RealGM Top 100 List #21

[magicmerl]

I'm taking Ewing in the runoff. Defensively the man is top 5

Bill Russell
Hakeem Olajuwon
Dikembe Mutombo
David Robinson
Kevin Garnett

(not even mentioning other potentials: Tim Duncan, Dennis Rodman)

Well, I'd have this as my top7. The order is debateable:
Bill Russell
Hakeem Olajuwon
Patrick Ewing
David Robinson
Dikembe Mutombo
Kevin Garnett
Tim Duncan

p.s. If my vote was missed before, I'm going for Ewing

[colts18]

Vote Patrick Ewing

Ewing played in a tougher era with much more black players than Pettit. Ewing's era wasn't filled with awful players in the bottom half of the roster.

[Warspite]

89--Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond were pretty good players in their own right, particularly Mullin.
Malone puts up 31/16 and STockton 27/14 both on really good efficiency.

Im not looking any further because its pretty clear they can play really well and their team still lose, no?

edit: LOL this looks worse and worse for you as I glance at a couple years. 1991 Drexler might have a say as being as good a player, no? Drops a triple double for the series. Malone only does 30/15 and Stockton 18/15 60% TS

In most if not all the years you listed the other team had comprable players that year(isn't really relevant how they rank all time, but simply their level that year) and Malone and Stockton mostly performed at high levels, especially Stockton.

If KG can be as high as he is with his prime team playoff results, Im stunned this is even an conversation and dropping it all in the lap of John Stockton is incredibly unfair.

If almost every yr the Jazz run into comparable #1 and #2 players then wouldnt seem more logical that Stockton and Malone might not be that great. Unless you want to assume that over half of the 50 Greatest played at the same time. If you are a top 25 player you should be the best player on the floor at least once or twice.

[batmana]

My Mikan vote wasn't counted (I couldn't highlight it since I was typing from a phone app) but it wouldn't change anything.

In this runoff, I will vote for Bob Pettit.

I see him as a more successful centerpiece than Ewing and his resume is really impressive. He was a superstar in the 50s and 60s, the first great power forward with a well-rounded offensive game which included a mid-range jumper; he was an excellent rebounder. He has to get at least some historic weight for putting a break in between the Celtics' 9 titles in 10 years. I initially voted Mikan since I believe Mikan was a bigger star than Pettit while they were both playing but now I want to recognize Pettit's contributions and they weigh more to me than what Ewing did.

[Clyde Frazier]

My Mikan vote wasn't counted (I couldn't highlight it since I was typing from a phone app) but it wouldn't change anything.

In this runoff, I will vote for Bob Pettit.

I see him as a more successful centerpiece than Ewing and his resume is really impressive. He was a superstar in the 50s and 60s, the first great power forward with a well-rounded offensive game which included a mid-range jumper; he was an excellent rebounder. He has to get at least some historic weight for putting a break in between the Celtics' 9 titles in 10 years. I initially voted Mikan since I believe Mikan was a bigger star than Pettit while they were both playing but now I want to recognize Pettit's contributions and they weigh more to me than what Ewing did.

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[Doctor MJ]

Alright so, up front, I think I've really gone too far on Baylor discussion - it was literally the only thing I talked about in this thread. It didn't come out of nowhere - people brought him up - but he never developed into a major candidate, and we're in a run of between other guys now, so I think it's the right time to step away from it.

Apologies to the guys who responded to me last who I'm not getting back to, but it just seems like that would just keep going on and on until one side said "Hey shouldn't we be talking about other guys?", and since it feels like I'm the one spending more time on Baylor than anyone else, and I'm doing it in the negative direction, best for me to be that guy.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Patrick Ewing

I have to go with Ewing here. I'm happy to talk up Pettit when people doubt him To me he's basically the earliest player we've seen who has shown enough that I can say with reasonable confidence that he could thrive today. It takes more than that though to top someone like Ewing. Bottom line is that if I were drafting in any era, I'd expect to pick Ewing first.

Heck, my whole knock on Ewing relates to him not being able to justify his volume scoring role at his position with his efficiency...but his efficiency is better than Pettit's. Yes, I'd argue Pettit's efficiency would improve further if he was around today, but the fact that it's even debatable in the one sphere where Pettit has his clearest strength tells you the advantage Ewing has overall here.

[E-Balla]

I'm taking Ewing in the runoff. Defensively the man is top 5

Bill Russell
Hakeem Olajuwon
Dikembe Mutombo
David Robinson
Kevin Garnett

(not even mentioning other potentials: Tim Duncan, Dennis Rodman)

Rodman? Well anyway you cut it Ewing is high up there when it comes to defense (I have him under Deke, Russell, and Hakeem).

and offensively he was very good. He carried some terrible offensive teams and without him to build around once he left LA Pat Riley probably wouldn't have the great defensive reputation he has today.

I guess I don't necessarily disagree, but why isn't he being heavily criticized for some of the very same things that Karl Malone and to a lesser degree David Robinson were being crucified for?: low/poor offensive efficiency, slumped performance in the playoffs.

Prime Ewing ('86-'97)
Per 100 rs: 32.5 pts, 14.3 reb, 3.0 ast, 1.5 stl, 3.8 blk, 4.5 tov on .561 TS%
22.0 PER, .161 WS/48, *107 ORtg/99 DRtg in 36.6 mpg

Per 100 ps: 30.6 pts, 14.8 reb, 3.3 ast, 1.2 stl, 3.4 blk, 3.8 tov on *.528 TS%
20.4 PER, .138 WS/48, *106 ORtg/101 DRtg in 39.6 mpg

*below league average; Karl Malone took serious heat for "bad" playoff scoring efficiency, but his playoff TS% and ORtg during his prime are not below league average (David Robinson either). jsia...
fwiw, Ewing's PER, WS/48, and ORtg-DRtg gap (for both rs and playoffs) are ALL worse than that of John Stockton's prime (except for playoff PER, which is tied).


Anyway, I'm just surprised that Ewing is gaining this much traction this early, particularly in light of these things. His playoff offensive efficiency is worse than Malone's or Robinson's (and again, Malone was raked over the coals for his offensive playoff "inefficiencies", DRob criticized to a lesser degree), yet Ewing appears immune to criticism for these things. And obv Ewing's regular season output and efficiency really aren't even in the same league as Malone or Robinson. And imo he's also at least a marginally lesser defender than Robinson, and his longevity (while good) doesn't really compare to Malone. So it's just very curious to see him garner so much consideration this close to those guys (especially with multiple other worthy candidates not yet voted in).

First off he is being criticized that's why he isn't in yet. Secondly I agree with Karl who was below average but not bad in the postseason but I disagree with Robinson. I made this post after the #18 thread was finished:

People asked about Robinson vs Ewing:

To be honest the debate confuses me. Every one knows that if we went simply by regular season Robinson tops not only Ewing but Olajuwon, so the argument against Robinson is the playoffs. And people then take that, link that with Robinson's style, and seem to come to conclusions that he's not a "true" big.

But if you look at playoff stats, Robinson still has a pretty big edge in the playoffs. .

Ewing had a playoff PER north of 22 once, Robinson did it 9 times.

Well that's offensively and it doesn't account for Robinson killing bad teams while underperforming against good teams. In 90 and 91 he was great in elimination. In 92 he missed the playoffs. In 93 he was fine but immediately after that you have 94 (19/9, 41%), 95 (24/11, 44%, killed by Hakeem), 96 (19/9, 47%), and 98 (19/13, 39%). He never played great defenses in the playoffs before these defenses were making him look very bad (he also had a better offensive supporting cast).

Ewing on the other hand has 1990 against Detroit (27/10, 47%), 91 against Chicago he was bad, 92 he played very good against Chicago (20/10, 47%), in 93 against Chicago he was amazing (26/11, 53%), 94 has been talked about ad nauseum but Pat was great against a very good Chicago defense (23/12, 53%) and he played great defense along with terrible offense in the Finals, in 95 they played Indy and fell one layup short (19/9, 53%), in 96 they played the GOAT Chicago squad (23/11, 47%), and in 97 they played the top ranked Miami defense (24/11, 49%).

Looking at that I'd take Ewing in the 90 playoffs over any Robinson season and Ewing in the playoffs every year over Robinson in the playoffs from 92-98. In that stretch of 7 seasons Robinson only played well once (in 93). Pat can at least say he has more than 3 great postseason performances.

All the normal disclaimers apply about PER not being a perfect stat, but for anyone who was thinking "yeah, but Robinson falls off in the playoffs", eliminate that from your rationale. Statistically there's basically no comparison between the two ever except for that one seasons ('89-90).

I'd say Pat is over Robinson in 90, 92, 96, and 97. That's 4 out of the 8 years they both played in their primes. That is before considering the level of opponents the two had (Pat played a ton of top 10 defenses in these seasons and Robinson played 3 while playing horribly 2 of those 3 times).

So then the question becomes, is there really something that can push Ewing over the top is you DON"T start with the assumption that Robinson's so suspect that you should ignore his general performance?

Some might be thinking of how good the Ewing Knicks were at defense, and that's cool, but there's zero doubt that Robinson was capable of huge defensive impact.

Huge defensive impact sure but we have no idea how much more impactful he could've been than Ewing (or less impactful). I do know that man to man he's not going to be as good as Pat and that Pat successfully led the greatest post Russell defenses mainly due to his ability to guard the great centers of the 90's mostly one on one (rewatch the 94 Finals and notice how little Hakeem was doubled).

I know people tend to focus on the Hakeem series, but I think people tend to focus on the individual stats rather than the team performance too much given that the Spurs made a choice to play the Rockets as they did rather than swarm Olajuwon at all times. Take a look at the ORtgs of Houston in the series they played that year:

1st - 120.6
WCSF - 115.9
WCF - 110.6
Finals - 117.1

The Spurs were the only team to hold Houston under GOAT-ish levels.

Now, I would still expect Ewing's Knicks to do an even better job because it was a stellar team offense - and Ewing was certainly a big part of it - but the notion that Robinson was exposed in that series as RS only defender is silly. That Rocket team caught fire, frankly more than they ever did the previous year.

The Rockets catching fire is not saying much to me considering the reason they lost was that Hakeem dominated Robinson and that the Rockets only played one above average defense in 95 (the Jazz - who had possibly the worst centers in the league) outside of Robinson (the Magic were 13th and the Suns 19th out of 27). Against the Knicks Houston had a 100.1 ORTG and Hakeem individually had his worst series in his peak offensively (before considering who he was up against).

And it wasn't just Hakeem but also Zo. As a rookie Pat held him to 20 pp36 down from his regular season 22 average and 52TS/98ORTG down from 59TS/112ORTG. In his first Miami campaign he held him to 19 pp36 down from 20 and 50TS/90ORTG down from 58TS/106ORTG.

[penbeast0]

RUNOFF

8 Pettit – penbeast0, Jim Naismith, DQuinn1575, Warspite (62), trex_8063 (67), Ryoga Hibiki (84), Clyde Frazier, batmana

11 Ewing – ronnymac2, ShaqAttack3234, tsherkin (99), SactoKingsFan (100), 90sAllDecade, drza, GC Pantalones, fpliii, magicmer1, colts18, DoctorMJ

[Owly]

Runoff vote: Pettit
Simple version is I think he was better in his era than Ewing was in his. Pettit was long considered the best player at his position (until Duncan came along), Ewing was third in his era (assuming we're not counting Shaq). Not super fair methods of comparison (harder to dominate against tough competition) but this is just one shorthand example of why I have Pettit higher and (versus Schayes, and then Mikkelsen, Gallatin, Sears, Stokes, Heinsohn, Howell, Johnny Green, peak Willie Naulls, a couple of years against Jerry Lucas, DeBusschere plus perhaps some forwards lean slightly more SF but perhaps were more fluid at that time e.g. Baylor, Yardley ...) I don't think Pettit was playing easy competition -cf: Bob Boozer and Green breaking out after expansion - at his position but he created separation from them statistically, accolades wise and in historical rankings.

I'd like to be more confident on where his D rates, and the playoffs seems to show some dropoff (though I think quite a few playoff series with the Celtics helps explain some of that).

With Ewing he's starting to come on my radar, but there are some issues (regarding compatability with more offensive minded - higher usage players, and contemporary criticisms of his D) that at least give me pause voting for him this high.

[penbeast0]

And, I want to say that some of the pro-Baylor arguments were very good. I had not realized his playoff numbers were that impressive. From 59-65, he may have a slight edge on Pettit depending on how much you buy into Doc's arguments. But, when you compare Pettit's 55-58 numbers and results to Baylor's 66-69 numbers and results, the edge shifts back to Pettit.

[lukekarts]

VOTE: Pettit

Overall I feel he was more valuable than Ewing, particularly relatively to his era. Equally, he had that level of post-season domince that enabled his team to win a title (against Bill Russell and the superior Celtics), whereas Ewing had the tendency to regress come the playoffs.

[DQuinn1575]

Vote Patrick Ewing

Ewing played in a tougher era with much more black players than Pettit. Ewing's era wasn't filled with awful players in the bottom half of the roster.

You can change ewing's name for hundreds of guys.

At what point do you take the best guy from his era?


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[Jim Naismith]

Vote Patrick Ewing

Ewing played in a tougher era with much more black players than Pettit. Ewing's era wasn't filled with awful players in the bottom half of the roster.

You can change ewing's name for hundreds of guys.

At what point do you take the best guy from his era?

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Al Jefferson played in a tougher era with many more black players than Pettit.

Also, Al Jefferson shot at higher FG% than Pettit.

[Owly]

Vote Patrick Ewing

Ewing played in a tougher era with much more black players than Pettit. Ewing's era wasn't filled with awful players in the bottom half of the roster.

You can change ewing's name for hundreds of guys.

At what point do you take the best guy from his era?

True. I think the bigger questions are ...
How much does the bottom half of the roster matter?
and
Was Pettit's competition at position weak?
I've outlined above that I don't believe it was. And whilst Ewing had a strong competition at the top end in the 90s (Olajuwon, Robinson, Daugherty, Mutombo, Shaq, Mourning). But in his first four years the top end isn't so great, only Olajuwon and Daugherty from the above (and Daugherty wasn't an elite player from the off), Moses had dropped off, so had Jabbar, Parish aged okay but he's off his peak and he's in his mid 30s, Ruland wasn't healthy, Gilmore's washed up etc Late prime/post prime Sikma and Laimbeer are two of the best centers (somewhat ironic given the emphasis on race, oh and Mike Gminski too)

Here's Ewing's competition for the first 4 years:
http://bkref.com/tiny/dFNsd

Ewing was given the competition levels to dominate and whilst good, he didn't really do so. BTW I'm not saying WS is the best or only metric, it's used because having a cumulative one helps show who was good across that span.

I'm not sure that there's notably exceptional center depth in at any point in his career either, though I'd have to look closer (not that it's bad, but not sure it's necessarily great, or warrants a "Ewing had tougher competition" argument).

[Jim Naismith]

Older Pettit vs. Older Ewing

Pettit's relative rank in the first half of the 1960s (#3 - #6) is about equal to Ewing's relative rank in the first half of the 1990s.

Younger Pettit vs. Younger Ewing

Pettit was ranked #1 or #2 in the second half of the 1950s.

Younger Ewing doesn't even show up in the rankings until 1989 at #6.

Pettit clearly had a bigger immediate impact compared to Ewing.

[Texas Chuck]

Vote: Bob Petit

Reason: He was better against white guys.

Spoiler:

Also,

Great scorer and rebounder who was basically a 20/15 guy at worst every year. Presented an actual challenge at time to the Russell Celtics. Dominated his era to a degree Ewing didn't. Tremendous offensive player. Best PF maybe until Duncan showed up.

[DannyNoonan1221]

My run off vote is back to Pettit

I've discussed why I like pettit here earlier, before I switched to Baylor.

I don't get the ewing argument. All of a sudden a few guys start going in depth with him and he jumps out of nowhere.

The video someone posted regarding his was interesting. And while the poster pointed it out, I would like to support what he said: it was most certainly a TEAM effort on the defensive end. Most of the time it was 4 if not all 5 guys being in the correct position making the correct split second decision. In my opinion, Ewing is getting way too much credit for not only his teammates decision making skills but also his coaching staff's planning and implementation of great team defense.

I honestly won't vote for Ewing before Stockton/Baylor/Frazier/Wade/Pippen

[lorak]

I vote for Ewing, because of his GOAT level defensive dominance and at least slightly above average impact on offense. Pettit doesn't impress me that much, especially in light of what we've learned during RPOY project - that for example Hudson was better player during some Hawks playoffs runs.

[Quotatious]

that for example Hudson was better player during some Hawks playoffs runs.

Hudson? They never played together. I believe you mean Hagan.