#18 Highest Peak of All Time (Dirk '11 wins)

[fatal9]

Yea, Moses' actually did have great impact with the '83 Sixers because he fit the team really well. Offensively he was in a perfect situation because he had so many guys around him who could create their own offense or for others, so you didn't need Moses to make other guys better. But you're not always going to be that lucky where you can play with three other all-stars in your backcourt, so his portability as an offensive hub in the post is still a major flaw.

But more importantly, the 76ers at the time were sorely lacking a rebounder. In '82 they were the worst rebounding team in the league (partly because of the insanely active defense they played on the perimeter which didn't allow them to crash the boards). They were 22nd out 23 in drb% and 21st in orb%, Moses came in and made them an average defensive rebounding team and the best offensive rebounding team. His defensive rebounding allowed the Sixers guards/wings to play their frenetic defense but not give up second chance points. If he had positive defensive impact that year, it would be because of that (allowing guys around him to focus on defense while he cleared the boards). At the same time though, this could be said about any good defensive rebounder...

[drza]

For the 11 Dirk voters:

The only case I can see for 11 Dirk over 06 Dirk is the offensive skillset...you can point out how 06 Dirk struggled against Miami (and GS the next year), and most of that was probably due to not having developed his mid-post game as of yet. Ok, cool.

But in that case, why 11 Dirk over 08-10 Dirk? Dirk worked on and incorporated his mid-post game after the GS series, and became a deadly offensive weapon from 08 onwards. What was 11 Dirk doing that 08-10 Dirk wasn't? It seems to me that 08-10 Dirk was comparable offensively and better defensively. I'm personally still going with 09 Dirk as his peak, but I could be swayed to 06. As of right now though, can't really understand why 11 over 08-10.

I would like to post something in depth here, but I'm on baby duty and that's not looking likely. I was going to post about how Dirk's higher RAPM values in 2011 might not be entirely illusory or about a perfect cast. I was going to talk about his offensive aggression, and note specifically his much higher postseason usage in 2011 vs 2006 or 2007. I might have gone further from there...but this child is screaming, and it's not meant to be. So be it.

Vote: 2011 Dirk Nowitzkie

[Doctor MJ]

I would like to post something in depth here, but I'm on baby duty and that's not looking likely. I was going to post about how Dirk's higher RAPM values in 2011 might not be entirely illusory or about a perfect cast. I was going to talk about his offensive aggression, and note specifically his much higher postseason usage in 2011 vs 2006 or 2007. I might have gone further from there...but this child is screaming, and it's not meant to be. So be it.

Vote: 2011 Dirk Nowitzkie

Oh man, my sympathies.

[Doctor MJ]

Here's how the voting appears now:

68 West - 5 (Doctor MJ, ElGee, Lightning25, ThaRegul8r, ardee)

11 Dirk - 5 (C-izMe, DavidStern, bastillon, colts18, drza)

83 M. Malone - 3.5 (JordansBulls, Josephpaul, PTB Fan, SDChargers#1)

03 McGrady - 2 (therealbig3, Doctor Positivity)

(Thanks realbig for doing most of the work here)

So I'd say we have a tie. Let's extend it one more day -

Runoff: '68 West vs '11 Dirk

[Doctor MJ]

Changed my vote to '68 West... Not as down on Moses as others

But what about Dirk, who was better offensive and defensive player than West?

Kinda blows me away when I hear a statement like this. We wouldn't be having a West vs Dirk debate if every agreed with your statement, so why on earth would ask a question that makes an assumption you know the person you're asking doesn't believe in?

I'm particularly weirded out by the defensive side of things. Where do you get this notion that Dirk was clearly better? You must know that West was considered best-in-the-game among perimeter defenders in his day and that Dirk's never been considered a great defender, so why are you saying this?

[therealbig3]

it's been brought up how he choked away a very winnable 02 series because of 4th quarter meltdowns

Which was shown to be completely false. He played poorly late in games 1 and 2, which the Hornets and Magic split 1-1. Then he played really well down the stretches of games 3 and 4. So he only played poorly in one game down the stretch which cost his team the game (game 1).

but he also played 3 of his worst playoff games in 03, 05 and 07 G7s

Let's ignore his game 6's in 03 and 05 as well.

And what was wrong with his G7 in 07?

[ardee]

Changed my vote to '68 West... Not as down on Moses as others

But what about Dirk, who was better offensive and defensive player than West?

I don't consider Dirk to belong in this tier at all. I feel he's gotten massively overrated since that '11 run. If he gets voted in so be it, but he was, at least not to me, close to West as an all-around player. The only thing he has going for him, really, is APM stats, and ElGee broke down West's in-out stats in '68 to show the unreal impact he was having anyway.

[Dr Positivity]

I will change my vote to 68 West. West's combination of playmaking and defense in addition to still elite scoring is hard to overcome for Dirk. Also the efficiency of 68 West may be understated. It's pretty clear that if you adjust compared to the league (I like using average eFG then vs average eFG now) West is looking at the same gap over average that a .64-.65 TS% player has now, which is pretty good for 26ppg and 31ppg in the playoffs. 60s West and Oscar at their peaks may have had the highest offensive impact ever compared to THEIR TIME, which is not totally trustworthy since I think all of us like to judge these players independent of era, but nonetheless we also know West having a 3pt shot in his arsenal would've helped his efficiency.

[therealbig3]

I can't vote for Dirk 06 because of his one fatal flaw - short, quick, forwards defending him. Some would say its a small weakness but in this league you'll meet one every year (there's no way you go through 4 teams without meeting one nowadays). TMac, Haslem, Harrington and in 11 alone possibly Wallace, Artest, KD, Collison, Haslem, and Lebron. No doubt in my mind that 11 Dirk could make (and probably win) the 06 Finals. 06 Dirk in 11 wouldn't make it to the Finals.

Now the 09 v 11 argument basically comes down to how I felt about both years at the time. In 09 he was worse than Paul, Lebron, Wade, and Kobe IMO. In 11 he was the best in the game.

That doesn't mean he was any better in 11 than he was in 09 though. Every single one of those players was worse in 11 than in 09. Wade I think only played "worse" because he had to adjust to being 2nd option, but Paul/LeBron/Kobe saw a big drop off.

And I also don't think he was the best in the game in 2011 anyway, I still think LeBron, Wade, and Dwight were better.

[lorak]

Changed my vote to '68 West... Not as down on Moses as others

But what about Dirk, who was better offensive and defensive player than West?

I don't consider Dirk to belong in this tier at all. I feel he's gotten massively overrated since that '11 run. If he gets voted in so be it, but he was, at least not to me, close to West as an all-around player. The only thing he has going for him, really, is APM stats, and ElGee broke down West's in-out stats in '68 to show the unreal impact he was having anyway.

Unreal impact... LOL

[lorak]

Changed my vote to '68 West... Not as down on Moses as others

But what about Dirk, who was better offensive and defensive player than West?

Kinda blows me away when I hear a statement like this. We wouldn't be having a West vs Dirk debate if every agreed with your statement, so why on earth would ask a question that makes an assumption you know the person you're asking doesn't believe in?

I'm particularly weirded out by the defensive side of things. Where do you get this notion that Dirk was clearly better? You must know that West was considered best-in-the-game among perimeter defenders in his day and that Dirk's never been considered a great defender, so why are you saying this?

Where do you get the notion that West was better deender? Small player in a era without three point line? (And even now not many small players have such impact on deense as big player like Dirk) And you keep bringing up reputation argument which is worthless, especially on defensive end, where as we know eye can't capture most o the things and most people judge defense looking on 1on1 D - which is far less important than impact on team D. And Dirk is better as team defender.
Overall it's insane how West is overated because of pace inflated stats and mythical stories. For example CP3 isn't even discussed yet and he was better player than West.

[Doctor MJ]

Kinda blows me away when I hear a statement like this. We wouldn't be having a West vs Dirk debate if every agreed with your statement, so why on earth would ask a question that makes an assumption you know the person you're asking doesn't believe in?

I'm particularly weirded out by the defensive side of things. Where do you get this notion that Dirk was clearly better? You must know that West was considered best-in-the-game among perimeter defenders in his day and that Dirk's never been considered a great defender, so why are you saying this?

Where do you get the notion that West was better deender? Small player in a era without three point line? (And even now not many small players have such impact on deense as big player like Dirk) And you keep bringing up reputation argument which is worthless, especially on defensive end, where as we know eye can't capture most o the things and most people judge defense looking on 1on1 D - which is far less important than impact on team D. And Dirk is better as team defender.
Overall it's insane how West is overated because of pace inflated stats and mythical stories. For example CP3 isn't even discussed yet and he was better player than West.

So far as I can tell, what you're doing is using a couple rules of thumb:

1) Bigs are more valuable defenders than lil's.

2) Reputation is often wrong.

And saying, "Therefore I can ignore the good things people say about West and default to champion Dirk's D simply because he's bigger".

That's pretty crazy dude.

I mean, the only thing you talk about here that gets any more specific than the detail-less assertion you made before is when you talk about Dirk's edge on team defense, but even there you don't give any reasons as to why you think that. I guess you're kind of implying that West is overrated because people were too impressed by his man defense skills, but of course West was known for his steals and blocks which are absolutely a part of team defense.

You talk about buying into myth, but we have the steal numbers from West last season when he was all sorts of broken down. Even if West never did more than that he'd have the all-time career steal record, and it's safe to assume he DID do more than that.

You've brought up the influence of pace, and that's relevant, but you can't just bring it up to dismiss a guy as if his goodness is determined by the volume of his scoring. As has been talked about, West played most of his career with Baylor, who also shot a lot. This was not a situation where his team was saying, "Help us Jerry, none of us dares shoot!" and Jerry refused to shoot. There was clearly a delicate ego balance at play there.

Meanwhile, it's insane to question West's explosiveness as a scorer. He got the nickname "Mr. Clutch" because of how often the team just let him go to work in the clutch.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't consider Dirk to belong in this tier at all. I feel he's gotten massively overrated since that '11 run. If he gets voted in so be it, but he was, at least not to me, close to West as an all-around player. The only thing he has going for him, really, is APM stats, and ElGee broke down West's in-out stats in '68 to show the unreal impact he was having anyway.

Unreal impact... LOL

I don't know what you're even doing here when you respond like this. There's been a whole lot of discussion about West '68 season and his impact that year, I don't recall you getting into the debate about it in a serious way. Perhaps I just forget, but when you jump in like you've done here, I don't know what your plan is to actually convince people they're wrong.

[lorak]

You talk about buying into myth, but we have the steal numbers from West last season when he was all sorts of broken down.

And we also have 3P numbers for Maravich. I guess he was GOAT 3P shooter because of that?
Hey, Rick Barry was also great at stealing the ball. Why nobody is talking about him as good defensive player?

Bottom line is - we don't have any evidence that West was so good on defensive end as you and others think. Probably even Elgee's data show that West was negative on defense... and that's what we would expect from small, gambling player in a era without three point line.

(And of course competition - games we have from 60s and even early 70s show that ball handling skills back then were very bad, so it was easier to steal the ball.)

West's scoring, you said clutch, ok, but was he more clutch than Dirk? Because if you wan't to judge scoring ability by performance in the clutch I think you can't show West 1968 was better than Dirk 2011. And yes, I think West's pace inflated scoring numbers highly affected how he is perceived, even by people in this project.

Pace adjusting, 1968 West would average in 2012 (91 pace) around 20 ppg, 4.5 rpg and 4.5 apg (regular season numbers, because that unreal impact about which ardee is talking about is based on numbers from regular season). How much non box score impact such player could have? (any similar examples in history of the NBA?) How it could be bigger than Dirk's or CP3 impact?

[Doctor MJ]

You talk about buying into myth, but we have the steal numbers from West last season when he was all sorts of broken down.

And we also have 3P numbers for Maravich. I guess he was GOAT 3P shooter because of that?
Hey, Rick Barry was also great at stealing the ball. Why nobody is talking about him as good defensive player?

Bottom line is - we don't have any evidence that West was so good on defensive end as you and others think. Probably even Elgee's data show that West was negative on defense... and that's what we would expect from small, gambling player in a era without three point line.

(And of course competition - games we have from 60s and even early 70s show that ball handling skills back then were very bad, so it was easier to steal the ball.)

West's scoring, you said clutch, ok, but was he more clutch than Dirk? Because if you wan't to judge scoring ability by performance in the clutch I think you can't show West 1968 was better than Dirk 2011. And yes, I think West's pace inflated scoring numbers highly affected how he is perceived, even by people in this project. Pace adjusting, 1968 West would average in 2012 (91 pace) around 20 ppg, 4.5 rpg and 4.5 apg. How much non box score impact such player could have? (any similar examples in history of the NBA?) How it could be bigger than Dirk's or CP3 impact?

The Maravich numbers are not at all the same thing. I'm talking about evidence of West actually producing a large number of steals per game. Maravich only shot a handful of 3's ever, which means that even if we could ignore the huge sample size issues, we're still talking about a weapon so rarely used that no defense was desperately trying to stop it from happening (which means it's a given his accuracy would look nothing like that if it he were actively trying to use it to benefit his team).

Re: "no evidence". Right so again what this comes down to is not that you have a reason to have an informed opinion about West's impact, and that for that reason you feel justified in having faith in that over the opinions of contemporaries, but rather that you're basically saying "Anything we don't have clear enough proof of, I'm going to assume didn't exist".

I'll just reiterate: People call me arrogant because I dare to go against what contemporary experts thought of players from time to time, but I always start with the assumption that starting with the opinions of those experts and only deviating if you've got good reason is the approach that's going to give you the best results.

I'm also not sure what you even want for evidence. You boldly scoff at the notion of using contemporary opinion AND reject the notion that West's steals were valuable. What exactly could convince you of West's defense? Keeping in mind: Someone had to be the best perimeter defender of the '60s. You can't just stick with the claim that all those defenders were merely average because you don't have the confidence to anoint any particular one of them, or can you?

Re: "why aren't people talking about Barry's defense?". I suppose the answer, "Because people who watched them both at the time thought West's was clearly better." is something you consider unreasonable.

fwiw, Barry's got a pretty decent rep as a defender to my mind. Not amazing, but there are some good signs.

Re: "probably ElGee's data agrees with me". What the heck? I'm at a loss for words here. You haven't see his data say this and you're admitting his data could very well show the exact opposite of what you claim, but...apparently most likely your "we don't have evidence" arguments properly predict West's defensive impact?

Re: "gambling player, negative impact". You say that like that's a typical trend. It's the first I've heard of it. Pray tell.

Re: (of course competition). I'm inclined to expect that the real root of your feelings here has more to do with this than your letting on.

Re: 20/4.5/4.5 impact? So what you're really asking here, to my mind, is how someone with stats like this could possibly have a true on/off impact like West appears to have. Key things:

-West is one of the few players in history who has led the league in scoring and assists (not in the same year granted). So let's be clear at the outset, it's not like West was putting up pedestrian numbers when you compare him to his contemporaries.

I think you can make the case that with the exception of a few examples in that period, when you actually do all the pacing adjustments, player's volume stats don't look that impressive. There has been a trend as pace has slowed to put the ball more and more in the hands of the alpha stat. This isn't done because newer guys are better, so now matter how you look at it, it's not a West talent thing, but it is worth asking: Are players now just going to contribute more value than earlier guys because of this?

But the on/off data isn't telling us a story like that at all. Oscar, West, Russell, all have some huge on/off-type data. So if this is a question about West's limitations, I point out his similarity to Oscar, and if it's about both of their limitations, shouldn't the on/off data give us some hint at this?

If we forget about debating whether West had that impact, and just ask HOW he could have that impact if he wasn't actually putting up huge numbers, well, then to me what we're talking about is a recurring trend of players who do really great things with passing having apparently mega-impact even if the offense doesn't credit them with the assist. Think Frazier in NY, think Walton in Portland.

The '68 Lakers were indisputably playing in a flowy kind of offense like this, and with its arrival the team's offense got a lot better. All of that correlates with West's presence, and he was the lead guard on the team, so I just don't have reason to be skeptical here.

[Lightning25]

I really wish peaks weren't considered one year in this project. It would be a whole lot easier if we just ranked them as players instead or in a 2-3 year span. It is the biggest reason why Lebron dropped down as much as he did because people couldn't agree whether his peak was 2009 or 2012 or not.

Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, and Dwyane Wade were the same as well although I was surprised at how quickly people agreed with Kobe's peak being 2008.

[C-izMe]

I can't vote for Dirk 06 because of his one fatal flaw - short, quick, forwards defending him. Some would say its a small weakness but in this league you'll meet one every year (there's no way you go through 4 teams without meeting one nowadays). TMac, Haslem, Harrington and in 11 alone possibly Wallace, Artest, KD, Collison, Haslem, and Lebron. No doubt in my mind that 11 Dirk could make (and probably win) the 06 Finals. 06 Dirk in 11 wouldn't make it to the Finals.

Now the 09 v 11 argument basically comes down to how I felt about both years at the time. In 09 he was worse than Paul, Lebron, Wade, and Kobe IMO. In 11 he was the best in the game.

That doesn't mean he was any better in 11 than he was in 09 though. Every single one of those players was worse in 11 than in 09. Wade I think only played "worse" because he had to adjust to being 2nd option, but Paul/LeBron/Kobe saw a big drop off.

And I also don't think he was the best in the game in 2011 anyway, I still think LeBron, Wade, and Dwight were better.

True but I need to set the tiebreaker somewhere.

[drza]

'68 West vs '11 Nowitzki

Since we have a run-off now between these two, I think it's high time we had a comprehensive comparison between the two. Off the bat, I'll say that (as someone that doesn't really have a personal stake in who wins this matchup) it seems pretty clear to me the biases that are being displayed on both sides of the argument. I've seen the same people that verbally acknowledge that '68 West saw his impact shoot up in large part because a new coach came in and implemented a system that fit him perfectly/the personnel started fitting him better as Baylor declined, but are still willing to give full value to West for the mega increase in his impact that season...at the same time question whether 2011 should be used as Dirk's peak because Dirk's skill set isn't demonstrably better in 2011 than in previous years so his mega +/- values from that season are likely skewed by the Dallas front office putting the perfect personnel and coaching system around him to maximize his value. I don't, for the life of me, see how this is a reasonable stance. Either we should compare West '66 to Dirk '06 and be done with it, or we should give both West '68 and Dirk '11 the benefit of the doubt for their huge measured impacts while acknowledging that both likely hit these peaks based on more circumstances than just their own individual play level. Across 50 years and huge changes to the game itself, I don't see any more reasonable way to isolate one's circumstances from the other's.

On the other hand, I see issues with how West is being looked at from the other side as well. We all know that pace is an issue and likely inflates volume stats to some degree...but it's also extremely unlikely that the pace effect is linear. Thus, categorizing West as a 20/4/4 player after pace adjustment seems like a grossly unfair way to characterize him. Whatever the unknown impact pace had, West in '68 was still among the league leaders in scoring and assists, led the league in true shooting percentage, and was among the tops in PER, offensive win shares and win shares/48. In other words, the connotation we get present-day from a 20/4/4 player obviously doesn't fit with what West was providing at his time. Plus, with West's very well documented deep-shooting range it is very easy to extrapolate that he would have been an excellent 3-point shooter that would get a boost from moving to a time with a 3-point line. Again, we don't know exactly what the boost would be...teams now spend more effort defending the 3-point line than they perhaps used to when West pulled up from 25 feet, so perhaps his distance shots would have been better defended and thus kept his scoring improvements with a 3-point line from being linear. Since pace and the 3-point line are two huge factors (among many, obviously) that we can't really correct for across 50 years, I'm going to make the completely unscientific decision not to get too caught up in the details of West's scoring numbers vs Dirk's and instead treat them as though they're roughly on the same scoring level. This would be true without correction ('11 Dirk at 24.2 pp36 on 61.2% TS vs '68 West's 25.2 pp36 on 59.0% TS), so I'll assume with fudge factors it would probably be similarly true as well.

Another area of dispute is what value (if any) to attribute to West's defense. We have almost nothing to go by here outside of West's physical dimensions and defensive style on limited tape, word-of-mouth, and general historical trends for perimeter players with a few in-game box scores we can look at as well. I'm okay with starting using the time-period thought process that West was the best perimeter defender as the default...as long as you acknowledge that the time-period-thought process from THIS era is that Kobe has been the best perimeter defender of this generation. And we have plenty of quantitative evidence that Kobe's defensive impact is essentially negligible compared to his offense as far as comparing him on a historical level. I actually don't think that Kobe is the best defensive comp for West, though, because West is known for being more of a thief/shot-blocker than holding down his man (which several of the box scores that I've seen from huge matchups suggest that West wasn't outstanding at). No, to me West sounds a lot more similar defensively to Dwyane Wade. And again, Wade has traditionally not been a huge impact defender quantitatively. His career-best defensive RAPM was +1.5 in 2006, which Dirk matched in 2003. The third present-day defender that I could see as a reasonable comp for West is Manu Ginobili, who also is long and athletic as a perimeter defender, and Manu measures out the best of the three recent guys in defensive RAPM (values up to +3.0 in 2008). But again, Dirk matches those defensive RAPM numbers in 2011. And while I acknowledge that defensive RAPM isn't perfect and perhaps Dirk's most recent numbers may be influenced by the defenders that his style allows him to play with, I also have to again re-iterate that Dirk was putting up defensive RAPM numbers as good or better than anything Wade or Kobe ever put up from 2003 - 2006 before Carlisle or Tyson Chandler ever came along, and he's maintained his career-best numbers in 2012 after Chandler was gone. With the level of uncertainty that we're working with as far as West and the available knowledge of his defense goes, I see NO WAY to say that he has any kind of defensive advantage over Dirk that is definitive enough to include it on his side of the ledger in this comparison.

So, where does all that leave me? If it seems to me that, to the limit of our capabilities to compare, Dirk '11's impact in his time is similar to West '68's impact in his time, with similar team situation caveats...that Dirk 11's scoring is similar in his time to West 68's scoring in his time...and that defensively I see no supportable argument for West getting any kind of impact boost, then where that leaves me is with no way to make a definitive quantitative argument in either direction. Which means I have to start looking to my own "basketball judgment", or whatever you'd call it, and other potential tie-breakers. So, here goes:

drza's tie-breakers for Dirk and West:

*Impact trends. We see the huge beyond-the-box-score impact players tending to have strengths in one of several areas: unmeasured defense, offensive floor general, or spacing. I think both West and Dirk fit into the last category. West was a good floor general, but he wasn't running things offensively the way we see for other historical point guards that we know got the quantitative boost. So to me, West's primary super-impact factor is his dramatic spacing impact, especially in an era with no 3-point line in which defenses weren't equipped to have to defend out 25 feet like West made them do. But as great as West's range was, I think Dirk's spacing impact is even greater because you get similar range from someone 7-feet tall. So instead of pulling an opposing wing out of the lane (and of course stretching everyone else out to compensate) like you get with West, with Dirk you're pulling an opposing big man out of the lane which a) is hugely out of his comfort zone and b) usually is taking a primary defensive cog/rebounder out of the area where he can have his main influence, thus weakening the team defense by a larger degree. So while for their times West 68's and Dirk 11's impacts may have been similar, I think for the generic championship team that we're trying to build all-time Dirk's overall impact would turn out to be higher.

*Health. I've been willing to buy the argument that regular season health may not be as important as one might think when it comes to championships for the reasons that ElGee points out. BUT. As we pointed out with Wade '09 vs '10 (and ElGee, you ultimately ended up agreeing with this stance), we can't just assume that every injury that happened in the actual season would happen in exactly the same way on our generic team. But what WOULD be fair to look at is the probability that a given player would get injured at some point in our expected peak season. For Wade '09 and Wade '10 those probabilities are fairly even so it didn't matter so much. But for Dirk '11 vs West '68, this IS potentially a big difference. A huge difference, even. Because when you transplant West '68 to our generic championship-team-wannabe, there is a GREAT chance that he gets injured. West missed 20 - 30 games almost every year in his prime due to some injury or another, INCLUDING in '68. So peak West would very likely be injured on our championship-team-wannabe. The problem for West, is, there's ALSO a very reasonable probability that said injury might occur at the end of the season as opposed to early enough for him to get over it. We know that this is actually what happened in real life in 1967, the very year before the '68 peak, in which West missed the playoffs due to injury. So if we're going to be consistent about how we treat the probability of injury as opposed to the actual fact of it, for the sake of this project, this HAS to be an area where iron-man Dirk gets a significant advantage at peak over West.

Conclusion: So, given all that I just wrote, I end up concluding right where I was with my first post in this thread: Dirk gives me all of the impact that West does, but he's also 7-feet tall and an iron-man vs West's 6-5 and fragile. So in the end, I just see Dirk as pretty clearly the better peak option almost solely due to the difference in their physical gifts.

[C-izMe]

Great post drza. And now that you bring it up I've always wanted to see the argument that missing regular season games doesn't matter. I usually take 15 games as the threshold from manageable to a problem but West missed 30+ games in 68 (my main argument against him). Does that not hurt the team much (I also believe HCA matters a lot especially when there is another team close to your level).

[therealbig3]

drza, I'm offended. You had time for that great post, but you won't expound on why you would take 11 Dirk over 08-10 Dirk.