Doctor MJ wrote:ElGee, I'll say first off, I'd like to see your arguments for someone else as opposed to against Wallace. I don't think of him as being a top 5 type player, he's there because of my issues with others, so maybe you could sway me on some other player.
To respond to your post:
Re: Westbrook, Allen, etc. My first thought when I see this is that there are a couple of clear "top 10 at peak" players on the team. Having a season where it all comes together and the luck that POY competition is really weak could certainly push an Allen or a Bosh into the top 5 imho. Now, you did provide the caveat that those guys didn't have particularly good years - hey if they aren't impressive enough, I'm not going to force a title winner into my top 5. I expect to have some years like that in the 70s.
I'll also mention that I do consider this to be a bit of a special year for Ben because of how good the defense was and how central he was to that. You did point out that the defense in the regular season wasn't all-time great level, which was because it only got to that level when Sheed came in. Does the fact that Sheed was necessary hurt Ben? Sure. How much? Good question worthy of discussion. No one's capable of all-time great level defense by themselves, and while Sheed's talented, he's a puzzle piece who can severely hurt a team without good leadership in place, hence why Detroit got him for a song.
Re: Billups at 39%. Well, dude always got a lot of free throws. His TS% was 55. Now I have to ask your opinion on Billups in general. I've got him as a top 10 player over multiple season. He did have better seasons later on, but not orders of magnitude different. I'm guessing you think I overrate him, care to expound on that?
Well, I may have pushed too hard with Bosh, but I was trying to assemble a similar team and it was hard to find a good big off the top of my head who's stronger defensively than offensively and thus not quite a top-20 player. Allen is present Ray Allen, nothing top-10 there. The reality is that Pistons team is an extremely unique title team (only matched by the 89-90 Pistons in the 3-point era?) and they're just fairly unique as a successful team. Most clubs are built around a star or two, or sometimes they are a collection of non-cohesive parts (eg 2000 Blazers, early 2000s Mavs). It's rare to see a team function the way Detroit did...
Chauncey's TS% is solid, that's a fair point. My point was it seemed people were jumping ship on other players because they had down years or rough shooting seasons...but so did Chauncey!
I'll try and provide a few cursory arguments for a few of the other players I considered. I'm not sure if I ever had Chauncey in a top-10, so perhaps you can provide a year (2006? 2008?) and we can go into some greater detail. I did look at him here, but I may have had about 13 or 14 players on my radar FWIW.
Jermaine O'Neal - I wanted to start with JO because I'm surprised so many people have him rated so highly. He was definitely an above average defender at the time and even if one thinks highly of Ben's defense, O'Neal's defensive impact can't be that far behind. His offense is inefficient but he's a 20-point per game legit post presence. He had that faceup jumper, despite having a bad shooting season, and if I remember commanded a double team at times. This is so much far and away better than Wallace on offense, inefficiency included, it's hard to understand how Ben could ever be above him. His offensive and defensive on/off numbers are good, and his team's ORtg and DRt were too (9th and 3rd, resepectively).
Dirk Nowitzki - A weird down shooting season for Dirk, but was his usual self in the postseason. I don't think I need to expand on his strengths versus Ben Wallace's, so let's look at from a
team POV, since that's so popular. If Dirk were surrounded by 4 pseudo-all stars, 3 of whom were really good defenders, I'm fairly confident his offensive contributions would lead to more than 54 wins and a ~5 SRS...since that's practically what his team did that year anyway in the West. Yes, Nash played in a role in that, but we've seen that offense perform quite well without Nash, and if Dirk were paired with a versatile, long, all-star caliber center who was a defensive stopper, a 6-9 defensive small forward who could slash and create mismatches, and deadly shooter at the off guard and a defender and shooter at the point, isn't that a significantly better team?
Tracy McGrady - Essentially a superstar at this point in time. A No. 1 to build around. Again, no need to break down the differences (and I'm certain you're aware of the advanced stats), so the same drill as above. If McGrady replaces Prince, I think it's fair to surround him with 4 similar players. Billups, Hamilton, McGrady, Rasheed Wallace and a lanky, shot blocking defensive big like Marcus Camby -- that team sounds scary good. Even downgrading Camby to a weaker defender still makes it a team that should eclipse Detroit's SRS, no?
Conversely, how do you build around Ben Wallace? How many good players do you need to make that work? If he were on the Mavs or Magic in those seasons instead of Dirk or McGrady, where would those teams be? How would they even be remotely as good.
Now, this is just one way to think about it, but I'm trying to stress how different the impact is with these players versus Wallace. The Pistons were still a really good defensive without Ben Wallace. That can't be understated. Obviously, Ben didn't do much for his offense. I mean, is Dennis Rodman going to be getting POY votes in 1990?
If Wallace had played
better against New Jersey, but the Nets didn't flame out and New Jersey won that series, would he have even blipped anyone's radar??
