RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #63 (Willis Reed)

[LA Bird]

My nomination is for Tracy McGrady - Very unsexy pick, but he was a top 5 player who many thought was POY. His longevity is very weak compared to his peers, but compared to the people ranked #70-100 it doesn't seem bad. 6-7 of all-nba 1st-2nd team level play is a quite a lot of value. Not the cleanest stats in the playoffs, but not the worst considering how bad his teammates were, I could see why he'd be so turnover prone.

Out of everything, turnover prone is probably the least accurate term for describing McGrady. TMac has some of the lowest turnover numbers relative to volume in both regular season and playoffs of anyone except Jordan.

Also, if you are bringing up "very weak" longevity for McGrady, Reed has both a lower peak and shorter career than TMac....

[HeartBreakKid]

My nomination is for Tracy McGrady - Very unsexy pick, but he was a top 5 player who many thought was POY. His longevity is very weak compared to his peers, but compared to the people ranked #70-100 it doesn't seem bad. 6-7 of all-nba 1st-2nd team level play is a quite a lot of value. Not the cleanest stats in the playoffs, but not the worst considering how bad his teammates were, I could see why he'd be so turnover prone.

Out of everything, turnover prone is probably the least accurate term for describing McGrady. TMac has some of the lowest turnover numbers relative to volume in both regular season and playoffs of anyone except Jordan.

Also, if you are bringing up "very weak" longevity for McGrady, Reed has both a lower peak and shorter career than TMac....

Nearly 4 turnovers per game isn't great for the playoffs but fair enough.


I do not care about longevity. I brought up his longevity for people who are critics of his own.


And I said McGrady's longevity is weak compared to his peers. Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett etc. Willis Reed is nearly old enough to be his grandfather, not his peer.

[LA Bird]

Nearly 4 turnovers per game isn't great for the playoffs but fair enough.

McGrady averaged 3.2 turnovers during his playoffs prime, which is not nearly 4 unless you are cherry picking his career high in a single series (3.7). Even then, that's lower than the career series high of literally every other perimeter superstar. Using trex_8063's modified TOV% formula (TO/[TO + TSA + (2 * Ast) + (0.04 * Reb), 01-08 McGrady averaged only 7.1 mTOV% in the playoffs. That's absolutely elite unless you are comparing him to Michael Jordan. For comparison, Pierce was 10.9 mTOV% over that same time period and even he isn't considered particularly turnover prone.

I do not care about longevity.

Bold claim. How high is Bill Walton on your all time list? What about Penny Hardaway?

And I said McGrady's longevity is weak compared to his peers. Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett etc. Willis Reed is nearly old enough to be his grandfather, not his peer.

Reed has even weaker longevity compared to his peers like Elvin Hayes, Wilt Chamberlain, John Havlicek, etc...

[trex_8063]

Nearly 4 turnovers per game isn't great for the playoffs but fair enough.

McGrady averaged 3.2 turnovers during his playoffs prime, which is not nearly 4 unless you are cherry picking his career high in a single series (3.7). Even then, that's lower than the career series high of literally every other perimeter superstar. Using trex_8063's modified TOV% formula (TO/[TO + TSA + (2 * Ast) + (0.04 * Reb), 01-08 McGrady averaged only 7.1 mTOV% in the playoffs. That's absolutely elite unless you are comparing him to Michael Jordan. For comparison, Pierce was 10.9 mTOV% over that same time period and even he isn't considered particularly turnover prone.

FYI, I'm currently going with 2.33 as the modifier on Ast in my latest mTOV% version.

This, of course, doesn't relevantly change or refute your point: TMac had a super-solid turnover economy; it's one of the most impressive things about his game, really.

[HeartBreakKid]

Nearly 4 turnovers per game isn't great for the playoffs but fair enough.

McGrady averaged 3.2 turnovers during his playoffs prime, which is not nearly 4 unless you are cherry picking his career high in a single series (3.7). Even then, that's lower than the career series high of literally every other perimeter superstar. Using trex_8063's modified TOV% formula (TO/[TO + TSA + (2 * Ast) + (0.04 * Reb), 01-08 McGrady averaged only 7.1 mTOV% in the playoffs. That's absolutely elite unless you are comparing him to Michael Jordan. For comparison, Pierce was 10.9 mTOV% over that same time period and even he isn't considered particularly turnover prone.

I do not care about longevity.

Bold claim. How high is Bill Walton on your all time list? What about Penny Hardaway?

And I said McGrady's longevity is weak compared to his peers. Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett etc. Willis Reed is nearly old enough to be his grandfather, not his peer.

Reed has even weaker longevity compared to his peers like Elvin Hayes, Wilt Chamberlain, John Havlicek, etc...

You're talking about Reed, so you must have read my votes, yet you're asking me about Bill Walton, who I have been nominating for nearly 20 threads, including this one.

There is nothing "bold" about not valueing longevity. I do not even get what that statement means, but for reference I would guess Bill Walton is higher on my list than he is on yours.


Yes, Reed has weaker longevity. I did not say anything to the contrary. I did not even compare Reed to McGrady in general. I do not understand your point.

Voting for Reed and nominating McGrady isn't some contradictory statement. They are not even in the same pool.


I said even though McGrady has weak longevity compared to his peers, it's not bad compared to guys #60-100.

I am essentially saying McGrady does not have longevity problems at this stage (other great players like Reed, Walton, Hagan have more valid criticisms at this point), so people who take into account longevity shouldn't punish McGrady too harshly.

[LA Bird]

You're talking about Reed, so you must have read my votes, yet you're asking me about Bill Walton, who I have been nominating for nearly 20 threads, including this one.

There is nothing "bold" about not valueing longevity. I do not even get what that statement means, but for reference I would guess Bill Walton is higher on my list than he is on yours.

A list that genuinely doesn't care about longevity would have Walton like top 25 all time, hence, my question asking where you rank him and Penny to see if you really don't care about longevity as you say. You kind of dodged giving an answer though...

Yes, Reed has weaker longevity. I did not say anything to the contrary. I did not even compare Reed to McGrady in general. I do not understand your point.

Voting for Reed and nominating McGrady isn't some contradictory statement. They are not even in the same pool.

You didn't say anything to the contrary and that's the thing - you didn't say anything about Reed's longevity at all in your post. If it was anybody else with such poor longevity, it would be the first thing about them to get criticized (see Hagan and McGrady in your own post). That being said, you are at least consistent with the emphasis on peaks (unlike some Reed/Parish voters) so I'll back off and wait for the next thread when we move on from Reed.

[trex_8063]

I realize we're all dug in on our position [for the time being at least], so I don't expect capitulation or intend to engage on this topic until I get it; I don't necessarily even expect a response, fwiw. But for the sake of posterity I'm going to respond to a few points.....

I would say a few things here.

One, when you're comparing the 69-74 Knicks with 08-13 Lakers, there are two seasons where Reed barely played(a combined 30 games), which is going to drag those numbers(particularly the team numbers since, as I showed before, the SRS dropped a lot without him) down somewhat, whereas Gasol, while not exactly an ironman, played >50% of all those Laker seasons in that range.

This is true, but this kinda seems like it's trying to spin Reed's missed time into a positive thing; or perhaps making Gasol's availability a negative against him.
Yes, I have no doubt the Knick record and SRS would have been better had Reed consistently played. But the plain fact of the matter is he didn't; that's sort of the point. The numbers I cited are in fact the figures on how the Knicks did when he was on the team, paired with a prime Walt Frazier, plus the rest of the solid supporting cast, and Holzman as coach. He doesn't [or shouldn't] get credit for how good they would have been had he played (because he DIDN'T play).

As to the latter point, I'd counter that Pau Gasol was misused in '12 and especially '13, once Phil Jackson and the triangle were gone, and Pau was sort of turned into a pseudo stretch-4 (especially under D'Antoni in '13).
Observe that in '12 the proportion of his shot attempts that come OUTSIDE OF 16' jumps to 27.7% (previous career high had been 18.3%); then in '13 it jumps further to 31.6% (he would eventually develop legit 3pt range, but he hadn't yet, and was sort of being forced into an outside shooting role before he was any good at it).
These are also comfortably the lowest FTAr and lowest proportion of shots at the rim for his career to that point. His metrics sort of plummet as a result of taking him out of the post where he's most effective (look how things would bounce back in '15 for Chicago (even though he's 34 years old by that point), for being used more in the post).

Two, the tougher era thing doesn't really come into play when you're evaluating players in an era-relative context.

Fair enough.
I personally disagree with taking no account of era. While it's true that players can only take on what is in front of them, there's also a nugget of truth to the hyperbolic what if it was a brand new game that only 1000 people in whole world ever played, and the league was three teams of guys <6'.... type of arguments.

Three, like I mentioned in the previous thread, Reed was playing out of position in the pre-Frazier years and I think it's valid to question whether that may have inhibited his performance or impact in any way.

And like I've shown above Pau was misused some years as well. Though in a more general sense this could be viewed as another point in Gasol's favour: that he's more positionally versatile, and [at various points in his career] was shown to be effective at EITHER C or PF.

Four, given that he had already won the regular season MVP, I think we would be talking about him. He is, after all, one of only five MVPs that haven't been inducted yet - the others are McAdoo, Walton, Iverson, and Rose. Rose won't get in, but the others all merit serious discussion.

Actually there are six (you forgot Unseld).
Though this argument [for me] brings to mind how people here often say "such and such accolade or team achievement wouldn't change my ranking of him if his level of play was the same". It's malarkey in most instances, imo.

What if Reed hadn't been the MVP that year? Because it easily could have gone another way in '70.....

Willis Reed: 21.7 ppg @ 55.2% TS, 13.9 rpg, 2.0 apg; 20.3 PER, .227 WS/48 (14.6 total WS), +3.8 estimated BPM [team was 60-22]
vs......
Jerry West: 31.2 ppg @ 57.2% TS, 4.6 rpg, 7.5 apg; 24.6 PER, .234 WS/48 (15.2 total WS), +5.1 estimated BPM [team was 46-36]
Walt Frazier: 20.9 ppg @ 57.5% TS, 6.0 rpg, 8.2 apg; 21.1 PER, .236 WS/48 (15.0 total WS), +6.8 estimated BPM [60-22 record]
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 28.8 ppg @ 55.2% TS, 14.5 rpg, 4.1 apg; 22.5 PER, .187 WS/48 (13.8 total WS), +5.1 estimated BPM [56-26 record]

Seems like any one of those guys has a VERY good case over Reed (to say nothing of more dark-horse cases like Havlicek, Robertson, or Cunningham).
And I've already pointed out that the FMVP in '70 very obviously SHOULD have gone to Frazier.

Take those awards away......
Would people still be championing him here? Would you?

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1:

Hayes - 1 (AEnigma)
Mutombo - 1 (trelos)
Reed - 5 (Samurai, iggy, HBK, OSNB, Doc)
Billups - 2 (beast, trex)

Reed takes majority.

Willis Reed is Inducted at #63.

[HeartBreakKid]

You're talking about Reed, so you must have read my votes, yet you're asking me about Bill Walton, who I have been nominating for nearly 20 threads, including this one.

There is nothing "bold" about not valueing longevity. I do not even get what that statement means, but for reference I would guess Bill Walton is higher on my list than he is on yours.

A list that genuinely doesn't care about longevity would have Walton like top 25 all time, hence, my question asking where you rank him and Penny to see if you really don't care about longevity as you say. You kind of dodged giving an answer though...

Yes, Reed has weaker longevity. I did not say anything to the contrary. I did not even compare Reed to McGrady in general. I do not understand your point.

Voting for Reed and nominating McGrady isn't some contradictory statement. They are not even in the same pool.

You didn't say anything to the contrary and that's the thing - you didn't say anything about Reed's longevity at all in your post. If it was anybody else with such poor longevity, it would be the first thing about them to get criticized (see Hagan and McGrady in your own post). That being said, you are at least consistent with the emphasis on peaks (unlike some Reed/Parish voters) so I'll back off and wait for the next thread when we move on from Reed.

Just because I do not value longevity much does not mean I base players on single season peaks, otherwise, I'd have McGrady much higher. Walton still has a low sample size for a player of his caliber - but to answer your question, I'd have Walton within my top 25. If I could pick between having Bill Walton or Robert Parish, I would take Bill Walton without any hesitation.

I have Penny Hardaway in the top 75 give or take. I don't think he is necessarily better than less celebrated players like Nate Thurmond, though I could be convinced. He was amazing especially given his age, but I do feel he is a bit mythicized as many injury ruined players were.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I realize we're all dug in on our position [for the time being at least], so I don't expect capitulation or intend to engage on this topic until I get it; I don't necessarily even expect a response, fwiw. But for the sake of posterity I'm going to respond to a few points.....

I would say a few things here.

One, when you're comparing the 69-74 Knicks with 08-13 Lakers, there are two seasons where Reed barely played(a combined 30 games), which is going to drag those numbers(particularly the team numbers since, as I showed before, the SRS dropped a lot without him) down somewhat, whereas Gasol, while not exactly an ironman, played >50% of all those Laker seasons in that range.

This is true, but this kinda seems like it's trying to spin Reed's missed time into a positive thing; or perhaps making Gasol's availability a negative against him.
Yes, I have no doubt the Knick record and SRS would have been better had Reed consistently played. But the plain fact of the matter is he didn't; that's sort of the point. The numbers I cited are in fact the figures on how the Knicks did when he was on the team, paired with a [u]prime Walt Frazier, plus the rest of the solid supporting cast, and Holzman as coach. [/u]He doesn't [or shouldn't] get credit for how good they would have been had he played (because he DIDN'T play).

As to the latter point, I'd counter that Pau Gasol was misused in '12 and especially '13, once Phil Jackson and the triangle were gone, and Pau was sort of turned into a pseudo stretch-4 (especially under D'Antoni in '13).
Observe that in '12 the proportion of his shot attempts that come OUTSIDE OF 16' jumps to 27.7% (previous career high had been 18.3%); then in '13 it jumps further to 31.6% (he would eventually develop legit 3pt range, but he hadn't yet, and was sort of being forced into an outside shooting role before he was any good at it).
These are also comfortably the lowest FTAr and lowest proportion of shots at the rim for his career to that point. His metrics sort of plummet as a result of taking him out of the post where he's most effective (look how things would bounce back in '15 for Chicago (even though he's 34 years old by that point), for being used more in the post).

When you say the underlined, are you saying that the team stats you cited - 53.33 wins, +4.95 SR - are based only on games Reed played in? That's not how I took it, but just making sure.

But assuming those numbers are for the totality of the Knicks' 69-74 run: I'm not saying Reed should get extra credit for how good they could have been. If you're making a longevity argument, it's certainly valid to point to the time he missed and how the team could've been even better had he played more. But if you're making a comparison of how impactful each player was when they did play, then I think it's not entirely fair to use a range of seasons where one player missed the majority of two seasons(one third of the range in question). What would those numbers look like for the Knicks if you were looking only at 69-71?

Three, like I mentioned in the previous thread, Reed was playing out of position in the pre-Frazier years and I think it's valid to question whether that may have inhibited his performance or impact in any way.

And like I've shown above Pau was misused some years as well. Though in a more general sense this could be viewed as another point in Gasol's favour: that he's more positionally versatile, and [at various points in his career] was shown to be effective at EITHER C or PF.

Fair point. I do remember shaking my head at D'Antoni in 2013 when he was trying to reduce Gasol to catch-and-shoot guy from the corner 3.

Four, given that he had already won the regular season MVP, I think we would be talking about him. He is, after all, one of only five MVPs that haven't been inducted yet - the others are McAdoo, Walton, Iverson, and Rose. Rose won't get in, but the others all merit serious discussion.

Actually there are six (you forgot Unseld).
Though this argument [for me] brings to mind how people here often say "such and such accolade or team achievement wouldn't change my ranking of him if his level of play was the same". It's malarkey in most instances, imo.

What if Reed hadn't been the MVP that year? Because it easily could have gone another way in '70.....

Willis Reed: 21.7 ppg @ 55.2% TS, 13.9 rpg, 2.0 apg; 20.3 PER, .227 WS/48 (14.6 total WS), +3.8 estimated BPM [team was 60-22]
vs......
Jerry West: 31.2 ppg @ 57.2% TS, 4.6 rpg, 7.5 apg; 24.6 PER, .234 WS/48 (15.2 total WS), +5.1 estimated BPM [team was 46-36]
Walt Frazier: 20.9 ppg @ 57.5% TS, 6.0 rpg, 8.2 apg; 21.1 PER, .236 WS/48 (15.0 total WS), +6.8 estimated BPM [60-22 record]
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 28.8 ppg @ 55.2% TS, 14.5 rpg, 4.1 apg; 22.5 PER, .187 WS/48 (13.8 total WS), +5.1 estimated BPM [56-26 record]

Seems like any one of those guys has a VERY good case over Reed (to say nothing of more dark-horse cases like Havlicek, Robertson, or Cunningham).
And I've already pointed out that the FMVP in '70 very obviously SHOULD have gone to Frazier.

Take those awards away......
Would people still be championing him here? Would you?

Hmmm. That is food for thought. West's team record probably wasn't good enough, and Kareem was a rookie(has a rookie ever won MVP?). As for Reed and Frazier, in those days a star big was always favored over a star guard(though I'm fully on the 'Frazier was never given enough credit' train). But it's a good point that there were other worthy players.

Ultimately though, I still think Reed had the best two-way peak of the players he was on the ballot with - better offensively than Hayes and Mutombo, better defensively than Billups. I don't know enough about Hagan's defense to comment, but he had no traction anyway. Honestly, in terms of two-way peak, Parish is the one from the ballot that is most comparable imo, and he's a guy I probably don't give quite enough credit to.

But as it is, Reed is 18 spots lower than he was in 2020, and he could've been in danger of sliding further if certain nominees got on the ballot. I just feel like it was time.

You're right though - we probably have to agree to disagree.

[AEnigma]

He is, after all, one of only five MVPs that haven't been inducted yet - the others are McAdoo, Walton, Iverson, and Rose. Rose won't get in, but the others all merit serious discussion.

Actually there are six (you forgot Unseld).

West's team record probably wasn't good enough, and Kareem was a rookie(has a rookie ever won MVP?).

Had to laugh at this sequence.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

He is, after all, one of only five MVPs that haven't been inducted yet - the others are McAdoo, Walton, Iverson, and Rose. Rose won't get in, but the others all merit serious discussion.

Actually there are six (you forgot Unseld).

West's team record probably wasn't good enough, and Kareem was a rookie(has a rookie ever won MVP?).

Had to laugh at this sequence.

Had genuinely forgotten that about Unseld. Had meant to double check before submitting the post too, but forgot.

[trex_8063]

When you say the underlined, are you saying that the team stats you cited - 53.33 wins, +4.95 SR - are based only on games Reed played in? That's not how I took it, but just making sure.

No, that was just their full record all years included in sample.

Though, fwiw, going by only the games Reed played in doesn't exactly help his case:
*in '72 they were 5-6 [on pace for 37.3 wins] with him, 43-28 [on pace for 49.7 wins] without him.
**in '74 they were 10-9 [on pace for 43.2 wins] with him, 39-24 [on pace for 50.8 wins] without him.

fwiw, Earl Monroe missed like half the season in '74, too; also was DeBusschere's last season (maybe losing his step a bit??). These are other things which may have contributed to the decline in that particular season (perhaps as much or more so than losing Reed).

But assuming those numbers are for the totality of the Knicks' 69-74 run: I'm not saying Reed should get extra credit for how good they could have been. If you're making a longevity argument, it's certainly valid to point to the time he missed and how the team could've been even better had he played more. But if you're making a comparison of how impactful each player was when they did play, then I think it's not entirely fair to use a range of seasons where one player missed the majority of two seasons(one third of the range in question). What would those numbers look like for the Knicks if you were looking only at 69-71?

I started with the six years you cited for Reed, and attempted to find a roughly equivalent six-year sample for Gasol; equivalent in that:
*For BOTH players these were years where they had a VERY good supporting cast around them.
*For BOTH players it included some prime and some non-prime seasons (admittedly only three prime for Reed, four for Gasol).
*For BOTH players it included their three BEST seasons.

.....and then look at how they compared overall in those years, by individual production/efficiency and team results.

I could have gone '68-'73 (to get rid of that one injury year) for Reed. His offensive rate metrics would look marginally better [still inferior to Gasol's], while his team result would look marginally worse; and while still playing fewer games than Gasol.

I could have gone '67-'71 + '73 to avoid both injury years........now he's not missing more games than Gasol. His rate metrics are basically the same or negligibly better than in the '68-'73 sample [still inferior to Gasol's] while his team result gets marginally worse [again].

fwiw, I could back up the Gasol sample to make it '07-'12 (to make his team result look a little worse).......but that will IMPROVE the appearance of Gasol's individual numbers marginally.


Also fwiw, the comparison of everything else [OUTSIDE of the six years selected] now looks awful in comparison to Gasol: because all that's left for Reed [outside of '67-'71 + '73, I mean] are two non-prime years and two injury years (this vs the other TWELVE seasons of Gasol, half of which are PRIME seasons).



For me, it's just not close. But I concede we'll have to disagree on that.