RealGM Top 100 List: #19

[trex_8063]

I'd like to quickly add that Havlicek at his best (1970-74) was quite efficient scorer.

This might be semantics (i.e. what you mean by "quite efficient"), but generally I'd disagree......

In '70 he was +2.18% rTS (which was the best of his whole career, I believe).
In '71 was +1.26% rTS.
In '72 was +0.78% rTS.
In '73 was +0.41% rTS.
In '74 was -0.67% rTS.

To me that doesn't adequately fit the definition of "quite efficient".

[Doctor MJ]

To me that's placing too much inertia resisting the idea that one guy is better than another. "All 3 guys are as good as they come" seems like a very fair perspective, the 3 guys approached their role in very different ways style-wise with Nash being the most aggressive, Magic in the middle, and Stockton being vastly more conservative than the other two. To name them as roughly equals feels like a proper cautious approach to the comparison, but we should not expect them to achieve the exact same results with different approaches. Either Nash was too risk prone, or he wasn't. Either Stockton was too cautious, or he wasn't.

The data tells us that Nash was the top per minute offensive player of his era while playing in an era that made more optimal use of role players, pace, and 3-point shooting. You can personally believe Stockton would have done the same had he played for D'Antoni, and thus negate the actual offensive impact edge Nash may have had in a GOAT list comparison, but to simply assert there was no difference doesn't make sense. These things clearly transformed the NBA because they made major improvements to offense, and while you can try to argue that that's just an era difference to be adjusted for, the fact remains that when Nash did it, many, many people were dismissive of it, and those people have been proven about as wrong as you can every prove anything given that in '16-17 Nash's approach would have actually been conservative compared to new norms and a Stockton-esque approach would have been a non-starter.

I don't think that's accurate. They played in different eras and Stockton's PnR based offense was as successful relative to his time (for 4 years v. 6) as Nash's D'Antoni based offense . . . it was just a decade earlier so certain things (3 point shooting, etc.) were not as widely accepted. That's like saying Lenny Wilkens's handles couldn't compare to those of half the PGs in the modern league. He (arguably) had the best handles of his day but the rules and the way those rules were implemented and enforced were different. Stockton in his day ran as successful an offense as Nash in his . . . and in my belief, with less offensive talent around him (despite Karl Malone).

The norms of what is conservative in their day were different; Stockton's offense was a drastic change from the standard offense of his day too. He made Sloan's PnR offense work just as Nash was the engine driving D'Antoni's Suns. I don't see Nash as superior offensively to Stockton in terms of running an offense. Maybe in terms of being more willing to call his own number but that's the only offensive edge I see with him.

But Nash was not remotely normal for his day which is why he's a much more polarizing figure than Stockton was. Stockton was essentially the perfect culmination of a long held philosophy about how point guards should play, both in what he would and would not venture to do. What D'Antoni did with Nash was essentially say "fast is good, 3's are good, do what makes sense out there", and Nash's approach was quite heterodox. He was constantly probing. Diving into situation that weren't ideal for him individually essentially having faith that the distortion to the defense he cause would leave openings that he'd be able to identify when he popped his head out.

Now you may be thinking "Okay but Stockton wasn't told any of those things so we don't know what he'd do if he had the opportunity." And I'd quite agree. What I'd only stick are 2 things:

1) That Nash's play, however he was facilitated by a coach's openness, was still ahead of Nash's time in a way you can't say about Stockton relative to Stockton's time, and this led to an impact edge.

2) That the specific approach Nash had was not something other point guards would just start doing if left to their own devices. It was a distinct, ultra risky style, that Nash's personality let him to.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #101:

Charles Barkley - *9 (*2klegend, andrewww, Hornet Mania, Joao Saraiva, LABird, Narigo, trex_8063, twolves97, Winsome Gerbil)
Moses Malone - 3 (scabbarista, JordansBulls, Dr Positivity)
George Mikan - 2 (penbeast0, wojoaderge)
John Havlicek - 1 (Outside)
Dwyane Wade - 1 (mischievous)
Steve Nash - 1 (micahclay)

Thread will be open for at least a few more hours.

@ Senior, you've implied a vote but made nothing official.
@ 2klegend, let me know if I need to revert your vote back to the original, as per project stipulations penbeast0 and I have indicated. I don't require that we all use the exact same methodology for assessing, but I do require that we are all at least assessing the same things. The project needs at least that much internal consistency, and it's not appropriate to participate if you cannot comply.

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[JordansBulls]

Is Moses Malone really not going to be top 20?

[70sFan]

I'd like to quickly add that Havlicek at his best (1970-74) was quite efficient scorer.

This might be semantics (i.e. what you mean by "quite efficient"), but generally I'd disagree......

In '70 he was +2.18% rTS (which was the best of his whole career, I believe).
In '71 was +1.26% rTS.
In '72 was +0.78% rTS.
In '73 was +0.41% rTS.
In '74 was -0.67% rTS.

To me that doesn't adequately fit the definition of "quite efficient".

Which supports my claim. He was above average most of the times. Not really great by any means, but not bad either. Look how Melo compares next to him:

In '09 was -1.2% rTS
In '10 was +0.5% rTS
In '11 was +1.6% rTS
In '12 was -0.2% rTS
In '13 was +2.5% rTS
In '14 was +2.1% rTS
In '15 was -0.4% rTS

I don't compare them overall as scorers, because Melo scored on higher volume but strictly in terms of efficiency, they aren really much different. I don't think Melo is inefficient. Maybe not all-time level scorer, but still efficient enough.

[Senior]

. . .

Looking forward on Curry because his longevity is essentially 5 years but his peak over the last 3 years is arguably top 10. Is that peak enough to overcome someone like Stockton?

No, is it enough to overcome Wade?

Hard to say. 7-8 years of prime-ish Wade (05-06, 09-12, half of 07 and and okayish 13) vs 5 years of prime Curry...Curry might've peaked higher but it's closer than impact numbers make it seem I think. I think a lot of a Curry vs Wade debate would come down how much separation each guy gets from their supporting cast because the Warriors are one of the best supporting casts in history...but of course, how much does Curry enable that to a degree that Wade may not have? Wade's supporting casts were garbage post Shaq/pre-Lebron, but how much of that is Wade's own limitations, especially shooting? For some reason Wade could never maintain the mid-range shooting he displayed in the 06 playoffs and parts of 09 (injury? I'm aware of his shoulder/knee injuries in 07/08 but I don't know what could've ruined his shooting from 09 to 10), and he never really developed a three that could compensate for fading athleticism.

I do believe that the biggest portion of what makes Curry amazing (his shooting) has always been there. In his first three years with all his ankle issues, he was putting up 18/6 on 47/44/90 (58% TS) His shooting from 15-17 was 49/44/91, virtually inseparable from his early years. The huge jump comes in his TS (65% in the 15-17 RS) but that has to do with the volume increase, not his efficiency.

guess it's time to vote...I mentioned that I had the defense of Moses as not a significant separator and Chuck wins the offensive tiebreaker, weaker intangibles and all. I don't actually know if I'd have Moses as the next guy in line because there are some other guys I might take over him for a playoff run. But it seems we might not have time to think about it more, so I'll go with my gut.

vote: chuck
alt: moses

[trex_8063]

II. ABOUT COUSY'S DOMINANCE (or lack thereof):
Cousy ran off TEN straight seasons (1952-1961) of ALL-NBA 1st-Teams. So this includes 1961 where he was a 1st-Team-er along with the Big "O". (He was also the very FIRST player to rack up 9 and then 10 ALL-League 1st-Team selections.)

Cousy dominated his position during a period where the level of play was better than it had been during Mikan's domination of his position - and for decidedly more games. For me this argues for Cousy to YES be considered this high on our GOAT list.

That he fell to 2nd-Team ALL-NBA the next two seasons behind "O" & Jerry West; doesn't NECESSARILY tell us all that much. Only THREE players in all of NBA-ABA-NBL history had 11 ALL-League 1st-Team selections (K.Malone, Kobe & now LBJ). So Cousy FINALLY coming off his solid 10-year PRIME to a level still good enough for TWO additional seasons as a 2nd-Team-er - this is not only not any proof IN ITSELF that he was as much surpassed as he was getting old (in NBA (PRIME) years). Of course, almost no one, myself included, puts Cousy in the same tier as the Big "O" and Jerry West - but that's besides the point HERE - I'm simply addressing his DECADE's worth of positional DOMINANCE.

Ultimately, I with Doctor MJ on this one, in that I think normalizing each position is a somewhat dangerous exercise (see his DeMar DeRozan [or maybe Bradley Beal or CJ McCollum, if you prefer] example for the current league).

But further I again don't agree with taking all All-NBA honors at face-value. We have various era-standardized metrics (PER and WS/48) for guys even going back into Cousy's career. We have *per 100 possession estimates and relative TS%, we have team ORtg's, and we have *WOWY studies (*can provide links to these things if you're interested).......ALL of these things indicate Cousy was not quite the level of player (from box production or impact standpoint) as some of the other PG's who are generating discussion at this point. We also have our eyes, which for me, indicate he's not the level of player as guys like Steve Nash, Chris Paul, John Stockton, or probably even Isiah Thomas and Jason Kidd, imo (regardless of how many All-NBA honors he has). And it's not that the era didn't allow for a PG to be as good as those guys (because Oscar and West absolutely WERE as good [if not better] than those guys).

V. ONCE MORE ON A COMPROMISE-SOLUTION MAKING MIKAN OUR COLLECTIVE GOAT #25:
trex, you say that voting in Mikan at GOAT #25 is slightly higher than you have him on your AT list - same for me - as the years & decades have passed; I've moved him down from my GOAT #1 to GOAT #50 - and believe he should be permanently kept at GOAT #50 (at the lowest!). My suggestion for us collectively making him GOAT #25 is to some significant is a purely practical consideration - seeing as such worthy posters in these threads as penbeast0 keep voting for him (or saying he should go soon); while others see him a good deal further down the list - it SEEMS to me that APRIORI, mutually "agreeing" to have him go GOAT #25 - is a decent compromise AND frees up penbeast0 and several others from going round after round "wasting" their votes on a candidate that virtually nobody else is even mentioning yet for alternate.

As much as I like and respect penbeast0, I just can't bring myself to support Mikan out of consideration for pen, when I don't truly feel strongly for Mikan at this stage.

penbeast0 has had the opportunity to change his vote. I guess it's a fine or grey line between this and "strategic manipulation of the vote", but I'll tentatively say I don't have a problem with people voting for individuals who are actually NOT their top available pick, if their top available pick simply doesn't have the traction yet. I would just ask that they are honest in voting for their highest pick who does have reasonable traction (which might be any time now for Mikan). That's a little different than voting for Player X because you really don't want Player Y to win.

[trex_8063]

I'd like to quickly add that Havlicek at his best (1970-74) was quite efficient scorer.

This might be semantics (i.e. what you mean by "quite efficient"), but generally I'd disagree......

In '70 he was +2.18% rTS (which was the best of his whole career, I believe).
In '71 was +1.26% rTS.
In '72 was +0.78% rTS.
In '73 was +0.41% rTS.
In '74 was -0.67% rTS.

To me that doesn't adequately fit the definition of "quite efficient".

Which supports my claim. He was above average most of the times. Not really great by any means, but not bad either. Look how Melo compares next to him:

In '09 was -1.2% rTS
In '10 was +0.5% rTS
In '11 was +1.6% rTS
In '12 was -0.2% rTS
In '13 was +2.5% rTS
In '14 was +2.1% rTS
In '15 was -0.4% rTS

I don't compare them overall as scorers, because Melo scored on higher volume but strictly in terms of efficiency, they aren really much different. I don't think Melo is inefficient. Maybe not all-time level scorer, but still efficient enough.

Well, to be fair, you've selected a time period that included the majority of Hondo's most efficient seasons (includes ALL of his top three, and four of his top five; meanwhile also includes NONE of his lowest efficiency seasons.....none that are even in the bottom half for his career).

With the sample you've chosen for Melo, otoh, it DOES include one or two seasons that are among the bottom five for his career, and omits the two BEST of his career (+2.7% rTS in '06, +2.8% in '08).

But further (semantics), I'm not sure I'd call Melo "quite efficient" either.

[Pablo Novi]

Thru post #101:

Charles Barkley - *9 (*2klegend, andrewww, Hornet Mania, Joao Saraiva, LABird, Narigo, trex_8063, twolves97, Winsome Gerbil)
Moses Malone - 3 (scabbarista, JordansBulls, Dr Positivity)
George Mikan - 2 (penbeast0, wojoaderge)
John Havlicek - 1 (Outside)
Dwyane Wade - 1 (mischievous)
Steve Nash - 1 (micahclay)

Thread will be open for at least a few more hours.

@ Senior, you've implied a vote but made nothing official.
@ 2klegend, let me know if I need to revert your vote back to the original, as per project stipulations penbeast0 and I have indicated. I don't require that we all use the exact same methodology for assessing, but I do require that we are all at least assessing the same things. The project needs at least that much internal consistency, and it's not appropriate to participate if you cannot comply.

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Either you missed my post #21 in this thread, or I did something wrong that didn't make it clear enough. Here it is:
Vote: Bob Pettit (my GOAT #3 PF) "Great Years +" "Points": 43.3
Alt: Bob Cousy (my GOAT #3 PG) "Great Years +" "Points": 40
H.M.: Elgin Baylor (my GOAT #4 SF) "Great Years +" "Points": 46.7

These are the only 3 remaining guys with 10 ALL-League First-Team selections - basically a decade of dominating their position.
All 3 revolutionized their position.

I have Pettit over Cousy because I believe his First-Team & 2nd-Team selections are a little more valuable.

I have them both over Elgin because I put one player per position in each descending set of 5 GOAT rankings. So, Elgin's in the next group.

penbeast0 wrote:
Re: Pettit -- do you really think his impact was close to that of Mikan? I love him and have him as my #5 PF of all time but he was basically Karl Malone in terms of impact. Mikan was a lot more.

Re: Cousy -- in his prime in the 50s, he carried his team (with good scorers Bill Sharman and Ed Macauley) to 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd place finishes in a 4 team conference pre-Russell. With Russell, he had some of the worst playoffs of all time. Is he really better than Frazier? Stockton? Nash? Paul? If so, why?

trex_8063 wrote:
Re: Pettit - I would counter by noting he played in a tougher era, though, and also note his longevity appears superior (even if we count Mikan's NBL years).

Re: Cousy - I know I'll be championing Cousy sooner than most on this forum. But I do generally agree there's ample room to question whether he belongs ahead of Stockton, Nash, Paul, Frazier (or Kidd, Payton, Isiah, Curry, etc, for that matter).

Pablo Novi wrote:
SUGGESTED MIKAN COMPROMISE: GOAT #25
I have a suggestion re. our collective GOAT ranking of George Mikan:
Why not have him be GOAT #25 ?

Comparing him to other All-Time Greats:
He played ONLY a total of 520 games in his career (plus 91 Play-Off games)
Most of the guys we've voted in, or soon will, played close to twice (or more) as many games.
It is also known and agreed upon that his era was FAR weaker than any since then.
Still he DOMINATED his first 7.3 seasons for 7 Chips (and one broken leg from probably getting all 8).

Therefore, in such a controversial case, why not agree to a compromise (before hand?) and vote him in as GOAT #25?

About Cousy vs such as: Stockton, Nash, Paul, Frazier (or Kidd, Payton, Isiah, Curry.

I was never a huge fan of Cousy's (mostly because his great years happened before I started watching). Still, assuming our main criteria is how a player played AGAINST HIS COMPETITION IN HIS ERA; Cousy was ALL-NBA 1st-Team 10 years - twice as many as Kidd; 2.5 times as many as: CP3, Walt Frazier & Sharman; and at least 3+ times as many as the rest of these other otherwise quite-worthy PGs). That's a tremendous amount more position-wise domination.

Also, we have not as yet included any players who played mostly in the 1950s - that strikes me as a bit unbalanced.

N.B. I treat Jerry West as a SG rather than as a PG. Gail Goodrich, who played with Jerry about half of Jerry's career, said that Gail was the PG and Jerry the SG. Also, Jerry, particularly early on, was not a great assists man (less than 5 apg for his first 5 years, still less than 7 during his next 4 years); but what a shooter!

GOAT PGs:
by Pablo's "GREAT YEARS" "POINTS" Rankings:

#. "PTS"; Name; 1st-Teams; 2nd-Tms (ALL-NBA)
. 1. 49.8 Magic ..... 9 (1st-Tm) - 1 (2nd-Tm)
. 2. 49.0 Big "O" .... 9 - 2
. 3. 40.0 Cousy ... 10 - 2 N.B. Despite Cousy's TEN 1st-Tms, he only has 40 "Pts"; because I've discounted heavily his era.
. 4. 37.8 Stockton .. 2 - 6
. 5. 35.0 Kidd ....... 5 - 1
. 6. 33.8 Paul ....... 4 -3
. 7. 29.8 Payton .... 2 - 5
. 8. 29.3 Nash ...... 3 - 2
. 9. 28.5 A.I. ........ 3 - 3
10. 24.5 Isiah ....... 3 - 2
11. 23.3 Westbrook 2 - 4
12. 22.5 Frazier ... 4 - 2
13. 19.0 Tiny ...... 3 - 2
14. 19.0 Sharman . 4 - 3
15. 17.5 Curry ..... 2 - 2

[janmagn]

Vote: George Mikan
2nd vote: Charles Barkley

Keeping it short. Mikan was the most dominant player of his era by a mile and thus gets my vote here

Lähetetty minun LG-H440n laitteesta Tapatalkilla

[penbeast0]

As much as I like and respect penbeast0, I just can't bring myself to support Mikan out of consideration for pen, when I don't truly feel strongly for Mikan at this stage.

penbeast0 has had the opportunity to change his vote. I guess it's a fine or grey line between this and "strategic manipulation of the vote", but I'll tentatively say I don't have a problem with people voting for individuals who are actually NOT their top available pick, if their top available pick simply doesn't have the traction yet. I would just ask that they are honest in voting for their highest pick who does have reasonable traction (which might be any time now for Mikan). That's a little different than voting for Player X because you really don't want Player Y to win.

Heck, that's what the alternative vote is for

[Outside]

II. ABOUT COUSY'S DOMINANCE (or lack thereof):
Cousy ran off TEN straight seasons (1952-1961) of ALL-NBA 1st-Teams. So this includes 1961 where he was a 1st-Team-er along with the Big "O". (He was also the very FIRST player to rack up 9 and then 10 ALL-League 1st-Team selections.)

Cousy dominated his position during a period where the level of play was better than it had been during Mikan's domination of his position - and for decidedly more games. For me this argues for Cousy to YES be considered this high on our GOAT list.

That he fell to 2nd-Team ALL-NBA the next two seasons behind "O" & Jerry West; doesn't NECESSARILY tell us all that much. Only THREE players in all of NBA-ABA-NBL history had 11 ALL-League 1st-Team selections (K.Malone, Kobe & now LBJ). So Cousy FINALLY coming off his solid 10-year PRIME to a level still good enough for TWO additional seasons as a 2nd-Team-er - this is not only not any proof IN ITSELF that he was as much surpassed as he was getting old (in NBA (PRIME) years). Of course, almost no one, myself included, puts Cousy in the same tier as the Big "O" and Jerry West - but that's besides the point HERE - I'm simply addressing his DECADE's worth of positional DOMINANCE.

Ultimately, I with Doctor MJ on this one, in that I think normalizing each position is a somewhat dangerous exercise (see his DeMar DeRozan [or maybe Bradley Beal or CJ McCollum, if you prefer] example for the current league).

But further I again don't agree with taking all All-NBA honors at face-value. We have various era-standardized metrics (PER and WS/48) for guys even going back into Cousy's career. We have *per 100 possession estimates and relative TS%, we have team ORtg's, and we have *WOWY studies (*can provide links to these things if you're interested).......ALL of these things indicate Cousy was not quite the level of player (from box production or impact standpoint) as some of the other PG's who are generating discussion at this point. We also have our eyes, which for me, indicate he's not the level of player as guys like Steve Nash, Chris Paul, John Stockton, or probably even Isiah Thomas and Jason Kidd, imo (regardless of how many All-NBA honors he has). And it's not that the era didn't allow for a PG to be as good as those guys (because Oscar and West absolutely WERE as good [if not better] than those guys).

I agree with not putting too much weight on all-NBA selections, but I don't think they're meaningless, either. Cousy being selected all-NBA for 10 straight seasons is impressive.

I'm more skeptical of PER than I am of all-NBA selections, especially for players from that early era. I'm an analytics neophyte, but I've read numerous breakdowns of Hollinger's PER that lead me to characterize it as a crude tool at best, and because many stats aren't available for players from the early days, it's a skeleton of a crude tool for them. For early players in particular, it tends to reward those who score a lot, shoot a higher percentage, and get lots of rebounds -- in other words, post players -- while assists, Cousy's forte, were given out sparingly in those days. Look at Cousy's best years, and you'll see PER dominated by big men.

WS/48 runs into the same issues, perhaps to a greater extent, because Cousy does even worse by that metric.

Where I'm not sure about Cousy is defense. I know that once Russell arrived, Celtic guards played a more gambling style on defense knowing that Russell had their back, but I don't know anything about how good Cousy was defensively.

V. ONCE MORE ON A COMPROMISE-SOLUTION MAKING MIKAN OUR COLLECTIVE GOAT #25:
trex, you say that voting in Mikan at GOAT #25 is slightly higher than you have him on your AT list - same for me - as the years & decades have passed; I've moved him down from my GOAT #1 to GOAT #50 - and believe he should be permanently kept at GOAT #50 (at the lowest!). My suggestion for us collectively making him GOAT #25 is to some significant is a purely practical consideration - seeing as such worthy posters in these threads as penbeast0 keep voting for him (or saying he should go soon); while others see him a good deal further down the list - it SEEMS to me that APRIORI, mutually "agreeing" to have him go GOAT #25 - is a decent compromise AND frees up penbeast0 and several others from going round after round "wasting" their votes on a candidate that virtually nobody else is even mentioning yet for alternate.

As much as I like and respect penbeast0, I just can't bring myself to support Mikan out of consideration for pen, when I don't truly feel strongly for Mikan at this stage.

penbeast0 has had the opportunity to change his vote. I guess it's a fine or grey line between this and "strategic manipulation of the vote", but I'll tentatively say I don't have a problem with people voting for individuals who are actually NOT their top available pick, if their top available pick simply doesn't have the traction yet. I would just ask that they are honest in voting for their highest pick who does have reasonable traction (which might be any time now for Mikan). That's a little different than voting for Player X because you really don't want Player Y to win.

Mikan was obviously dominant for his era, which is his main asset for inclusion on the list. Where I have trouble with Mikan is the weakness of his era (discussed extensively elsewhere) and longevity. Including his NBL years, he played only nine seasons. Those are difficult hurdles for me to overcome.

[Joao Saraiva]

Is Moses Malone really not going to be top 20?

He'll win the next one. So yes he is.

[penbeast0]

...
Where I'm not sure about Cousy is defense. I know that once Russell arrived, Celtic guards played a more gambling style on defense knowing that Russell had their back, but I don't know anything about how good Cousy was defensively....

Well, Celtics before Russell were below average defensively and Red famously didn't want Cousy on his team and publicly said Cousy didn't play any defense. So, I'm guessing that Sharman was the better defender but that neither were all that good.

[Lou Fan]

ALL of these things indicate Cousy was not quite the level of player (from box production or impact standpoint) as some of the other PG's who are generating discussion at this point. We also have our eyes, which for me, indicate he's not the level of player as guys like Steve Nash, Chris Paul, John Stockton, or probably even Isiah Thomas and Jason Kidd, imo (regardless of how many All-NBA honors he has). And it's not that the era didn't allow for a PG to be as good as those guys (because Oscar and West absolutely WERE as good [if not better] than those guys).

No Curry? I think he should be discussed in the next couple threads. I have him top 25. Thoughts?

[wojoaderge]

I have him top 25. Thoughts?

Yes

[Outside]

I have him top 25. Thoughts?

Yes

Man, you guys keep throwing me for a loop. Here I am a Warriors fan, Curry is my current favorite player, I'm in with both feet on the gravity thing, and his 2015-16 season was the most phenomenal year I've seen, but I've tapped the brakes on him because he doesn't have the longevity yet, so I slotted him at 37 in my initial spitball ranking. Guess I'll have to rethink that, too.

[mikejames23]

I don't think that's accurate. They played in different eras and Stockton's PnR based offense was as successful relative to his time (for 4 years v. 6) as Nash's D'Antoni based offense . . . it was just a decade earlier so certain things (3 point shooting, etc.) were not as widely accepted. That's like saying Lenny Wilkens's handles couldn't compare to those of half the PGs in the modern league. He (arguably) had the best handles of his day but the rules and the way those rules were implemented and enforced were different. Stockton in his day ran as successful an offense as Nash in his . . . and in my belief, with less offensive talent around him (despite Karl Malone).

The norms of what is conservative in their day were different; Stockton's offense was a drastic change from the standard offense of his day too. He made Sloan's PnR offense work just as Nash was the engine driving D'Antoni's Suns. I don't see Nash as superior offensively to Stockton in terms of running an offense. Maybe in terms of being more willing to call his own number but that's the only offensive edge I see with him.

With all due respect to the 100+ years of basketball you have watched, I don't believe this to be true. Utah's offense was very consistently predictable and this also meant they would very consistently suffer in the playoffs before acquiring a 17/5/120 O-Rating type of guy in Hornacek. Nash never demonstrated the need for another wing scorer of this caliber. You could toss Joe Johnson out of the team and the Suns were still WCF material.

The only reason I could take Stockton over Nash is if my team already has offensive creators or needs additional guard defense. Nash's PnR is still fantastic without a guy like Amare. Nash's ability to aggressively attack and create in addition to having immense IQ makes him special. He's more on the level of an elite do it-all guard such as Wade or Kobe in that sense, and Stockton's appears to be a tier lower on the actual way he can impact the offense. Both Nash and Stockton could post an 15/12 type statline, but these numbers are coming in entirely different ways.

[drza]

Coming in late here, after not being able to vote in the last thread (though it worked out...I had been voting David Robinson for several threads before that, anyway). It's very clear that the choice for this thread is between Barkley and Moses as no one else is really getting any traction. Mikan has been in more discussions the last couple of threads, and I feel like I should at least mention him.

For me, the weakness of the league is the biggest issue. The lack of longevity is worth noting, but it was such a different league back then that I'm more willing to be at least a bit flexible on that front...which actually works part-and-parcel with the weakness of the league issue, come to think of it. Mikan certainly dominated his time, and I'm a huge impact guy, so that's a pro for him. But I do also put at least some weight into era strength, and whether a player could at least be effective in other eras. Russell, for example...it's impossible to know if he'd be AS huge of an impact guy in other eras, but he still has the size, athletic ability and skillset that it seems likely (to me) that he'd still be a huge impact guy in any era of history. With Mikan? I'm not even confident that he'd be able to make the NBA in other eras, and if he were on the team I'm very unconvinced that he'd be even a solid player, let alone a star. That factors in heavy for me, heavy enough that he's not up next for me, and may not be any time soon. I'll have to keep thinking on it.

As for the players up for consideration here, I'm not positive that Barkley and Moses would have been the only two under consideration for me. But, since it's the reality, I'll look at them only. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go in much depth.

I think that, relatively, Barkley was the better offensive player while Moses was the better defender. However, adding a level of detail, Barkley's offense was all-history vs Moses' level being great...on defense, it seems broadly that Moses was closer to being average, and Barkley poor. Having a poor defensive big man can be hard for a team defense to overcome, but having an all-history offensive impact big is an extreme rarity, and gives teams options to build around.

If Moses' offensive and defensive impact were reversed, I might be more inclined to lean his way here. However, since neither are great on defense, I feel like a team could put Barkley with a strong defensive center and come out better than pairing Moses with a power forward that is both elite defensively and also has the passing ability to help make up for Moses' lack there.

All told, I think I could build a more successful team, and in a wider variety of circumstances, built around what Barkley produced in his career compared to what Moses did in his.

Vote: Charles Barkley

[wojoaderge]

but I've tapped the brakes on him because he doesn't have the longevity yet

I'm not a big longevity guy