Is Wall Top 5 PG?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Basketball is a two way game and right now Wall is probably the best defender out of all point guards.

I can live with the turnovers because half of them are usually Gortat failing to control the pass or not ready for the pass.

Whipping boy Gortat....

Blair is another guy who some people don't like.


I guess I mistreat Seraphin...

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

And theoretically I'm sure Wall would gladly give up the ball for those iso situations. He sucks at them anyways, they usually end in bricked long twos.

I don't see any potential issues with a Wall/Durant pairing, I think they would both make each other much better. But if anything, Durant's usage and overall scoring ppg would probably come down. OKC has an extremely unbalanced roster, Durant has to handle the ball probably more than he should and his teammates don't necessarily do him any favors in terms of spacing the floor. He wouldn't be the same raw statistical beast playing with a John Wall-type PG, but the game would be made much easier for him.

I think the pairing would be great. But i don't buy the idea that Walls current stats are being held down by the team he plays on, which is where this discussion started. Adding Durant isn't going to suddenly get Wall more assists than he is getting now. It will improve the teams offense a lot though.

Keep in mind that Durant currently plays with ChuckBrook, who freezes him out at times. Just look at what happened the last time we played them. Durant didn't go off until Westbrook went to the bench.

I personally wouldn't care about Wall's assist #s if we got Kevin Durant, haha

I feel the same way.

One thing that I differ from most, is I believe adding Demarcus Cousins would give Wall an easier way to get a title than adding Kevin Durant.

[deneem4]

I think the pairing would be great. But i don't buy the idea that Walls current stats are being held down by the team he plays on, which is where this discussion started. Adding Durant isn't going to suddenly get Wall more assists than he is getting now. It will improve the teams offense a lot though.

Keep in mind that Durant currently plays with ChuckBrook, who freezes him out at times. Just look at what happened the last time we played them. Durant didn't go off until Westbrook went to the bench.

I personally wouldn't care about Wall's assist #s if we got Kevin Durant, haha

I feel the same way.

One thing that I differ from most, is I believe adding Demarcus Cousins would give Wall an easier way to get a title than adding Kevin Durant.

it would

[deneem4]

honestly wall has to be a better scorer to be a truly elite PLAYER...hes an elite guard but barely cracks the elite players
curry
durant
lebron
harden
davis
cousins
westbrook
aldridge
wall...

and im being bias in walls favor considering hes leading his team to 2nd in the east

[payitforward]

Players are as good as their numbers. Fans, however, always think their good players are *better than* their numbers -- fans of every team. It's natural.

It's also easy -- Jangles watches John Wall more than he watches Mike Conley. So he can explain away turnovers as someone else's fault, for example. Conley's TOs are just numbers, so they can't be explained away.

The real takeaway from Nivek's analysis is that John Wall, 24 and entering his prime, is one of the top 10 (not 5) point guards in the game. That's quite good, and since he has been an improving player pretty consistently over the last 3 years he may wind up one of the top 5 for some stretch of years.

I agree with your main point, that fans tend to be biased towards the players they watch regularly and root for. But I don't see why Nivek's method for aggregating the various statistics would be more valid for measuring which player is better (whatever that means in the context of a team sport) than some other method. In the end, it's still an opinion.

No, it's not just "an opinion." I'm not arguing for Kev's PPA methodology, because it isn't published, so I don't know how it's being used, but in principle you can certainly go a long way to determine whether particular methods measure more/less accurately which players are better than others.

The place to start is agglomerate all a particular method's results (taking PT into account) for all the players on every team. Then list from highest to lowest result. If you don't get a very strong correlation with a list of those teams from best to worst win-loss record, you can disregard that method.

To take an example, the correlation for PER is 80+% (I don't remember exactly -- sorry), whereas the correlation for WP48 is 94%, and Kevin claims his method produces about the same high correlation.

Once you have that team aggregate, the question arises whether the method being used allocates correctly among players. There are a lot of ways to check for that as well. It's too much stuff to write about it here. But the key point is that, no, this is not a matter of one person's "opinion" vs. another person's different "opinion."

[payitforward]

honestly wall has to be a better scorer to be a truly elite PLAYER...

Says who?

I'm not arguing that he's an elite player, but there have been plenty of elite players who have not been scorers. Bill Russell leaps to mind.

And there are plenty of players who get called "elite" because they scored a lot, but really were not elite. AI is a prime example of that (although, all the same, pound for pound he might have been the best player in history ). Kobe is another -- a terrific player, but well below "elite". Because he took a lot of shots he scored a lot, and because volume scoring is an obvious but not accurate metric, he's been thought to be elite.

[Illmatic12]

honestly wall has to be a better scorer to be a truly elite PLAYER...hes an elite guard but barely cracks the elite players
curry
durant
lebron
harden
davis
cousins
westbrook
aldridge
wall...

and im being bias in walls favor considering hes leading his team to 2nd in the east

I don't disagree with your list.. but you should redefine your definition of what an 'elite' player is, instead of falling in love with the flashy scorers on highlight reels. In '01-'02 Jason Kidd finished second in MVP voting to Tim Duncan, while averaging 14.7ppg.


Wall has clearly become a much better scorer imo, he's just consciously being more judicious with his shot attempts. It's obvious that he is trying to master certain shots, the type of shots that will allow him to average an efficient 18-20ppg well into the latter stages of his career like Chris Paul or Tony Parker. Wall will never be the most creative scorer, BUT he can still be an efficient and prolific scorer by knowing where his spots are on the court and how to beat the defenses he will face. That just comes with experience in the league.

[deneem4]

honestly wall has to be a better scorer to be a truly elite PLAYER...hes an elite guard but barely cracks the elite players
curry
durant
lebron
harden
davis
cousins
westbrook
aldridge
wall...

and im being bias in walls favor considering hes leading his team to 2nd in the east

I don't disagree with your list.. but you should redefine your definition of what an 'elite' player is, instead of falling in love with the flashy scorers on highlight reels. In '01-'02 Jason Kidd finished second in MVP voting to Tim Duncan, while averaging 14.7ppg.


Wall has clearly become a much better scorer imo, he's just consciously being more judicious with his shot attempts. It's obvious that he is trying to master certain shots, the type of shots that will allow him to average an efficient 18-20ppg well into the latter stages of his career like Chris Paul or Tony Parker. Wall will never be the most creative scorer, BUT he can still be an efficient and prolific scorer by knowing where his spots are on the court and how to beat the defenses he will face. That just comes with experience in the league.

wall is our cornerstone/max/franchise player...if u watch the greats they played relentless until they felt their decline coming...they perfected the post mid range etc when they couldnt drive anymore....wall needs to realize he's the quickest player on the floor still...when he realizes becoming a #1 scoring option will make beal a #1 shooting threat...we will have the best backcourt in the NBA

and noah was 4th last year in mvp voting...didnt average more than 15 points or rebounds got the r dpoty and then destroyed in the playoffs by a guy older and more injury prone

[deneem4]

honestly wall has to be a better scorer to be a truly elite PLAYER...

Says who?

I'm not arguing that he's an elite player, but there have been plenty of elite players who have not been scorers. Bill Russell leaps to mind.

And there are plenty of players who get called "elite" because they scored a lot, but really were not elite. AI is a prime example of that (although, all the same, pound for pound he might have been the best player in history ). Kobe is another -- a terrific player, but well below "elite". Because he took a lot of shots he scored a lot, and because volume scoring is an obvious but not accurate metric, he's been thought to be elite.

iverson was elite/elite as it gets...a top 10 sg in nba history maybe top 5...
kobe is elite as well...always been...
scoring isnt easy, scoring 30pts a game in a season is hard no matter how many shots you take...simply because every shot gets harder

[Nivek]

honestly wall has to be a better scorer to be a truly elite PLAYER...

Says who?

I'm not arguing that he's an elite player, but there have been plenty of elite players who have not been scorers. Bill Russell leaps to mind.

And there are plenty of players who get called "elite" because they scored a lot, but really were not elite. AI is a prime example of that (although, all the same, pound for pound he might have been the best player in history ). Kobe is another -- a terrific player, but well below "elite". Because he took a lot of shots he scored a lot, and because volume scoring is an obvious but not accurate metric, he's been thought to be elite.

iverson was elite/elite as it gets...a top 10 sg in nba history maybe top 5...
kobe is elite as well...always been...
scoring isnt easy, scoring 30pts a game in a season is hard no matter how many shots you take...simply because every shot gets harder

There's considerable debate about Iverson's level. I wouldn't put him the top 5-10 PGs or SGs. In my analysis, he was not elite -- there's more to being a contributing player than points per game. Iverson actually wasn't bad at those things, but he missed a lot of shots and he committed a lot of turnovers. His best season was 2005-06. I LOVED watching Iverson play, though. There's always a thrill seeing anyone compete the way he did.

As for Kobe, he's managed to hit this weird place where he's had one of the great careers in basketball history yet he's still colossally overrated. In most seasons of his career, he was in the top 3-4 SGs in the league. In a couple years, he was probably the best. He was often getting compared to Jordan, which was nonsense. Jordan had 8 seasons that were more productive than Kobe's best season, and a 9th that was tied. In my stat (PPA -- which is designed to measure a player's impact on team scoring differential, and therefore wins and losses), Jordan's career average was higher than Kobe's peak.

[deneem4]

Says who?

I'm not arguing that he's an elite player, but there have been plenty of elite players who have not been scorers. Bill Russell leaps to mind.

And there are plenty of players who get called "elite" because they scored a lot, but really were not elite. AI is a prime example of that (although, all the same, pound for pound he might have been the best player in history ). Kobe is another -- a terrific player, but well below "elite". Because he took a lot of shots he scored a lot, and because volume scoring is an obvious but not accurate metric, he's been thought to be elite.

iverson was elite/elite as it gets...a top 10 sg in nba history maybe top 5...
kobe is elite as well...always been...
scoring isnt easy, scoring 30pts a game in a season is hard no matter how many shots you take...simply because every shot gets harder

There's considerable debate about Iverson's level. I wouldn't put him the top 5-10 PGs or SGs. In my analysis, he was not elite -- there's more to being a contributing player than points per game. Iverson actually wasn't bad at those things, but he missed a lot of shots and he committed a lot of turnovers. His best season was 2005-06. I LOVED watching Iverson play, though. There's always a thrill seeing anyone compete the way he did.

As for Kobe, he's managed to hit this weird place where he's had one of the great careers in basketball history yet he's still colossally overrated. In most seasons of his career, he was in the top 3-4 SGs in the league. In a couple years, he was probably the best. He was often getting compared to Jordan, which was nonsense. Jordan had 8 seasons that were more productive than Kobe's best season, and a 9th that was tied. In my stat (PPA -- which is designed to measure a player's impact on team scoring differential, and therefore wins and losses), Jordan's career average was higher than Kobe's peak.

iverson led his team to the finals and lost to shaq and kobe...
4x scoring champ
3x steal leader
mvp
3x nba 1st team....
only guy to beat shaq and kobe in tht post season

I mean maybe he shouldve joined teams with Shuttleworth and camby...won a championship,

[deneem4]

john wall can do what he want on the court whens he confident...we saw tht when he returned from injury and destroyed the league until we went into tank mode...
when wall is confident hes the best all around point guard in the league...how do we pull tht confidence out of him and make it consistent is the question

[Nivek]

iverson was elite/elite as it gets...a top 10 sg in nba history maybe top 5...
kobe is elite as well...always been...
scoring isnt easy, scoring 30pts a game in a season is hard no matter how many shots you take...simply because every shot gets harder

There's considerable debate about Iverson's level. I wouldn't put him the top 5-10 PGs or SGs. In my analysis, he was not elite -- there's more to being a contributing player than points per game. Iverson actually wasn't bad at those things, but he missed a lot of shots and he committed a lot of turnovers. His best season was 2005-06. I LOVED watching Iverson play, though. There's always a thrill seeing anyone compete the way he did.

As for Kobe, he's managed to hit this weird place where he's had one of the great careers in basketball history yet he's still colossally overrated. In most seasons of his career, he was in the top 3-4 SGs in the league. In a couple years, he was probably the best. He was often getting compared to Jordan, which was nonsense. Jordan had 8 seasons that were more productive than Kobe's best season, and a 9th that was tied. In my stat (PPA -- which is designed to measure a player's impact on team scoring differential, and therefore wins and losses), Jordan's career average was higher than Kobe's peak.

iverson led his team to the finals and lost to shaq and kobe...
4x scoring champ
3x steal leader
mvp
3x nba 1st team....
only guy to beat shaq and kobe in tht post season

I mean maybe he shouldve joined teams with Shuttleworth and camby...won a championship,

He got overrated by folks like you.

For that trip to the Finals, you may recall the Sixers acquired Dikembe Mutombo, who produced at an elite level the rest of that season. That was probably the best sustained stretch of Mutombo's career, by the way. He was never that productive again.

Seriously, though -- I really liked Iverson. Despite the flaws, he was a very good player for a ton of years (and minutes). Just not as good as folks thought he was.

[nate33]

He got overrated by folks like you.

For that trip to the Finals, you may recall the Sixers acquired Dikembe Mutombo, who produced at an elite level the rest of that season. That was probably the best sustained stretch of Mutombo's career, by the way. He was never that productive again.

Seriously, though -- I really liked Iverson. Despite the flaws, he was a very good player for a ton of years (and minutes). Just not as good as folks thought he was.

Also, his road the Finals went through pretty ordinary Toronto and Milwaukee teams, and it took 7 games to get through both teams. It was almost certainly the weakest competition any Finals team has ever faced.

[deneem4]

There's considerable debate about Iverson's level. I wouldn't put him the top 5-10 PGs or SGs. In my analysis, he was not elite -- there's more to being a contributing player than points per game. Iverson actually wasn't bad at those things, but he missed a lot of shots and he committed a lot of turnovers. His best season was 2005-06. I LOVED watching Iverson play, though. There's always a thrill seeing anyone compete the way he did.

As for Kobe, he's managed to hit this weird place where he's had one of the great careers in basketball history yet he's still colossally overrated. In most seasons of his career, he was in the top 3-4 SGs in the league. In a couple years, he was probably the best. He was often getting compared to Jordan, which was nonsense. Jordan had 8 seasons that were more productive than Kobe's best season, and a 9th that was tied. In my stat (PPA -- which is designed to measure a player's impact on team scoring differential, and therefore wins and losses), Jordan's career average was higher than Kobe's peak.

iverson led his team to the finals and lost to shaq and kobe...
4x scoring champ
3x steal leader
mvp
3x nba 1st team....
only guy to beat shaq and kobe in tht post season

I mean maybe he shouldve joined teams with Shuttleworth and camby...won a championship,

He got overrated by folks like you.

For that trip to the Finals, you may recall the Sixers acquired Dikembe Mutombo, who produced at an elite level the rest of that season. That was probably the best sustained stretch of Mutombo's career, by the way. He was never that productive again.

Seriously, though -- I really liked Iverson. Despite the flaws, he was a very good player for a ton of years (and minutes). Just not as good as folks thought he was.

named 10 sg better than iverson from 1975 and up

[Nivek]

named 10 sg better than iverson from 1975 and up

Don't have time to do much digging, but...off the top of my head and in no particular order, Jordan, McGrady, Wade, Ginobili, Moncrief, Ray Allen, Drexler, and Kobe for sure. That's eight. Vince Carter. Harden. Fat Lever (I looked him up) had four seasons better than Iverson's best, but his career was cut short by injury. I could see taking Iverson over him on longevity. Reggie Miller, probably. Maybe Gervin.

That's 13 -- two of them arguable -- off the top of my head. I know I'm forgetting someone. And it leaves out players before 1975 who were pretty good. And some guys who had a really good season or two, but got hurt. I'm thinking Brandon Roy.

[tontoz]

named 10 sg better than iverson from 1975 and up

Don't have time to do much digging, but...off the top of my head and in no particular order, Jordan, McGrady, Wade, Ginobili, Moncrief, Ray Allen, Drexler, and Kobe for sure. That's eight. Vince Carter. Harden. Fat Lever (I looked him up) had four seasons better than Iverson's best, but his career was cut short by injury. I could see taking Iverson over him on longevity. Reggie Miller, probably. Maybe Gervin.

That's 13 -- two of them arguable -- off the top of my head. I know I'm forgetting someone. And it leaves out players before 1975 who were pretty good. And some guys who had a really good season or two, but got hurt. I'm thinking Brandon Roy.

Mitch Richmond?

[Illmatic12]

honestly wall has to be a better scorer to be a truly elite PLAYER...hes an elite guard but barely cracks the elite players
curry
durant
lebron
harden
davis
cousins
westbrook
aldridge
wall...

and im being bias in walls favor considering hes leading his team to 2nd in the east

I don't disagree with your list.. but you should redefine your definition of what an 'elite' player is, instead of falling in love with the flashy scorers on highlight reels. In '01-'02 Jason Kidd finished second in MVP voting to Tim Duncan, while averaging 14.7ppg.


Wall has clearly become a much better scorer imo, he's just consciously being more judicious with his shot attempts. It's obvious that he is trying to master certain shots, the type of shots that will allow him to average an efficient 18-20ppg well into the latter stages of his career like Chris Paul or Tony Parker. Wall will never be the most creative scorer, BUT he can still be an efficient and prolific scorer by knowing where his spots are on the court and how to beat the defenses he will face. That just comes with experience in the league.

Like I said, we're seeing Wall gradually continue to incorporate scoring moves that can eventually become automatic for him (no opposing point guard is blocking this shot):

[Kanyewest]

named 10 sg better than iverson from 1975 and up

Don't have time to do much digging, but...off the top of my head and in no particular order, Jordan, McGrady, Wade, Ginobili, Moncrief, Ray Allen, Drexler, and Kobe for sure. That's eight. Vince Carter. Harden. Fat Lever (I looked him up) had four seasons better than Iverson's best, but his career was cut short by injury. I could see taking Iverson over him on longevity. Reggie Miller, probably. Maybe Gervin.

That's 13 -- two of them arguable -- off the top of my head. I know I'm forgetting someone. And it leaves out players before 1975 who were pretty good. And some guys who had a really good season or two, but got hurt. I'm thinking Brandon Roy.

Speaking of Iverson's logevity, I have to wonder if he wore down simply because he logged so many minutes and how much that hurt his efficiency. He had 10 seasons where he averaged 40 minutes per game.

A James Harden comparison is interesting to me. While Harden's numbers are much better in the regular season, he's had much better teammates than Iverson (Durant, Westbrook, Howard). The eras of basketball are different- the kinds of fouls that Harden draws makes me think that Iverson could get 15 free throw attempts per game.

Harden has always had a good GM, Iverson had Billy King- which makes me wonder where Ibaka/Reggie Jackson/Chandler Parsons rank in terms of Iverson's teammates in Philly.

Plus Iverson played in an era where advanced statistics were not really recognized- Iverson's numbers would be better if he played in system like in Houston which emphasizes layups and 3s- at least a significant portion of Iverson's long 2s would have been eliminated.

Although maybe Iverson's style of play was self limiting. Jerry Stackhouse and Iverson couldn't coexist (although an older MJ and Stackhouse didn't do much either). Maybe it was Iverson who couldn't take himself out of games.


Still, there were guys like Paul Pierce who lobbied for Iverson which turned out better for Pierce in the end because he got Allen and KG. Joe Dumars tried to trade for him. Larry Brown may have been an annoying head coach.

I still think Harden has to do more especially in the big moments of the playoffs. Yes he has been great at times including the Western Conference against the San Antonio Spurs. But he's had a few dissapearing acts since. In his last 3 playoff series Harden has shot under 40% and only 32% from 3.

Harden should turn out to be a better player- he just needs to do more in the postseason. He's still only 25 when Iverson probably had his best season from a team standpoint.

[deneem4]

named 10 sg better than iverson from 1975 and up

Don't have time to do much digging, but...off the top of my head and in no particular order, Jordan, McGrady, Wade, Ginobili, Moncrief, Ray Allen, Drexler, and Kobe for sure. That's eight. Vince Carter. Harden. Fat Lever (I looked him up) had four seasons better than Iverson's best, but his career was cut short by injury. I could see taking Iverson over him on longevity. Reggie Miller, probably. Maybe Gervin.

That's 13 -- two of them arguable -- off the top of my head. I know I'm forgetting someone. And it leaves out players before 1975 who were pretty good. And some guys who had a really good season or two, but got hurt. I'm thinking Brandon Roy.

manu isnt better than iverson...period
allen was maybe the best shooter of all time but wssnt better than iverson remember who put allwn out tht year....also put vince out

and please dont mention harden
you must forget ai played with heart, heart that haven't been seen since now with westbrook...its a reason ai was an mvp and all nba 1st mutiple times...the guy was good period...his offcourt image sucked but when it comes to a 2 guard tht can score when he wanted and actually defend Iverson is top 10