Primary: Grant Hill
Alternate: Kevin JohnsonGrant Hill has better longevity than you think; he has 100 WS & 35 K minutes.
He has a really stellar 6 year run in Detroit where he averages 22-8-6 on 54% TS in an era where 51-52 was the norm and those numbers include his rookie year. Bringing him into the KJ/McAdoo/Sid comparison, he has the best 5 year unweighted BPM Score (5.7) and a PER on par with McAdoo (23.2 vs. 23.5). His 5 year WS (pro-rating '99) is 59. He has limited playoff data to go off of and he never got out of the 1st round in Detroit.
Detroit was miserable the year before he joined - 26/27 on SRS, winning 20 games. It was also their last year with Isiah. They jump up to 28 wins. The next year, Hill & Houston improve - and these are your two best players. Detroit wins 46 games and gets swept by Orlando. Hill plays great - 19-7-4 on 60% TS - the team is just way overmatched.
In '97 the team wins 54 games as Hill is a true offensive anchor and has a magnificent season. he gets 21-9-7 while also getting 2.4 combined stl/blk. He owns the Point Forward role on a team where a post-prime Joe Dumars & Otis Thorpe are your next best players & anchors the Pistons to #5 in Orating. They lose to the Hawks in a miserable series that no one should watch. Hill plays fine.
They lose Thorpe the next year & Dumars is cooked at this point - it's a garbage team surrounding Hill & they miss the playoffs. In '99, he drags the Pistons to 29-21 making the playoffs but again losing to the Hawks in 5 - just a bad matchup for them.
Detroit makes the playoffs gain the next year & Hill remains excellent (26-7-5) but they get beat in the first round & Hill shows the first signs of injury troubles. He plays 47 combined games over the next 4 years. In '05 at age 32, he finally makes a comeback. He has a nice little season for the Magic, making the all-star team as he averages 20-5-3. Over the next several years, he evolves into a nice 2/3 swing man. He plays intelligently, has TS#'s in the high 50's and averages around 13-5-3 through age 38 (2011). The post-prime element ends up giving him a WS edge on the prior trio.
His one year peak is just as good as any of the aforementioned trio & he has superior longevity. I'll get back to going to bat for that group soon enough, but this is a great player who gets lost in the shuffle because of injuries & playing for these garbage teams. Let's not punish his brilliance because of that.
This game clip really highlights the type of player he was in case you forget and/or were too young to see. Brings a lot to the table. He doesn't have many weaknesses except for an outside shot - he only shoots it when WIDE open.
Anyway, I hope the switch doesn't cause too many issues.
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Kevin Johnson, Bob McAdoo, Sidney Moncrief, Mel Daniels & Paul Arizin are the next guys up who seem to move the needle enough where they can be the best player on a contender over a multi-year stretch who also had any kind of longevity.
I'm setting aside Arizin because of the 50's era for now & Daniels due to a combination of being unimpressed with his game tape & concerns that his best work was done before the ABA upped it's quality. I remember KJ, & I've watched some YouTube clips of McAdoo/Moncrief to feel like they're all 3 objectively good enough to succeed in any era.
So, KJ vs. McAdoo vs. Moncrief -
From a longevity standpoint, all have done "just enough" to warrant consideration here. Ironically enough, each finished with just about 90 WS (93 for KJ, 89 for Big Mac, 90 for Sid).
Given that, I'm really going to focus in on their best 5 years (89-92, 97 for KJ, '74-78 for McAdoo, '82-'86 for Sid). If you're picking these guys, it's not for longevity, so if we're going to pick primes, let's pick primes.
WSMcAdoo - 66
Sid - 62
KJ - 58
BPM - unweighted 5 yr avgSid - 5.2
McAdoo - 4.3
KJ - 3.8
PER - unweighted 5 yr avgMcAdoo - 23.5
KJ - 22
Sid - 20.5
Off reg season performance, McAdoo narrowly takes the edge over Sid with KJ bringing up the rear. Although it's noteworthy that strength of era is reverse of that order and the gap here isn't huge.
PlayoffsMcAdoo - 30/13/3 , 3.1 combined blk/steal, 3.8 TOV (only '78), 52% TS
KJ - 21/11/4, 1.8 combined blk/steal, 3.8 TOV, 55% TS
Sid - 19/6/4, 1.9 combined blk/steal, 2.9 TOV, 57% TS
All seem to acquit themselves fairly well under the bright lights of the playoffs. Sid has (by far) the biggest drop-off in #'s, but I thought that his tape against rookie MJ is quite impressive defensively, so while I view him as a weaker playoff performer than the other two, the gap is small.
Impact on Winning & other thoughtsKJ shows up strong in the WOWY Data (#25) and is the best player on 4 teams that finish in the Top 5 on SRS. All of these teams have stronger offenses than defenses & KJ is the offensive anchor for that bunch from '89-'92 finishing 2nd, 3rd, 3rd & 5th in offensive rating.
He can reasonably be called the offensive anchor on the '94 squad which finished 1st in offensive rating and was the clear anchor in his last prime season in '97 for a team that finished 7th in offensive efficiency. Amongst players who averaged 20 pts/10 ast on 55+ TS he's in elite company with the Big O, Paul, Magic, Harden, Archibald ('73), Westbrook, Isiah & Deron Williams. Only the BIG O has more seasons of such caliber than KJ.
Buffalo was a dumpster fire before
McAdoo hits his stride; other noteable roster changes include the loss of Elmore Smith & the gain of Jim McMillan. Once McAdoo hits his stride in '74, the Braves make the playoffs every year through '76, falling to the Eastern Conference Champ every time pushing the team to at least 6. In '77, Buffalo falls apart a bit - they go 8-12 with McAdoo & 22-40 without him & he's traded for the Knicks for John Gianelli & cash. Seems troubling. Buffalo retreats back to 50 loss territory after McAdoo leaves in 77 & again in 78.
The Knicks record doesn't improve much in '77, but their SRS jumps from -1 to flat from the prior year - they also have to replace Haywood. In '78, despite losing a post-prime Frazier for nothing the Knicks have their best record in 3 years, although the SRS falls back slightly. McAdoo leaves - on not great terms by all accounts the following year, & the Knicks collapse to a 50 loss team.
During this period, McAdoo wins MVP over Kareem, which seems noteworthy - from '74-'76 Buffalo is Top 5 in offensive efficiency and falls off a cliff without him (while also climbing a mountain once he hits his prime). New York's offensive efficiency goes from -0.3 in '76 to +0.6 in '77 to + 0.8 in '78 and then down to -1.6 without him. He later has a useful post prime with the Lakers as a high impact bench player.
The 30-12-55%+ TS club is him, Kareem, WIlt, Bellamy, Oscar & Moses. If you make it just 2 blocks a game, the club is safely, him with KAJ & Wilt.
Moncrief joins an already good but not great Bucks team that was winning in the high 40's & continue to do so when his prime ended. During the Moncrief prime when he led the Bucks in WS every year from '82-'86, the Bucks won an average of 54 games a year in the decisively harder conference, and had a pair of ECF appearances and made it to at least the 2nd round every year. They knocked off Philly with Barkley, Mo Cheeks & post prime DR J/Moses in '86 & swept Boston in '83. MIlwaukee was an average of -4.1 rel DRTG from '81-'86; a huge jump from the -0.2 from '78-'80 & the -1.5 that they were in '87-'89. This really highlights Moncrief's defensive impact and he's one of few perimeter players (especially at this stage) who can really anchor a defense. His 5 X All D & 2 X DPOY awards are backed up by the #'s listed previously.
Offensively, the relatively low usage rate (low 20's), keeps his impact from being too high but he's quite efficient, scoring in the low 20's while getting TS% rates right around 60%. He strikes me as quite likely the strongest ceiling raiser of the bunch, even as he is probably the worst floor raiser.
Of these 3 guys, I ultimately think any order is perfectly reasonable & I don't feel strongly about it. None of these guys has excellent longevity but . . .
KJ offers me the most prime seasons. If he's my point guard & healthy, I feel like I'm guaranteed an offense around the Top 5 when he's in his prime unless my offense is just bad - but even that '97 Suns team was 7th in offense despite not being talented. I also love that he competed very highly in he playoffs. He strikes me as a strong offensive anchor and while the RS metrics aren't quite as strong as McAdoo/Moncrief he did play in a stronger era and that matters to me.
McAdoo offers me the highest peak. His '74-'76 run is really quite outstanding. Looking through rose colored glasses, I'd say he slowed down because his body wasn't built to play center in the 70's.
Moncrief is the best defender of the 3 - by a fairly wide margin. The rare perimeter player who can anchor a defense - and brings an efficient, if relatively low volume offensive game to the table.
I'll be supporting KJ/McAdoo/Moncrief in order but the gap is very narrow & I think I'd do just as well picking the names out of a hat.
Since I'm backing KJ - I want to give everyone one last reminder of his explosiveness. This is arguably the best in-game playoff dunk (or at least my favorite).
