RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #19 (Karl Malone)

[One_and_Done]

He was a more impactful basketball player.

[Gibson22]

Did you have Mikan top 5? No? Then your era relativity criteria is inconsistent as hell.

At least the 'try to determine objective value' crowd is trying to be consistent.

Like 70s fan said it's mostly about longevity, and beside that there's a big difference between the league that mikan (who i have 20ish) dominated and the league where pettit was protagonist. BTW my era relativity is something like (ballparking, i dont use numbers or coefficients) 2015 to now= 100, 00 to 15= 96, 90s= 94, 80s= 93, 70s=87, 60s= 86, latter half 50s= 84, start of the nba to mid 50s= 70 or something like that.

[70sFan]

He was a more impactful basketball player.

Care to elaborate?

[One_and_Done]

Did you have Mikan top 5? No? Then your era relativity criteria is inconsistent as hell.

At least the 'try to determine objective value' crowd is trying to be consistent.

Like 70s fan said it's mostly about longevity, and beside that there's a big difference between the league that mikan (who i have 20ish) dominated and the league where pettit was protagonist. BTW my era relativity is something like (ballparking, i dont use numbers or coefficients) 2015 to now= 100, 00 to 15= 96, 90s= 94, 80s= 93, 70s=87, 60s= 86, latter half 50s= 84, start of the nba to mid 50s= 70 or something like that.

The moment you start comparing the quality of different leagues you open a pandora's box, where the era relativity side loses all consistency. If you are ok with comparing the context of Mika's league, why aren't you equally ok with us considering the quality of Pettit's league.

Here is you from 1 page ago:

watching a 2012 game is laughable let alone bob pettit. But. that's. not. the. point. the. point. is. measuring. in. era. impact. that's not up for debate. if not, yes, paul george would alsolutely flame every pre 80s player beside maybe wilt and russell, who also had primitive basektball skills so maybe even them

You can't have it both ways.

[Gibson22]

He was a more impactful basketball player.

He was a vastly better scorer. But also a way worse defender and a less fittable player offensively (malone was a standard big, barkley was a 6'5 power forward with no jumper who took too many jumpers and needed the ball in his hands all the time). Moses had his issues too, that's why I have him only 1 or 2 sposts higher. I know barkley had better stats, but I also value position in league hierarchies, and moses was the best player between 81 and 83. Barkley was never in contention for best player in the world, even if mj didnt exist he was in a big group of 3 to 5 to 7-8 guys depending on the season. Moses also has more accolades, for what it's worth, mainly 3 mvps to 1 and 1 ring with finals mvp to one

[Gibson22]

Did you have Mikan top 5? No? Then your era relativity criteria is inconsistent as hell.

At least the 'try to determine objective value' crowd is trying to be consistent.

Like 70s fan said it's mostly about longevity, and beside that there's a big difference between the league that mikan (who i have 20ish) dominated and the league where pettit was protagonist. BTW my era relativity is something like (ballparking, i dont use numbers or coefficients) 2015 to now= 100, 00 to 15= 96, 90s= 94, 80s= 93, 70s=87, 60s= 86, latter half 50s= 84, start of the nba to mid 50s= 70 or something like that.

The moment you start comparing the quality of different leagues you open a pandora's box, where the era relativity side loses all consistency. If you are ok with comparing the context of Mika's league, why aren't you equally ok with us considering the quality of Pettit's league.

Here is you from 1 page ago:

watching a 2012 game is laughable let alone bob pettit. But. that's. not. the. point. the. point. is. measuring. in. era. impact. that's not up for debate. if not, yes, paul george would alsolutely flame every pre 80s player beside maybe wilt and russell, who also had primitive basektball skills so maybe even them

You can't have it both ways.

Do you think this is a serious rebuttal? The point of the thread is measuring in era impact, and, by the way, every post that doesn't adhere to that shouldnt't be counted and should kind of be banned from the project. In measuring impact, we should also measure context. If teams get added to the league, or if the league opens to black people or to people from outside the us, if some teams go on a strike, if 3/4 of the league is injured, if some players play in the aba, if the sport grows, if there aren't any great teams in a championship run, all of that. that said, this plays a role but it just can't be that big. again, i have mikan and pettit pretty close, 20 to 25ish, and i don't have them much higher for longevity. i probably wouldn't have jordan top 10 if he only played 88-93, like i have giannis probably outside 30 since he played only 7 meaningful seasons and jokic 40ish for having played only 5 meaningful seasons. mikan and pettit's league were very different. pettit went toe to toe with russell and wilt in the playoffs, who are two of the best athletes in the history of the game, so he could also have competed with kareem, who was a meaningful player until the mid 80s. I wouldn't go as far as saying that pettit could battle with hakeem or shaq or robinson or ewing or now embiid and joker, but if you can held your own with russell and wilt.. idk about mikan

[One_and_Done]

Now you're not even being consistent from post to post. Why do I care about era impact for Pettit if it matters less for Mikan? Totally subjectibe and inconsistent it seems to me.

[OhayoKD]

Re: Wade

I go back and forth on him. In terms of RAPM and box score, he's right there if not better than someone like Kobe during his absolute prime from 05-11. OTOH, I do have questions about his playoff resilience in terms of leading an elite offense...he never did that, not even in 06. There's a case to be made that Wade helped anchor a strong defense and carried a bunch of mediocre offensive players to passable results, but the Heat offense was actually downright bad at times not passable, and it's hard to argue defense as the tipping point for a guy who was clearly an offense-first player (although I am high on his defense).

In terms of skillset, I do think his lack of a consistent outside shot does make him less versatile compared to his peers around this level (Kobe, Dirk, Paul). He paired with Shaq well, but how much of that is because Shaq is perfect for any combo guard? We saw the less than ideal fit next to LeBron, and I'm harder on Wade for that than I am LeBron tbh.

We saw the less than ideal fit and they were still crazy good when he was healthy:

Spoiler:

James + Wade in the regular season

2011: 113.5 ORtg, 101.4 DRtg, +12.1 on court, 111.7 highest ORtg in league, Wade+James +1.8 better ORtg
2012: 110.2, 96.6, +13.6 on court, 110.0 highest ORtg in league, Wade+James +.2 better
2013: 114.2, 99.8, +14.4 on court, 111.4 highest ORtg in league (Miami), Wade+James +2.8

Looks to me that James did plenty well with Wade. For reference, in 1996-1997 season in which the Bulls won 69 games (and could have won 70+ if not resting at the end of the season), Jordan + Pippen was +13.3 on court

2013 James+Wade: +14.4 on court
2012 James+Wade: +13.6
1997 Jordan+Pippen: +13.3
2011 James+Wade: +12.1

Wade and James were wildly successful. But yes, they didn’t put everything together in the playoffs and regular season except in 2012. 2011 saw the Dallas series and an overall poor playoffs as far as on court dominance is concnernee, and then 2013 saw Wade injured, but look at 2012:

2012 Playoffs: James+Wade +13.5; James+Wade+Bosh +13.9

James + Kyrie regular season

If Lebron gets credit for adapting to Wade, I don't see why Wade shouldn't get credit for adapting to Lebron. We can try to intellectualize the disappointment they were merely a near-dynasty as "scalablity" but the reason they didn't three-peat is because in a year where Lebron gained 20 pounds to accommodate a post-game he didn't have, Lebron followed a dissapointing(at least by the bar set in 2009 and 2010) regular-season with one of the worst playoff performances of his career(and --the worst-- since he started winning MVPs through to 2021).

Can't really blame Wade for that when they posted one of the best playoffs ratings ever(and went nearly undefeated with the big-three in the lineup) despite Wade needing to get his knees operated on during the finals.

Also, contrary to popular belief, Wade doesn't really have a negative effect on spacing. No he's not a great shooter, but he is an all-time cutter and he successfully leveraged that into teams guarding him out on the perimeter:
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Watch on YouTube

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Wade may not have all the same theoretical advantages "port" advantages people assume matter alot, but in practice the results don't point towards him being unscalable. People say Shaq is portable because he doesn't need the ball but by rolling PSRS, Wade's titile-winners were better or as good in the playoffs as all of Shaq's outside of 2001 when Kobe arguably outplayed him.

Wade being a great defensive guard(maybe the best ever in terms of rim-protection), being willing and capable of adapting to similar players(not really sure what people think a big fitting with a guard proves exactly...) matters more than whether he shoots off curls. When Kobe had to play with a player who was kind of similar(nash) the results weren't exactly great.

[rk2023]

Wade essentially is up next for me ITO being a nominee (unless Moses goes, and I have to rinse and repeat ). Longevity is more of the problem compared to Nash / Chuck - where I see them having more "close to top player" seasons. In this regard, I don't think Wade and Giannis are too dis-similar (19-23 vs. 05-06, 09-11) and Wade has 1 season where he looks like the clear best player in the world (2006) while impressively floor raising a team to a title. Aside from Jokic and Walton, I don't think anybody else has that to their resume.

Not that I weight it much for how I'm going about voting, but Doc mentioning Wade being able to do his own part in making the Heatles tandem work well (Ohayo posted data very much in line with this) and being the vocal/example-based leader setting the foundation for a great franchise culture is an interesting point to consider as well.

[rk2023]

On that note, can't wait until 2026 where Jokic and Giannis will be well gone past this spot

[Clyde Frazier]

Looks like pettit isn't even getting traction as a nominee, lol. Again, after mikan, and after arizin and schayes won their titles, pettit was the best player in the world in 57 and 58. he was drafted only 2 years before russell, 5 years before wilt, 6 years before oscar and west. He was just below those 4 for the rest of his career. He's 12th in our poty shares. Cmon! This is a guy who beat bill russell in the finals and went toe to toe a couple other times. He can't be below giannis, paul, barkley, moses

Obviously the voter pool changes every project, but the last 3 Pettit was voted in at 25, 24 and 21 respectively. As far as PFs go he’s typically been behind those already voted in (Duncan, Garnett, Dirk) and Malone/Barkley coming up. So it’s more than likely he’ll begin to get traction. Giannis is in the mix now too for people who value longevity less.

Pettit does deserve recognition though. Pioneered the position and had a very good career in his own right.

[Owly]

but the reason they didn't three-peat is because in a year where Lebron gained 20 pounds to accommodate a post-game he didn't have, Lebron followed a dissapointing(at least by the bar set in 2009 and 2010) regular-season with one of the worst playoff performances of his career(and --the worst-- since he started winning MVPs through to 2021).

Can't really blame Wade for that when they posted one of the best playoffs ratings ever(and went nearly undefeated with the big-three in the lineup) despite Wade needing to get his knees operated on during the finals.

If the intended point is Dwyane Wade had a good 2011 playoffs and particularly finals, I'd agree,

I'd disagree with a making a statement regarding " the reason they didn't three-peat is because in a year where Lebron ..."
because
a) there's two ends to a streak of titles you can add one on the front or on the back
b) there isn't one single "the" reason why a title goes to a particular team or doesn't go to another.

I understand there's a LeBron-Wade paradigm to the discussion (and if one is focused on the finals for that year, Wade was much better than LeBron) ... still the phrasing felt clunky, to my ear at least.

[Doctor MJ]

Induction vote:

Julius - 4 (HBK, ShaqA, Clyde, OSNB)
Karl - 8 (beast, Gibson, trex, Joao, ltj, AEnigma, Narigo, Doc)
Durant - 3 (OaD, trelos, f4p)
Paul - 4 (Samurai, rk, DGold, Ohayo)
Giannis - 1 (iggy)

No majority. Going to 2nd vote between Karl, Julius & Paul.

Julius - 0 (none)
Karl - 1 (OaD)
Paul - 2 (trelos, iggy)
none - 1 (f4p)

Still no majority, eliminating Julius:

Karl - 0 (none)
Paul - 1(HBK)
neither - 3 (ShaqA, Clyde, OSNB)

Karl 9, Paul 7.

Karl Malone is Inducted at #19.


Nomination vote:

Jokic - 3 (HBK, beast, iggy)
Pettit - 1 (Gibson)
Nash - 3 (OaD, trelos, AEnigma)
Moses - 3 (Samurai, ShaqA, ltj)
Barkley - 7 (trex, Clyde, rk, OSNB, Narigo, DGold, f4p)
Stockton - 1 (Joao)
Wade - 1 (Doc)
Harden - 1 (Ohayo)

No majority, going to 2nd vote between Barkley, Jokic, Nash & Moses.

Jokic - 0 (none)
Nash - 0 (none)
Moses - 2 (Gibson, Doc)
Barkley - 0 (none)
none - 2 (Joao, Ohayo)

Eliminating Jokic & Nash. Considering only Barkley & Moses.

Moses - 2 (beast, AEnigma)
Barkley - 1 (OaD)
neither - 3 (HBK, trelos, iggy)

Barkley 8, Moses 7.

Charles Barkley is added to Nominee list.

[OhayoKD]

Looks like pettit isn't even getting traction as a nominee, lol. Again, after mikan, and after arizin and schayes won their titles, pettit was the best player in the world in 57 and 58. he was drafted only 2 years before russell, 5 years before wilt, 6 years before oscar and west. He was just below those 4 for the rest of his career. He's 12th in our poty shares. Cmon! This is a guy who beat bill russell in the finals and went toe to toe a couple other times. He can't be below giannis, paul, barkley, moses

Obviously the voter pool changes every project, but the last 3 Pettit was voted in at 25, 24 and 21 respectively. As far as PFs go he’s typically been behind those already voted in (Duncan, Garnett, Dirk) and Malone/Barkley coming up. So it’s more than likely he’ll begin to get traction. Giannis is in the mix now too for people who value longevity less.

Pettit does deserve recognition though. Pioneered the position and had a very good career in his own right.

I've seen this before and I'm pretty open to considering Petit but I'd need a pretty comprehensive case(the strength of his signals and longevity would be primary concerns)

[OhayoKD]

but the reason they didn't three-peat is because in a year where Lebron gained 20 pounds to accommodate a post-game he didn't have, Lebron followed a dissapointing(at least by the bar set in 2009 and 2010) regular-season with one of the worst playoff performances of his career(and --the worst-- since he started winning MVPs through to 2021).

Can't really blame Wade for that when they posted one of the best playoffs ratings ever(and went nearly undefeated with the big-three in the lineup) despite Wade needing to get his knees operated on during the finals.

If the intended point is Dwyane Wade had a good 2011 playoffs and particularly finals, I'd agree,

I'd disagree with a making a statement regarding " the reason they didn't three-peat is because in a year where Lebron ..."
because
a) there's two ends to a streak of titles you can add one on the front or on the back
b) there isn't one single "the" reason why a title goes to a particular team or doesn't go to another.

I understand there's a LeBron-Wade paradigm to the discussion (and if one is focused on the finals for that year, Wade was much better than LeBron) ... still the phrasing felt clunky, to my ear at least.

Well in this case the more reasons there are, the harder it is to tie it specifically to scalability which is the point. 2014 isn't all that relevant due to wade just breaking down.

[Joao Saraiva]

On that note, can't wait until 2026 where Jokic and Giannis will be well gone past this spot

We don't know that yet. It's likely but... something can happen. I think two more great years of Jokic and he'll be fighting for a top 10 spot. I think he'll be just out by a bit, but that's my prediction.

Let's hope both stay healthy.

[Clyde Frazier]

Looks like pettit isn't even getting traction as a nominee, lol. Again, after mikan, and after arizin and schayes won their titles, pettit was the best player in the world in 57 and 58. he was drafted only 2 years before russell, 5 years before wilt, 6 years before oscar and west. He was just below those 4 for the rest of his career. He's 12th in our poty shares. Cmon! This is a guy who beat bill russell in the finals and went toe to toe a couple other times. He can't be below giannis, paul, barkley, moses

Obviously the voter pool changes every project, but the last 3 Pettit was voted in at 25, 24 and 21 respectively. As far as PFs go he’s typically been behind those already voted in (Duncan, Garnett, Dirk) and Malone/Barkley coming up. So it’s more than likely he’ll begin to get traction. Giannis is in the mix now too for people who value longevity less.

Pettit does deserve recognition though. Pioneered the position and had a very good career in his own right.

I've seen this before and I'm pretty open to considering Petit but I'd need a pretty comprehensive case(the strength of his signals and longevity would be primary concerns)

The two things that really stand out at first glance are his monster TS add and FT rate. Obviously that isn't everything but it's a good place to start:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/pettibo01.html

[f4p]

Re: Wade

I go back and forth on him. In terms of RAPM and box score, he's right there if not better than someone like Kobe during his absolute prime from 05-11. OTOH, I do have questions about his playoff resilience in terms of leading an elite offense...he never did that, not even in 06. There's a case to be made that Wade helped anchor a strong defense and carried a bunch of mediocre offensive players to passable results, but the Heat offense was actually downright bad at times not passable, and it's hard to argue defense as the tipping point for a guy who was clearly an offense-first player (although I am high on his defense).

In terms of skillset, I do think his lack of a consistent outside shot does make him less versatile compared to his peers around this level (Kobe, Dirk, Paul). He paired with Shaq well, but how much of that is because Shaq is perfect for any combo guard? We saw the less than ideal fit next to LeBron, and I'm harder on Wade for that than I am LeBron tbh.

Individually, Wade also didn't ALWAYS come through in the playoffs, despite his reputation...his 07 and 08 seasons get excused because of his shoulder injury, which is fair, but in 09, after a dominant individual regular season, his team bows out to the Hawks in 7 games, and Wade doesn't exactly light the world on fire. A first round exit to the Hawks in a 4-5 matchup and Wade is easily the best player on the court? Feel like he should get more scrutiny for this one...especially if people are going to scrutinize Kobe for not leading his team over clearly superior Suns teams in 06 and 07. He was fantastic against the Celtics in 2010, definitely outperformed his peers like LeBron and Kobe on that end, no issues there. And in 2011, he was actually pretty up and down. He had big series against the Celtics and Mavs, but he struggled big time against the Sixers and Bulls. And then I'm honestly pretty low on "playoff Wade" from 2012 onwards.

A lot of this was probably injuries catching up to him, but even at his apex, he never demonstrated the ability to lead an elite offense and I'm not as high on his offensive portability as guys like Kobe or Dirk. Combined with some pretty weak longevity, he's someone that wouldn't rank this high on my list.

Yeah, this post has made me think. On the one hand wade is for sure someone who has the type of game to carry your team in the playoffs or even to a title, like he did. Athleticism, iso scoring, defense. Someone who can go get a bucket. But he's more like a iverson, like a irving.

but a fairly efficient, high IQ iverson who can play defense is a tremendously valuable player because it's basically removing all of iverson's biggest weaknesses.

There are concerns around his game as far as scalability (6'3-6'4 with no 3 point shot, and streaky middy) and like you said leading elite offenses. But other than that, it's the fact that in his prime he has 2 useless seasons, being 07 when he got injured and swept in the first round and 08 when the heat went 15-67. So wade only has 05 which was a strong all nba season, 06, 09, 10, which are mvp level seasons, 2011 still weak mvp, 2012 he was still a very strong all nba level guy, 2013 he declined a lot again but he was still #2 fiddle, all star level contributor. then, just a bunch of abvoe average starter seasons. his longevity really suffers from those two seasons in the middle of his prime.
In the end, even as far as accolades, he's only 2x 1st team, 3x 2nd team, 3x 3rd team, no mvps, only 37th in points, 47th in assists, 33rd in steals, obviously most blocks by a guard (or player under 6'7) in history. Mh, maybe I feel like as a player wade is 20ish, as peak he's top 20 and his prime would be top 20 if he had 07 and 08 but for the things being he has 3 mvp level, 1 weak mvp, 2 strong all nba, 1 all star and like 5 sub all star seasons, which isn't the strongest resume

so i agree he doesn't have great longevity, but doesn't nba history tell us that "really high level" play is worth a lot of "fairly high level" play? like how many average john stockton seasons does it take to be worth one 2006 dwade playoffs? i would say a lot. or the level dwade was at in 2009/10/11 (i'm personally calling 2011 mvp-level as all his numbers basically look like '06 and he was seemingly comfortably the best player in the finals). 2006 is such a different level that it just requires a completely different level of supporting cast to even consider stockton winning so it's hard to say what he could ever do to match up to that.

harden has more total career value than wade but nothing about harden tells me he's pulling of a 2006 style win where wade just had to be superman for 4 straight finals games.

nash doesn't have a single season that matches up to 2006/09/10/11 wade so even if someone took all of his 2005-10 seasons over the rest of wade's seasons (i definitely think 2005/12 wade is matching up to some of those phoenix seasons), i can't really see his case as none of nash's dallas seasons would match up to 2005/12.

barkley is like harden with an obvious career value edge over wade and even a great 1993 WCF and really good 1993 finals, but blowing 2-0 and 3-1 leads to the rockets when the path was wide open for his phoenix teams is a rough comp for barkley.

[Doctor MJ]

Makes sense to talk Moses vs Chuck a lot I think. I see it as reasonable to look at Barkley as being in some ways a better version of Moses...but Barkley has a lazy streak on the court that I can't ignore, and this compounds with all sorts of other stuff that would naturally add to an argument saying Moses accomplished more than Chuck.

I do think the Barkley vs Wade debate is funny because of the ads they appeared in together for a number of years. I feel like Wade never really got anointed as having surpassed Barkley's career...but he deserved this to be done. What Wade did for Miami was huge, and aside from the fact that Barkley never burst through all comers like Wade did in 2006, I think it unlikely that a Barkley would have gotten a LeBron to come join him later on, let alone help instinct an intensity that now has a name ("Heat culture").

He never burst through all comers because his peak years were wasted on a poorly run Sixers team. He won the MVP and went to the Finals his first year in Phoenix, and the was the beginning of the end of his prime. Wade was drafted to a team that, in short order acquired Shaq and then put a sufficient cast of vets/depth around them. But once that team was dismantled aside from Wade, the team's results in 2008, 2009, and 2010 prior to the formation of the Heatles was rather underwhelming, not dissimilar from Barkley's Sixers teams of the late 80s and early 90s.

I think of Wade as a guy who was very good at a lot of things but not truly elite at anything. He wasn't an elite scorer like a Durant or an elite defender like Giannis or an elite playmaker/runner of team offense like CP3.

His career average rTS is 1.27. His efficiency fell off a cliff after 2014, so if I'm nice and cut it off there, it goes up to 3.1. Solid, but not special.

Per JE's RS+PO RAPM set, Wade only had a D-RAPM >= 1 three times in his career. In JE's cumulative 1997-2022 RAPM, Wade's D-RAPM is +0.8(negative is better than positive in this cumulative dataset).

Barkley OTOH was absolutely elite at two things.

Peak Barkley was one of the most efficient scorers ever, with five straight seasons of >= 10 rTS and >= 60% FG. For his career, he has a +6.9 rTS.

Barkley was also pound-for-pound one of the GOAT rebounders.

I think it's very fair to point out that Barkley was in a less than ideal situation for much of his 76er run.

It's understandable to argue that '92-93 was basically the end of Barkley's prime, which would mean his prime ended at age 29, which is about how I see Wade.

Wade definitely gains an advantage for me in subsequent years because of the environment he fostered for himself. The next 3 years the team either won the chip or got to the finals, and Wade was essential to all that happening.

Re: good team around early Wade. Sure, but I factor that all in as I rate Wade the top player of the year '05-06, as a mere 3rd year in the league. Barkley doesn't crack my Top 5 until '88-89, in his 5th year in the league. Circumstances might have conspired to not allow him to achieve more in the meantime, but I think it unlikely that contending for the #1 spot was realistically in the cards for him in those first few years.

Re: team underwhelming 2008-10.

So first let's be clear that in '07-08 Wade was hurt and clearly not at his best.

In '08-09 & '09-10 not only did Wade have huge box score numbers, but also huge On/Off numbers: +14.2 & +13.5. Barkley never matched those numbers in his entire career (which we have for all years except '92-93), and those numbers don't even match his On/Off tallies in '05-06 when he had that supporting cast: +15.2 in the RS, +22. 2 in the PS.

Re: Wade good at a lot of things, not elite at any. I see it the opposite. I think Wade's something of a minimalist player out there, getting by on explosion, motor & aggressiveness. Doesn't mean we can't point to his impact in various places, but at their root, I think there's a reason why Wade had one of the fastest rises to dominance we've ever seen.

Re: not an elite scorer like KD. I don't necessarily have a problem favoring KD's scoring here, but I'd emphasize that the two players did their scoring in very different ways. Wade couldn't do what KD did, and KD couldn't do what Wade did.

Let me continue on pertaining to those last 2 points to acknowledge my own concerns about Wade in the context of how he'd do in today's game. When that knucklehead jumped in recently to call me a Wade-hater, he surely did so because I've expressed skepticism about Wade being able to be as valuable in today's game as he was back in the day.

I happen to have moved to a new criteria that ranks Wade higher than before, but my concerns remain. It's just that when it comes to evaluating Wade in his own time, well, it's hard for me to deny how impressive he was - to me at least.

Re: DRAPM not that great. I'm sure you're right - though I'd have to re-familiarize myself with the specific numbers - but here's where I think we have to point out the way Wade was able to ramp up his motor in the playoffs. I'm not saying that Wade at full-motor was an extremely valuable defender necessarily, but I don't think the DRAPM numbers can tell us the full story.

Re: Barkley scoring & rebounding. Indeed, don't intend to push back there.

But I do have concerns about things like defensive effort from Barkley. I think Barkley's a guy whose impact waxed and waned pretty significantly based on his mood, and that doesn't help him in my holistic assessment.

[OhayoKD]

Obviously the voter pool changes every project, but the last 3 Pettit was voted in at 25, 24 and 21 respectively. As far as PFs go he’s typically been behind those already voted in (Duncan, Garnett, Dirk) and Malone/Barkley coming up. So it’s more than likely he’ll begin to get traction. Giannis is in the mix now too for people who value longevity less.

Pettit does deserve recognition though. Pioneered the position and had a very good career in his own right.

I've seen this before and I'm pretty open to considering Petit but I'd need a pretty comprehensive case(the strength of his signals and longevity would be primary concerns)

The two things that really stand out at first glance are his monster TS add and FT rate. Obviously that isn't everything but it's a good place to start:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/pettibo01.html

Eh. Not sure how much that matters to me in a league where defense was >> offense