Create best player under 6'10 (read rules)

[Owly]

Iverson hurled himself at defenders in the paint and bombed from 20 feet. If Muggsy had been given similar.freedom to score inefficiently in volume, he would have been a lot closer to AI's scoring volume.

I'm one of those who feel Iverson was not a top 100 NBA player but Muggsy was 9 inches shorter than Iverson (though more solidly built). That's the difference between Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard. You can give him the green light, change his mentality to take it, and he's still not getting those shots off at an Iverson rate or efficiency.

I'm pretty comfortable that if you gave Muggsy 27.8 FGA/g, he could manage a 48.9% TS while shooting sub-40% FG on over 30% of those attempts, man.

In the environment Iverson did?

If the league norm is circa .520 and matching Iverson's efficiency means taking on 37.8 usage percentage ... Iversons TS+ is 94 that year, the 2nd worst of his prime.

Bogues' career TS+ was 95 off a 13.9 usage percentage. So off his career numbers he needs to 2.7x his usage and stay ... basically the same league relative efficiency (to match one of Iverson's weaker efficiency, though highest volume, years).

In terms of starter adjacent minute years his best for efficiency are '95 and '90 at 98 TS+. Those years are at 16.6 and 13.5 usage percentage.

I don't particularly rate Iverson that highly. But thinking Bogues can scale up that much offense with very little efficiency leeway. Even if you mean in the present league (and that isn't noted and isn't a fair comp) ... it's hard to see.

Even Michael Adams a scoring 1, with a three point shot and seven inches on Muggsy, given the green light to gun in an outlier year peaks at 28.5 usage. I don't really see anyone that small getting to that usage and Bogues didn't have that range or aggression and needed more airspace to fire.

[tsherkin]

I don't particularly rate Iverson that highly. But thinking Bogues can scale up that much offense with very little efficiency leeway. Even if you mean in the present league (and that isn't noted and isn't a fair comp) ... it's hard to see.

8.4 jumpers from 16+ feet. 4.5 3PA/g at 29.1%. 56.4% inside 3 feet against a league average of 60.5%.

Efficiency 3.1% WORSE than league average?

I think it's possible. You can argue whether or not it's likely, and that makes sense to me, but I don't think the difference in height matters much given how much Iverson was bombing poorly from distance and failing around the basket.

[Owly]

I don't particularly rate Iverson that highly. But thinking Bogues can scale up that much offense with very little efficiency leeway. Even if you mean in the present league (and that isn't noted and isn't a fair comp) ... it's hard to see.

8.4 jumpers from 16+ feet. 4.5 3PA/g at 29.1%. 56.4% inside 3 feet against a league average of 60.5%.

Efficiency 3.1% WORSE than league average?

I think it's possible. You can argue whether or not it's likely, and that makes sense to me, but I don't think the difference in height matters much given how much Iverson was bombing poorly from distance and failing around the basket.

Except as noted even versus the second least efficient year of Iverson's prime cited ... Bogues trended barely more efficient on a fraction of the usage.

If Bogues could have upped his usage that much for that little tradeoff he should have gone a lot closer to it. Not least because it would have stopped guys playing the pass because they surely knew that was very much what he was looking to do.

[tsherkin]

Except as noted even versus the second least efficient year of Iverson's prime cited ... Bogues trended barely more efficient on a fraction of the usage.

If Bogues could have upped his usage that much for that little tradeoff he should have gone a lot closer to it. Not least because it would have stopped guys playing the pass because they surely knew that was very much what he was looking to do.

You assume teams were gonna give him the chance to see. Given his height and the league norms at the time, that wasn't really going to happen.

Again, I'm not gonna die on the hill that he 100% COULD have matched AI's output... but high-volume AI was not good. That was a bad strategy and they only won when they also had a monster defense backing their bleh offense. So...

[SlimShady83]

1. Jason Williams for entertainment purposes
2. Kobe Bryant Idol

[Owly]

Except as noted even versus the second least efficient year of Iverson's prime cited ... Bogues trended barely more efficient on a fraction of the usage.

If Bogues could have upped his usage that much for that little tradeoff he should have gone a lot closer to it. Not least because it would have stopped guys playing the pass because they surely knew that was very much what he was looking to do.

You assume teams were gonna give him the chance to see. Given his height and the league norms at the time, that wasn't really going to happen.

Again, I'm not gonna die on the hill that he 100% COULD have matched AI's output... but high-volume AI was not good. That was a bad strategy and they only won when they also had a monster defense backing their bleh offense. So...

1) I would argue your assumption that Bogues had a capacity - one that presumably was either visible in practice or held back by coaches even there - never showcased it in games is a substantially greater leap (than player could more than have 2.5xed scoring volume with circa no effect on efficiency). And as before it's not like he's got a bunch of efficiency to play with before it gets really ugly giving someone big volume. The idea isn't perfect (or could be used badly) but the broad idea of Oliver's skill curves makes sense and for this to work as you suggest Bogues would have to have the flattest ever, able to shoot circa 94 TS+ at either 14% or 38% uage.

I think it would have to have been held back at Wake Forest too, since his scoring rate there is 4th among rotation players on the team in both his Junior and Senior years despite teammates not being names I recognize as pros, and despite playing against weaker competition with less size.

2) Not sure where the AI side is going or what you're arguing with. For my part I've been clear I'm on the skeptical side of the norm on Iverson. I guess it depends how far you're going with "not good" and whether you're talking relative to his star/accolade status or relative to actual league average and saying he's not in the positive.


But I don't think this is going anywhere so would presently be inclined to leave it here.

[tsherkin]

1) I would argue your assumption that Bogues had a capacity - one that presumably was either visible in practice or held back by coaches even there - never showcased it in games is a substantially greater leap (than player could more than have 2.5xed scoring volume with circa no effect on efficiency). And as before it's not like he's got a bunch of efficiency to play with before it gets really ugly giving someone big volume. The idea isn't perfect (or could be used badly) but the broad idea of Oliver's skill curves makes sense and for this to work as you suggest Bogues would have to have the flattest ever, able to shoot circa 94 TS+ at either 14% or 38% uage.

I hear you. And we're talking about a guy who never scored 12 ppg. Honestly, though, I think the larger issue would be his defense. I don't see a huge issue with inefficiently bombing from a distance in terms of his ability to do so. And we ARE talking about him doing it 2, 2.5% worse in raw TS% or so than his career average, or worse. I can appreciate that there's a pile which goes into shot creation beyond just the end result, and that's probably the space where the greatest challenge would be in terms of him getting up his shots. And then probably playing another 10+ mpg, as AI played 43.7 mpg the year that he lofted almost 28 FGA/g.

But I also think there's a restriction on what's reasonable for a team to deal with much more than Muggsy's height or shot creation abilities were the major limitation. He had the handle, and the result of the shooting in Iverson's case was not particularly good, so it's not as if Bogues had to wildly outperform his norm in terms of percentages to match that component.

For a single season, on a team with no other option, in that specific era, I think it's possible.