Bob Lanier vs Dwight Howard

[iggymcfrack]

Dwight has over twice as many MVP shares in a much tougher era, has better longevity, better playoff success, similar rate stats with MUCH greater defensive impact. Doesn't really seem close to me. Dwight's probably top 40 all-time IMO while Lanier would be lucky to be top 80.

MVP Shares are somewhat tricky to compare across eras due to different balloting systems.

Taking each's best year (by MVP Shares)
2011: 2.599 total shares given out
1974 (NBA): 1.779

This is part of the reason that Lanier emerges with fewer MVP shares (0.436 to 0.531) despite claiming 37 of 181 first place ballots, whilst Howard did considerably worse in that respect 3 of 121.

OK, but in 1974 there was also another league that a lot of the top players played including Dr. J who was putting up the best numbers in either league. Given that, I think Lanier having less shares to compete for is pretty fair.

[Owly]

Dwight has over twice as many MVP shares in a much tougher era, has better longevity, better playoff success, similar rate stats with MUCH greater defensive impact. Doesn't really seem close to me. Dwight's probably top 40 all-time IMO while Lanier would be lucky to be top 80.

MVP Shares are somewhat tricky to compare across eras due to different balloting systems.

Taking each's best year (by MVP Shares)
2011: 2.599 total shares given out
1974 (NBA): 1.779

This is part of the reason that Lanier emerges with fewer MVP shares (0.436 to 0.531) despite claiming 37 of 181 first place ballots, whilst Howard did considerably worse in that respect 3 of 121.

OK, but in 1974 there was also another league that a lot of the top players played including Dr. J who was putting up the best numbers in either league. Given that, I think Lanier having less shares to compete for is pretty fair.

Honest answer is I don't know whether or not ABA neutralizes it, but I tried to implicitly acknowledge the ABA by specficically noting that the votes were NBA. For something like MVP it depends on the narrative for guys coming across anyhow. But 10-7-5-3-1 and 5-3-1 definitely shafts Lanier he has a higher percentage first place votes and cumulative (unweighted) first and second place votes and looks worse.

To be honest though I wouldn't look hard at MVP shares for a serious analysis of a player.

As others have noted longevity of quality isn't a given for Howard. This isn't a hard stand on their relative merits. For me Lanier "lucky to be top 80" is harsh based on my reading of his box production, WoWY and what I've read on his D (my main contemporary source seems higher than after the fact aggregations), but that's just me.

[Jaivl]

Man, really sucks for this thread to get bumped for this reason. Glad he's getting some of the recognition he deserves, at least.