RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #43 (Dolph Schayes)

[HeartBreakKid]

My vote is for Elgin Baylor – I used to be incredibly harsh on Baylor. Perhaps because his reputation had him as arguably the best in the world for a long time, and when I saw how inefficient he was relative to the big 4 of his era I said "pffft". I'd say in the past 1.5 years he has went up on my ratings quite a bit. He has a lot more playoff heroic performances than he is given credit for. He was a serious volume scorer on a scale that possibly the other great players left can't match.

Alternate vote is for Dwight Howard - Defensively dominant for 3-4 years in a row. He was quite good his first couple years in Houston as well. Short prime, but I feel that his scoring around the rim put some serious double, even triple team pressure that made him a more reliable scorer than Westbrook, Green, and perhaps Schayes as well.

My nomination is for Willis Reed - Arguably just as good as Frazier albeit his career feels even shorter.

My alternate nomination is for Kevin McHale – A lot of what I said with Davis applies to McHale. Great combination of hyper efficient scoring and good defense. His defense has less data to back up and he doesn’t seem like he is a true anchor, so that is why I haven’t vote for him earlier. His scoring is quite legendary, but he suffers from a similar situation as Manu in that he didn’t really have his own team for most of his career, and maybe the one season where he did his efficiency was still insane but his volume wasn’t much better. I don’t believe he was a blackhole, just he was so good at scoring there wasn’t much reason to pass, but lack of playmaking comparably does make him seem one dimensional albeit his game has a lot of nuance to it.

[iggymcfrack]

...
Nomination: Clyde Drexler
Alt Nom: Paul Pierce

(fwiw, Pau Gasol is the other guy I'd really like to nominate, but he has no traction presently; so I'll go with Pierce instead)

Can we compare Drexler and Pierce to the great SFs of the 70s/80s, particularly Gervin, English, and Dantley?

All are primarily scorers, Drexler and English add playmaking, Gervin and Dantley may be weaker defenders, but certainly the primary value of each of the 5 is scoring. Thus we can look at TS Add as a quick 1st cut for scoring greatness:

Drexler -- long consistent career gives him a total TS Add of 420.2 but with only 1 season barely above 100 (100.8). I think he gets overrated by the "2nd best SG to MJ" thought process. If you are going to talk about what wings bring more outside of scoring, I'm voting Jimmy Butler over Drexler as the scoring is similar and Butler brings significantly more defense.

Jimmy Butler -- TS Add of 685.1, 3 seasons over 100.

Paul Pierce -- much better then Clyde (or Butler) at pure scoring with a total TS Add of 1771.8. 8 seasons above 100, none above 200.

Gervin -- 1687 total TS Add, below Pierce, but higher peak/prime 4 year stretch where he was 240+ twice and 290+ twice more. To be fair, this is the guy quoted as saying defense is for those who can't score.

English -- Does not come off as well as I had thought he would, only career total of 632.2 TS Add with 3 seasons over 100, peaking at 199.4.

Dantley -- Total TS Add of 3109.6 as arguably the best combination of volume and efficiency ever outside of Kareem. This includes one season over 400 and 3 more over 300.

So, it would seem that to put a Drexler (or English) in there, you need to be able to make a case against clearly superior scorers like Pierce or Dantley, or clearly superior at everything else players like Jimmy Butler. If you can, I'd like to hear it.

Note: Paul Arizin comes off well by this measure too, with a TS Add total of 1600.9 in only 10 seasons with 3 seasons above 200 and one above 300.

I find it interesting to compare Elgin Baylor to the guys you brought up in TS add:

Dantley 3109.6
Pierce 1771.8
Butler 685.1
English 632.2
Baylor 533.7
Drexler 420.2

So even in an era where shooting was poor leaguewide, Baylor wasn't that valuable of a scorer because of his weak efficiency. Then, he also was considered "not a great defender" and only a little above average as a passer. What's he doing to provide any kind of serious impact? Shouldn't Paul Pierce go ahead of him with over twice the TS add and much better defense? Shouldn't Butler with better TS add and all-time defense?

Baylor's a player who was historically considered an all-time great for putting up big raw scoring numbers, but it doesn't seem like he really did anything that impactfully. He's kind of just an empty calories scorer who was never on a championship winning team until the Lakers finally went 6-3 with him in the lineup and then immediately won 33 in a row after he got injured.

[iggymcfrack]

My vote is for Elgin Baylor – I used to be incredibly harsh on Baylor. Perhaps because his reputation had him as arguably the best in the world for a long time, and when I saw how inefficient he was relative to the big 4 of his era I said "pffft". I'd say in the past 1.5 years he has went up on my ratings quite a bit. He has a lot more playoff heroic performances than he is given credit for. He was a serious volume scorer on a scale that possibly the other great players left can't match.

Here are some playoff numbers for PP36 (and remember that Baylor played in a much faster era than any of the other competitors:

Luka 31.3 PP36
Embiid 30.9 PP36
Booker 25.3 PP36
Trae 25.2 PP36
Gervin 25.1 PP36
English 24.6 PP36
Iverson 23.7 PP36
Baylor 23.7 PP36
Wilkins 23.6 PP36
Westbrook 23.5 PP36
McGrady 23.2 PP36
Lillard 23.0 PP36
Melo 22.6 PP36
Dantley 22.3 PP36

Baylor's scoring was good, but far from unprecedented. There's lots of guys who scored more without even adjusting for pace. If you do adjust for pace, he'd easily be at the bottom of this list.

[MyUniBroDavis]

My vote is for Elgin Baylor – I used to be incredibly harsh on Baylor. Perhaps because his reputation had him as arguably the best in the world for a long time, and when I saw how inefficient he was relative to the big 4 of his era I said "pffft". I'd say in the past 1.5 years he has went up on my ratings quite a bit. He has a lot more playoff heroic performances than he is given credit for. He was a serious volume scorer on a scale that possibly the other great players left can't match.

Here are some playoff numbers for PP36 (and remember that Baylor played in a much faster era than any of the other competitors:

Luka 31.3 PP36
Embiid 30.9 PP36
Booker 25.3 PP36
Trae 25.2 PP36
Gervin 25.1 PP36
English 24.6 PP36
Iverson 23.7 PP36
Baylor 23.7 PP36
Wilkins 23.6 PP36
Westbrook 23.5 PP36
McGrady 23.2 PP36
Lillard 23.0 PP36
Melo 22.6 PP36
Dantley 22.3 PP36

Baylor's scoring was good, but far from unprecedented. There's lots of guys who scored more without even adjusting for pace. If you do adjust for pace, he'd easily be at the bottom of this list.

How much evidence is there that pace effects scoring as much as other things? I’ve heard people say it’s more role players who get their points up but obviously the gap in possessions is pretty large here

[iggymcfrack]

My vote is for Elgin Baylor – I used to be incredibly harsh on Baylor. Perhaps because his reputation had him as arguably the best in the world for a long time, and when I saw how inefficient he was relative to the big 4 of his era I said "pffft". I'd say in the past 1.5 years he has went up on my ratings quite a bit. He has a lot more playoff heroic performances than he is given credit for. He was a serious volume scorer on a scale that possibly the other great players left can't match.

Here are some playoff numbers for PP36 (and remember that Baylor played in a much faster era than any of the other competitors:

Luka 31.3 PP36
Embiid 30.9 PP36
Booker 25.3 PP36
Trae 25.2 PP36
Gervin 25.1 PP36
English 24.6 PP36
Iverson 23.7 PP36
Baylor 23.7 PP36
Wilkins 23.6 PP36
Westbrook 23.5 PP36
McGrady 23.2 PP36
Lillard 23.0 PP36
Melo 22.6 PP36
Dantley 22.3 PP36

Baylor's scoring was good, but far from unprecedented. There's lots of guys who scored more without even adjusting for pace. If you do adjust for pace, he'd easily be at the bottom of this list.

How much evidence is there that pace effects scoring as much as other things? I’ve heard people say it’s more role players who get their points up but obviously the gap in possessions is pretty large here

I mean when pace has gone up in recent years, it's definitely raised scoring totals for star players. LeBron scored more PPG at age 37 than he had since he was 21. I would imagine that it's a pretty close to linear increase in PPG with possessions.

[iggymcfrack]

Here's where I have us at for a vote count:

Induction: Baylor 4, Schayes 3, Westbrook 2, Howard 1, Green 1
Induction with alternates: Baylor 4, Schayes 4

Nomination: Drexler 3, Embiid 2, McHale 1, Pierce 1, Arizin 1, Gervin 1, Reed 1
Nomination with alternates: Drexler 3, Embiid 3

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1: Draymond Green

[img]https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2021/10/22e2e-16347590987389-1920.jpg
[/img]

Given that this is such a jump for Green compared to norms you'd think I'd have more to say now that he's risen to the top of my voting list, but Draymond is my clear cut choice among the group and I'm not sure what else I want to say. I think the tendency to assume Green should be tiers lower than big time scorers is a wrong one. It's a weakness to be sure, but I'm more impressed by what he's done as the defensive star and second overall star for one of the great dynasties in basketball history than I am with what the other candidates.

Induction Vote 2: Dolph Schayes

Well, here I am, finally giving a vote in Dolph's direction. If we break the rest of the candidates down into pairs:

Dolph & Elgin actually have a pretty good overlap during which they both played, and while Baylor was the more spectacular player, and the guy I'd side with having a superior peak, Dolph was valuable considerably longer and I think in the end did more for his franchise's success than Baylor did for his.

Between Howard & Westbrook I'll take Russ. I'd probably give Howard the peak nod - though I'd have to think about it more - but Dwight blew up what he was working to build. Westbrook is a guy who really has given it all to his teams and who continued to be a force well after Howard.

Between Dolph & Russ, I'll again point to Dolph continuing to be a very effective star for quite a long time well after Westbrook started damaging his teams. Truly of the 4 guys, Dolph is the only one who truly ages gracefully.

Nomination Vote 1: Kevin McHale



I think McHale really was an absolutely incredible two-way player. Often arguably better both as as scorer and a defender than teammate Larry Bird. I think he's clearly a worthy candidate here, just a question of whether he comes out on top. I find myself specifically considering McHale with two other Celtics - Dave Cowens & Robert Parish.

With Cowens, we have him as an MVP where McHale never seriously got that kind of shine. I'm not super-skeptical on Cowens' impact, but I look at how effective McHale is as a scorer, and I respect McHale's defense so much, it's hard for me to really advocate that Cowens was better.

With Parish, McHale generally gets the nod for prime with Parish the longevity argument. I'm inclined to agree with this, but respect Parish enough that I feel like McHale's prime edge may really not be enough to really justify him as the guy who did more for his teams.

Nomination Vote 2: Paul Arizin

I've always been high on Arizin. I would consider him to be the top offensive player of his era, and I think he'd really be a considerably bigger deal if his career wasn't so broken. When he played, he represented the future of the sport which would later be represented by Baylor and others, but of course beyond playing style there's actually efficacy. I think Arizin at his best was a potent force that went beyond box score stats, even though things like volume & efficiency was already extremely strong.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Induction Vote #1: Dolph Schayes

Induction Vote #2: Elgin Baylor

This round is coming down to these two, and I'm surprising myself here, because I've always been a fan of Baylor, but when taking a closer look, I'm having trouble making a statistical argument for Baylor. Schayes is much more efficient as a scorer(albeit on lower volume), is a comparable rebounder, perhaps a better playmaker, and was just was just healthier and more impactful for longer by WS/48 and BPM.

I do agree with others that we're overdue for Baylor though - he's probably my next vote.

Nomination Vote #1: George Gervin

Honestly, I think we're overdue with Gervin too. He was #37 last time around and at this rate he may end up 10+ spots lower this time. He's probably one of the five best SGs of all time(depending on how you categorize West and Harden), one of the great pure scorers of his era, and I think of him as a guy who was unlucky in that he never got to play with another star of his caliber(both he and Artis were past their peaks imo when they played together).

Nomination Vote #2: Clyde Drexler

With secondary votes, this current sites at McHale 4, Drexler 3, and Embiid 3.

I think McHale has long been underappreciated here, but between him and Drexler, I'm taking Drexler for the simple reason that in the one season that Bird missed all but six games of, when McHale was the de facto #1, the Celtics dropped from 57 wins, 6.15 SRS, and +6.0 Net Rtg in 1987-88 to 42 wins, 1.26 SRS, and +1.2 Net Rtg, and they got swept in the first round. Now, I know that's post-foot-injury McHale, but his individual numbers still look good. Given that Drexler went to the Finals twice as a #1, I'm going with him here for that reason.

As for Embiid, despite his numbers and two-way play, it's just hard to justify voting for him over some of these other guys when he's never been past the second round and he'd had real issues staying healthy in the playoffs.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Here are some playoff numbers for PP36 (and remember that Baylor played in a much faster era than any of the other competitors:

Luka 31.3 PP36
Embiid 30.9 PP36
Booker 25.3 PP36
Trae 25.2 PP36
Gervin 25.1 PP36
English 24.6 PP36
Iverson 23.7 PP36
Baylor 23.7 PP36
Wilkins 23.6 PP36
Westbrook 23.5 PP36
McGrady 23.2 PP36
Lillard 23.0 PP36
Melo 22.6 PP36
Dantley 22.3 PP36

Baylor's scoring was good, but far from unprecedented. There's lots of guys who scored more without even adjusting for pace. If you do adjust for pace, he'd easily be at the bottom of this list.

How much evidence is there that pace effects scoring as much as other things? I’ve heard people say it’s more role players who get their points up but obviously the gap in possessions is pretty large here

I mean when pace has gone up in recent years, it's definitely raised scoring totals for star players. LeBron scored more PPG at age 37 than he had since he was 21. I would imagine that it's a pretty close to linear increase in PPG with possessions.

I wouldn’t say the star players scoring going up is as much pace as much as offense being better at getting better shots for guys now though, and defenses generally being a bit easier to score on

[penbeast0]

I have not done the work, but I have the feeling that % of team points/minute in lineups they are in (because modern guys play less minutes) has consistently grown over time. Part of that is getting the ball to your stars is more consistent shot making (though not necessarily more efficient); part is the player empowerment era trying to keep stars happy. Also be interested if, assuming this trend does exist, it is less prevalent in the playoffs.

[ShaqAttac]

tbh i dont really know who to vote for but i guess ill go

VOTE

Dwight

won a dpoy. could score alot too. Beat peak bron when he was goating out.

Draymond

got great impact and was important for 4 chips

Nominate

Walton

MVP. Led team to a chip. Swept kareem. Crazy impact.

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1:

Schayes - 4 (Clyde, beast, LA Bird, OSNB)
Howard - 2 (trelos, ShaqA)
Baylor - 4 (trex, Rishkar, Samurai, HBK)
Westbrook - 2 (iggy, Ohayo)
Green - 2 (hcl, Doc)

No majority. Going to Vote 2 between Schayes & Baylor:

Schayes - 2 (trelos, Doc)
Baylor - 0 (none)
neither - 4 (ShaqA, iggy, Ohayo, hcl)

Dolph Schayes 6, Elgin Baylor 4.

Dolph Schayes is Inducted at #43.



Nomination Vote 1:

Drexler - 3 (Clyde, trex, LA Bird)
McHale - 2 (beast, Doc)
Embiid - 2 (trelos, iggy)
Pierce - 1 (hcl)
Arizin - 1 (Rishkar)
Gervin - 2 (Samurai OSNB)
Reed - 1 (HBK)
ShaqA - 1 (Walton)
none - 1 (Ohayo)

No majority. Going to vote 2 between Drexler, McHale, Embiid & Gervin:

Drexler - 0 (none)
McHale - 1 (HBK
Embiid - 1 (hcl)
Gervin - 0 (none)
none - 3 (Ohayo, Rishkar, ShaqA)

Eliminating Gervin:

Drexler - 1 (Drexler)
McHale - 1 (Samurai)
Embiid - 0 (none)

Eliminating Embiid:

Drexler - 0 (none)
McHale - 0 (none)
neither - 2 (trelos, iggy)

Clyde Drexler 4, Kevin McHale 4. Tie.

Both Clyde Drexler and Kevin McHale will be added to Nominee list.
No Nomination vote will be held next thread.