RealGM Top 100 List #7

[batmana]

Reading the discussion, I've been going back and forth between Magic and LeBron and I still can't make up my mind so I won't vote just yet. I am leaning towards Magic but will take my time and vote later.

LeBron is still arguably in his prime so he can take over Magic and even some of the others who rank above him. But at this point he still has just two titles with his hand-picked set of teammates who were arguably top 5 (Wade) and top 10 (Bosh) when they teamed up. The fact that Wade regressed and Bosh has been turned into a role player certainly made the Heat team underwhelming in terms of a super-team but at least for Bosh I think it was not injuries so it must be something in the game-plan, in the coaching, or in the fit. LeBron is always praised for making his teammates better but since he does literally everything on the offensive end of the floor, I feel he could have a negative impact on a superstar teammate (in this case - Bosh and to a smaller extent - Wade). Still, despite this knock on LeBron, his personal achievements and team success is really impressive so it's not like I'm playing down his bid, I'm just explaining the reasons that make me wonder between him and Magic.

I am surprised that I haven't read a compelling case for Bird yet. I would have no problem including him in this decision and I have struggled in the past trying to rate him. I want to say that I don't value longevity as highly in itself (unless it's longevity of peak). That's why I didn't vote for Kareem and have him much lower than most other posters, that's why I don't consider Garnett top 10, and that's why I think Bird matches up well with Magic and LeBron.

I guess I will be reading the discussion and making my decision at a later point.

[magicmerl]

I don't know what your notion of "transcendent" player is based on

This wasn't addressed to me, but my qualifier for guys in earlier eras is whether they did something absolutely amazing, potentially GOAT.

Years ago, before I knew this board existed, I had Oscar in my top 5. However, as I've become more aware of how pace affects different eras, I've adjusted my appreciation of mind-boggling stats achieved in a high-pace era. Robertson had those crazy 'triple double' seasons. And thats amazing and all, but on a per 36 minute basis his first 5 seasons played out as 24PTS, 8.4REB, 8.6AST. Which is good, but those were his standout years and he played another 9 years and got steadily worse each year. Compare that with LeBron, who had the typical slow start to his career (most players peak a few years into their career, not on their rookie contract). LeBron had 23.9PTS, 6.3AST and 5.8AST on a per 36 minute basis over the first 5 years of his career.

However, although Oscar looks better, that's comparing Oscar's best stretch with LeBron's worst. And even then, LeBron had a .497fg% vs .486fg% for Oscar, which is a win for LeBron even though it's penalising him for all the 3s he is shooting.

[E-Balla]

I don't know what your notion of "transcendent" player is based on

This wasn't addressed to me, but my qualifier for guys in earlier eras is whether they did something absolutely amazing, potentially GOAT.

Years ago, before I knew this board existed, I had Oscar in my top 5. However, as I've become more aware of how pace affects different eras, I've adjusted my appreciation of mind-boggling stats achieved in a high-pace era. Robertson had those crazy 'triple double' seasons. And thats amazing and all, but on a per 36 minute basis his first 5 seasons played out as 24PTS, 8.4REB, 8.6AST. Which is good, but those were his standout years and he played another 9 years and got steadily worse each year. Compare that with LeBron, who had the typical slow start to his career (most players peak a few years into their career, not on their rookie contract). LeBron had 23.9PTS, 6.3AST and 5.8AST on a per 36 minute basis over the first 5 years of his career.

However, although Oscar looks better, that's comparing Oscar's best stretch with LeBron's worst. And even then, LeBron had a .497fg% vs .486fg% for Oscar, which is a win for LeBron even though it's penalising him for all the 3s he is shooting.

From 61-69 Oscar was:

2nd in scoring to Wilt Chamberlain
1st in TS% with a 57.1 TS (second was 55.9)
2nd in assist percentage to Guy Rodgers (they only have assist percentage from 65 on. Oscar would be first if they had it from 61-64)
2nd in PER to Wilt
2nd in WS to Wilt (I don't like WS at all but some here value them)

How is that not absolutely amazing. Can you imagine someone scoring as much as Lebron with Tyson Chandler's efficiency while dishing the ball out like Chris Paul? And I made no mention about how the average PG in that timespan was around 48 TS iirc.

[Baller2014]

Oscar posted big stats... but his teams were mediocre, and it's not like he was up against only titans, his teams were worse than some pretty nothing teams... frequently. Nor did he have no team mates. Truelafan made a long post on this which is well worth reading. I'm not going to look it up now, but it captures a lot of my concerns about Oscar. Top 25 player, but not top 20.

[E-Balla]

Oscar posted big stats... but his teams were mediocre, and it's not like he was up against only titans, his teams were worse than some pretty nothing teams... frequently. Nor did he have no team mates. Truelafan made a long post on this which is well worth reading. I'm not going to look it up now, but it captures a lot of my concerns about Oscar. Top 25 player, but not top 20.

He had bad teams (like KG) and once he got a good team he immediately won (like KG). Can't knock the man for losing with crap teammates against Wilt and Russell (from 63-67 he lost to one of those two every year and those were the only decent teams he got in Cinci). He also played very good in those losses too.

[Baller2014]

Like I said in another thread, HE didn't win, Kareem won. He was a contributor, but he basically rode the coat tails of Kareem to victory. Before Oscar arrived Kareem had turned the Bucks into a 56 win team, which would have had the best record and best SRS in the NBA the following year (when they won the title with a 32 year old Oscar). And of course, Kareem got better after his rookie year. I think the Bucks were winning in 1971 irrespective of Oscar. His joining helped make it easier, but I think it was happening regardless. Plus, during Oscar's 4 years there the Bucks had a 30-10 record in games he missed (they were playing at a 60 win pace basically). It's not analogous to KG at all, because KG was the best player on the Celtics, and the Wolves were doing significantly better than the Royals (arguably with less help- and I say that as someone who has been calling out KG fans for downplaying his help).

[ardee]

Oscar posted big stats... but his teams were mediocre, and it's not like he was up against only titans, his teams were worse than some pretty nothing teams... frequently. Nor did he have no team mates. Truelafan made a long post on this which is well worth reading. I'm not going to look it up now, but it captures a lot of my concerns about Oscar. Top 25 player, but not top 20.

Oscar's teams were tops in the NBA in ORtg mostly every year of his prime. He was doing his part to make them elite. How can he be blamed if his teammates didn't hold up their end and shore up the defense?

How is a 6'5 PG supposed to anchor the defense? You think a guy averaging a triple double doesn't have enough responsibilities?

It's like blaming Kobe for the '06 Lakers record when they had the 7th best offense in the league.... oh wait, you do that anyway. I guess you have different standards for players you like and don't like when you're clear about KG being far better despite his similar performance under similar circumstances.

Oscar is top 15 at the WORST. I have him at 12/13 with West right behind Hakeem, and I wouldn't blink if someone ranked him in their top 10.

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[ardee]

Oscar posted big stats... but his teams were mediocre, and it's not like he was up against only titans, his teams were worse than some pretty nothing teams... frequently. Nor did he have no team mates. Truelafan made a long post on this which is well worth reading. I'm not going to look it up now, but it captures a lot of my concerns about Oscar. Top 25 player, but not top 20.

He had bad teams (like KG) and once he got a good team he immediately won (like KG). Can't knock the man for losing with crap teammates against Wilt and Russell (from 63-67 he lost to one of those two every year and those were the only decent teams he got in Cinci). He also played very good in those losses too.

In '63 he put up 33/12/9 on 58% TS against Boston... this was in Russell's heyday with the Cs as a -9 defense.

I can't see anyone besides Jordan matching that... and Jordan had his issues with his own GOAT level defense opponents, the '93 Knicks

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[Baller2014]

Here's a post truelafan made earlier in the project about Oscar. I think it might be illuminating:

I’m asking this not to be combative or rude, but as a genuine question—one that I’ve asked from time to time in player value discussions. If Oscar was as important and necessary as people say with the Bucks then … what about the rest? His first ten years in the league?

No matter how you slice it, Oscar's Cincinnati teams were .500 teams. It wasn't that they had great years and some really bad years; they were, by and large, mediocre every year. They had over fifty wins once in Oscar's ten years there. They had less than 35 wins once (in Oscar's rookie year). So, in eight out of ten years, the Royals won between 36 and 48 games. That's about as average as it gets. Oscar’s main value is in offense (he was a good defender—not a great one—when young, and definitely moved more toward average as an older player.). And here's the rub—if any team is an all-time great one on offense, it should win more than 50% of its games more regularly than the Royals did. The Nash-led Suns were not a great defensive team. And the Suns did far, far better than the Oscar's Royals did. The Nuggets offensive ratings in the 80s were huge. They were a miserable defensive team; the focused on matchups for offensive reasons. (Your starting PF … Kiki Vandeweghe!). But they also had a better record in the ten years from 1981 to 1990 than Oscar's Royals did. So are the Royals not as good offensively as the 80s Nuggets? Or (shudder) are they somehow worse defensively? Where is the impact the Oscar is sometimes given credit for with the Bucks?

People are asking how much Kareem helped or got from his teammates; some are saying that Oscar deserves a big share of credit. What happened earlier? Why didn’t Oscar elevate the teams where he was the Alpha player—in his Royals years? That gets complicated on an individual player level too. Oscar played with excellent offensive players for multiple seasons. Jack Twyman and Jerry Lucas were Oscar’s teammates for close to 500 games each with the Royals. There were some good to very good defenders too-- Embry, Bob Boozer, Happy Hairston, Tom Hawkins, Bob Love and Jon McGlocklin. What happened?

For a few years, off and on, I’ve been involved in a project about the 1972 season. The point of the project was that 1972 was the first “true” modern season and a fascinating combination of the old and new. Julius Erving and Artis Glimore entered professional basketball. West and Wilt were still considered top 10 players. The ABA and NBA began playing exhibitions that showed the ABA was close, if not at, parity with the NBA (In the preseason of the 1971-2 season, the record was 14-10 in favor of the NBA. The closeness stunned most observers.) The project has lost funding and (a lot of) interest, but it remains one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever participated in. I talked to many former players from that period, and it was absolutely a pleasure. I can’t quote anything for a variety of reasons (one of which is restricted access/confidentiality), but nothing I found out was really groundshaking or salacious … just interesting. And most of this I’ve noted before.

Through my communications, I have noticed that, as I said, there is almost universal admiration for Oscar as a player. But there’s a distinct hesitation when talking about Oscar as a teammate; it isn’t that the players and administrative personnel have said he was a poor teammate. Still, there has been more than one pause, followed by a comment like “He was a perfectionist” or “He was sometimes hard on the guys he played with.” I am not saying these are bad things; perfectionism is certainly admirable in many ways, and being hard on teammates is sometimes a byproduct of effective leadership. But I get the sense that Oscar’s interpersonal skills were lacking, especially early in his career. I think this is typical of many great players, who don‘t realize that the game does not come as easily to others who lack the mental and physical skillset of a superstar. It’s why a lot of great players aren’t great coaches; they don’t understand why everyone can’t be like them. But Oscar’s personality seemed to make his comments unusually harsh seeming. I don't know whether that was a factor during Oscar's peak years, but it's been noted in the past, and I've heard it firsthand now. It isn't the focus of my project, and I'm not going into more detail on it. It is what it is. Whether it's a factor in the relative lack of team success is, obviously, a matter of debate—but, as I've said, there is a missing piece to this puzzle. And I don't think it can be determined through statistical analysis.

More than one player/personnel guy noted that this had changed to some degree by the 1970s (which is the area of my writing and research). Perhaps this is because Oscar was no longer the physical specimen he had been. By the end of the 1971 season, Oscar had played about 38000 regular season and playoff minutes. That’s about what guys like Joe Dumars and Mo Cheeks and Nate Thurmond played in their (long) careers. In a way, I think this may have been a good thing. I get the impression that being more “normal” made Oscar a better teammate, at least personality-wise. And I suspect that he had a teammate who equaled or excelled his own peak level of physical/mental skills in Kareem may have mellowed him a bit.

[penbeast0]

Even those 2 players were both post-shot clock players, in a way Mikan was clearly not. Mikan's dominance came before Russell arrived, and when Mikan left the league and came back a year later it had already changed so much he looked far worse. If you think I was harsh on the weakness of the segregated, unprofessional league of Russell's day, that pales in comparison to what I think of the pre-shot clock bush league Mikan played in. From what I understand, in the last top 100 project, Mikan and the pre-shot clock got wholly excluded, just to avoid embarrassing the guy (who was a nice person and an important historical footnote for the league, but a joke of a player by today's standards).

As the person who suggested starting at the end of the shot clock last time, I will say that you are factually incorrect. I made that suggestion not because the earlier players were incompetent, but because there was not a lot of information, footage, or other ways to answer the many questions that we all had about Mikan (and Mikkelson, etc.).

However, this time around, the overwhelming majority of the posters responding to my asking about what era players to include wanted the early years of the NBA included. That implies people are going to make a good faith effort to judge what Mikan did in his own era and how it meets their criteria for NBA greatness. I can see excluding pre-shot clock players because the game was so different but if they are included, I think it is against the spirit of the project to dismiss them out of hand just as it is to automatically exclude any 1960s or ABA players (or whatever era you are deciding to dismiss).

Try to keep an open mind and give them a fair hearing and you might surprise yourself -- for example, Connie Hawkins was the first year ABA MVP, a clearly inferior league, but you can't dismiss him because even after a potentially career ending knee injury, he switched over to the NBA, changed his style to be more of a wing rather than a 4, and was first team All-NBA, before another bad knee injury turned him into the second coming of Bill Walton.

[penbeast0]

In '63 he put up 33/12/9 on 58% TS against Boston... this was in Russell's heyday with the Cs as a -9 defense.

I can't see anyone besides Jordan matching that... and Jordan had his issues with his own GOAT level defense opponents, the '93 Knicks

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People denigrate Jerry Lucas a lot for being a stat padde and certainly he shares the blame with Oscar for the mediocrity of the Royals throughout their shared prime but . . . (a) in Lucas's defense, a guy who is so Aspergers think Rain Man) that he memorized telephone books and could keep the stats of all 24 players in his head in ongoing totals would tend to be considered stat obsessed and . . . (b) there are a lot of stories about Oscar deliberately throwing the ball off the back of teammates' heads, etc. when he saw them out of position. Locker room cohesiveness and leadership are important; I downgrade guys like Barkley, Kareem, and yes, Wilt, for that. It's one of my big questions about Oscar especially compared to West.

[lorak]

Here's a post truelafan made earlier in the project about Oscar. I think it might be illuminating:

I’m asking this not to be combative or rude, but as a genuine question—one that I’ve asked from time to time in player value discussions. If Oscar was as important and necessary as people say with the Bucks then … what about the rest? His first ten years in the league?

You want illumination, GilmoreFan, so here it is:

Overall Royals without Robertson during his career there were 22.2 WIN% team (12 wins and 40 loses, so pretty big sample and the biggest single season sample also tells the same story), with him 54.4 WIN%. That's big impact and it's consistent with how much he improved Bucks in 1971 or how Milwaukee played without him (when still was in his prime), so it's not like he only had big impact on weak teams. He also improved good/very good teams to GREAT ones. That's top 10 all time level player and only because of lack of team success in crappy organization so many people don't see how good he was - similar story is with KG and his Wolves years.

re: Mikan.
He was injured in 1956 and was after full year away from basketball - that's a lot for a 30 year old player in that era, when medicine and training was far worse. And yet, his production was pretty much on level of his career averages (except of efficiency of course) - look at per 36 stats, production was there, just he wasn't capable of playing big minutes because of injuries/lack of training.

BTW, if we compare production of players from 1954 to what they did after shot clock then we would see steady drop, but nothing significant, what would suggest big change in how game was played, especially when we consider that these players were older and older, so natural production decrease is expected. For example here's how WS/48 changed in comparison to what these players did in 1954:

Code: Select all

YEAR   PLAYERS   WS/48   AGE
1955   58   -0,027   27,5
1956   49   -0,021   27,9
1957   39   -0,021   28,9


BTW 2, I encourage you to go back to RPOY threads and read about for example Schayes. Pre shot clocks superstar, who was still superstar in the 60s until he was 32/33 years old. And he is not the only one.

[DQuinn1575]

80-84 -and he had to be as good of a finisher as Lebron )

No - LBJ was bigger, stronger, and could jump higher. Magic virtually never dunked on anybody, and didnt drive and challenge the big centers of the day


Real good write-up of his offense. That is probably the only thing I would take exception to.

LeBron is a monster physically compared to Bird and Magic - both of whom are better than Hakeem.

He rebounds better than Magic.
He passes about as well as Bird, and does it more often,
He drives better than either ever did.
He scores more than either, and is more a focal point of the offense you have to worry about.
His defense is way better than either.


I've written a lot this session about Bird > Magic, well this year I realized/accepted that LeBron is better than both.

My Official Vote for LeBron James at #7

[DQuinn1575]

Here's a post truelafan made earlier in the project about Oscar. I think it might be illuminating:

I’m asking this not to be combative or rude, but as a genuine question—one that I’ve asked from time to time in player value discussions. If Oscar was as important and necessary as people say with the Bucks then … what about the rest? His first ten years in the league?

No matter how you slice it, Oscar's Cincinnati teams were .500 teams. It wasn't that they had great years and some really bad years; they were, by and large, mediocre every year. They had over fifty wins once in Oscar's ten years there. They had less than 35 wins once (in Oscar's rookie year). So, in eight out of ten years, the Royals won between 36 and 48 games. That's about as average as it gets. Oscar’s main value is in offense (he was a good defender—not a great one—when young, and definitely moved more toward average as an older player.). And here's the rub—if any team is an all-time great one on offense, it should win more than 50% of its games more regularly than the Royals did. The Nash-led Suns were not a great defensive team. And the Suns did far, far better than the Oscar's Royals did. The Nuggets offensive ratings in the 80s were huge. They were a miserable defensive team; the focused on matchups for offensive reasons. (Your starting PF … Kiki Vandeweghe!). But they also had a better record in the ten years from 1981 to 1990 than Oscar's Royals did. So are the Royals not as good offensively as the 80s Nuggets? Or (shudder) are they somehow worse defensively? Where is the impact the Oscar is sometimes given credit for with the Bucks?

People are asking how much Kareem helped or got from his teammates; some are saying that Oscar deserves a big share of credit. What happened earlier? Why didn’t Oscar elevate the teams where he was the Alpha player—in his Royals years? That gets complicated on an individual player level too. Oscar played with excellent offensive players for multiple seasons. Jack Twyman and Jerry Lucas were Oscar’s teammates for close to 500 games each with the Royals. There were some good to very good defenders too-- Embry, Bob Boozer, Happy Hairston, Tom Hawkins, Bob Love and Jon McGlocklin. What happened?

For a few years, off and on, I’ve been involved in a project about the 1972 season. The point of the project was that 1972 was the first “true” modern season and a fascinating combination of the old and new. Julius Erving and Artis Glimore entered professional basketball. West and Wilt were still considered top 10 players. The ABA and NBA began playing exhibitions that showed the ABA was close, if not at, parity with the NBA (In the preseason of the 1971-2 season, the record was 14-10 in favor of the NBA. The closeness stunned most observers.) The project has lost funding and (a lot of) interest, but it remains one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever participated in. I talked to many former players from that period, and it was absolutely a pleasure. I can’t quote anything for a variety of reasons (one of which is restricted access/confidentiality), but nothing I found out was really groundshaking or salacious … just interesting. And most of this I’ve noted before.

Through my communications, I have noticed that, as I said, there is almost universal admiration for Oscar as a player. But there’s a distinct hesitation when talking about Oscar as a teammate; it isn’t that the players and administrative personnel have said he was a poor teammate. Still, there has been more than one pause, followed by a comment like “He was a perfectionist” or “He was sometimes hard on the guys he played with.” I am not saying these are bad things; perfectionism is certainly admirable in many ways, and being hard on teammates is sometimes a byproduct of effective leadership. But I get the sense that Oscar’s interpersonal skills were lacking, especially early in his career. I think this is typical of many great players, who don‘t realize that the game does not come as easily to others who lack the mental and physical skillset of a superstar. It’s why a lot of great players aren’t great coaches; they don’t understand why everyone can’t be like them. But Oscar’s personality seemed to make his comments unusually harsh seeming. I don't know whether that was a factor during Oscar's peak years, but it's been noted in the past, and I've heard it firsthand now. It isn't the focus of my project, and I'm not going into more detail on it. It is what it is. Whether it's a factor in the relative lack of team success is, obviously, a matter of debate—but, as I've said, there is a missing piece to this puzzle. And I don't think it can be determined through statistical analysis.

More than one player/personnel guy noted that this had changed to some degree by the 1970s (which is the area of my writing and research). Perhaps this is because Oscar was no longer the physical specimen he had been. By the end of the 1971 season, Oscar had played about 38000 regular season and playoff minutes. That’s about what guys like Joe Dumars and Mo Cheeks and Nate Thurmond played in their (long) careers. In a way, I think this may have been a good thing. I get the impression that being more “normal” made Oscar a better teammate, at least personality-wise. And I suspect that he had a teammate who equaled or excelled his own peak level of physical/mental skills in Kareem may have mellowed him a bit.

The guy lost me when he called Jon McGlocklin a good defensive player.

[DQuinn1575]

I don't know what your notion of "transcendent" player is based on

This wasn't addressed to me, but my qualifier for guys in earlier eras is whether they did something absolutely amazing, potentially GOAT.

Years ago, before I knew this board existed, I had Oscar in my top 5. However, as I've become more aware of how pace affects different eras, I've adjusted my appreciation of mind-boggling stats achieved in a high-pace era. Robertson had those crazy 'triple double' seasons. And thats amazing and all, but on a per 36 minute basis his first 5 seasons played out as 24PTS, 8.4REB, 8.6AST. Which is good, but those were his standout years and he played another 9 years and got steadily worse each year. Compare that with LeBron, who had the typical slow start to his career (most players peak a few years into their career, not on their rookie contract). LeBron had 23.9PTS, 6.3AST and 5.8AST on a per 36 minute basis over the first 5 years of his career.

However, although Oscar looks better, that's comparing Oscar's best stretch with LeBron's worst. And even then, LeBron had a .497fg% vs .486fg% for Oscar, which is a win for LeBron even though it's penalising him for all the 3s he is shooting.

I get tired of the one way pace adjustment Oscar gets.
1. He shot 48.6% fg when guys were playing at a break neck pace - that's better than 49.7% fg today
2. In the early 60s scorers only awarded assists on 50% of baskets - today it is about 20% higher (60%) - so you should multiply his assists by 1.2, plus whatever fg% increase you want to give for 1.
3. The per 46 minutes-Those guys played more than 36 minutes - and probably coasted a little to do so. It's unfair to compare 45 minutes of Oscar against 36 minutes of LeBron unless you add 9 minutes of replacement/sub to LBJ's numbers.

[Baller2014]

Overall Royals without Robertson during his career there were 22.2 WIN% team (12 wins and 40 loses, so pretty big sample and the biggest single season sample also tells the same story), with him 54.4 WIN%. That's big impact and it's consistent with how much he improved Bucks in 1971 or how Milwaukee played without him (when still was in his prime), so it's not like he only had big impact on weak teams. He also improved good/very good teams to GREAT ones. That's top 10 all time level player and only because of lack of team success in crappy organization so many people don't see how good he was - similar story is with KG and his Wolves years.

Slow down there. Splits and gamr breakdowns on bballref only go back to 1964, so I'm not sure where you're getting your stats from but I'll stick with the actual stats, which give the Royals a 11-35 record without Oscar from 1964 onwards. So yes, the team was bad, that's a 20 win pace. But with Oscar they were only a 46 pace win team over that stretch (this would be even lower if I'd included the previous 3 seasons). That's a big improvement, but it doesn't really quite compare to the top end carry jobs we're looking at for the top 10-15 players. It also was done in a weaker NBA. Lebron can improve a 20 win team to a lot more than 46 wins, especially in an NBA that was still becoming professional, and recovering from segregation and lack of money.

I don't know what you mean "consistent with how much he improved the Bucks". The Bucks won 56 games before Oscar even arrived, and Kareem by every reasonable assessment (stats, eye test, media analysis, etc) got better after his rookie year. The Bucks played on a 60 win pace in games Oscar missed over his 4 years there. Oscar was a good addition, but he wasn't "making" the Bucks good, they were probably going to win the 1971 title without him anyhow.

[Texas Chuck]

Lots and lots of questions but after LeBron goes in, Mikan is the only guy left who was the clear and undisputed best player in the league for any length of time.

How do you define length of time?

Roughly 5 years or so. Key word is "undisputed" however.

Yeah I get the key word is "undisputed". I felt like you might be leaving out Bird, but if the cut-off is 5 years then clearly not. Appreciate the clarification.

[ardee]

Overall Royals without Robertson during his career there were 22.2 WIN% team (12 wins and 40 loses, so pretty big sample and the biggest single season sample also tells the same story), with him 54.4 WIN%. That's big impact and it's consistent with how much he improved Bucks in 1971 or how Milwaukee played without him (when still was in his prime), so it's not like he only had big impact on weak teams. He also improved good/very good teams to GREAT ones. That's top 10 all time level player and only because of lack of team success in crappy organization so many people don't see how good he was - similar story is with KG and his Wolves years.

Slow down there. Splits and gamr breakdowns on bballref only go back to 1964, so I'm not sure where you're getting your stats from but I'll stick with the actual stats, which give the Royals a 11-35 record without Oscar from 1964 onwards. So yes, the team was bad, that's a 20 win pace. But with Oscar they were only a 46 pace win team over that stretch (this would be even lower if I'd included the previous 3 seasons). That's a big improvement, but it doesn't really quite compare to the top end carry jobs we're looking at for the top 10-15 players. It also was done in a weaker NBA. Lebron can improve a 20 win team to a lot more than 46 wins, especially in an NBA that was still becoming professional, and recovering from segregation and lack of money.

I don't know what you mean "consistent with how much he improved the Bucks". The Bucks won 56 games before Oscar even arrived, and Kareem by every reasonable assessment (stats, eye test, media analysis, etc) got better after his rookie year. The Bucks played on a 60 win pace in games Oscar missed over his 4 years there. Oscar was a good addition, but he wasn't "making" the Bucks good, they were probably going to win the 1971 title without him anyhow.

You're using different standards again.

With Kobe, you were going on about how making a bad team decent is more important than making a decent team elite. Now with Oscar, you're changing your tune, you're saying his achievement of boosting a 20 win team to 45+ wins is not important.

You just have an agenda against certain players and you'll use any argument to bring them down, however inconsistent it is.

And you're crazy if you think the Bucks win the '71 title without Oscar. They were a 4.3 SRS team without him and 11.9 with him.

Kareem didn't improve that much between '70 and '71, hell, his '70 Playoff performance blows '71 out of the water. The statistical improvement you see was from Oscar making his life easier.

Call me when a team that's not the '01 Lakers wins a title with a less than 5 SRS.

[Quotatious]

Call me when a team that's not the '01 Lakers wins a title with a less than 5 SRS.

I And1'd your post for the data you provided on the Bucks and the fact you called out Baller on his inconsistent criteria, but I don't know if championship teams below 5 SRS are that rare...Even in the 2000s, there were a few, after the 2001 Lakers - 2011 Mavs had 4.41 SRS, 2010 Lakers 4.78, 2006 Heat 3.59 (even lower than the 2001 Lakers, who had 3.74), and the 2004 Pistons had 5.04 (granted, it would've been higher if Sheed played for them for the entire season).

[Baller2014]

You're using different standards again.

With Kobe, you were going on about how making a bad team decent is more important than making a decent team elite. Now with Oscar, you're changing your tune, you're saying his achievement of boosting a 20 win team to 45+ wins is not important.

You just have an agenda against certain players and you'll use any argument to bring them down, however inconsistent it is.

Not at all. What Oscar did is prima facie more impressive than what Kobe did, it's just less impressive than what better players did (like Lebron, Dr J, Bird, and even KG in some years). Those guys could improve a team even more than Oscar did (rookie Bird improved the Celtics by 32 wins, rookie Kareem improved the Bucks by 29 wins, etc, and it's pretty clear to me Lebron was worth 30+ wins to the 09 and 10 Cavs). The reason for ranking Kobe over Oscar is Kobe's longevity, and the weak era Oscar did it in, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise about Kobe v.s Oscar.

And you're crazy if you think the Bucks win the '71 title without Oscar. They were a 4.3 SRS team without him and 11.9 with him.

Kareem didn't improve that much between '70 and '71, hell, his '70 Playoff performance blows '71 out of the water. The statistical improvement you see was from Oscar making his life easier.

Call me when a team that's not the '01 Lakers wins a title with a less than 5 SRS.

The Bucks won 56 wins in 1970, which would have made them the best team in the NBA in 1971, and of course Kareem got better after his rookie year, stats, the eye test, media commentary, etc, all tell us so. Then, the clincher, the Bucks were playing like a 60 win team in games Oscar missed over his 4 years there. Basically, the Bucks were a 60 win team without Oscar in 1971, which makes them the presumptive champs. Oscar of course helped improve them, no question, he wasn't a negative on the team. But nor was he the reason they won the title, there seems to be pretty strong evidence they'd have won the title anyway. You call them a 5 SRS team without Oscar, but that's their SRS the previous year before Kareem improved from a rookie, their SRS in 1971 would have been higher because the Bucks would have improved as Kareem did (even without Oscar). In addition, 5 SRS was more or less the best non-Bucks SRS in 1971 (5.05 and 5.47 were the next 2 highest teams), so an SRS of 5 and 60 wins would have made them pretty strong favourites for the title I'd have thought.