micahclay wrote:I know that I can often have "winner's bias," but I also feel that I can have "potential bias," whether for or against someone. For example, it's easy to view someone like Shaq, and extrapolate his 00 season to his whole career, or on the other hand, to extrapolate Wilt's statistical obsession or his lesser earlier impact to his whole career. I'm sorting through how I should deal with those biases of mine, but I'm not sure yet. I wonder if I tend to look at Wilt by what he "should have" done his whole career, versus what he did.
Knowing the kind of player Shaq was, he just wasn't willing to put forth max effort like he did in 00 every season. It's easy for me to not extrapolate that year anywhere else because he wasn't that kind of guy.
Wilt is a tough case. Just a unique player in history. There's a lot of nebulous things that went against and for him, and the off the court stuff is going to matter to differing degrees for everyone.
Duncan - I didn't realize how many of the most elite team defenses he led (I posted a comparison of him and Russell in the last thread). He had significantly better team defenses than any other non-Russell elite big. I also think I can tend to overrate his prime at times, but I think his peak is underrated. I also think that his longevity is typically undervalued. Also, Duncan seemed to have consistent defensive success, whether as co-anchor with DRob, anchor during the hand checking + illegal defense era, and post hand checking rule change. There were, like Russell, often a platoon of players (defensively, at least) over the span of the years, and yet he consistently led stellar defenses.
Tim's been getting a lot of points for intangibles which he probably deserves, but how much does it matter in a comparison just player to player? Those intangibles contributed heavily to his team's success, but does it make him as a player, better than others? Hard to say. That said, if I was doing an all-time draft I'm not taking more than 5 guys over him.
I think his longevity is actually a tiny bit overrated because the Spurs returned to dominance (making him look better) after a few shaky years and because he was so well conserved over the last 6 or so years of his career. From 2011 onward he was at 28 MPG. He was still an excellent player on the court, but that's not a luxury anyone else in the discussion had (except KG who was at like 33 MPG after joining Boston) - they were often relied on for superstar minutes. Wilt played more RS minutes despite playing like 5 seasons less. Granted, you can attribute that longevity to his willingness to take a backseat and bring in good players.
I think the 03 playoff run is a little overrated as well. I think he was essentially the same the year before (team was on 65 W pace with Bowen and Tim shot FTs way better in 02). His team just got better and everyone else got worse. I also believe a lot of posters are willing to look the other way on Duncan's faults because he did everything right for his team.
Shaq - at his apex, he might have been the most dominant basketball player ever (short list - Mikan, Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Lebron, Jordan, Shaq). Yet, he missed 90+ games during his best 6 year stretch. He was a strong negative in the locker room, his physical fitness could be unreliable. Is the ceiling value he provides really worth more than the slightly lower, but more consistent value a Duncan, KG, Magic, Hakeem, Etc. provide? As far as Wilt vs. Shaq, Wilt at his best played a style that is the best for a big man to maximize impact and to produce good fit, good spacing, etc. however, I'm not sure how much that matters, due to how dominant Shaq was.
I have peak Hakeem/Shaq as nearly dead even or a edge to Hakeem but I think peak Shaq beats the other guys by a tiny bit. He has clear negatives compared to basically everyone remaining except Wilt. I don't really care about the missed games as long as they get to the playoffs but I do care about blowing up locker rooms, alienating management, and giving half-assed efforts randomly. Still, I'm not sure it matters enough to drop him too much - I can see Wilt/Tim/Hakeem/Magic over him but after that...probably not. His defense is also a major question mark - he wasn't capable of defending as well as Tim/Hakeem/KG to begin with but his effort was always up and down.
Shaq's offensive game is incredibly resilient and he's always been able to play his game against strong, even all-time defenses. You need a C to put up points and ruin lives, you take Shaq. You won't get many chances, though. The Lakers were fortunate to win even three titles because they were insanely close to losing in 2000 and 2002.
Wilt - I don't ever see a time where he produces non-high level impact, but there were certainly times in his early years where he appeared to at least mitigate some of the impact his teammates could have (yet I feel Shaq had some of the same problems, though not sure how similar the degree of problems is). The only seasons I see as *huge* question marks are 61-63. His supporting cast wasn't very great though.
Shaq had similar issues, but he never held back on the court like Wilt did. He knew how talented he was and used it. Wilt's defensive peak beats Shaq's though. A huge part of Wilt is his off the court stuff.
KG - regarding 06-07, not a single player on this shortlist had a team remotely resembling the level of dumpster fire KG had those years. He has the perfect skill set for an impactful big, and his impact stats show it. He was never a negative team influence, though not as overwhelmingly positive as Duncan/Russell/Magic. If you could add the verticality of a Duncan type player to Kg, it would be exactly what I would look for in a big man (aka Walton :/). KG fit in a variety of situations and maximizes his and his teammates' impact - carrying the team, leading an ATG defense, having actual talent on his team (04). I'm with eminence - I want to see more about his 90's seasons.
I'm looking forward to seeing how KG falls in this project. Last time he was the most polarizing player of the entire thing. I can see arguments for KG above everyone left except Hakeem and possibly Shaq.
Hakeem - talent wise, on par with all of these players. He didn't seem to produce as many effective results given the situations with similar team composition, though that's just from memory, so I could be wrong (not near my computer). I want to know more about his 80's career, and how he compared offensively and defensively. One problem is that his 96/97/98/etc RAPM scores are pretty low, while DRob's still shine. Plus, RAW +/- paints DRob as a superior player, but raw plus minus is kinda a fickle stat.
Can't really agree with the comparison to D-Rob in those particular years. 97 D-Rob missed basically the whole season. 98 his offensive production dropped with Tim on board and he was allowed to focus on what he did best: defend.
Hakeem's 80s years tend to get underrated because there was a lot of blowback with evaluating his peak - many people felt his career was overrated on the basis on those of those years and asked what he did in the other years. His Rockets were a top 4 defense every year from 87-94 (except 92 when he fought with his FO and missed about 15 games) and 1st in 90 when he should've been DPOY over Rodman. There's a few posts discussing his defense pre-93, and tbh he's pretty close to what his defensive peak, except he's a little too aggressive/foul prone in the 80s.
I tend to see peak Hakeem over Shaq and Duncan, but I get drafting Duncan first. I think there is a clear edge to Hakeem in both offense and defense over Duncan, and he demolishes Shaq defensively. I also don't think KG does anything better than Hakeem except take on perimeter assignments and shoot (not like Hakeem was a slouch though), and Hakeem's scoring ability outshines KG's significantly.
DRob - consistently provided massive impact, but his playoff game suffered. I would like to attempt to determine if it was because he was doing something beyond the scope of how he could maximize a team (we saw that he was amazing in a Russell or 08 KG role where he could focus on finishing and playing otherworldly defense.)
His supporting cast wasn't great but underrated. He wasn't a fantastic scorer (decent jumper, transition killer, could hit FTs) but overall fairly limited due to lack of reliable offensive options in the half court. The Jazz/Rockets took him apart in his peak of 94-96. I believe his volume/efficiency overrate his true scoring ability, and an ideal team wouldn't have him in the 28-30 range, they'd have him in 20-22. For this reason I cannot put him over Hakeem or Duncan, despite any edge D-Rob may have defensively.
Dirk - offensively, provided the highest gravity ever IMO. Consistently measured out impact wise at least near Duncan/KG. I wonder whether his lack of big man defensive impact minimizes the global effect on impact he could have had.
I am not so sure that Dirk's off-ball impact/gravity was greater than the best on-ball playmakers of his era such as Kobe/Wade/Nash/Lebron.
I do think his defense is useful, but not dominant. When posters go over his defense, they tend to praise tertiary aspects such as rebounding, effort, and positioning. I even saw one guy bring up his close outs. I understand if we want to praise his consistent defensive effort, but it doesn't mean his defense is better than others - and it also says that he can provide that consistent effort possession to possession because he's not relied on as the primary playmaker of his team.
