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Who's lucky #13?

Petrie. It's criminal that he's this low.

I'm gonna go with Geoff Petrie as well. Solid player and I didn't know how solid his stats were until I looked them up today

I've been lobbying for Petrie for a while now. Of course it all depends on the criteria for "greatest"...but it's crazy to me that some people want Cliff Robinson or even Buck Williams higher on this list than Geoff Petrie. His nickname was "The Original Trailblazer" for chrissake...

Imagine Damian Lillard getting his stats for 6 years without a 3pt line...that's what Geoff Petrie did. Not to mention, he was Portland's first draft pick and a face of the franchise. His 51 point game benchmark lasted 22 years. If his career wasn't shortened by injury he would probably be top 2 on this list. But we only got 6 years of very high level basketball. Shoot, also worth mentioning that he was the Trailblazer GM from '90-'94 and went to the conference finals twice...

Geoff Petrie

Season Over 6.5 WS:
Clifford Robinson - 5
Petrie - 0

Top 10 in WS:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Top 10 in Minutes Played:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Top 10 in Rebounds:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Top 10 in Steals:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Top 10 in Blocks:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Top 10 in VORP:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Playoff Games:
Robinson - 78
Petrie - 0

Total Points:
Robinson - 10,405
Petrie - 9,732

I'm going to continue to vote for Mychal Thompson. I certainly understand the push for Petrie and I assumed I was going to vote for him higher. What concerns me about Petrie is how poor the team was (despite having two guys putting up massive numbers in Petrie and Wicks and many of the same role players that were around in 77 and 78 like Neal, Steele and even a year of Gross and Hollins). Petrie scored a lot of points but he took a lot of shots, never got to the line a terrible amount after his first year, and doesn't show well with some advanced metrics like PER and VORP.

I'm honestly struggling to find the appeal of Petrie other than sentimentality. He was the quintessential mediocre-numbers-on-bad-teams guy. Maybe someone can enlighten me to what makes him special beyond a nickname.

It is indeed criminal that Petrie has not been chosen for he played as the face of an expansion
franchise with a lot of marginal players including Sidney Wicks who would have been welcome
on the Jail Blazer teams for other than at UCLA, he never won anywhere. It was a shame he
had to be sacrificed in a trade with Atlanta for Maurice Lucas for he retired rather than go
to the Hawks.

He was also a very fine radio play by play man with Schonely in the 80's prior to being named
senior VP for the Blazers and then GM of the Kings.

I'm a little Meh, on some of the stats you chose to highlight. It's tricky comparing players that play different positions with different career lengths...especially when comparing an expansion team with a perennial playoff team. Petrie will always look bad in "Top 10" lists because he didn't play long enough.

Masterfully wrote:Season Over 6.5 WS:
Clifford Robinson - 5
Petrie - 0

Top 10 in WS:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Top 10 in Minutes Played:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Petrie averaged about 2800 minutes a season. He ended his career with 16787. Cliffy ended with 19839. If Petrie would have played even one more year he would be at 19587...good for #6 all-time.

Top 10 in Rebounds:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Not sure I see the point in bringing up Rebounds when comparing a PG/SG with a SF/PF

Top 10 in Steals:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

I don't think there is a question that Cliffy was a better defender, but Steals weren't counted the first 3 years Petrie was in the league. If you extrapolate Petrie's 83/yr avg over the same number of years Cliffy played? You get a 32 steal difference in favor of Cliffy...not really impressive

Top 10 in Blocks:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Again, not sure this is that important when comparing a PG/SG with a SF/PF

Top 10 in VORP:
Robinson - Yes
Petrie - No

Playoff Games:
Robinson - 78
Petrie - 0

Expansion team vs. a perennial playoff team

Total Points:
Robinson - 10,405
Petrie - 9,732

Based on his averages, if Petrie played as many years as Cliffy did with the Blazers it would be Petrie at 12,976 (good for 2nd all time, behind Clyde)

zzaj wrote:I'm a little Meh, on some of the stats you chose to highlight. It's tricky comparing players that play different positions with different career lengths...especially when comparing an expansion team with a perennial playoff team. Petrie will always look bad in "Top 10" lists because he didn't play long enough.

I agree that some stats (blocks especially) may not be relevant, but I think it's also important to note all the stats where Robinson is in the top 10. If I did the reverse you will not find many (any?) categories where Petrie is in the top 10 but not Robinson. Frankly, because Petrie didn't do much besides score points on bad teams.

The argument that Petrie shouldn't be docked because he played such a short time doesn't hold much weight with me. He's in the top 20 in games played and minutes played, well ahead of hundreds of other Blazers. Again, he didn't do much besides score points in his time, so there isn't a whole lot to show for it.

To take the other side of this argument, I'd argue that Robinson's terrible playoff production should be a big mark against him. Although Petrie never played in a playoff game, it's hard to imagine he would have been as bad as Robinson was.

Masterfully wrote:

zzaj wrote:I'm a little Meh, on some of the stats you chose to highlight. It's tricky comparing players that play different positions with different career lengths...especially when comparing an expansion team with a perennial playoff team. Petrie will always look bad in "Top 10" lists because he didn't play long enough.

I agree that some stats (blocks especially) may not be relevant, but I think it's also important to note all the stats where Robinson is in the top 10. If I did the reverse you will not find many (any?) categories where Petrie is in the top 10 but not Robinson. Frankly, because Petrie didn't do much besides score points on bad teams.

The argument that Petrie shouldn't be docked because he played such a short time doesn't hold much weight with me. He's in the top 20 in games played and minutes played, well ahead of hundreds of other Blazers. Again, he didn't do much besides score points in his time, so there isn't a whole lot to show for it.

To take the other side of this argument, I'd argue that Robinson's terrible playoff production should be a big mark against him. Although Petrie never played in a playoff game, it's hard to imagine he would have been as bad as Robinson was.

I can't find a complete list of minutes played or career games...but Cliffy is #5 in both of those categories (BBR only has top 10). Considering he's only in the top 20, if you moved Petrie up to Cliffy's amount of minutes and games played, I think you'd see him appear in a lot more "top 10" discussions, including PTS, ASTS, STLS which are important stats for his position.

Petrie also is #5 on the list of all-time assists leaders despite playing most of his time at the SG position and behind players (other than Strickland) who played thousands of more minutes than he did. IMO, to say he only scored on bad teams is misreading the situation slightly. Career averages of 21.8 pts/4.6 asts/2.8 rbs/1.1 stls...is nothing to shake a stick at.

I'm certainly not trying to fault your process (or that of anyone here, really) in tabulating this list. Even with concrete criteria and an unbiased historical perspective, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a list that everyone here would agree on. That being said, I have a feeling that most of the posters here (me included) aren't of a generation that can really understand the impact Petrie had on the Trailblazers organization and that is allowing some bias to creep in. I'd be curious what Bill Schonley's top 20 would look like.

vote: Gee Off-Petrie

I understand people voting for Cliff Robinson, but ultimately for years Petrie was the best player on a bad team in a bad era. and that carries more weight than being a solid role player on a great team. hell, if Wesley Matthews was on that 1990s team - how high would he be ranked?

zzaj wrote:

Masterfully wrote:

zzaj wrote:I'm a little Meh, on some of the stats you chose to highlight. It's tricky comparing players that play different positions with different career lengths...especially when comparing an expansion team with a perennial playoff team. Petrie will always look bad in "Top 10" lists because he didn't play long enough.

I agree that some stats (blocks especially) may not be relevant, but I think it's also important to note all the stats where Robinson is in the top 10. If I did the reverse you will not find many (any?) categories where Petrie is in the top 10 but not Robinson. Frankly, because Petrie didn't do much besides score points on bad teams.

The argument that Petrie shouldn't be docked because he played such a short time doesn't hold much weight with me. He's in the top 20 in games played and minutes played, well ahead of hundreds of other Blazers. Again, he didn't do much besides score points in his time, so there isn't a whole lot to show for it.

To take the other side of this argument, I'd argue that Robinson's terrible playoff production should be a big mark against him. Although Petrie never played in a playoff game, it's hard to imagine he would have been as bad as Robinson was.

I can't find a complete list of minutes played or career games...but Cliffy is #5 in both of those categories (BBR only has top 10). Considering he's only in the top 20, if you moved Petrie up to Cliffy's amount of minutes and games played, I think you'd see him appear in a lot more "top 10" discussions, including PTS, ASTS, STLS which are important stats for his position.

Petrie also is #5 on the list of all-time assists leaders despite playing most of his time at the SG position and behind players (other than Strickland) who played thousands of more minutes than he did. IMO, to say he only scored on bad teams is misreading the situation slightly. Career averages of 21.8 pts/4.6 asts/2.8 rbs/1.1 stls...is nothing to shake a stick at.

I'm certainly not trying to fault your process (or that of anyone here, really) in tabulating this list. Even with concrete criteria and an unbiased historical perspective, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a list that everyone here would agree on. That being said, I have a feeling that most of the posters here (me included) aren't of a generation that can really understand the impact Petrie had on the Trailblazers organization and that is allowing some bias to creep in. I'd be curious what Bill Schonley's top 20 would look like.

Here's a sortable complete list:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/POR/players.html

Robinson is top 5, but Petrie isn't far behind in GP and MP. Even if you adjust them together Robinson will still have the edge in most stats.

To your final paragraph, that's what I'm struggling with most, impact. Petrie scored a lot of points, but they didn't seem to have any impact on the team.

Another name to add to the discussion Steve Johnson-An all star with the Blazers and one of the best low post scorers in team history

Why is Petrie getting votes but Wicks not getting any recognition? Both of these guys seem to be pretty good candidates. Wicks has an edge in advanced metrics, All-Star appearances (4 to 2), and he was the one who got a couple token MVP votes, not Petrie. I know accolades aren't everything, but was Wicks more highly regarded at the time?

The one thing that worries me about using stats for the early Blazers is that turnovers weren't individually recorded until the 1977-78 season, but they were recorded at a team level from the 1973-74 season onward. Clearly, turnovers were the biggest problem for Portland as well in the final 3 seasons that Petrie and Wicks were there.



In 1975 and 1976 especially, Portland's turnover percentage would put in theoretically in the bottom 5% of the league. Petrie and Wicks are gone in 1977, and suddenly, turnovers aren't a big problem anymore, and the offense jumps through the roof. Yes, other things improved as well (ORB%, and modest gains in eFG and FT/FGA), but those turnovers really stand out. Conversely, the assist % was very good in 1975 and 1976, which suggests that Wilkens' offense was perhaps riskier than Ramsay's.

The data are missing for 1971-1973, and Portland looks pretty bad on offense during this time. That can be expected as they were an expansion team. Comparing ORTG in these early years to the later years isn't an apples-apples comparison as information about offensive rebounds and turnovers weren't available, but given Portland's very poor record, I don't think the offense would have been better than it was from 1974-1976.

I'm going to go with Mychal Thompson. I'm not convinced that he wasn't a better player than Jim Paxson, actually. I'm hesitant to anoint Petrie and Wicks for the aforementioned reasons, and guys like Pippen and Strickland are on my radar, but I'm not sure they had double the value of Thompson during the 4-year stints with the team.

Cliff Robinson is an intriguing case here. Part of me feels like I'm punishing him too much for his playoff futility, but I'm going to stick with Thompson for the time being.

Moonbeam wrote:Why is Petrie getting votes but Wicks not getting any recognition? Both of these guys seem to be pretty good candidates. Wicks has an edge in advanced metrics, All-Star appearances (4 to 2), and he was the one who got a couple token MVP votes, not Petrie. I know accolades aren't everything, but was Wicks more highly regarded at the time?

The one thing that worries me about using stats for the early Blazers is that turnovers weren't individually recorded until the 1977-78 season, but they were recorded at a team level from the 1973-74 season onward. Clearly, turnovers were the biggest problem for Portland as well in the final 3 seasons that Petrie and Wicks were there.



In 1975 and 1976 especially, Portland's turnover percentage would put in theoretically in the bottom 5% of the league. Petrie and Wicks are gone in 1977, and suddenly, turnovers aren't a big problem anymore, and the offense jumps through the roof. Yes, other things improved as well (ORB%, and modest gains in eFG and FT/FGA), but those turnovers really stand out. Conversely, the assist % was very good in 1975 and 1976, which suggests that Wilkens' offense was perhaps riskier than Ramsay's.

The data are missing for 1971-1973, and Portland looks pretty bad on offense during this time. That can be expected as they were an expansion team. Comparing ORTG in these early years to the later years isn't an apples-apples comparison as information about offensive rebounds and turnovers weren't available, but given Portland's very poor record, I don't think the offense would have been better than it was from 1974-1976.

The old timers can tell you why Wicks isn't getting much mention for he like much of the Jail Blazers
were hated by the fans. Those teams featured a lot of 1-1 play and Wicks with his smaller hands and
lax play frustrated Bill Walton when he was drafted in 1974. Mixed in with those early Blazer coaches
prior to Jack Ramsay and guys like Charlie Yelverton (an interesting character) there was a reason
why Portland's teams prior to 77 were horrible. It took a real pro coach like Ramsay to organize
the team around Bill Walton to set things right.

Geoff Petrie (5): mojomarc, Oden2, zzaj, Norm2953, JasonStern

Mychal Thompson (2): a_sensei, Moonbeam

Cliff Robinson (1): Masterfully

Steve Johnson (1): Brandon-Clyde

Looks like we have a clean winner in Geoff Petrie. No need for a runoff!