Bad Luck or Wrong Reputation

[Special_Puppy]

How many seasons do we think each of these guys were top 7 players in the league?

[ronnymac2]

How much do you think their teams' playoff struggles were due to bad luck versus not being as individually great as expected?

Their teams' playoff struggles throughout each of their prolonged primes were entirely because they faced superior teams in the playoffs. Like, should any iteration of Nique's Hawks have been the favorite against Boston or Detroit? Can anybody here even name three of Alex English's teammates from 1983-1989 without going on bball-reference? You think Vince Carter should have gotten through Shaq and the Heat with Nenad Krstic as his center?

Aldridge was supposed to be part of a dynastic core until his two comrades went down w/ injury, and he still made do pretty well all things considered. Carmelo probably had the best string of consistently "good" supporting casts around him for the first decade of his career, so maybe his teams' playoff struggles could in concert w/ Melo's struggles.

But for the other guys, their individual playoff "struggles" come down to this: they're generally facing superior teams in the playoffs vs. the REG SEA, and those teams can game plan to slow you down, AND your team is inferior, which generally means that when the opposition game plans to slow you down, your team doesn't have another counterattack aside from letting you continue doing what you're doing.

[trex_8063]

How many seasons do we think each of these guys were top 7 players in the league?

Vince Carter - '01, but perhaps no other season.


LaMarcus Aldridge - As bullish as I am on him, I don't think he was EVER a top-7 player. Fringe top-10 at best, I think (maybe as high as 8-9 once???). Most years of his prime he was somewhere between 10-20 (maybe a couple prime years more like 22nd).


Dominique Wilkins - On some lists I made a few years back, I tentatively had right at #7 in '87. Had him just a bit outside at #9 in '88. At a glance, I don't think I'd have him top-7 in '86 or '89 (though hadn't got around to making lists for those years). I did all of the 90s, and I thought he might have made the cut in one of the early 90s seasons (especially '93, where he didn't drop off as hard in the playoffs)......but looking at my lists, I didn't have him higher than #10 [in '93] (had him 12th and 14th, respectively, in '90 and '91; outside the top 20 in '92 and '94).
So I guess only one season ['87] for me, though pretty [very?] close in '88 and '93 (probably in '89, as well). May well have been top-10 in each of those seasons.


Allen Iverson - Maybe never, honestly. Even in '01, my tentative list from some years ago had him only 9th. He was perhaps somewhere around there again in '06. '05 and '08 also good seasons, but I'm not sure any of them are top-7 worthy. A bunch of guys were really frickin' good during that span: Duncan, Garnett, Nash, Kobe, Nowitzki, Shaq [thru '05 anyway], and then add Wade and LeBron by '06. Elton Brand was sort of outlier [in his career] awesome in '06, Gasol was pretty awesome in '08. Plus you had Gilbert Arenas doing some amazing things in some of those years, Yao Ming and maybe Tracy McGrady (when injuries allowed), too. Manu Ginobili had some outstanding years in those mid-late 00s, as well.
There were some other secondary/tertiary stars who had some REALLY good years in that '05-'08 range, too (Shawn Marion, Andrei Kirilenko, Amare Stoudemire, Paul Pierce).

Top 7 was a really tough nut to crack in any of those years; I kinda don't think Iverson ever did. Probably '01 is the only year you can maybe make a case.


Alex English - Maybe once or twice in the '83-'85 range? I'd have to take a closer look; he appears to be at least right on the cusp.


Carmelo Anthony - I think probably once in '13.

[f4p]

Carmelo probably had the best string of consistently "good" supporting casts around him for the first decade of his career, so maybe his teams' playoff struggles could in concert w/ Melo's struggles.

while carmelo's teams would have been better with a better #1 than carmelo, his playoff results are mostly just the result of facing teams way better than him as well. like the 13 teams he lost to had an average SRS of 5.6 and carmelo never played for a team above 4.15 (which actually wasn't the 2009 team). he only ended his career with 0.12 expected championships.

[tsherkin]

Carmelo probably had the best string of consistently "good" supporting casts around him for the first decade of his career, so maybe his teams' playoff struggles could in concert w/ Melo's struggles.

while carmelo's teams would have been better with a better #1 than carmelo, his playoff results are mostly just the result of facing teams way better than him as well. like the 13 teams he lost to had an average SRS of 5.6 and carmelo never played for a team above 4.15 (which actually wasn't the 2009 team). he only ended his career with 0.12 expected championships.

Yeah, I touched on this a little bit earlier. Lots of Spurs and Kobe/Pau Lakers, as well as the 04 Wolves. They did also get punked by the Jazz, and he usually didn't play that well, and wasn't really a tier-1 player at any point in his career. He did work well with a proper game manager and playmaker like Billups, but a lot of that was Billups scoring. It isn't like he didn't play with Andre Miller prior to that, after all, right?

Part of the problem is that his teams weren't good enough in the RS to seed in a way where they didn't face the best competition right away. That is also worth consideration.