numbers were is very Wilt-like. In 2011 he proved everyone saying he couldn't win right. It's hard for me to look at his Cleveland career and say he could get those teams to a win if they were adequate because he got on a great team and made them lose. If they had Battier instead of Lebron in that series Wade would've got the W.

Basically I highly value postseason performance and Lebron is lacking compared to the others on my radar.

You basically wrote off 2011 for the poor performance in the latter half of one series, wrote off 2010 for a bad game, and wrote off LeBron's seasons prior to 09. You're saying those years hold no value. That's ridiculous.

No, Ariza or Battier would not have resulted in a championship for Miami in 2011. They would've never got TO the Finals without LeBron James. That is value. You can't write off a whole season because of a small sample size like 3 games. Even worse when you matter of factly say LeBron 'seemingly gave up on his team' in 2010 based on one game.

No one is saying Miami makes the Finals without Lebron (even though they are still the favorites to make the Finals without Lebron and with Ariza/Battier) because Lebron performed well for the first 3 series.

I didn't right off those years because of a few small performances I wrote them off because he didn't show up in the biggest series of his career to that point. In his early career he always seemed to crack under pressure and 2011 is the series that made me believe he was seriously not mentally ready to do what it takes to win a ring. I'm not saying those years hold no value just that they pale in comparison to Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, and Magic's pre-peak years. If I don't see his peak as clearly better than theirs (I'll give him Magic) his other years must be amazing to get him over them especially when he's lacking in longevity.

It always confuses me when people discuss basketball players, yet don't want to discuss basketball itself. If there are reasons for good or poor performances that can be explained by basketball terms and what happens on the court, then why do you need to get into the psychoanalysis.

Well what happened on the court was Lebron played like crap two straight years to get eliminated and one of those years he was at best average (and I don't mean average for a star I mean average for a starting NBA SF).

Any how, if you only want to judge him based on how many years he was a championship caliber team anchor, then you got AT LEAST 07-14, which gives you 8 years. His prime started in 07 and he's given you 8 years as a championship caliber anchor. That's not even mentioning the value added by his 06 season, where he finished second in MVP voting, and his 05 season, where he averaged 27/7/7 and finished 6th in MVP voting. He was an MVP caliber player in 06. If that's not value, I don't know what is.

I'll contend this by saying he got what him and his supporters wanted (a great supporting cast) and he still lost so why should I believe he could've won in Cleveland when he couldn't win with 2 HOFs at their peak?

As for post season performance, rico381 said it better than I can:

Playoff performance: This is one area detractors harp on with narrative-based attacks, but even with a couple hiccups (like everyone has once you've ranked Jordan and Russell), LeBron's performance is as good as anyone's. He won two finals MVPs in very convincing fashion, and was the best individual player in this year's finals, too (admittedly, this was in much less convincing fashion). He's third in career playoff WS/48 and PER, behind only Jordan and Mikan in both cases. I don't have his numbers in elimination games at my fingertips, but I've seen them posted many times, and they are incredible. He might be the all-time leader in PPG in elimination games, or behind only Jordan, if I recall correctly.

Well 5 great postseasons (2 where his competition overall was crap) out of 9 pales in comparison to Magic (9/12 not counting 96), Hakeem (great in 6/7 extended runs - 8/13 before being washed up), Duncan (8/13 from before 2010 when he stopped getting double doubles), and Shaq (10/14 before leaving Miami). Lebron isn't bad but in the playoffs he's not on these guys' level.

If you find LeBron's post season work lacking compared to anyone except Jordan and Shaq, then you're either focusing on narrative or giving too much weight to a very small sample size of games.

If you had to rank your top 5 playoff performers of the 3 point line era (just to make it easier) who would it be? My list would be Jordan, Shaq, Magic, Hakeem, Duncan in that order.

[E-Balla]

No, Ariza or Battier would not have resulted in a championship for Miami in 2011. They would've never got TO the Finals without LeBron James.

Thanks for pointing this out, Hibachi. I was gonna bring this up in my reply to GC but forgot. With Battier or Ariza Miami may not even be able to beat Boston and/or Chicago. I wish I could And1 this twice.

You don't think they'd be the favorites? I remember thinking Miami was going to make the Finals before Lebron announced he was signing there just because they got Bosh and Wade. Remember in that first year all 3 of those guys stomped on each other's production (and all three performed well under the level they played at in 09/10) and they had horrible synergy winning basically on talent. I think without Lebron (or Wade for that matter) the transition in that first year would've been smoother.

[90sAllDecade]

Wanted to post this for the Shaq Hakeem comparison to add to the RS per100 info.

Playoffs Per100

All stats are per100Poss
Shaq .565TS% 34.7PTS 16.6REB 3.8AST 0.8STL 3.0BLK 4.3TOV 5.1PF
Hakeem .569TS% 33.7PTS 14.6REB 4.1AST 2.2STL 4.2BLK 3.8TOV 5.0PF

[MacGill]

I have no problem acknowledging Wilt being the better rebounder as I am on record of that on this site. But it's how much better in comparison.

Earlier in this thread I made some assumptions and attempted to generate per100possession stats for Wilt. Across his career he came out with 19.9 rebounds per100. Which is head and shoulders above Duncan at 17.0, who was himself ahead of Shaq/Hakeem. So rebounding is definitely Wilt's elite skill that endures through our advanced manipulations of his raw numbers.

Here was my post

Spoiler:

Now that the clear top 3 are out of the way, it gets interesting again. Before joining RealGM, I had WIlt in the #4 slot, based largely on his absurd scoring numbers. However, I've cooled on him considerably since then on learning about how he chased stats in blowout losses (when he shouldn't even be in the game) and how the higher pace inflated his stats.

Now that we have the per 100 stats for everyone but Wilt, we can attempt to showhorn something in there. Here's the careers of the people I am considering:

All stats are per100Poss
Magic .610TS% 25.4PTS 9.4REB 14.5AST 3.0STL+BLK 5.0TOV 2.9PF
Shaq .586TS% 35.2PTS 16.1REB 3.7AST 4.3STL+BLK 4.1TOV 5.1PF
Hakeem .553TS% 30.3PTS 15.5REB 3.4AST 6.7STL+BLK 4.1TOV 4.9PF
Duncan .551TS% 30.4PTS 17.0REB 4.7AST 4.5STL+BLK 3.9TOV 3.7PF
Wilt* .547TS% 26.1PTS 19.9REB ?AST ?STL+BLK ?TOV 1.7PF

*My methodology for estimating pace for WIlt's era: Possessions end in a made field goal, a defensive rebound, free throws, or a turnover. I assumed 20 TOV a game during the period prior to 1973, 20% of free-throws were on an 'and-1', and that 70% of rebounds were defensive rebounds. This resulted in league pace calculated using the following formula:
League Pace = FieldGoalsMade + 0.7 * TotalRebounds + 0.4 * FreeThrowAttempts + 20 (Turnovers)

The result shows that when you adjust for pace Wilt isn't nearly the scorer that his competition in this thread were, but still a beastly rebounder for the ages.

It's really hard to compare magic with these big men. Obviously his assists and steals are much better, and his rebounds and blocks are worse, but that's just a function of position rather than a reflection that he is better at anything. Similarly, I'm surprised that Duncan has such a relatively high AST total, especially when the narrative was that Shaq is such a good passer out of the double-team.

In the end though, I think that combination of the high scoring totals on excellent efficiency and no real glaring weaknesses makes me lean towards Shaq.

Thank you for linking that. Is this full career #'s per 100 possessions though?

I ask because to me early Wilt had the advantage of ridiculously high FGA's as well as pace and inefficient finishing on his side. Also, not 100% sure of when the paint was widened and 3 second rule implemented. Later Wilt had less responsibility as the offensive anchor and more energy, focus for defense and rebounding. Again, he did what he did but the same can't be said for the other bigs so I have to use that context.

[Doctor MJ]

So getting a lot of talk about RAPM not "really" meaning impact and to me this just gets us back to really general stuff:

People are just saying the old truism that correlation is not causation. And they are correct of course, but they then use that to say "so it's meaningless!", as opposed to actually applying scientific thinking to go forward.

Literally what science is is an attempt to distill causation from correlation and obviously it can work prey damn well. It can also be wrong which is why the process itself is so important.

When assertions are made about a player using RAPM or any other stat or event they may be wrong. However the mere fact that they maybe wrong is not an argument why they are wrong, and meanwhile literally any other disagreeing assertions have the exact same vulnerability.

I am not telling anyone they must use stats like I (or others here) do, but believe me when I was that the epistemological basis of my approach to analysis is far from naive. Absolutely doesn't mean I'm always right, but I'm no crank.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[penbeast0]

Thanks JB. I went back through page by page and found it; already changed the totals but Magic still comes up a vote short since john248 doesn't vote until next thread.

AT THIS POINT, WE HAVE A RUNOFF WITH 17 VOTES FOR WILT CHAMBERLAIN AND 7 FOR SHAQUILLE O'NEAL.