Who was better? (Chris Webber v Rasheed Wallace)

[Roger Murdock]

Chris Webber in his peak was good enough to carry a team and make them very good

Rasheed never had to do that and frankly he couldn’t

Rasheed was more of a great complimentary piece and I think the main reason this is up for debate is that he was always on good teams where he could focus on what he did well. He was temperamental, flew off the handle, took lots of Ill advised threes, was bad at rebounding, and didn’t pass well. He was sick at 1v1 defense and when he played smart he was great but he’d do insane stuff at times. I don’t think you could rely on him.

[Optms]

Prime Webber craps all over Sheed.

[LewisnotMiller]

Webber was better in a vacuum. But there were plenty of teams, or situations where Sheed was better.
Both fascinating talents and mental case studies.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

23.8/10.8/4.6 with 1.5 blocks and 1.6 steals from 1998-2004

Webber was a force. His career averages (21/10/4) are better then Rasheed's best year.

51.5% TS over those peak years

[SelfishPlayer]

Rasheed was willing to do whatever's necessary, Webber wasn't.

[jlokine]

depends what you are looking for. webber was the better player but he was always the focal piece. rasheed for better part of his career was a complimentary piece and he was really good doing that...

[Roscoe Sheed]

CWebb made an all-NBA 1st team and 3 all-NBA 2nd teams. Rasheed Wallace never even made an all-NBA 3rd team.

I know Rasheed has a ring, but he was the 4th best player on those Pistons teams. 2 teams traded him away for practically nothing that year. CWebb almost won a ring as the best player on his team, and might have if the refs called the game more fairly.

When CWebb made an all-NBA team, it was over KG and Dirk. I really feel like 97-2007 was the golden era for power forwards. During that time 6 MVPS were won by power forwards and 5 times the runner up was a power forward. Malone, Duncan, KG, Dirk, CWebb, Rasheed, Amare, Elton Brand, Jermaine O'Neal, ect.

There was no best player on the Pistons- there were 4 co-equals amongst Billups, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, and Rip Hamilton. On any given night, any of those guys could be your best player- that is partly what made them so dangerous.

[bubonicphoniks]

Id take sheed personally.

[blackcosmos]

Skill wise got to be Rasheed. He took Tim Duncan outside and went at KG inside

[ShazamDaShiznt]

Both players were capable of being some of the best in the league. Webber at least looked like a legit franchise player in Sacramento.

Sheed was never really a clear franchise player. Those Blazer teams had a lot of veteran leadership. He was a complementary piece in Detroit. Billups was their point guard leader and Ben was their defensive anchor.

[cupcakesnake]

Chris Webber in his peak was good enough to carry a team and make them very good

Rasheed never had to do that and frankly he couldn’t

Rasheed was more of a great complimentary piece and I think the main reason this is up for debate is that he was always on good teams where he could focus on what he did well. He was temperamental, flew off the handle, took lots of Ill advised threes, was bad at rebounding, and didn’t pass well. He was sick at 1v1 defense and when he played smart he was great but he’d do insane stuff at times. I don’t think you could rely on him.

I really think all you're saying is Webber put up bigger PPG and RPG numbers. There isn't any evidence that Webber carried a team "and make them very good".

Sheed and Webber both were the best players on perenial 50-win teams that went to the WCF. Both those teams were stacked and deep. While Webber and Sheed were the faces of those teams, and their leading scorers, neither can lay claim to carrying them.

On/off data points in the opposite direction, with Webber being only a slight positive (-1.5 to +3.4) and Sheed being a significant one (+7.1 to +11.5). I'm not cherry-picking here, these are Webber and Sheed's best years with the Kings and Blazers (before Webber's injury). Now maybe you wanna argue that the Kings bench was more functional and affects lineup data, but the Blazers were every bit as deep as those Kings, they were simply defensively a lot meaner with him on the floor.

So if we didn't know about Webber's larger counting stats, would there be any concept of Webber "carrying" a team more? A couple of things in Rasheed's favour, looking at stats from both their overlapping peaks (2000-2003).
- Sheed is the more efficient scorer: 26.6pp100 on 55%ts (326.8 TS Add) vs. Webber's 31.6pp100 on 51%ts (-40.3 TS Add).
- The volume scoring gap that Webber has actually closes in the playoffs, with Webber scoring less per 100 and Sheed's numbers stay the same).
- Sheed was a flat out better shooter from everywhere by any metric.
- Despite Sheed being the better shooter, Webber shot a lot more and had way crazier shot selection. Webber routinely took over 30% of his FGA in the long 2 area. Sheed was a slightly better shooter on longs 2s (and could step out to 3-point range) but he kept those shots closer to a tidy 20%, and took more of his shots inside 10 feet, another spot he was more efficient than Webber was.
- Sheed is much healthier in their 3-year peaks, playing 45 more games (1023 more minutes).

Neither were good enough to carry a good offense, despite Chris Webber's counting stats creating the impression that he could. In a situation where both played important roles on championship teams, Sheed brought a lot more value.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Rasheed was willing to do whatever's necessary, Webber wasn't.

Was he though?

Or is that just a convenient narrative? For example, he certainly wasn't willing to get in game shape in 2010.

I thought it was ridiculous that Wallace was routinely mentioned with other all-time PFs of the era, Duncan, Nowitzki, Malone, Garnett and even Webber with a lot of "when focused" or "had to talent to be" or "coulda been" or whatever was a convenient excuse at the moment.

At the end of the day, Wallace played for 6 NBA teams and never reached all that potential that so many people claimed he possessed. We can hide from that with advanced stats (some indicative of a different era) or anecdotal evidence or whatever. Meh.




[Note: The 2004 title does A LOT for Wallace's legacy. And the Kings losing to the Lakers in 2002 really hurts Webber's legacy.]

[SelfishPlayer]

Rasheed was willing to do whatever's necessary, Webber wasn't.

Was he though?

Or is that just a convenient narrative? For example, he certainly wasn't willing to get in game shape in 2010.

I thought it was ridiculous that Wallace was routinely mentioned with other all-time PFs of the era, Duncan, Nowitzki, Malone, Garnett and even Webber with a lot of "when focused" or "had to talent to be" or "coulda been" or whatever was a convenient excuse at the moment.

At the end of the day, Wallace played for 6 NBA teams and never reached all that potential that so many people claimed he possessed. We can hide from that with advanced stats (some indicative of a different era) or anecdotal evidence or whatever. Meh.




[Note: The 2004 title does A LOT for Wallace's legacy. And the Kings losing to the Lakers in 2002 really hurts Webber's legacy.]

Sheed has flaws. He never gave his life to the game so he never became an all time great, but he was still a championship level player.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Rasheed was willing to do whatever's necessary, Webber wasn't.

Was he though?

Or is that just a convenient narrative? For example, he certainly wasn't willing to get in game shape in 2010.

I thought it was ridiculous that Wallace was routinely mentioned with other all-time PFs of the era, Duncan, Nowitzki, Malone, Garnett and even Webber with a lot of "when focused" or "had to talent to be" or "coulda been" or whatever was a convenient excuse at the moment.

At the end of the day, Wallace played for 6 NBA teams and never reached all that potential that so many people claimed he possessed. We can hide from that with advanced stats (some indicative of a different era) or anecdotal evidence or whatever. Meh.




[Note: The 2004 title does A LOT for Wallace's legacy. And the Kings losing to the Lakers in 2002 really hurts Webber's legacy.]

Sheed has flaws. He never gave his life to the game so he never became an all time great, but he was still a championship level player.

Sure. Never said he wasn't. He was good. A very good two-way player.

Just never at the level of the other top PFs of that era.

[dhsilv2]

It's still crazy to me that in the late 90's the Wizards had Chris Webber, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace and Juwan Howard on their roster.

more crazy, if you were told at the time the worst player there, by FAR, would end up being Howard!

[JRoy]

Webber would have a ring if the refs didn't screw him in 2002 though

The answer here is Webber

Refs have screwed a lot of guys. The great ones don't make excuses.

Those ‘02 Kings had their chance to wrap it up in game 7, at home… but they didn’t ….since they crapped in their pants ..

I Can still remember all those bricked 3s and FTs…. No excuses , if you’re really a great.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LAL spoon fed the game by the refs, acting like losing the series to crooked refs was the other teams fault.

[dhsilv2]

23.8/10.8/4.6 with 1.5 blocks and 1.6 steals from 1998-2004

Webber was a force. His career averages (21/10/4) are better then Rasheed's best year.

RPM same years (webber, Rasheed)

98 4.06 - 2.45
99 1.51 - 3.97
00 2.39 - 2.33
01 4.15 - 5.02
02 2.64 - 4.86
03 2.05 - 4.77
04 0.41 - 4.83

It's pretty crazy how strongly the more data we include the more obvious that Rasheed was the better player becomes apparent. While Webber scored a lot...he wasn't a very good scorer. Infact over the stretch you listed he had multiple TERRIBLE years

TS%+
98 100
99 96
00 101
01 100
02 104
03 93
04 88

A TS%+ of 88 from a player is down right horrid!

The bottom line is Webber had nice per game metrics but they were insanely misleading. He was an inefficient scorer. A rather lazy at times defender who looked better because of box metrics and having Vlade, a FAR better defender, cleaning up for him. That said, he was a hell of a passer. He'd have been much better off passing more and shooting less.

[cupcakesnake]

Rasheed was willing to do whatever's necessary, Webber wasn't.

Was he though?

Or is that just a convenient narrative? For example, he certainly wasn't willing to get in game shape in 2010.

I thought it was ridiculous that Wallace was routinely mentioned with other all-time PFs of the era, Duncan, Nowitzki, Malone, Garnett and even Webber with a lot of "when focused" or "had to talent to be" or "coulda been" or whatever was a convenient excuse at the moment.

At the end of the day, Wallace played for 6 NBA teams and never reached all that potential that so many people claimed he possessed. We can hide from that with advanced stats (some indicative of a different era) or anecdotal evidence or whatever. Meh.




[Note: The 2004 title does A LOT for Wallace's legacy. And the Kings losing to the Lakers in 2002 really hurts Webber's legacy.]

I don't really disagree with most of this and I do think sometimes the overrating of Sheed knows no bounds. People love the concept of 3&D bigs for fit reasons, and so people go a little too far with how much value guys like Sheed or Serge Ibaka have.

I don't think Sheed (or Gasol or Webber) are really grouped together with Duncan, Dirk, and KG. It was the golden era of power forwards, but almost everyone knows those 3 were in a much higher tier than Webber, Gasol, Sheed, Brand, aging Karl Malone etc. Webber in 2001 and 2002 made his case for membership in that club. Gasol made a mini case later (2008-2011). Sheed never did, especially not offensively.

But I don't think you need to dig into the advanced stats to explain Sheed>Webber. Everything you said about Sheed is true, offensively But Sheed was an excellent defender over his entire career, both as a post defender (in an era where that was pretty helpful!), as a rim protector, and as a mobile big who could slide with 3s if needed. Sheed is a LOT better on defense than Webber (and Gasol, Dirk etc.)

You can accuse Sheed of underachieving, but he reached the same peak of success as the best player on a team as Webber did. They both were the stars of deep rosters that went to the conference finals and lost to the Lakers in iffy game 7s. Neither of them were actually "carrying" the team, though Webber seems to get credit for this more often (despite all data showing the Kings were fine without Webber a lot of the time).

I'm not really comparing Detroit Sheed in this. Webber and Sheed have plenty to compare pre-2003 when Webber got injured and Sheed moved Eastward for the next chapter of his career. They were similar ages and had similar early career paths. If someone prefers Webber's offense over Sheed's I think that's fine, but defensively Sheed makes up serious ground, enough to make this a case without getting into the "advanced stats (some indicative of a different era) or anecdotal evidence or whatever" which very much tend to favor Sheed quite a bit.

Defense!

[AbeVigodaLive]

Refs have screwed a lot of guys. The great ones don't make excuses.

Those ‘02 Kings had their chance to wrap it up in game 7, at home… but they didn’t ….since they crapped in their pants ..

I Can still remember all those bricked 3s and FTs…. No excuses , if you’re really a great.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LAL spoon fed the game by the refs, acting like losing the series to crooked refs was the other teams fault.

Meh. "Gotta overcome officiating" is usually such a lame, trite online quip... because it's only directed at the team/player that loses. The winners still get all the accolades without any disclaimers or whatever. It's just a convenient way to say "nah nah nah nah!"

BUT...

It's fair to look at Webber's performance down the stretch of Game 7 in 2002. He went 1 - 4 fg in the 4th quarter... and 1 - 5 in OT. Choker! Well... yeah, kinda. Maybe.

In the previous game, the infamous Game 6, Webber was 4 - 7 fg with 5 rebounds in the 4th quarter. (LAL had 5 FGs as a team.) Webber finished with 26/13/8. A really good game... but a game that does less to help his legacy than hurt it.

That's how fickle some legacies are.

[Chanel Bomber]

It depends on the role.

If you need a guy to run your offense through or more offense from your secondary, then Webber's your guy.

If you need an elite role player or tertiary option who fills in all the gaps, then Sheed is your guy.