RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #84 (Sidney Moncrief)

[Doctor MJ]

Our system is now as follows:

1. We have a pool of Nominees you are to choose from for your Induction (main) vote to decide who next gets on the List. Choose your top vote, and if you'd like to, a second vote which will be used for runoff purposes if needed.

2. Nomination vote now works the same way.

3. You must include reasoning for each of your votes, though you may re-use your old words in a new post.

4. Post as much as they want, but when you do your official Vote make it really clear to me at the top of that post that that post is your Vote. And if you decide to change your vote before the votes are tallied, please edit that same Vote post.

5. Anyone may post thoughts, but please only make a Vote post if you're on the Voter list. If you'd like to be added to the project, please ask in the General Thread for the project. Note that you will not be added immediately to the project now. If you express an interest during the #2 thread, for example, the earliest you'll be added to the Voter list is for the #3.

5. I'll tally the votes when I wake up the morning after the Deadline (I don't care if you change things after the official Deadline, but once I tally, it's over). For this specific Vote, if people ask before the Deadline, I'll extend it.

Here's the list of the Voter Pool as it stands right now (and if I forgot anyone I approved, do let me know):

Spoiler:

AEnigma
Ambrose
ceilng raiser
ceoofkobefans
Clyde Frazier
Colbinii
cupcakesnake
Doctor MJ
Dooley
DQuinn1575
Dr Positivity
DraymondGold
Dutchball97
f4p
falcolombardi
Fundamentals21
Gibson22
HeartBreakKid
homecourtloss
iggymcfrack
LA Bird
JimmyFromNz
Joao Saraiva
lessthanjake
Lou Fan
Moonbeam
Narigo
OhayoKD
OldSchoolNoBull
penbeast0
Rishkar
rk2023
Samurai
ShaqAttac
Taj FTW
Tim Lehrbach
trelos6
trex_8063
ty 4191
WintaSoldier1
ZeppelinPage

Alright, the Nominees for you to choose among for the next slot on the list (in alphabetical order):

Cliff Hagan


Shawn Marion


Sidney Moncrief


Tony Parker


Bill Walton


As requested, here's the current list so far along with the historical spreadsheet of previous projects:

Current List
Historical Spreadsheet

[penbeast0]

Vote: Shawn Marion Similar to Nance in that he was a great finisher but not a guy who created his own offense. Also an excellent shotblocker for a forward and a more active player than Nance; particularly when he was with Phoenix. Phoenix didn't miss a beat when Amare went out for the year, replaced by Kurt Thomas and Boris Diaw, as Nash and Marion kept the offensive production high while Marion kept up his job of being all over the court defensively. Even post-prime, as Marion's offensive production greatly slowed, he was still the main defender on LeBron James's epic finals fail during Dallas's title run. Certainly that's on LeBron to a large degree but Marion and the Dallas defense deserves some credit for keeping him down and not letting him turn it around.

I would say more impact than Tony Parker, both career and peak, primarily due to his considerable defensive advantage over Parker.

Alternate Vote Sidney Moncrief -- One of my all time favorites and both a defensive superstar and a tremendous offensive player. However, short prime and greater than average slip in playoff efficiency are problems. Defensively in the playoffs, I remember him just taking Otis Birdsong of New Jersey and Dennis Johnson of Boston completely out of the game when he was in there, but I also remember Andrew Toney making him look very ordinary. Still, don't see anyone else I rank higher of the choices.

Nominate: Bill Sharman Best shooting guard of his era, combined relatively good scoring with relatively good defense for an extended period. Still valuable up into the 60s.

[AEnigma]

VOTE: Tony Parker
Alternate: Shawn Marion
NOMINATION: Kevin Johnson
AltNom: Al Horford

I imagine Trex will do a more thorough analysis later, but just as a cursory point for Tony Parker:

From 2002-2017, the Spurs were +7.7 with a 72.6% win rate with Parker, then +4.4 with a 64.7% win rate without Parker. By win percentage, that is on average — across sixteen seasons! — a shift from a 53-win team to a 59.5-win team. Respectable and valuable over that time span, but I can see why prime-focused people may not care much. So for the prime-focused, seems fair to look at 2006-15 as Parker’s best ten-year split (I think 2015 is slightly out-of-prime but whatever). Over that period, the Spurs are +7.3 with a 71.8% win rate with Parker, then +3.6 with a 62.7% win rate without Parker. Reasonably consistent with the career marks, although slightly higher change in net rating (+3.7) and raw win rate (51.5-win pace to 59-win pace).

Again, not a commendable peak, no… but all the remaining players with high (“weak MVP” or better) peaks have abysmal prime lengths, so give me the guy who spent roughly a decade as a low-end all-star and then added on six useful starter seasons past that.

The best criticism against him is that he might not be an all-star calibre player in the postseason. Reductive to an extent, but he is enough of a faller for me consider it. So then the question becomes, is having a functional but unspectacular point guard for that long worth more than having a pretty good but not great point guard for 60% of the time? At that level of difference, I lean no, but I am not excited about Parker, and I am consequently open to value-based cases for others.

[falcolombardi]

I have not voted here in forever, am i still allowed to vote?

In case i am i am too unsure here, really tempted to go with walton and his two healthy prime seasons over the field but the fragility is so high that if you repeated walton career he may not even have one full season

I am unfamiliar with most of these players, marion is great but i think there are better examples of great D/solid O wings that i could go for

Sidney moncrief by rep should be a similar tier defender to marion and a higher tier on offense

Parker is kind of a nice floor raiser with some playoffs drop, he won a lot in stacked teams where he usually played with generational to super star level player(S) and which were ahead of their competition tactically often enough.

I am unsure who to vote so i may skip this one or think it better later for now i guess i would have to go

1-tony parker, as i am a bit higher on him than marion despite marion probably being a better fit on most contending teams and parker being a not good enough first option (but a solid second guy most likely)

2-shawn marion as just a fantastic All D wing who can score a bit archetype for a decent amount of time

Was really tempted to pull the trigger on walton, would have voted moncrief but i cannot in good conscience vote for a guy i have not watched play yet

Nomination
Horace grant- low end/borderline all star play for a while, seemingly good intangibles, good portability for his era. Also i like him a lot so this is not all that objective and i am unsure who else i could nom

[Samurai]

Vote for #84: Sidney Moncrief. Doesn't have elite longevity but has six strong seasons of prime. Great all around player who impacted the game with his scoring, playmaking, defense and leadership. Also consistently finished in the top 3 in rebounds/game among guards during his prime. Moncrief didn't have a ton of success in the play-offs but he did consistently manage to lead teams to the play-offs and be competitive against stacked 76ers and Celtics teams. Five time all star with five All NBA Team selections (one first team and four seconds). Outstanding defender with five All Defensive Team selections, four of them on the first team.

Alternate vote: Tony Parker. Don't have particularly strong feelings here. Seems like a good but not elite peak with solid longevity and consistency. Six-time all star and four All NBA Team selections (three 2nd teams and one 3rd team).

Nomination: Billy Cunningham. Excellent peak but injuries cut his career short. But his peak was outstanding: MVP (ABA), three-time All NBA First Team, one All ABA First Team, and one All NBA Second Team. Very good rebounder with elite hops (hence his nickname of the Kangaroo Kid), very good passer and solid defender with excellent bbIQ. Career 21.2 point/game scorer. Biggest knock outside of longevity is that he wasn't a good dribbler. But he always played with heart and tenacity with a non-stop motor.

Alternate nomination: Jack Sikma. While the memory I have is that nearly unblockable jump shot that seemed to almost come from behind his head, Sikma was a very good all-around player. Seven time all star. Excellent rebounder, particularly on the defensive glass (led the league in Def Reb% once and finished in the top 5 nine times). Not a shot blocker but an otherwise very solid defender (All Defensive second team in 82). Also a very good screen setter and decent passer for a big.

[Doctor MJ]

I have not voted here in forever, am i still allowed to vote?

Go ahead, I'd just request that if you're back, really try to stick with us down the stretch. Cheers!

[Doctor MJ]

Some other things going on, but wow......really dried up all of a sudden on this thread. Only four posts (at least all of them are votes). This one ends tomorrow morning, too.

trelos brought him up (I've mentioned him as well), but I'm gonna ask an up-front question: are the scandals of his personal life shying some people away from Kevin Johnson as a nominee?
Because I'm honestly surprised he's not even a candidate yet.

On the first, speaking just for myself, I've just been super-busy lately, and while I now have a brief reprieve, it's going to continue for me for a while. In fact I think I'll PM you & beast about something coming up.

On the second:

Yeah, I think KJ is really overdue. Now, for me, I do have Tatum ahead of him so that's why I really haven't been talking about him much, but Tatum aside, I think anyone who hasn't looked at KJ hard in a while should. Frankly, I'd probably have him ahead of Nance who I just gave my #2 vote to.

I think that if there are actual KJ skeptics out there they should speak up, but I feel like for most he just hasn't quite gotten enough attention to get traction yet.

[Doctor MJ]

At this point it's really about who has support so here are players i think would be odd(considering who has been inducted, nomianted, and general case). Would be interested to see if anyone has interest in them.

Marc Gasol
Horace Grant
Luka Doncic
Al Hoford
Jayson Tatum
Hagan


I think it's odd how skewed towards the players drafted in the 60's and 70's this list has been the last two times, so I'm skeptical of more inclusions form there.

In order of preference:
Marc Gasol
Horace Grant
Walton
Luka Doncic
Hagan
Hoford

Smalling voting pool now, so if there's some conensus on some names here, induction can come out of nowhere(lowry)

Thanks for the post Ohayo!

Marc & Al - I really love these guys can could see voting for them over others who become serious candidates, but in neither case do I see their primes as THAT amazing, and so they aren't that high on my list.

Grant - Actually very similar to Marc & Al and have voted for him in the past. I tend to see all 3 guys as underrated, but not THAT underrated. I would say that I think I like Grant the best of the bunch. Grant was a big part of way the Bulls performed so well without Jordan, and the way he later blended in so well with Shaq & Penny and then Shaq & Kobe as an old man really impresses me.

Doncic - No, I really don't see him having a Top 100 career through '22-23. I do think it's important, whatever one's weighting of longevity, to recognize we're judging him after 5 seasons of play, and it's relatively rare for someone who has played that little to make the 100. Jokic made it in the 90s last time, but I would argue that Jokic's accomplishments in his first 5 seasons were significantly ahead of Luka's.

Tatum - Just 6 years, but a really full 6 years. Yes very fortunate in terms of where he landed, but he's been having great playoff success in a major role from his rookie season, and he's the clear cut "man" of the Boston Celtics in this time period, and these Celtics have been the most consistently successful playoff team of the run (nod to Warriors of course for being more accomplished, and interrupted mostly by injury).

Hagan - Hard to know how to advocate for him right now, but I have to emphasize that there's no doubt that he put up huge numbers in the playoffs on a team with more success than all but the Celtics in that period. I don't think it makes sense to look at those numbers as empty, and they are damn impressive.

[Doctor MJ]

Reasonable minds can differ, but I don't have Gasol as clearly the best player on the Grizzlies for that run, and would tend to lean slightly towards Conley over Gasol.

My thoughts are similar if not identical. The question of Gasol makes us think about Conley, and it's really not clear Gasol was better than Conley prime vs prime, and Conley now has the clear longevity edge showing outstanding portability across team.

What I will say is that I think Gasol was the more valuable piece when the Grizz peaked, and this makes me it hard for me to really play contrarian and champion Conley over Gasol, but I don't think it makes sense to rank Gasol way above Conley.

Interestingly all 3 of Horford, Conley & Gasol were from the 2007 draft, and I think the debate between the 3 as the 2nd best player from that draft behind Durant is an outstanding one. I could see them in any order.

[Doctor MJ]

VOTE
[BILL WALTON

CHIP n MVP and swept kareem

Imma nom

Hagan[b]

Idk. i read ppl say he led a team to a title so i guess him.

[b]Hoford

Hey ShaqA, a couple things:

1. Hagan is one of the Nominees list at the start of every thread. If you'd like to vote for Induction, make clear that's what you're doing.

2. Please have the confidence to just vote for guys based on what you think rather than feeling pushed to vote for what others think. It's okay to be wrong, just do your best and ask questions of what you're unsure of.

[Narigo]

Any thoughts on considering Luka Donicic and Jayson Tatum. At this point, Lukas prime is just as long as Sidney Moncrief

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Any thoughts on considering Luka Donicic and Jayson Tatum. At this point, Lukas prime is just as long as Sidney Moncrief

Moncrief currently has nearly 10k more total career minutes than Doncic for RS, and over 2k more total career minutes for PO.

[penbeast0]

Any thoughts on considering Luka Donicic and Jayson Tatum. At this point, Lukas prime is just as long as Sidney Moncrief

I might have Jayson Tatum over Sid. Doncic has defensive issues and Moncrief led Milwaukee to a string of strong second tier seasons, albeit in an era where there were 2-3 superteams (LA, Boston, sometimes Philly) that the Bucks were never that great a threat to (one playoff victory over Boston, to be defeated by Philadelphia).

I haven't seen Doncic's individual brilliance translate as well, he's more like a short prime version of Adrian Dantley in terms of great individual numbers but limited team success. I could certainly make a case for Doncic over Moncrief though; Milwaukee was a deep and reasonably talented team and Dallas during Doncic's career hasn't been as good around him.

[Narigo]

Any thoughts on considering Luka Donicic and Jayson Tatum. At this point, Lukas prime is just as long as Sidney Moncrief

Moncrief currently has nearly 10k more total career minutes than Doncic for RS, and over 2k more total career minutes for PO.

I'm talking about prime seasons. Both Luka and Moncrief have the same amount of prime seasons. Do you think Moncrief role player seasons give him the edge over Luka even though their length of prime is about the same

[eminence]

Moncrief's role player seasons don't hurt. But mostly I just think he was better in prime.

[Doctor MJ]

Any thoughts on considering Luka Donicic and Jayson Tatum. At this point, Lukas prime is just as long as Sidney Moncrief

Moncrief currently has nearly 10k more total career minutes than Doncic for RS, and over 2k more total career minutes for PO.

I'm talking about prime seasons. Both Luka and Moncrief have the same amount of prime seasons. Do you think Moncrief role player seasons give him the edge over Luka even though their length of prime is about the same

To be clear: This project does not include '23-24. So I would argue that for purposes of this project, if we're seeing Year 2 as the breakthrough, then Luka has 4 such seasons to consider. Whereas I think we all agree that Moncrief has 5 such seasons.

Here's a simple number that tends to loom perhaps overly large for me:

How many playoff series did you team win with you as one of the main 5 minutes guys?

Tatum 10
Moncrief 7 (6 during the 5-year prime)
Doncic 1

Of course supporting cast is part of this, but I'd object to the idea that Luka's had an extremely weak supporting cast around him through this time, so while that may mitigate the difference, it doesn't justify ignoring it.

[OhayoKD]

Moncrief currently has nearly 10k more total career minutes than Doncic for RS, and over 2k more total career minutes for PO.

I'm talking about prime seasons. Both Luka and Moncrief have the same amount of prime seasons. Do you think Moncrief role player seasons give him the edge over Luka even though their length of prime is about the same

To be clear: This project does not include '23-24. So I would argue that for purposes of this project, if we're seeing Year 2 as the breakthrough, then Luka has 4 such seasons to consider. Whereas I think we all agree that Moncrief has 5 such seasons.

Here's a simple number that tends to loom perhaps overly large for me:

How many playoff series did you team win with you as one of the main 5 minutes guys?

Tatum 10
Moncrief 7 (6 during the 5-year prime)
Doncic 1

Of course supporting cast is part of this, but I'd object to the idea that Luka's had an extremely weak supporting cast around him through this time, so while that may mitigate the difference, it doesn't justify ignoring it.

The justification comes in who those series came against and their relative competitiveness. There's also the factor of health making playing the clippers close twice more impressive. Whether you want to buy into that sample is another matter, but two close series with a title favorite(close to even with his second best player on the court), and a conference final run with a defending finalist as a victim is pretty strong when you're the only superstar.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm talking about prime seasons. Both Luka and Moncrief have the same amount of prime seasons. Do you think Moncrief role player seasons give him the edge over Luka even though their length of prime is about the same

To be clear: This project does not include '23-24. So I would argue that for purposes of this project, if we're seeing Year 2 as the breakthrough, then Luka has 4 such seasons to consider. Whereas I think we all agree that Moncrief has 5 such seasons.

Here's a simple number that tends to loom perhaps overly large for me:

How many playoff series did you team win with you as one of the main 5 minutes guys?

Tatum 10
Moncrief 7 (6 during the 5-year prime)
Doncic 1

Of course supporting cast is part of this, but I'd object to the idea that Luka's had an extremely weak supporting cast around him through this time, so while that may mitigate the difference, it doesn't justify ignoring it.

The justification comes in who those series came against and their relative competitiveness. There's also the factor of health making playing the clippers close twice more impressive. Whether you want to buy into that sample is another matter, but two close series with a title favorite(close to even with his second best player on the court), and a conference final run with a defending finalist as a victim is pretty strong when you're the only superstar.

Well I'm certainly not saying that I think people super-high on what Luka did as crazy, but for me there's a limit to how much credit I'm going to give you for playing teams tough in the playoffs.

The conference final run is certainly the big moment for Luka so far in his career, but I'll put it this way: I still don't have a year where I see Luka as a Top 5 POY guy, not even in the WCF year (where I have Jokic, Curry, Tatum, Giannis & Jimmy ahead). Moncrief makes my Top 5 3 times.

One can certainly argue that competition now is tough enough that being Top 10 now is better than being Top 5 then, but I think it's pretty understandable why I'd tend to see the guy with the Top 5's as having accomplished more.

[OhayoKD]

To be clear: This project does not include '23-24. So I would argue that for purposes of this project, if we're seeing Year 2 as the breakthrough, then Luka has 4 such seasons to consider. Whereas I think we all agree that Moncrief has 5 such seasons.

Here's a simple number that tends to loom perhaps overly large for me:

How many playoff series did you team win with you as one of the main 5 minutes guys?

Tatum 10
Moncrief 7 (6 during the 5-year prime)
Doncic 1

Of course supporting cast is part of this, but I'd object to the idea that Luka's had an extremely weak supporting cast around him through this time, so while that may mitigate the difference, it doesn't justify ignoring it.

The justification comes in who those series came against and their relative competitiveness. There's also the factor of health making playing the clippers close twice more impressive. Whether you want to buy into that sample is another matter, but two close series with a title favorite(close to even with his second best player on the court), and a conference final run with a defending finalist as a victim is pretty strong when you're the only superstar.

Well I'm certainly not saying that I think people super-high on what Luka did as crazy, but for me there's a limit to how much credit I'm going to give you for playing teams tough in the playoffs.

The conference final run is certainly the big moment for Luka so far in his career, but I'll put it this way: I still don't have a year where I see Luka as a Top 5 POY guy, not even in the WCF year (where I have Jokic, Curry, Tatum, Giannis & Jimmy ahead). Moncrief makes my Top 5 3 times.

One can certainly argue that competition now is tough enough that being Top 10 now is better than being Top 5 then, but I think it's pretty understandable why I'd tend to see the guy with the Top 5's as having accomplished more.

Maybe it's playoff weighting, but I don't really see a good argument against Luka top 5 in 2021 or 2022. If anything i'd be tempted to put him top 3 for both. Feels you have to thread a needle to have jokic and tatum ahead those years.

[Doctor MJ]

The justification comes in who those series came against and their relative competitiveness. There's also the factor of health making playing the clippers close twice more impressive. Whether you want to buy into that sample is another matter, but two close series with a title favorite(close to even with his second best player on the court), and a conference final run with a defending finalist as a victim is pretty strong when you're the only superstar.

Well I'm certainly not saying that I think people super-high on what Luka did as crazy, but for me there's a limit to how much credit I'm going to give you for playing teams tough in the playoffs.

The conference final run is certainly the big moment for Luka so far in his career, but I'll put it this way: I still don't have a year where I see Luka as a Top 5 POY guy, not even in the WCF year (where I have Jokic, Curry, Tatum, Giannis & Jimmy ahead). Moncrief makes my Top 5 3 times.

One can certainly argue that competition now is tough enough that being Top 10 now is better than being Top 5 then, but I think it's pretty understandable why I'd tend to see the guy with the Top 5's as having accomplished more.

Maybe it's playoff weighting, but I don't really see a good argument against Luka top 5 in 2021 or 2022. If anything i'd be tempted to put him top 3 for both. Feels you have to thread a needle to have jokic and tatum ahead those years.

I mean first: Jokic won the MVP in both of those years. You really suggesting it's weird to put him ahead of Doncic? Frankly, I have Jokic ahead of Doncic every single season.

Tatum vs Doncic is of course a major debate, but I'll emphasize:

'20-21 was a year known for Fat Luka. It was a year of disappointment after coming in (for the first time) as the pre-season MVP favorite. The hope that year was not that they'd come close to knocking off a Top 4 seed, but that they'd be a Top 4 seed.

'21-22 I think Luka has a very serious candidate, but I would put the candidates I listed above him. Just discussing Tatum, I do think it needs to be considered that the Celtics were an absolute machine once they got going with Tatum racking up +/- numbers that utterly dwarfed any teammate (or anyone else for that matter).

Regular season Celtics:
Tatum +667
Brown +453
Smart +443

This is the type of gap that makes it awfully hard for me to look at the Celtics as the ensemble cast it's often portrayed as.

Now, is Tatum's scoring game as resilient as Luka's? No, and that makes it more debatable who the better player is when the chips are down, but Tatum is also an excellent 2-way player and that shouldn't be dismissed lightly.