RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #65

[trex_8063]

1. Michael Jordan
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Lebron James
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Magic Johnson
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Larry Bird
11. Kobe Bryant
12. Kevin Garnett
13. Oscar Robertson
14. Karl Malone
15. Jerry West
16. Julius Erving
17. Dirk Nowitzki
18. David Robinson
19. Charles Barkley
20. Moses Malone
21. John Stockton
22. Dwyane Wade
23. Chris Paul
24. Bob Pettit
25. George Mikan
26. Steve Nash
27. Patrick Ewing
28. Kevin Durant
29. Stephen Curry
30. Scottie Pippen
31. John Havlicek
32. Elgin Baylor
33. Clyde Drexler
34. Rick Barry
35. Gary Payton
36. Artis Gilmore
37. Jason Kidd
38. Walt Frazier
39. Isiah Thomas
40. Kevin McHale
41. George Gervin
42. Reggie Miller
43. Paul Pierce
44. Dwight Howard
45. Dolph Schayes
46. Bob Cousy
47. Ray Allen
48. Pau Gasol
49. Wes Unseld
50. Robert Parish
51. Russell Westbrook
52. Alonzo Mourning
53. Dikembe Mutombo
54. Manu Ginobili
55. Chauncey Billups
56. Willis Reed
57. Bob Lanier
58. Allen Iverson
59. Adrian Dantley
60. Dave Cowens
61. Elvin Hayes
62. Dominique Wilkins
63. Vince Carter
64. Alex English
65. ???

Go....

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[penbeast0]

Some names that have gathered support, Sam Jones, Hal Greer, Nate Thurmond, Bill Walton, Sidney Moncrief, Kevin Johnson, and James Harden. OF that group:

Moncrief is my favorite though his window is so friggin short, but he basically took a similarly talented Milwaukee team farther than Nique ever took Atlanta even beating Bird's Celtics superteam before running into the fo fo fo Sixers. Probably the best man defender on the perimeter of all time; Jordan, when fired up played at that level but Moncrief played at it consistently. And, a terrific offensive player capable of going for 20ppg without being a featured iso star. (Which to me is harder than scoring 25ppg on a team that builds its offense to feature you.) Not a player that ever showed much of a 3 point shot but his ability to draw fouls on opposing big men is something that the Iverson fans were talking about previously so his very high foul draw would tend to counterbalance that. KJ was very very good, though not as dominant as Moncrief in my book and also with injury problems though his allowed him to play for a lot more years, even if many of them were interrupted. Walton just didn't play enough for me to list him in any top 100 careers though his peak was terrific.

Harden is the biggest game changer, his offense is brutally efficient, but his defense is just brutal. Not a fan of players who only worked hard when they had the ball in their hands, no matter how good they were, thus not a big fan of the Bear(no D) but to be honest, he's probably the best player here individually. The only question is how hard a team is willing to work on defense when they see their star taking that side of the ball off and whether that puts a ceiling on how good the team is capable of being (absent an ATG coach who can install that defensive effort anyway as Larry Brown did in Philly).

Sam Jones is the best second option, think he has an edge on contemporary Hal Greer with his efficiency and playoff performances. Greer was the one with more accolades though possibly it was more just about the PPG and a lesser emphasis on how efficient that scoring was and how it integrated into the team game plus of course those accolades are regular season. Although Sam's defense was not special, what we have for numbers and watching what limited games we have makes him willing and not clueless. And, he (and before him Frank Ramsey) turned into something special in the playoffs quite frequently. You can't doubt that a team can win big and win consistently with Sam Jones as their second star.

Thurmond suffers from the opposite problem. His defense, particularly his man defense, was outstanding; his rebounding terrific. But his offense was putrid. He fell in love with his mediocre jumper and frequently not even when he was in post position with the offense revolving around it. He shot too much and too badly in his prime and his passing was not particularly good either. Again, his defense and rebounding make him a strong consideration but I am far from sure I have him ahead of Mel Daniels (big frog in a small puddle but with 2MVPs and 3 titles, 2 as the best player) or Bob McAdoo (weaker league in the 70s but won MVP over Kareem and did it seemingly playing out of position mainly at the C when he was clearly physically outmatched . . . sort of the Amare Stoudamire of his day with more defense but more openly discussed team issues and lack of team success).

Overall, switching up a bit on reflection and going:

Vote: James Harden
Alternate: Sam Jones

[trex_8063]

1st vote: Tracy McGrady

I'm very very big on meaningful longevity, and McGrady suffers in comparison to many other candidates on the basis of his longevity/durability--->more the durability than the longevity. He did play 15+ seasons (though only seven of them prime-level, 2 others were relatively "near-prime", and he was at least marginally useful in all the others)......that's OK in terms of longevity; he did miss large chunks of multiple seasons, though (so durability is certainly an issue).

If not for this, I'd have supported him earlier. With the exception of Bill Walton, Tracy McGrady is [imo] the best peak [and best average level during prime] left on the table (and obviously his longevity/durability soundly trounces Walton's).

While WS/48 doesn't rate him overly generous, the other rate metrics do. In a decent length career (938 rs games, >30,000 rs minutes), TMac has the 31st highest career PER of all-time (in NBA/ABA combined); he has the 12th-best career playoff PER of all-time. He has the 26th-best rs BPM of all-time (or since 1973, I should say), 15th-best playoff BPM.
He's also 49th all-time in MVP award shares, fwiw.

Impact data doesn't exactly love him (but it doesn't rate him poorly either). Spreadsheet I have which compiled data for many notable players from the following sources:
*colts18's rs-only APM for '94-'96
**ascreamingcomesacrossthecourt RAPM for '97-'00 (NPI for '97, PI otherwise)
***shutupandjam RAPM for '01-'07 (NPI for '01, PI otherwise)
****GotBuckets? PI RAPM for '08-'14
*****JE's google sheets PI RAPM for '15-'17

......from those, TMac's best 7 years combined is extremely similar to that of the following players who are off the table: Gary Payton (#35), Dwight Howard (#44), Ray Allen (#47), Reggie Miller (#42), and Russell Westbrook (#51).

Come on people! I don't think anyone values longevity more than I, and yet I'd still suggest #65 is probably past time for TMac. I'm pretty dead-set on him as my top pick anyway.
Also just noted McGrady went #48 in the last project. There are only 2-3 current players who have surpassed him since; so I'd suggest either we [somewhat drastically] overrated him in that project, or we're on the verge of significantly underrating him in this one (or possibly a little bit of both).


2nd vote: Nate Thurmond
Yes, too many shots on poor shooting efficiency, but I do allow he's unlikely to take so many "poor" shots in any later era (when coaches and basketball minds in general had smartened up a bit). I'd also speculate (as Outside did in prior threads) that his willingness (and modest ability) to shoot from 12-16 feet forces the opposing PF/C out of the paint (I actually did see an example of this in game from '64).
He was decent in his low-post game (nice little jump-hook anyway), and arguably an underrated passer.

Anyway, that's about as far as I can argue his offense. Suffice to say I feel he's perhaps maligned slightly more here than is justified, but nonetheless obviously offense is not where the lion's share of his value and impact come from.

Defensively, reputation (statements from the likes of Wilt and Kareem) and my own H2H studies have led me to conclude he's the greatest low-post man defender of all-time.
He appears to be a very relevant rim-protecting presence, too: I'm basing this on a little eye-test, reputation (statements made by himself, as well as various teammates, Wilt, etc), and the fact that he avg 3.4 blocks/100 possessions from '74-'77 (all on the wrong side of age 32, mostly post-prime years).
And from the games I've watched, I like what I see (especially relative to era-norms) in terms of pnr defense (even as late as 1975).

The little we have in terms of impact indicators is compelling:
With/without records
'63 Warriors (before Thurmond): 31-49
‘64: 46-30 (.605) with, 2-2 (.500) without (48-32 overall: +17 wins from prior year, with majority roster overlap; addition of Thurmond and new [better] coach in Alex Hannum were the primary changes; ALL of that improvement happened on the defensive end, btw)
‘65: 17-60 (.221) with, 0-3 (.000) without
‘66: 33-40 (.452) with, 2-5 (.286) without
‘67: 38-27 (.585) with, 6-10 (.375) without
‘68: 32-19 (.627) with, 11-20 (.355) without
‘69: 38-33 (.535) with, 3-8 (.273) without
‘70: 21-22 (.488) with, 9-30 (.231) without
‘71: 41-41 (.500) with, 0-0 without
‘72: 49-29 (.628) with, 2-2 (.500) without
‘73: 46-33 (.582) with, 1-2 (.333) without
‘74: 35-27 (.565) with, 9-11 (.450) without
‘75: 45-35 (.563) with, 2-0 (1.000) without
‘76: 46-32 (.590) with, 0-2 (.000) without
‘77: 27-22 (.551) with, 16-17 (.485) without

Rates out very well in Elgee's WOWY studies, too (though I've previously questioned methodology there).


HM for me is Kevin Johnson.

[pandrade83]

This is a partial copy/paste of my last comment - but I'm not sure what to say anymore. We keep taking players who were objectively quite a bit worse because of a prime that lasted a year or two longer (in McGrady's case), or because we loathe them stylistically (in Harden's case).

Put your GM hat on for a second. There are so few guys left who are capable of leading a strong team in their prime/in the MVP conversation. That's worth so much more than a role player, or a guy who was an outstanding D anchor but was a major drag offensively, or any one of the limited dimensional characters likely to come up. We're at slot 65.

I'm barely taking Harden over Tmac. I can tell by the posts that many of you are subjectively disappointed with Harden's style. I'm right there with you. I hate the flopping. I hate the lack of effort on D. He's my least favorite truly elite player in the league to watch. But he is a truly elite player and he's doing it in a pretty strong era in the better conference. The tiebreaker in Harden's favor for me is that he has 2 seasons that are rougly equal to McGrady's peak - and McGrady's other prime seasons - while outstanding - are not on the same level as that '03 year.

Nomination: James Harden
Alternate: Tracy McGrady

[penbeast0]

...
Put your GM hat on for a second. There are so few guys left who are capable of leading a strong team in their prime/in the MVP conversation. ...

Mel Daniels? 2 MVPs, 3 Titles, basically Zo with better rebounding and less shotblocking in a much weaker league with a shorter career (which is why he's not being talked about either but he should be even if I don't have him here yet). Sidney Moncrief? If you are don't care much about longevity, there are still some powerful candidates.

[pandrade83]

I'm not as impressed with Daniels. His best work came before the ABA became at parity or arguably better than the NBA. And the sample size obviously isn't great, but I haven't been very impressed with his game clips from YouTube.

Moncrief on the other hand - very impressive. I wish he had 1-2 more high impact years. The video backs it up too - I watched one of the playoff games against rookie Jordan (obviously not as powerful as prime Jordan but a very dangerous player nonetheless) and walked away thinking "this guy is a really high caliber player".

Anyway - after Harden/McGrady get in, I'm looking at KJ, McAdoo, Moncrief as my next 3 in. I view those 3 as more or less equals.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #6:

James Harden - 2 (pandrade83, penbeast0)
Tracy McGrady - 1 (trex_8063)


Though the exact time will be in penbeast0's hands (I'll be unavailable), I'd anticipate this one going to runoff in ~24 hours.

Spoiler:

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[trex_8063]

This is a partial copy/paste of my last comment - but I'm not sure what to say anymore. We keep taking players who were objectively quite a bit worse because of a prime that lasted a year or two longer (in McGrady's case), or because we loathe them stylistically (in Harden's case).

Put your GM hat on for a second. There are so few guys left who are capable of leading a strong team in their prime/in the MVP conversation.

What about Sidney Moncrief? Or Kawhi Leonard (if the "prime that lasted a year or two longer" doesn't really matter to you)? Or if I REALLY want to stretch that parentheses line of reasoning, how about Bill Walton?
Or even Kevin Johnson (finished as high as 7th in the MVP, twice in the top 8, and led solid near-contender level teams BEFORE Barkley arrived)?

wrt to TMac/Harden......personally I think '03 McGrady is the single best player season between the two of them. I'd agree the next two best are '15 and '17 Harden. Though imo, I think McGrady likely has three of the next 4-5 best ('02, '04, '05).

I guess I also disagree slightly on how forgivable Harden's inept and disinterested defense is.

[Owly]

This is a partial copy/paste of my last comment - but I'm not sure what to say anymore. We keep taking players who were objectively quite a bit worse because of a prime that lasted a year or two longer (in McGrady's case), or because we loathe them stylistically (in Harden's case).

Put your GM hat on for a second. There are so few guys left who are capable of leading a strong team in their prime/in the MVP conversation.

What about Sidney Moncrief? Or Kawhi Leonard (if the "prime that lasted a year or two longer" doesn't really matter to you)? Or if I REALLY want to stretch that parentheses line of reasoning, how about Bill Walton?
Or even Kevin Johnson (finished as high as 7th in the MVP, twice in the top 8, and led solid near-contender level teams BEFORE Barkley arrived)?

wrt to TMac/Harden......personally I think '03 McGrady is the single best player season between the two of them. I'd agree the next two best are '15 and '17 Harden. Though imo, I think McGrady likely has three of the next 4-5 best ('02, '04, '05).

I guess I also disagree slightly on how forgivable Harden's inept and disinterested defense is.

Wouldn't call KJ's Suns "near contender level", I'd say they were there. In SRS terms they strung together a three year run of: 6.84 (2nd in '89, 76th all-time); 7.09 (1st in '90, 67th all-time); 6.49 (4th in '91, 92nd all-time).

FWIW, and obviously this is an arbitrary cutoff (and some defending champs don't max out the next RS, Suns seasons are all in the bottom half of the top 100 etc ...), other teams with 3 straight top 100 SRS seasons are:

'71-'74 Bucks (could be counted as two runs 71-73 and 72-74)
'85-'87 Celtics
'85-'87 Lakers
'90-'92 Trail Blazers
'93-'97 Supersonics (here, a five year streak could be counted as three runs)
'96-'98 Bulls
'04-'07 Spurs (four years, could be seen as 2 runs)
'12-'14 Thunder
'15-'17 Warriors

Those Suns obviously weren't as good as most of these teams but it does make clear, if top 100 SRS label didn't do so enough by itself, that being top 100 isn't easy - that doing so is a sign of a contender.

[trex_8063]

This is a partial copy/paste of my last comment - but I'm not sure what to say anymore. We keep taking players who were objectively quite a bit worse because of a prime that lasted a year or two longer (in McGrady's case), or because we loathe them stylistically (in Harden's case).

Put your GM hat on for a second. There are so few guys left who are capable of leading a strong team in their prime/in the MVP conversation.

What about Sidney Moncrief? Or Kawhi Leonard (if the "prime that lasted a year or two longer" doesn't really matter to you)? Or if I REALLY want to stretch that parentheses line of reasoning, how about Bill Walton?
Or even Kevin Johnson (finished as high as 7th in the MVP, twice in the top 8, and led solid near-contender level teams BEFORE Barkley arrived)?

wrt to TMac/Harden......personally I think '03 McGrady is the single best player season between the two of them. I'd agree the next two best are '15 and '17 Harden. Though imo, I think McGrady likely has three of the next 4-5 best ('02, '04, '05).

I guess I also disagree slightly on how forgivable Harden's inept and disinterested defense is.

Wouldn't call KJ's Suns "near contender level", I'd say they were there.

I allowed the "near" modifier to protect myself from any unnecessary semantic flame-outs (knowing some would probably not endorse the label for a team that didn't make it to the finals). But yeah, I def agree. By way of plugging for KJ, I'll elaborate......

'89: 55 wins and +6.84 SRS. Go 7-1 in first two rounds of the playoffs to get to the WCF. Lose 4-0 to a tough Laker team in WCF, though should be noted they didn't lose a single game by more than 8 pts.

'90: 54 wins, +7.09 SRS (best in league, as you mentioned). Go 6 games with a very good Trailblazer team in the WCF, and actually outscored the Blazers 34 points in the series: they won their two games by 34 and 12, respectively. They lost their four games by a combined 12 points. That series was just a few points away from being a 4-0 sweep for the Suns. KJ, fwiw, avg 21.8 ppg and 11.3 apg @ 60.8% TS, 3.7 topg in it.


Those were both contender-level teams to me. '91, perhaps less so, though 55 wins and +6.49 SRS is nothing to sneeze at.

[pandrade83]

This is a partial copy/paste of my last comment - but I'm not sure what to say anymore. We keep taking players who were objectively quite a bit worse because of a prime that lasted a year or two longer (in McGrady's case), or because we loathe them stylistically (in Harden's case).

Put your GM hat on for a second. There are so few guys left who are capable of leading a strong team in their prime/in the MVP conversation.

What about Sidney Moncrief? Or Kawhi Leonard (if the "prime that lasted a year or two longer" doesn't really matter to you)? Or if I REALLY want to stretch that parentheses line of reasoning, how about Bill Walton?
Or even Kevin Johnson (finished as high as 7th in the MVP, twice in the top 8, and led solid near-contender level teams BEFORE Barkley arrived)?

wrt to TMac/Harden......personally I think '03 McGrady is the single best player season between the two of them. I'd agree the next two best are '15 and '17 Harden. Though imo, I think McGrady likely has three of the next 4-5 best ('02, '04, '05).

I guess I also disagree slightly on how forgivable Harden's inept and disinterested defense is.

Longevity matters.

And Sid/KJ are amongst the next 3 I'll be advocating for after the Harden/McGrady saga ends.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #11:

James Harden - 2 (pandrade83, penbeast0)
Tracy McGrady - 1 (trex_8063)


I know it's a holiday weekend in the US, so likely that has something to do with it. But with ~16 hours left to runoff, the vote still stands thus....

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[JordansBulls]

Vote: Tracy Mcgrady one of the greatest wing peaks of all time, a 2x scoring champion and just played more in an era where more top tier players were in there peak. Played when Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, Dirk all the same year when all were in there primes. Tough to get far at that time.

[dhsilv2]

Vote Tracy McGrady

7x all nba, imo 03 is the best non Harden peak left. No real weaknesses in his game, elite passing skill (pretty solid court vision), better than average defense at his peak, overall and average defender. VORP, WS, and PER numbers all checkout at this level as well. Strong playoff performer, but never had enough to get past better team.

James harden

2 years from now we'll be looking at this as a massive under rating, but his longevity and lack of any major accomplishments has pushed him here for here. Still he has the all NBA's, 3 straight MVP considerations. I think he'll be 10-20 spots higher after this season for me, but for now here he is.

[Dr Positivity]

Vote Sam Jones

2nd: Hal Greer

I like these two guys for long, very good careers over the shorter peaks. After thinking about it I favor Sam Jones over Greer for being one of the most clutch players in history. https://prohoopshistory.net/2013/08/20/sam-jones-in-the-clutch/

Some of his elimination game performances:

62 - Game 6 vs Lakers: 35 pts (17-27)

63 - Game 7 vs Royals: 47 pts (18-27)
63 - Game 5 vs Lakers: 36 pts (13-24)

64 - Game 4 vs Royals: 33 pts (13-25)

65 - Game 7 vs Sixers: 37 pts (15-31)

66 - Game 4 vs Royals: 32 pts (12-19)
66 - Game 5 vs Royals: 35 pts (15-29)

67 - Game 4 vs Knicks: 51 pts (19-30). In game 1 of this series Jones had 38 on 15-18
67 - Game 4 vs Sixers: 32 pts. (13-28)

68 - Game 5 vs Sixers: 37 pts (15-27)

Much like how Harden's game has to be judged not just by regular season but playoffs, it's possible Sam Jones had more skill than his regular season stats show when he was playing an unselfish team role, and in the playoffs some of his talent broke through.

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Tracy McGrady

Vote 2 - Bob McAdoo

Simply put, mcgrady is one of the most uniquely talented players the league has seen. He had the length and size to play a true inside out game, the ball handling to create for himself and others from anywhere on the court, and finishing ability right up there with vince, who was recently voted in. He was also able to protect the ball very well considering how much it was in his hands. The only players with a higher usage rate and lower TO rate all time are jordan and nique.

To me he's unfairly ridiculed for the first round exits as he routinely performed to the best of his ability. Rarely did his teams face an objectively weaker opponent, and he and yao couldn't sync up often enough health-wise. The fact remains that some players are just more fortunate than others when it comes to teammates throughout their careers. This cannot be ignored.

[janmagn]

I want to revisit Walton, who hasn't been getting any votes yet. I think he really deserves go here. His longevity might be really lacking, but his peak was amazing. In '77 he averaged 19/14/4 with 3.2 blocks per game and in '78 averaged 19/13/5 with 2.5 blocks per game. I mean, who else can give those numbers? He also continued to post those numbers in the playoffs, averaging 18/15/6 with 3.4 blocks per game in '77 playoffs on his way to a championship and Finals MVP.

Let's look his numbers against some of the best centers of his era, guys who already have been voted in and some that are getting attention.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: In '77 averaged 24/21/5 with 3.3bpg, shot .519FG% in RS; held Kareem to 25/12/2 with .508FG% shooting; Portland sweeps the Lakers in the playoffs
Artis Gilmore: In '77 24/18/2 against Gilmore
Wes Unseld: In '77 22/18/4 against Unseld
Bob Lanier: In '77 16/15 against Lanier
Dave Cowens: In '77 10/13/7 in 30mpg against Cowens
Bob McAdoo: In '77 18/16/5 with 5.5bpg against McAdoo

Yeah, his stats drop a little against the biggest stars. However, I think any of these guys stats drop when playing against each other, as shown there with Kareem.

5 years ago here at RealGM you guys did a Peaks Project and Walton was #12. I think a guy whose peak is rated here better than Kobe's, DRob's or Dirk's to be this low is ridicolous. His longevity lacks, but his per 36 stats didn't drop that much after the injuries.



Vote: Bill Walton
2nd vote: Sidney Moncrief

[penbeast0]

...Vote: Bill Walton
2nd vote: Sidney Moncrief

The problem I have with Walton is that his injuries hurt Portland and San Diego, so much. Coming into the league Walton's people demanded that he be the highest played player in basketball (above Kareem) and he was always very highly compensated, signing a big free agent contract with San Diego despite his injuries in Portland. So his teams were always build around him and when he went down, as he always did, you were left with a team built around him that fell apart. If he didn't go down with injury EVERY YEAR BUT ONE in his prime (he did come back for that one magical playoff run that everyone loves but otherwise), maybe, but he hurt his teams badly and consistently for almost a decade.

Compare to Sidney Moncrief, Grant Hill, or a similar star who also suffered serious injury and were not able to play consistently at a high level afterwards. They still gave their teams a good 5 year run of superb play (rather than just one) and after their injury accepted a role as a lesser player with the teams planning and utilizing them as such. Thus they didn't hurt their teams except for that one or two years after the injury.

[dhsilv2]

Walton couldn't play a full season in his prime. Really hard for me to justify taking him anywhere in this project with that. 2 time allstar is just not enough for me.

[pandrade83]

I don't think Walton is a subject for me until the final 5-10 spots. It's really all about that '77 season The peak is amazing - Top 15/20 or so.

But we tend to put the playoff performance vs. Kareem a little too high.

Kareem : 30/16/4/4 - 66% TS
Walton: 19/15/6/2 - 51% TS

Not to say Walton didn't play well - but it's really hard to say he outplayed Kareem even under the most favorable lens.