RealGM Top 100 List #9

[90sAllDecade]

Team Support comparison Larry Bird vs Hakeem:

Larry Bird
13 year career

Years with 1 All Star Player: x13
Two All Star players: x10

*K. McHale (All NBA 1st team x1, Def. 1st team x3, Def. 2nd team x3, Sixth Man of the Year x2)
R. Parish (All NBA 2nd team x 1, All NBA 3rd team x1)
D. Johnson (Def. 1st team x1, 2nd team x3)
B. Walton - age 33 (Sixth Man of the Year x1)
D. Cowens - age 31 (Def. 2nd team x1)
C. Maxwell (Finals MVP x1)


Hakeem
17 year career

Years with 1 All Star Player: x7
Two All Star players: x1

*R. Sampson (All NBA 2nd team x1)
C. Drexler - age 32 (All NBA 3rd team x1)

Just look at Bird's long list of playoff failures.

1980- Averaged a .511 TS% in the postseason. In game 5 vs. the Sixers, he shot poorly, 5-19 with just 12 points, as the Celtics lost the game. His man (Dr. J) averaged 25 PPG in this series. His team loses in 5 games despite having HCA and winning 61 games. Had a 18.3 PER in the postseason

1981- Has a .532 TS% in the postseason. He had a bad finals where he averaged just 15 PPG on .419 shooting and .460 TS%.

1982- PPG average dropped from 22.9 PPG to 17.8 PPG. He has an embarrassing .474 TS% in the playoffs. He averaged a pedestrian 18.3 PPG against the Sixers. Averages 17 PPG in the final 2 games of the series. The Celtics lose again with HCA. The Celtics won 63 games and had the #1 SRS in the league. Has a 17.9 PER in the postseason.

1983- The Celtics get swept by the Bucks. The Celtics win 56 games and had the #2 SRS in the league and lose again with HCA. Bird plays awful again. .478 TS%. His PPG average drops 2 PPG in the playoffs. Bird missed a game in the series but that game happened to be the closest one (Celtics lose by 4). In the 3 other games, the Celtics lose by 14.3 PPG with Bird on the court.

1984- Great playoffs. Averaged 27-14-4 in the Finals and had a .607 TS% in the playoffs. First great playoff of his career. Celtics win the title over the Lakers.

1985- Celtics make the finals, but Bird's numbers drop in the playoffs. His PPG drops by 2.8 PPG, Reb by 1.2 Reb, and AST by 0.7 AST. Had an average .536 TS% in the postseason. Bird plays even worse in the finals. His PPG dropped 4.9 PPG, his Reb 1.7 Reb, and AST by 1.6 AST in the finals compared to his regular season average. His Finals TS% is just .527. Not only that, but Celtics finish with 63 wins and lose once again with HCA a constant theme in Bird's career. This is the first time in Celtics history they lost in the finals with HCA.

1986- Great year. His best year ever. Wins the title. .615 TS% in the postseason and amazing finals.

1987- I think this is his most admirable playoffs up until the finals. The Celtics were quite banged up this year. Averaged 27-10-7 in the postseason with .577 TS%. Though his numbers in the finals dropped off once again. His PPG was 3.9 PPG down from the regular season, AST down by 2.1 AST and his TS% was just .534. In game 6, Bird scored just 16 points on 6-16 (.375) shooting. In the final 3 games of this series, Bird averaged just 20 PPG on .377 shooting and .492 TS% with 3.7 TOV. This is the first time Bird has played without HCA in the playoffs and his team loses.

1988- Bird's PPG drops by 5.4 PPG, Reb by 0.5 Reb. Bird shoots an awful 40-114 (.351) against the Pistons. Has a mediocre .538 TS% and 20.2 PER in the playoffs. The Celtics had HCA and the #1 SRS in the league and you probably guessed what happened next, Larry Bird loses with HCA once again.

1989- Injured doesn't play in the postseason.

1990- Bird shoots .539 TS% and has 3.6 TOV as the Celtics once again you guessed it, lose with HCA.

1991- In the first round, his team needs to go 5 vs. the 41 win Pacers. His PPG drop by 2.3 PPG and his Rebounds and Assists also drop quite a bit. Has a .490 TS% 15.8 PER in the playoffs. Against the Pistons Bird averages 13.4 PPG on .446 TS%. His 56 win team played with you guessed it HCA and loses with it.

1992- Doesn't play in the first round as the Celtics sweep the Pacers. In round 2, his team goes 7 against the Cavs, but Bird plays in 4 games and his team was 1-3 in those games. Averages a pathetic 11.3 PPG and 4.5 Reb which are 8.4 PPG and 5.2 Reb down from his regular season average. He has a .514 TS% and 16.4 PER in the postseason.


So out of 12 years, you get 9 years under .540 TS%, 5 under .520 TS%, and 3 under .500 TS%. From 80-83, he had a 19.9 playoff PER. In that span, Johnny Moore, Franklin Edwards, Gus Williams, and Bob Lanier all had better playoff PER and WS/48. Teammates Parish, McHale, Tiny Archibald, and Cedric Maxwell had better TS% in that span. From 88-92, he had a 18.8 PER which is 25th among players with 10 playoff games played. Players who had better playoff PER's in that span include Fat Lever, Terry Cummings, Roy Tarpley, Cedric Ceballos, and Sarunas Marciulionis. His teammates Reggie Lewis and Kevin McHale had better playoff PER's in that span.

With Bird you get a nice 4 year run that had 4 straight finals appearances but outside of that you get a 4 year span of .505 TS% (80-83) and a .525 TS% span (88-92). In 12 years, you get 7 losses with HCA. Basically out of Bird's 13 year career, you have 1 injury season and 3 non-descript postseasons at the end of his plus some playoff disappointments early in his career.

[ronnymac2]

[So this is extremely useful information to have. Do people realize how painstaking this process is for ElGee? Were we granting PhD's in basketball analysis, this type of stuff would be worth the degree right there.

Agree 100%, it's incredibly, incredibly valuable, and in no small part due to the fact that it's orthogonal to box score data (one of the strengths of RAPM, as yourself and others have suggested). I really dig the fact that ElGee reported confidence intervals with his results. Really helps get an idea of a guy's impact insofar as affecting scoring margin is concerned. I really love what he's doing, and hope a team doesn't snatch him up too soon (as well as acrossthecourt, and some of the other brilliant analysts we have here).

Just wondering Doc, when comparing players, when do you believe the present "era" started? Would you go with 01-02, with the elimination of illegal defense? Or maybe something more recent (Thibs/KG changing how defense is played, Nash/D'Antoni bringing spacing+pacing into the league along with some of what the Spurs/Mavs/Heat have been doing, etc.)?

I ask because with regards to Hakeem/Garnett (for the record, even though the voting results aren't terribly important to me, I can't imagine there are 8 better players better than both guys), is the shotblocking really an advantage? With some of what yourself/drza/ElGee (and others) have posted, I've really been forced to reconsider the value of the vertical game defensively in the present era.

Has there been a study comparing shotblocking defensive anchors in the present era to non-shotblocking defensive anchors? Perhaps not only has KG's not the exception, but KG-"like" defenders (I use "like" very loosely here based on how unique he is) are far more valuable in today's league than shotblockers.

I wouldn't be surprised if KG-like defenders (psuedo-shotblockers that give between 1-2 blocks, but with decent steals numbers, good rebounding, and can switch onto guards) have become extremely valuable. Think Lamar Odom and Josh Smith.

Personally, I think the ideal in this era is to have a defender like that at PF and pair him with a decently mobile vertical defender who can hit the glass and bang with behemoths.

[ronnymac2]

Mind you, I don't think horizontal defenders like this are exclusively being developed in this era or are only valuable in this era. Think Dave Debusschere and Bobby Jones. I know they were mainly more man-to-man defenders in their time, but I think it's clear they had the skillset and lateral quicks to develop and do the things we see guys like Odom and Smith do today.

KG isn't unique. He's just REALLY, REALLY amazing.

[Baller2014]

Glad to see Moses getting some traction. I have him coming up soon too. Big props to realbig3 for doing a count, I had 1 more to Bird at the time, but I guess I counted Narigo on the assumption he was going to edit his post (still lots of time left for that though).

Im going to vote for Larry Bird. And Im going to edit this post later tonight on why I think this.

not a vote

I assume Narigo is going to edit this though, I'll take a look through the thread later to see if he's made an extra post. He did say he was going to go back and edit it.

Anyway, I notice that none of my concerns about Hakeem or Kobe have been addressed anywhere I can see, but since Bird looks likely to win this time I guess I won't harp on about it just now. The new count I did is here:

Larry Bird - 13 (trex_8063, Warspite, Baller2014, DQuinn1575, Basketballefan, batmana, john248, Clyde Frazier, DHodgkins, RSCD3, Chuck Texas, Acrossthecourt, Moonbeam)
Edit- Pen said to count Moonbeam's vote for now.
(plus Narigo still to edit post. I assume Royaga doesn't count. I don't know what probationary means, so I haven't counted Royaga.)

Hakeem Olajuwon - 11 (colts18, therealbig3, fpliii, RayBan-Sematra, andrewww, ronnymac2, GC Pantalones, Quo, shutupandjam, Sacto, Pen)

Kobe Bryant - 2 (An Unbiased Fan, ardee)

Oscar Robertson - 1 (Owly)

Kevin Garnett - 1 (Doctor MJ)

Moses Malone - 1 (tsherkin)

I'm a big stats buy, but my vote is for Larry Bird.

I think you were potentially struck from the voting panel for being inactive? You might want to drop Pen a line to find out/beg back in if you were busy, etc.

[ceiling raiser]

Just wanted to post Hakeem's comments on the 93 playoffs:

We beat the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs and faced the Seattle Supersonics in the Western Conference semifinals. They had home-court advantage.

We'd had trouble all year with the Sonics because their style of play was not something we could ever really design a game plan for; their game was never really organized, they scrambled all over the place. They pressed, they pressured us, they jumped in front of me and made it difficult for me even to get the ball into the post to start our offense. It was scrappy, unorganized basketball but it worked for them. On offense all season long they got balance scoring from Ricky Pierce, Sean Kemp, Eddie Johnson, Gary Payton, Derrick McKey, and Sam Perkins.

The first six games were all won by the home team. The series began in Seattle and they went up 2-0, we came back to Houston and tied them 2-2, we traded home victories, and game seven was played in the Seattle Superdome.

The game was close and in the last minutes the referees kept giving the ball to the Sonics. Seattle threw passes out of bounds several times but the refs kept ruling we had touched them. These phantom deflections gave the Sonics the ball and they finally won. If the game had been played in Houston, most likely we would have won it.

Everybody on the Rockets was tremendously disappointed. In the locker room afterward we weren't ready to stop playing. We had been thinking about a championship; that's what we always thought about at the beginning of a season, that's the goal. But there's a difference between saying you can win a championship and really seeing it in front of you. We really *saw* a championship. The winner of our series against Seattle would play Phoenix and then Chicago. It was clear in all of our minds that we were a better team than Seattle, and we felt we could beat both Phoenix and Chicago. I told my teammates, "We go from here."

I watched the NBA finals at home on TV and looked at the players and looked at the teams and knew we should have been there.

I think some discussion of matchup problems Houston had with Seattle (I think there have been some comments, but this topic could use some more play) would be valuable. Here are the three series they played:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... ml#SEA-HOU (peak Hakeem)
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... ml#SEA-UTA (probably past Hakeem's def prime)
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... ml#HOU-SEA (probably past Hakeem's off+def primes)

[ceiling raiser]

Oops, I see there was some conversation about the Sonics matchup on the previous page. Sorry, I'd already typed the above post.

More conversation would be interesting though. How about issues Bird's teams had with some of the matchups in the 80s as well (76ers, Pistons, Bucks), if they were considered a legitimate issue at the time?

[Warspite]

KG= GOAT 3rd option role player.

"I love KG so much but cant use video or stats to make him look great. What should I do? i know Ill invent a bunch of adv stats that make him look great."

[Baller2014]

Fplii, that's the expected narrative from Hakeem (we lost, but it wasn't our fault), but the truth is that Hakeem struggled against the Sonics over a prolonged period (both regular season and playoffs), and the reason was largely attributed to their "borderline illegal" zone D. A defensice technique that is completely legal against modern players. We should be looking closer at Hakeem's struggles with the Sonics, not washing over them with Hakeem's biography where he just blames the refs. His own team said at the time it was due to illegal D.

[ronnymac2]

I think it's disingenuous to compare Larry Smith to Rodman, no?

Yes, having a guy who crashes the glass as much as anyone is useful, but he was really limited otherwise. A better comparison is Reggie Evans then, right? And this is older Larry Smith.

Yet your leading scorer shouldn't be replaced effectively with an offensive rebounder. Offensive anchor implies your offense relies on him and falls apart without him.

I'm not just going purely off those with/without stats. It's close to what I was thinking based on some footage, his overall stats, the notes about his career progression, team results, etc.

This is like the Nash pre-Suns argument. I don't think we can pretend this is the same '94 Olajuwon just because his situation wasn't great. I still want to go on what happened. It's the same when Wilt was misused and only concentrated on scoring.

Regardless, his defense is amazing and he's legitimately better in the playoffs. He's a lock for top 15 for me and he has a chance at 10 or 11 depending on what I decide on with guys like Garnett.

I do not think it is disingenuous. Dennis Rodman's TS% from 1996-1998 was 50.1%, 47.9%, and 45.9%, and he averaged a little over 5 points per game. Chicago was rated #1, #1, and #8 in offensive rating those years, with dominant offensive rebounding being a huge part of that (Bulls rated #1, #2, and #2 those years in offensive rebound rate). Worm was #1, #1, and #2 in individual offensive rebound rate for those three years. I do believe a low-volume, low-usage dominant offensive rebounder can have a strong positive impact on an offense. That's not to underrate Rodman and his high BBALL IQ, passing, and amazing screens...I think Rodman is the better offensive player and better player period, but his type makes a difference offensively.

I'd categorize Smith as Rodman's type when it comes to simply being a low volume, low usage offensive rebounding force. That's an appropriate statistical description of Smith I feel.

Obviously the 1991 Rockets didn't have Mike and Scottie and Steve Kerr to take advantage of second opportunities, but as I said, hot streaks by guys can do wonders.

If you do not believe Olajuwon is a great offensive anchor pre-1993 based on combining this data with your eye-test and other stats, that is fair.

[ceiling raiser]

KG= GOAT 3rd option role player.

"I love KG so much but cant use video or stats to make him look great. What should I do? i know Ill invent a bunch of adv stats that make him look great."

I think that's incredibly disrespectful to KG and the analysis that some posters have done. Ridge regression is a proven, peer-reviewed mathematical method, and even aside from RAPM, KG excels in other non-box score metrics (APM in particular, but he holds up well in WOWY studies as well). It's your call to choose to subscribe to them or not, but to dismiss the work that's been done like that is unfortuante IMO.

drza had a great breakdown, mixing quantitative WITH qualitative a couple of threads ago:

viewtopic.php?p=40580241#p40580241

[ceiling raiser]

Fplii, that's the expected narrative from Hakeem (we lost, but it wasn't our fault), but the truth is that Hakeem struggled against the Sonics over a prolonged period (both regular season and playoffs), and the reason was largely attributed to their "borderline illegal" zone D. A defensice technique that is completely legal against modern players. We should be looking closer at Hakeem's struggles with the Sonics, not washing over them with Hakeem's biography where he just blames the refs. His own team said at the time it was due to illegal D.

I mean from watching at the time (again, that was the first season I watched live, so my memory might not be perfect), and rewatching in segments, they really seemed to get the short end of the stick in that game.

There was other "borderline illegal" D played at the time as well (someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Pistons, Riley's Knicks, I think the Dunleavy Lakers all had some similar tendencies). Did Hakeem and the Rockets have issues against other such teams?

[HeartBreakKid]

KG= GOAT 3rd option role player.

"I love KG so much but cant use video or stats to make him look great. What should I do? i know Ill invent a bunch of adv stats that make him look great."

Yes, because it's a giant conspiracy to create stats that happen to make KG look great.


Your first sentence doesn't even make sense. You talk as if Kevin Garnett was never considered a superstar or never considered the best player in the league. I guess everyone watching the NBA and everyone in the NBA must have "made up advance stats too". Glad to know he was the third option in Minny as well, I guess Wally Z and Joe Smith was their 1-2 punch.

[Baller2014]

KG= GOAT 3rd option role player.

"I love KG so much but cant use video or stats to make him look great. What should I do? i know Ill invent a bunch of adv stats that make him look great."

KG will be one of my options at vote #11, I think he's a legitimate choice at that juncture. I think the project is going to go in 6 different directions once we hit #11. I'm inclined to support Dr J, but can see other candidates too who I could be talked around to. Tskerkin just voted for Moses. KG's supporters are very clear. Oscar and West have a few guys standing up for them now, and of course there are a few Kobe fans voting for him already. Purch is already getting in early to talk up Karl Malone. But for now, the next two votes are exceedingly easy. It's either Bird or Hakeem. Whichever one loses this thread will probably walk to victory next time around in a landslide.

[penbeast0]

...

I'm a big stats buy, but my vote is for Larry Bird.

I think you were potentially struck from the voting panel for being inactive? You might want to drop Pen a line to find out/beg back in if you were busy, etc.

I haven't seen Moonbeam's post yet but INACTIVE written next to their name doesn't mean anything yet so if there is decent analysis please count his vote. I am going to ask the people involved here what to do with the posters that have not been involved; nothing has been decided yet.

[john248]

Looks like either Bird or Olajuwon will go here. Almost safe to say whoever isn't voted in now will likely be voted in at 10 or 11 at the latest since these 2 are the last of the truly elite players. #11 and #12 will bring a flood of players.

[penbeast0]

Mind you, I don't think horizontal defenders like this are exclusively being developed in this era or are only valuable in this era. Think Dave Debusschere and Bobby Jones. I know they were mainly more man-to-man defenders in their time, but I think it's clear they had the skillset and lateral quicks to develop and do the things we see guys like Odom and Smith do today.

KG isn't unique. He's just REALLY, REALLY amazing.

Bobby Jones wasn't what I think of as just a man defender, even a great one, not like a Sidney Moncrief or Ron Artest. He was more like AK47 defensively and tended to do a lot of help defense for a non-big. After all, he is one of the rare members of the 2/2 block/steal club.

[Warspite]

KG= GOAT 3rd option role player.

"I love KG so much but cant use video or stats to make him look great. What should I do? i know Ill invent a bunch of adv stats that make him look great."

Yes, because it's a giant conspiracy to create stats that happen to make KG look great.


Your first sentence doesn't even make sense. You talk as if Kevin Garnett was never considered a superstar or never considered the best player in the league. I guess everyone watching the NBA and everyone in the NBA must have "made up advance stats too". Glad to know he was the third option in Minny as well, I guess Wally Z and Joe Smith was their 1-2 punch.

No KG wasnt a superstar nor best player at his position much less in the NBA. He was a perennial all star and a 2nd or 3rd all NBA team type player. Great player who put up great stats on mediocre teams that never developed.

He is the defensive version of Bob McAdoo.

[Baller2014]

Looks like either Bird or Olajuwon will go here. Almost safe to say whoever isn't voted in now will likely be voted in at 10 or 11 at the latest since these 2 are the last of the truly elite players. #11 and #12 will bring a flood of players.

Yeh, almost every single Bird/Hakeem voter has said "this is between Bird and Hakeem for me". Whoever wins, I think we should adopt a lax approach about the discussion in the next thread, and let people talk about candidates up for nomination at the #11 spot a little bit. Otherwise we're going to get 2 days of waiting for Bird/Hakeem to officially win by 20+ votes, and it's going to get deadly dull having to talk about Hakeem/Bird when 90% of voters agree he belongs there.

[ronnymac2]

Mind you, I don't think horizontal defenders like this are exclusively being developed in this era or are only valuable in this era. Think Dave Debusschere and Bobby Jones. I know they were mainly more man-to-man defenders in their time, but I think it's clear they had the skillset and lateral quicks to develop and do the things we see guys like Odom and Smith do today.

KG isn't unique. He's just REALLY, REALLY amazing.

Bobby Jones wasn't what I think of as just a man defender, even a great one, not like a Sidney Moncrief or Ron Artest. He was more like AK47 defensively and tended to do a lot of help defense for a non-big. After all, he is one of the rare members of the 2/2 block/steal club.

Yeah that's a good point, he was pretty awesome at all facets of defense aside from maybe defensive rebounding (though at the 3 he's all right). His defensive style and skillset would be dominant in today's game. He'd eat space up.

[Texas Chuck]

KG= GOAT 3rd option role player.

"I love KG so much but cant use video or stats to make him look great. What should I do? i know Ill invent a bunch of adv stats that make him look great."

This is the kind of post that has no place in this project.