Moderators: Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ, trex_8063, penbeast0, PaulieWal
Narigo wrote:Would manu would be this high if he played for another team other than san Antonio.
His impact is pretty good but his minutes imo are too low to be ranked this high
iggymcfrack wrote:70sFan wrote:iggymcfrack wrote:One thing I've noticed about all these guys who played in the ABA like Barry, Gilmore, Dr. J, etc., is that it's pretty consistent that their ABA numbers look like an all-time peak and their NBA numbers look very meh in comparison.
Gilmore didn't regress from his ABA peak statistically in the NBA though. He had a rough start when he had to adjust to new team and new rules, but when we look at boxscore composites from his best 2 seasons peak (which you love), he doesn't look worse at all:
1975-76: 23.0 PER, .221 WS/48, 4.8 BPM
1978-79: 22.9 PER, .183 WS/48, 4.1 BPM
The only big difference is in WS, but that's because Gilmore teams won significantly less games. Basically the only reason why Gilmore raw numbers look better in the ABA is because he played more minutes:
1975-76: 27.5/18.1/2.9 per100 on 60.4 TS%
1978-79: 28.3/15.7/4.0 per100 on 61.2 TS%
Again, if peak ABA Gilmore numbers look like " an all-time peak", then so do his peak NBA numbers.Would Havlicek or Barry even peak as high as Pascal Siakam or Jaylen Brown? I'm not convinced.
This is where the irrational love of boxscore composites leads you... Jaylen Brown wouldn't be a superstar in any era and it's clear when you start going beyond boxscore which isn't even good.
1975-76 isn’t Gilmore’s peak statistically. From 1972-73 at age 22 and 23 he averaged:
22/18/3/4 on .605 TS%, 25.4 PER, .256 WS/48
His NBA peak would be:
23/13/3/2 on .612 TS%, 22.9 PER, .183 WS/48
If you look at one year peak in 1972, it’s even more striking when Gilmore averages 5 blocks per game and leads the league in TS% with a 26.6 PER.
f4p wrote:he said people fall off from the ABA to the NBA because the NBA was better. then says the modern NBA is better than the old NBA.
that seems like he was talking about league quality.
so then why did you say someone must be looking at the box score too much to say jaylen brown is a superstar?
well...I don't find PER useful at all
that, for one., because it doesn't measure anything.
sure it does. it measures production.
so you're taking the unibro approach. all the numbers are bad?
so we shouldn't look at the most common stats we have for all of the players for all of history? things that can give us a common basis for comparison for everybody. just sweep it away?
you realize that for some of these older players, we are very limited in what data we have available. i mean you seem to personally have a lot of video, but watching most of these older players is not the kind of thing that has just seeped in by osmosis like seeing a bunch of bird or magic games on espn classics or hardwood classics. unless one has dedicated a whole bunch of time to finding and watching old basketball games, there is only so much some people are going to have seen certain players. and even for the most diehard, there is apparently very limited ability to basically see anything from the 60's and before (someone once said 9 full games i think?).
and again, Siakam does not have as good of numbers as Barry, especially in the playoffs. you've now said equating Brown to Havliced and Siakam to Barry are because of the box score, when neither are on their level based on the box score.
i suspect lots of people in this project have said lots of things about lots of players they have never watched. and definitely commented on games and series that now exist only in a spreadsheet.
and even saying someone "watched" a player from the 60's might mean they saw a 10 minute clip of a few games.
all sorts of sports lists are made that feature players the rankers have never seen.
one way to do this is think about players and archetypes you have seen play a lot, think about what their numbers look like, and then look at the older player's numbers and try to surmise things from that. if you understand how the archetypes and numbers usually work, you don't necessarily have to see Player A numbers > Player B numbers; therefore, Player A > Player B. if you know Player B is a better defender and a creator who is likely to be underrated in certain stats and they are already close to parity with Player A, you can guess that Player B is actually the better player. maybe some people aren't comfortable with being able to do that.
70sFan wrote:f4p wrote:one way to do this is think about players and archetypes you have seen play a lot, think about what their numbers look like, and then look at the older player's numbers and try to surmise things from that. if you understand how the archetypes and numbers usually work, you don't necessarily have to see Player A numbers > Player B numbers; therefore, Player A > Player B. if you know Player B is a better defender and a creator who is likely to be underrated in certain stats and they are already close to parity with Player A, you can guess that Player B is actually the better player. maybe some people aren't comfortable with being able to do that.
How can you understand the archetype without watching a single game of a player? Especially considering that we're talking about the best players ever, who often went beyond archetypes. Like, it's impossible to understand Larry Bird game without watching him in action. I think it's also very hard to understand what made Rick Barry good without watching his games. Some may think that Artis Gilmore and Dwight Howard played the same way, but it's far from the truth.
We have to work with all the information we have. Sometimes it's not much, but it's not an excuse for lazy people to do nothing outside of reading basketball-reference page...
It doesn't mean I shouldn't use any numbers, quite the opposite. Raw +/- is critical to understand the correlations within rosters, RAPM tries to adjust the outcome for faced opponents and teammates, so it's a good indicator of how successful your team is with one player on the court relative to faced opponents and teammates, but it's not a measurement of player's "goodness" either.
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
Rishkar wrote:I find it neat that despite the common criticism of Bill Russell having too much help, this is his first teammate inducted onto the list. The other GOAT candidates have all had a teammate or two who were better than Havlicek (at least according to our list, I think Hondo is better than Pippen), and John wasn't at his peak while playing with Russell. Jordan had Pippen, Kareem had Oscar and Magic, Duncan had Robinson, Wilt had West, and Lebron had Wade. And it's interesting to think about when the next 60's Celtic will be inducted, as I think it's likely to either be Cousy (who I'm really low on) or Sam Jones (who was incredible and I want nominated). Looking at the other common candidates, Lebron's next most likely teammate is likely AD or Ray Allen, Kareem's is probably Dantley or Worthy, Jordan's is likely Dennis Rodman or Horace Grant, Duncan's is Manu and Parker, Wilt is likely to have Paul Arizin, or Hal Greer next. I'm excluding some teammates from this who were obviously past their prime when they played together (I don't care much about Jordan playing with Gervin or Gilmore for example), or played together very briefly (Wilt and Nate Thurmond).
trex_8063 wrote:Rishkar wrote:I find it neat that despite the common criticism of Bill Russell having too much help, this is his first teammate inducted onto the list. The other GOAT candidates have all had a teammate or two who were better than Havlicek (at least according to our list, I think Hondo is better than Pippen), and John wasn't at his peak while playing with Russell. Jordan had Pippen, Kareem had Oscar and Magic, Duncan had Robinson, Wilt had West, and Lebron had Wade. And it's interesting to think about when the next 60's Celtic will be inducted, as I think it's likely to either be Cousy (who I'm really low on) or Sam Jones (who was incredible and I want nominated). Looking at the other common candidates, Lebron's next most likely teammate is likely AD or Ray Allen, Kareem's is probably Dantley or Worthy, Jordan's is likely Dennis Rodman or Horace Grant, Duncan's is Manu and Parker, Wilt is likely to have Paul Arizin, or Hal Greer next. I'm excluding some teammates from this who were obviously past their prime when they played together (I don't care much about Jordan playing with Gervin or Gilmore for example), or played together very briefly (Wilt and Nate Thurmond).
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (#2)
Magic Johnson (#10)- 10 seasons
James Worthy (likely to get in around #80 or so) - 7 seasons
Oscar Robertson (#15) - 4 seasons (most of them post-prime)
(21 total seasons)
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
Rishkar wrote:I find it neat that despite the common criticism of Bill Russell having too much help, this is his first teammate inducted onto the list. The other GOAT candidates have all had a teammate or two who were better than Havlicek (at least according to our list, I think Hondo is better than Pippen), and John wasn't at his peak while playing with Russell. Jordan had Pippen, Kareem had Oscar and Magic, Duncan had Robinson, Wilt had West, and Lebron had Wade. And it's interesting to think about when the next 60's Celtic will be inducted, as I think it's likely to either be Cousy (who I'm really low on) or Sam Jones (who was incredible and I want nominated). Looking at the other common candidates, Lebron's next most likely teammate is likely AD or Ray Allen, Kareem's is probably Dantley or Worthy, Jordan's is likely Dennis Rodman or Horace Grant, Duncan's is Manu and Parker, Wilt is likely to have Paul Arizin, or Hal Greer next. I'm excluding some teammates from this who were obviously past their prime when they played together (I don't care much about Jordan playing with Gervin or Gilmore for example), or played together very briefly (Wilt and Nate Thurmond).
Rishkar wrote:I find it neat that despite the common criticism of Bill Russell having too much help, this is his first teammate inducted onto the list. The other GOAT candidates have all had a teammate or two who were better than Havlicek (at least according to our list, I think Hondo is better than Pippen), and John wasn't at his peak while playing with Russell. Jordan had Pippen, Kareem had Oscar and Magic, Duncan had Robinson, Wilt had West, and Lebron had Wade. And it's interesting to think about when the next 60's Celtic will be inducted, as I think it's likely to either be Cousy (who I'm really low on) or Sam Jones (who was incredible and I want nominated). Looking at the other common candidates, Lebron's next most likely teammate is likely AD or Ray Allen, Kareem's is probably Dantley or Worthy, Jordan's is likely Dennis Rodman or Horace Grant, Duncan's is Manu and Parker, Wilt is likely to have Paul Arizin, or Hal Greer next. I'm excluding some teammates from this who were obviously past their prime when they played together (I don't care much about Jordan playing with Gervin or Gilmore for example), or played together very briefly (Wilt and Nate Thurmond).
OhayoKD wrote:70sFan wrote:f4p wrote:
How can you understand the archetype without watching a single game of a player? Especially considering that we're talking about the best players ever, who often went beyond archetypes. Like, it's impossible to understand Larry Bird game without watching him in action. I think it's also very hard to understand what made Rick Barry good without watching his games. Some may think that Artis Gilmore and Dwight Howard played the same way, but it's far from the truth.
We have to work with all the information we have. Sometimes it's not much, but it's not an excuse for lazy people to do nothing outside of reading basketball-reference page...
The other bit missing here is how exactly one goes about grading archetypes. What is the basis of one set of skills being better than another?
If it's their Per/BPM or things heavily influenced by what metrics like PER consider production(thus biasing certain playertypes) or things/consesus heavily influenced by those considerations(ex: early dpoy voting was largely choosing the guard with the most steals), you get a bubble where certain archetypes are assumed to be better and than that assumption is checked against things built on....assuming those archetypes are better.
And that's where things start getting silly as we start tossing PER for teammates on a team that won entirely on defense even though a plethora of similar defense-heavy bigs correlating with team results(and for the pinnacle of that archetype, more) than as the modern archetypes crudely transposed backwards across history.
Or we decide high block totals are what produce top 5 defenses using a guy who led a top 1 defense multiple times but dismissing it because that top 1 defense, after multiple career-screwing injuries, happened under a good coach. And then we use this to assume every player who isn't a big block-accumulator is actually just a cieling raisier because reasons.
Or you tell yourself that ball-handling is trivial(or even bad sorry unscalable), and all the things that happen before a possession ends are extremely replaceable and the high-assist stretch where a player goes 11-0(+8 net) without their best teammate is equated with the one where a guy goes near .500(+2 net), even though the best offenses are disproportinately produced by the heaviest ball-dominators and the guy who is #1 in rs and win percentage is...perhaps the greatest ball dominator in history. And of course if you go by PER or BPM this is correct.
And now we watch the same game of larry bird, but you decide to ascribe a bunch of extra points for the fact he isn't touching the ball much for his assist. Or Chris Broussard is now telling America that if you know who was less ball dominant, he might have won 12 rings. And then the face of analytics corroborates all this by tossing in a bunch of hybrids(built with all of the above skewing things) over specific time frames(2 of the 3 actually generally favoring mr. ball dominant) and pretending your career started when you were 24 and ended in Miami.
Meanwhile another analytics face designs his own stat for mass consumption with his own archetype take(two-way wings!). His reasoning: Assumption 1 and assumption 2 and assumption 3 all smushed together because of a media narrative about a wing in toronto offensively --and defensively-- outplaying a big based on assumptions 1 and 2 and a little bit of 3.
And then when provided data that flatly refutes this(like the effeciency splits of the guy allegedly shutdown when he attacks different defenders), not to mention the defensive results after the dude leaves, we still cling to all these assumptions because all-in-ones largely making those same assumptions say he played like MJ. Even when he is outscored by a better creator playing a better defense.
In fact, the defense that was nowhere the biggest factor during his best 4 game (defensive) stretch of the run makes up the difference in the series he was left on draymond. All to justify the stat making assumptions with a bunch of other stuff making those same assumptions with an eyetest that presumably makes those same assumptions.
The approach here for this specific comparison is clearly broken, but let's assume general parity between box and winning, because of an assumption of closeness(built on raw numbers without any actual frame of what "parity" looks like) that has no bearing on the comparison in question and ignores(repeatedly) that noise and directional bias are two different things.
All so we can keep defining "production" in the way that allows us to prop the players who produce in those specific ways that 40-years of myth-making have told us matters more than everything else.It doesn't mean I shouldn't use any numbers, quite the opposite. Raw +/- is critical to understand the correlations within rosters, RAPM tries to adjust the outcome for faced opponents and teammates, so it's a good indicator of how successful your team is with one player on the court relative to faced opponents and teammates, but it's not a measurement of player's "goodness" either.
RAPM has blind spots(outliers) and is derived by a form of impact that is particularly noisy in nature(minutes without as opposed to games without as opposed to season without ect) which all is very important to note in conversations with people who spam metrics blindly with no consideration for what the metric is doing and where its biases may lie(or worse still -- assuming biases on the basis of -- not liking certain styles of play).
But of course, the people using rapm that way, tend to also be the ones who use bpm, and per, and on/off that way. Not the "box-skeptics" that we construct funny consensus-proxies to challenge because we can't be bothered to address what is actually being said.
And you know, if you are going to play the "how many wierd results are there" game to measure stats, you could at least measure them evenly. If we're going to create a longetivity thing to make your simple box whatever look like a better consensus proxy, you could also be bothered to check possession counts or similar time frames when freeting over whatever role player happened to look better than wade over careers that varied greatly in length. Does Wade --still-- look worse than player x or z over 5 year stuff? No. Would his accumulative value with the career mark torch the shorter-lived careers he's scandalously behind? Yes.
Aggressively misusing stats(or at least using them in a way their "proponents" do not) in order to make them look worse is a bad habit, and one that is common with most of this criticism.
Have APM proponents run a parade for Duncan looking #1 in the most predictive of lineup-derivatives? No, because the mechanics of that stat likely favor Duncan in a way they don't favor steph or kg or lebron and when we map to trajectories we see a guy topping him until those mechanics break his cieling at 25.
Have on/off proponents run with steph, draymond, moses, and fisher as goat candidates? No, because some of the players edge tend to be staggered with stars way more and have played way more thus suppressing their averages greatly and data-adjustment and enlargening the sample swings things towards three players(including 2 who would suffer from both of the mentioned factors)
Has the WOWY/pure signal crowd been championing Bird and David Robinson as top 10? No. Because when it's used with russell or lebron or kareem or magic or whoever else, the idea was never to just look at their best signal and call it a day. Lebron has the 61 win team turning 18-win, he --also-- sees a 17-win team jumping to 50 by 21 and is clearly one of two in his late 30's and also is seemingly turning either sub-30 or sub-40 to 60 as a coasting regular player in his early 30's. And then there's the context of him nuking what typically would be a player's best stretch emperically by playing a different position to accomondate his teammates and still looking great(and then there is the hakeem-level playoff elevation).
Is Russell's case just a matter of the 69 celtics vs the 70 celtics as alleged in the 70's thread? No, 70, 71, 72, 69 itself, the miniscule sample without over 11 years, wowy combinations, wowyr, defense/offense distributions, srs tresholds, pre-nba and the olympics, and --then-- you get the 11 titles, 5 mvps, and #1 poy voting as the least popular face on rushmore
And of course, these crowds tend to actually not operate as monoliths. The proponents for all these stats will generally use the others and the players championed the most are the ones who look great with all the approaches, including some use of the box-score. It's just box is used in a manner that ties it to the specific comparison made, not "well the box-score is generally right soooooooo"
Good data use is not a democracy and if it truly was, then that would require accounting for the soccer-box scores me and rk have conjured up, and the defensive-only components, and goat points, and ibm formulas and all the infinfite alternatives those have which lead to similar conclusions just as much as BPM or PER or ws/48 or on/off or rapm or anything.
But of course that's not what is actually being done by impact skeptics. What's actually being done is taking whatever numbers happen to favor certain theories on what produces winning, irregardless of if those theories are substantiated. It's assuming that things like being a defensive anchor is a source of bias and not an indication of goodness while simultaneously refusing to use that same philosophy with volume scoring or off-ball cutting, or man defense.
If a team being reliant on a skill a player is good at makes impact --biased-- towards that player(as opposed to that player just being better), then why should any skill be given weight or value?
It's the same type of thinking when we decide a player, in the midst of a surprisingly successful season, should be defined by what he did at the end of one game rather than the series or season while dismissing 3-poor performances from a teammate the year before admist gambling reports, or a finals loss 8 years before largely influenced by a bar-fight from the guy who allegedly(by many) had --the best-- intangibles and was therefore the bestest alpha. Then lets make a docu-series only talking about the first transgression so we can set trae-young right
How about the super good-faith approach of evaluating players by focusing on them at their worst? Unless of course they go sub .500 three times in their 20's and...wait that wasn't KG?
PER matters. IBM and goatpoints and progressive passes/carries do not. Buzzer-beaters matter, how your teams perform in the 4th quarter, particularly with you on the floor, does not. Gravity is scalable, communication is not. Being an alpha is good, influencing decisions on every level for teams that win is not. Shooting off curls is goodness, anchoring defenses and manipulating defenses with the ball is wowy-stuffing.
it's just assumptions defended by the same assumptions for the purpose of vindicating the same assumptions. Loops inside loops set to play for decades till we build rankings around buzzwords(and whatever arbitrary math might justify the player associated with said buzzword).
PER and friends is just the data-branch of this enlightened assumption machine. Up there with "portability" and nonsense pace-adjustments. It's not real. It is convenient. Particularly for those who really want to glaze up the decade they matured as the pinnacle of everything.
OhayoKD wrote:trex_8063 wrote:Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (#2)
Magic Johnson (#10)- 10 seasons
James Worthy (likely to get in around #80 or so) - 7 seasons
Oscar Robertson (#15) - 4 seasons (most of them post-prime)
(21 total seasons)
I'd say Oscar was post-prime for all of them honestly.
trex_8063 wrote:Rishkar wrote:I find it neat that despite the common criticism of Bill Russell having too much help, this is his first teammate inducted onto the list. The other GOAT candidates have all had a teammate or two who were better than Havlicek (at least according to our list, I think Hondo is better than Pippen), and John wasn't at his peak while playing with Russell. Jordan had Pippen, Kareem had Oscar and Magic, Duncan had Robinson, Wilt had West, and Lebron had Wade. And it's interesting to think about when the next 60's Celtic will be inducted, as I think it's likely to either be Cousy (who I'm really low on) or Sam Jones (who was incredible and I want nominated). Looking at the other common candidates, Lebron's next most likely teammate is likely AD or Ray Allen, Kareem's is probably Dantley or Worthy, Jordan's is likely Dennis Rodman or Horace Grant, Duncan's is Manu and Parker, Wilt is likely to have Paul Arizin, or Hal Greer next. I'm excluding some teammates from this who were obviously past their prime when they played together (I don't care much about Jordan playing with Gervin or Gilmore for example), or played together very briefly (Wilt and Nate Thurmond).
Well........not that this is a particular good/accurate way to evaluate strength of cast, but out of curiosity I’m going to look at HOW MANY SEASONS the above noted players had with their other top-100 inductees [or would-be/will-be inductees]......
Michael Jordan (#3)
Scottie Pippen (#32) - 9.3 seasons
Horace Grant (maybe he'll slip in around #90-100??) - 6 seasons
Dennis Rodman (likely to get in around #80-90 range) - 3 seasons
(18.3 total seasons with guys who will maybe/likely be on the list)
LeBron James (#1)
Dwyane Wade (#27) - 4.5 seasons (~half is post-prime; this is counting a half-season of washed Wade in '18, too, btw)
Anthony Davis (likely to go around #40 or so) - 4 seasons
Chris Bosh (likely to go around #80 perhaps) - 4 seasons
Ray Allen (likely to go around #50, perhaps)- 2 seasons (both post-prime/twilight of his career)
Russell Westbrook (likely to go around #45-50) - 1.5 seasons (all post-prime)
**Kyrie Irving/Kevin Love - 3 seasons/4 seasons (**neither of these guys is likely to make the list, imo, though they may get a little buzz as we near #100)
(16 total seasons [or 23 if we count both of Irving and Love])
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (#2)
Magic Johnson (#10)- 10 seasons
James Worthy (likely to get in around #80 or so) - 7 seasons
Oscar Robertson (#15) - 4 seasons (most of them post-prime)
(21 total seasons)
Wilt Chamberlain (#7)
Jerry West (#14) - 5 seasons (~half of it in Wilt's post-prime)
Elgin Baylor (likely to go around #42-45, perhaps) - 2 seasons [I’m not counting ‘71 or ‘72, given Baylor played a total of 11 games of limited minutes in the two seasons COMBINED (none in the playoffs)]
Paul Arizin (maybe will go around #80) - 3 seasons
Hal Greer (perhaps likely to go around #90??) - 3.5 seasons
Chet Walker (perhaps will make the cut around #90 or so??) - 3.5 seasons
Billy Cunningham (might make the top 100, barely???) - 3 seasons
Nate Thurmond (likely to go around #70-75, perhaps) - 1.5 seasons
(21.5 total seasons [or only 18-18.5 if we remove one of Greer/Walker/Cunningham, because imo it’s probably unlikely that ALL THREE make the list])
Tim Duncan (#5)
David Robinson (#17) - 6 seasons (mostly post-prime)
Manu Ginobili (seeming likely to go #38) - 14 seasons
Tony Parker (likely to go around #75(ish)) - 15 seasons
Kawhi Leonard (#34) - 5 seasons (mostly pre-prime, fwiw; by the time Kawhi was in his prime, Duncan was solidly OUT of his)
(40 total seasons)
Bill Russell (#4)
John Havlicek (#37) - 7 seasons
Bob Cousy (likely to go maybe around #60-70??? [sort of polarizing figure]) - 7 seasons
Sam Jones (likely around #75) - 12 seasons
**Bill Sharman/Tom Heinsohn/Bailey Howell - 5 seasons/9 seasons/3 seasons (**none of the is likely to make list, imo, though much like Kyrie and Love above, one or all is likely to at least get some mentions as we near #100)
(26 total seasons [or 43 if we were to count the latter three])
So with the exception of Tim Duncan, Russell has more total player-seasons of other inductees or likely inductees than anyone else mentioned.
And off the top of my head, if we were to further look at how many years each GOAT-candidate had with overlap of other inductees (that is: MORE THAN ONE other inductees on his team in the same season), I believe Russell will fair better than everyone except **Duncan again, given ALL 13 of Russell’s seasons see such overlap.
**Though again, in Duncan's case, he's part responsible for assembling and retaining some of his good casts, via taking voluntary pay-cuts repeatedly so other valuable players could be signed. Russell, otoh, once insisted [as a matter of pride] on getting the league's largest contract [by $1 over Wilt's then-historic salary].
Wilt, by comparison, only has a maximum of 5.5 seasons of overlap, and that’s only IF we include both of Greer and Walker as inductees.
Kareem has only 7 seasons overlapping (most of which occur in his post-prime).
Though again, I doubt the value of these methodologies that assert if you’re not at least [insert arbitrary benchmark; in this case: a Top 100 inductee], you’re worthless (or at least that everyone not past that benchmark is the same).
Because when we look at the supporting casts beyond the top dogs, there can be a fair bit of difference......
Combos like Byron Scott/A.C. Green/Michael Cooper/Mychal Thompson (circa ‘87 or ‘88, in particular) or Toni Kukoc/Ron Harper/Steve Kerr/Luc Longley are a helluva lot more valuable [collectively] than say…….Bryon Russell/Greg Ostertag/old Antoine Carr/Shandon Anderson, or Mario Chalmers/Joel Anthony/Udonis Haslem/Mike Miller.
And combos such *Bill Sharman/*Tom Heinsohn/Frank Ramsey/old Arnie Risen (*if not counting those two as inductees) is a fair bit better than Guy Rodgers/Tom Gola/Woody Sauldsberry/Andy Johnson.
Just as something like K.C. Jones/*Bailey Howell (if not an inductee)/Tom Sanders/Larry Siegfried/Don Nelson is probably a little better than Guy Rodgers/Wayne Hightower/Gary Phillips/Tom Meschery/Al Attles.
Russell DID have good supporting casts. It's not a dig aimed at diminishing him to just acknowledge that.
Fantastic breakdown, I think I agree with you almost entirely. My original point was simply that Russell was lacking in super high end talent compared to most player's of his caliber, and was more a commentary on how he won with incredibly deep (and well coached) teams. Obviously there is much more to roster evaluation than number of top 100 players on your team, and it obviously matters when you play together (playing with a famous name pre or post prime can make it seem like a player had more help than they did). However, I think that early prime Hondo was the worst Robin that any of the other Goat candidates was working with.trex_8063 wrote:Rishkar wrote:I find it neat that despite the common criticism of Bill Russell having too much help, this is his first teammate inducted onto the list. The other GOAT candidates have all had a teammate or two who were better than Havlicek (at least according to our list, I think Hondo is better than Pippen), and John wasn't at his peak while playing with Russell. Jordan had Pippen, Kareem had Oscar and Magic, Duncan had Robinson, Wilt had West, and Lebron had Wade. And it's interesting to think about when the next 60's Celtic will be inducted, as I think it's likely to either be Cousy (who I'm really low on) or Sam Jones (who was incredible and I want nominated). Looking at the other common candidates, Lebron's next most likely teammate is likely AD or Ray Allen, Kareem's is probably Dantley or Worthy, Jordan's is likely Dennis Rodman or Horace Grant, Duncan's is Manu and Parker, Wilt is likely to have Paul Arizin, or Hal Greer next. I'm excluding some teammates from this who were obviously past their prime when they played together (I don't care much about Jordan playing with Gervin or Gilmore for example), or played together very briefly (Wilt and Nate Thurmond).
Well........not that this is a particular good/accurate way to evaluate strength of cast, but out of curiosity I’m going to look at HOW MANY SEASONS the above noted players had with their other top-100 inductees [or would-be/will-be inductees]......
Michael Jordan (#3)
Scottie Pippen (#32) - 9.3 seasons
Horace Grant (maybe he'll slip in around #90-100??) - 6 seasons
Dennis Rodman (likely to get in around #80-90 range) - 3 seasons
(18.3 total seasons with guys who will maybe/likely be on the list)
LeBron James (#1)
Dwyane Wade (#27) - 4.5 seasons (~half is post-prime; this is counting a half-season of washed Wade in '18, too, btw)
Anthony Davis (likely to go around #40 or so) - 4 seasons
Chris Bosh (likely to go around #80 perhaps) - 4 seasons
Ray Allen (likely to go around #50, perhaps)- 2 seasons (both post-prime/twilight of his career)
Russell Westbrook (likely to go around #45-50) - 1.5 seasons (all post-prime)
**Kyrie Irving/Kevin Love - 3 seasons/4 seasons (**neither of these guys is likely to make the list, imo, though they may get a little buzz as we near #100)
(16 total seasons [or 23 if we count both of Irving and Love])
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (#2)
Magic Johnson (#10)- 10 seasons
James Worthy (likely to get in around #80 or so) - 7 seasons
Oscar Robertson (#15) - 4 seasons (most of them post-prime)
(21 total seasons)
Wilt Chamberlain (#7)
Jerry West (#14) - 5 seasons (~half of it in Wilt's post-prime)
Elgin Baylor (likely to go around #42-45, perhaps) - 2 seasons [I’m not counting ‘71 or ‘72, given Baylor played a total of 11 games of limited minutes in the two seasons COMBINED (none in the playoffs)]
Paul Arizin (maybe will go around #80) - 3 seasons
Hal Greer (perhaps likely to go around #90??) - 3.5 seasons
Chet Walker (perhaps will make the cut around #90 or so??) - 3.5 seasons
Billy Cunningham (might make the top 100, barely???) - 3 seasons
Nate Thurmond (likely to go around #70-75, perhaps) - 1.5 seasons
(21.5 total seasons [or only 18-18.5 if we remove one of Greer/Walker/Cunningham, because imo it’s probably unlikely that ALL THREE make the list])
Tim Duncan (#5)
David Robinson (#17) - 6 seasons (mostly post-prime)
Manu Ginobili (seeming likely to go #38) - 14 seasons
Tony Parker (likely to go around #75(ish)) - 15 seasons
Kawhi Leonard (#34) - 5 seasons (mostly pre-prime, fwiw; by the time Kawhi was in his prime, Duncan was solidly OUT of his)
(40 total seasons)
Bill Russell (#4)
John Havlicek (#37) - 7 seasons
Bob Cousy (likely to go maybe around #60-70??? [sort of polarizing figure]) - 7 seasons
Sam Jones (likely around #75) - 12 seasons
**Bill Sharman/Tom Heinsohn/Bailey Howell - 5 seasons/9 seasons/3 seasons (**none of the is likely to make list, imo, though much like Kyrie and Love above, one or all is likely to at least get some mentions as we near #100)
(26 total seasons [or 43 if we were to count the latter three])
So with the exception of Tim Duncan, Russell has more total player-seasons of other inductees or likely inductees than anyone else mentioned.
And off the top of my head, if we were to further look at how many years each GOAT-candidate had with overlap of other inductees (that is: MORE THAN ONE other inductees on his team in the same season), I believe Russell will fair better than everyone except **Duncan again, given ALL 13 of Russell’s seasons see such overlap.
**Though again, in Duncan's case, he's part responsible for assembling and retaining some of his good casts, via taking voluntary pay-cuts repeatedly so other valuable players could be signed. Russell, otoh, once insisted [as a matter of pride] on getting the league's largest contract [by $1 over Wilt's then-historic salary].
Wilt, by comparison, only has a maximum of 5.5 seasons of overlap, and that’s only IF we include both of Greer and Walker as inductees.
Kareem has only 7 seasons overlapping (most of which occur in his post-prime).
Though again, I doubt the value of these methodologies that assert if you’re not at least [insert arbitrary benchmark; in this case: a Top 100 inductee], you’re worthless (or at least that everyone not past that benchmark is the same).
Because when we look at the supporting casts beyond the top dogs, there can be a fair bit of difference......
Combos like Byron Scott/A.C. Green/Michael Cooper/Mychal Thompson (circa ‘87 or ‘88, in particular) or Toni Kukoc/Ron Harper/Steve Kerr/Luc Longley are a helluva lot more valuable [collectively] than say…….Bryon Russell/Greg Ostertag/old Antoine Carr/Shandon Anderson, or Mario Chalmers/Joel Anthony/Udonis Haslem/Mike Miller.
And combos such *Bill Sharman/*Tom Heinsohn/Frank Ramsey/old Arnie Risen (*if not counting those two as inductees) is a fair bit better than Guy Rodgers/Tom Gola/Woody Sauldsberry/Andy Johnson.
Just as something like K.C. Jones/*Bailey Howell (if not an inductee)/Tom Sanders/Larry Siegfried/Don Nelson is probably a little better than Guy Rodgers/Wayne Hightower/Gary Phillips/Tom Meschery/Al Attles.
Russell DID have good supporting casts. It's not a dig aimed at diminishing him to just acknowledge that.
