RealGM Top 100 List #18

[DannyNoonan1221]

Erm..how is looking at head to head a good way to measure how good players are, especially when you are comparing two players who never went head to head with each other?

it's the same way people have downgraded Moses' MVPs. Look at the quality around the player, whether it's on the same team or the guys he is playing against. I think it's a good way to look at things.

On paper Moses 3 MVPs look amazing if you just see the guys who were in the league. But then you look at their peaks, etc. and it brings those MVPs down to earth a little bit.

The same for head-to-head. You look at the stats of who played who the best. On the surface it looks great, but in reality its just one more factor pointing in a general direction but not necessarily providing a defined end point.

[FJS]

Well i think it's not fair to say this guy won mvp when others went down. I mean you can say jordan began to win mvps when bird first and magic went down. That hakeem a drob won when jordan was on vacation. That barkley or malone won due to league won't give jordan mvp every year. Or lebron began to win when duncan, kg, dirk or kobe began to decline.
The fact is they were great players and deserving. And moses it's not an exception.

[Jim Naismith]

Erm..how is looking at head to head a good way to measure how good players are, especially when you are comparing two players who never went head to head with each other?

The next best thing is judging him relative to his era. We do that using head-to-head playoff series against other contemporaneous stars, ideally playing the same position.

In other words, did the player dominate or struggle against the era's best competition in high-stakes games (the playoffs)?

The H2H data suggest:

1. David Robinson < Hakeem
2. David Robinson < Karl Malone
3. Moses > Kareem

The only case where Robinson > Moses is if you believe both

1. Hakeem >> Kareem

and

2. Karl Malone >> Kareem

(Remember, Kareem averaged an NBA-leading 27.1 ppg in the 1983 playoffs.)

I believe the more likely conclusion, that Moses > Robinson.

[colts18]

The next best thing is judging him relative to his era. We do that using head-to-head playoff series against other contemporaneous stars, ideally playing the same position.

In other words, did the player dominate or struggle against the era's best competition in high-stakes games (the playoffs)?

The H2H data suggest:

1. David Robinson < Hakeem
2. David Robinson < Karl Malone
3. Moses > Kareem

The only case where Robinson > Moses is if you believe both

1. Hakeem >> Kareem

and

2. Karl Malone >> Kareem

(Remember, Kareem averaged an NBA-leading 27.1 ppg in the 1983 playoffs.)

I believe the more likely conclusion, that Moses > Robinson.

Basketball is more than a collection of 1 on 1 battles. For one, you have to take into account passing and help defense so its not like Moses was dominating Kareem pre-83 because you have to factor in those categories.

Shaq outplayed Michael Jordan head to head. Is he > MJ?

[DannyNoonan1221]

Erm..how is looking at head to head a good way to measure how good players are, especially when you are comparing two players who never went head to head with each other?

The next best thing is judging him relative to his era. We do that using head-to-head playoff series against other contemporaneous stars, ideally playing the same position.

In other words, did the player dominate or struggle against the era's best competition in high-stakes games (the playoffs)?

The H2H data suggest:

1. David Robinson < Hakeem
2. David Robinson < Karl Malone
3. Moses > Kareem

The only case where Robinson > Moses is if you believe both

1. Hakeem >> Kareem

and

2. Karl Malone >> Kareem

(Remember, Kareem averaged an NBA-leading 27.1 ppg in the 1983 playoffs.)

I believe the more likely conclusion, that Moses > Robinson.

Yes, in a clear cut situation this is true. But this is not. It's just one more way of trying to clear things up but certainly not to the degree you make it seem.

[HeartBreakKid]

Erm..how is looking at head to head a good way to measure how good players are, especially when you are comparing two players who never went head to head with each other?

The next best thing is judging him relative to his era. We do that using head-to-head playoff series against other contemporaneous stars, ideally playing the same position.

In other words, did the player dominate or struggle against the era's best competition in high-stakes games (the playoffs)?

The H2H data suggest:

1. David Robinson < Hakeem
2. David Robinson < Karl Malone
3. Moses > Kareem

The only case where Robinson > Moses is if you believe both

1. Hakeem >> Kareem

and

2. Karl Malone >> Kareem

(Remember, Kareem averaged an NBA-leading 27.1 ppg in the 1983 playoffs.)

I believe the more likely conclusion, that Moses > Robinson.

But that is just arbitrary, because that is just analyzing 1 vs 1, which holds no real barring on overall impact. All that shows is who had better isolation and better man to man defense on those plays (incredibly low sample sizes as well). You also picked three arbitrary players, and yes, they are arbitrary, I know why you picked them, but they are arbitrary none the less. Moses and Robinson played against more stars than just those guys, but you just picked the guys who are on the top 20, which is an arbitrary cut off.

Also, Hakeem would make BBQ chicken out of Moses Malone in a head to head match up regardless, that was Hakeem in his peak.

David Robinson and Karl Malone do not even play the same position, that is a mismatch.

The point you're trying to make has too many holes in it.

[Jim Naismith]

Basketball is more than a collection of 1 on 1 battles. For one, you have to take into account passing and help defense so its not like Moses was dominating Kareem pre-83 because you have to factor in those categories.

Shaq outplayed Michael Jordan head to head. Is he > MJ?

I mentioned using h2h when the stars ideally play the same position. Shaq is center and Jordan is a guard.

But still, for 1995, it's unanimous that Shaq > Jordan. But 1995 Jordan is not peak Jordan, or even prime Jordan.

In contrast, 1994-96 David Robinson was peak Robinson. So my h2h comparisons are more germane.

And yet, at his peak, Robinson was outplayed by two of his main big-man rivals.

[Texas Chuck]

Why do people keep insisting that Dream outplayed Admiral H2H when the evidence says the contrary?

I get the post-season series went Dream's way, but that's got sample size issues. The RS is a massive edge for Admiral in efficiency and w/l and no the Spurs supporting cast wasnt the reason why considering Dream had both better teammates and a better coach.

Stop perpetuating that myth. Dream deserves to be ranked ahead of Admiral and is, but let's not just pretend what happened when they faced each other can be erased by one playoff series with Dream at his peak.

[Jim Naismith]

But that is just arbitrary, because that is just analyzing 1 vs 1, which holds no real barring on overall impact. All that shows is who had better isolation and better man to man defense on those plays (incredibly low sample sizes as well). You also picked three arbitrary players, and yes, they are arbitrary, I know why you picked them, but they are arbitrary none the less. Moses and Robinson played against more stars than just those guys, but you just picked the guys who are on the top 20, which is an arbitrary cut off.

I picked elite big men who met during the postseason, when the games get serious. I don't think there's anything arbitrary about it. Are there other relevant H2H playoff series between Robinson, Moses, and other elite big men?

Also, Hakeem would make BBQ chicken out of Moses Malone in a head to head match up regardless, that was Hakeem in his peak.

Sounds like your hierarchy is this:

Hakeem > Karl Malone > Robinson > Moses > early 80s Kareem

Am I correct?

[HeartBreakKid]

To avoid a runoff, I'll change my vote prematurely.


There is a three way battle between Barkley, Robinson & Malone.

I think Barkley is dead last here. TBH I haven't read THAT much about Barkley in this thread in particular, so maybe there is info that is contrary to my belief, but I believe him being such a defensive liability while playing power forward greatly devalues him compared to Malone and Robinson. Barkley could be slotted in at the 3, where he was still a terrible defender but that is less of a hit on a teams overall defense. It doesn't help that Barkley was also pretty cancerous for his time with his teammates.

Barkley's incredible efficiency and multiple ways of scoring helps mitigate his defensive short comings so much that he is a perennial MVP candidate, but I'm not sure if I'd really take him over David Robinson or Moses Malone if I'd win a championship. Those two just come with less baggage, and they're also superior rebounders to Barkley on top of that.




So this was really between Malone and Robinson to me. I had Malone ahead of Robinson coming into the project, but the more I think about it, the more I think Robinson deserved the nod, I think TSherkin made some good points for the pro Robinson party, that pretty much sealed the deal of me changing my opinion.



To me David Robinson is the second or third best defender ever. His agility, length and rim protection is what lead to so many great defensive statistics and accolades, including an absolutely suffocating ones once Duncan got on board. He is galaxies, and I mean galaxies ahead of Moses. Defense was just never Moses game. He didn't have great length, his length was more power forwardish, but didn't quite have the lateral quickness to be a dominate defending forward.

I don't believe him crashing offensive boards lead to his team getting killed in transition, as guards are the primary form of defense against the fast break, I do not penalize Moses for him using one of his best attributes, even if is seen as unconventional by today's standards. At the same time, I don't really give Moses Malone THAT much credit for his offensive rebounding prowess.

I think Moses is up there with the best offensive rebounders, may even be the best, but his numbers don't really suggest his impact. He used to get 2 or 3 of those rebounds on the same possessions, which meant that was 2 or 3 possessions where he didn't score. A lot of people associate offensive reboundings with put backs, but there is no guarantee that an offensive rebound will lead to a basket. Moses used to put up shots that wouldn't go in, but his rebounding ability was so good he could always just recapture the ball - again, not penalizing him for this tactic, but that means those 7 offensive rebounds he's grabbing really has the impact of like 3 or 4 offensive rebounds, which still makes him the best offensive rebounder in the league, but not the Jesus of basketball like some may believe if you just looked at the boxscore.

I also believe I give Robinson way too much crap for his lack of scoring. I think his scoring title was borderline stat padding, so I never put too much emphasis on it, but I do think that Robinson does have near championship caliber scoring, but he was never on a team that could really bring that out. What Robinson lacks in scoring compared to Malone (who I think was a much better isolation scorer), he at least passed the ball, which is a big deal that a lot of people are overlooking. Even if you are a dominant scorer, if your teammates are not doing much, then it is easier to game plan against you and ultimately stifle you. It's one of the reasons why players like Adrian Dantley are not highly ranked on these list, being a black hole hurts.

So yeah, I'll take all time great D, good scoring ability, decent-great passer depending on season over Moses, who could best be summarized as a dominating man to man scorer, no passing or offensive utility, great on the offensive glass (but Robinson really isn't far behind when it comes to that, when you look past the raw numbers), who was a weak defensive center and not a great defending power forward. Is Malone's iso scoring ability enough to stifle all of other Robinson's qualities, is it enough to even stifle Robinson being one of the best defensive anchors ever? I think not.


So I am going to change my vote from Bill Walton to David Robinson.

[HeartBreakKid]

t picked the guys who are on the top 20, which is an arbitrary cut off.

I picked elite big men who met during the postseason, when the games get serious. I don't think there's anything arbitrary about it. Are there other relevant H2H playoff series between Robinson, Moses, and other elite big men?[/quote]It would depend on what we would call elite. Is that reserved for just all time greats, or would all-stars not be seen as a relevant measure?

Sounds like your hierarchy is this:

Hakeem > Karl Malone > Robinson > Moses > early 80s Kareem

Am I correct?

No, I don't think you can form a hierarchy just based on the three match ups listed. If you're asking me who the best 1 on 1 players are, I don't think Karl Malone was that great of an isolation player compared to the guys on that list, his game was pick and roll.

[ceiling raiser]

No, I still prefer relative ORtg/DRtg and a comparison to estimated ORtg/DRtg. However, his suggestions about the small sample size and the low likelihood of this being something more than noise, have put me in a position where I'm once again comfortable voting for Robinson over Moses.

Ok, but then it's a bigger problem, because if +50 playoffs games sample is too small, then we can't say much about playoffs performances of many players (and we definitely can't talk about single season playoffs runs!). So should we not use playoffs at all, because playoffs samples are usually small, or accept it the way it is, especially if results from different seasons are consistent?

Just a question: for which post-injury years are you comfortable with crediting Robinson as the anchor of the Spurs defense? Should we include those seasons in the comparison, or do you think they're too far from his prime to merit inclusion? Or do you think Duncan's influence is possibly too big for a fair comparison?

The last option, eventually maybe in 1998 Robinson was more responsible for Spurs defense.

Just wondering, do you think we should be considering Ewing yet? How do you feel about him vs Robinson?

I think Ewing already should be in discussion, I'm not sure if I would rank him above Robinson, but it would be definitely closer race than between DRob and Moses.

1) Valid point. I don't think 50 games is too small, but his post did cast some doubt in my mind about the difference being statistically significant. Truth be told, I'm not extremely comfortable using single season playoff runs, but as you said if there is a consistent trend, it's something we can't ignore.

Maybe I'm not communicating what I'm trying to say well though. His post forced me to take a step back and reconsider not voting for Robinson at this spot. I still think it's a legitimate issue that I'm going to have to address when placing him, but it's not something that can prevent me from voting for him over Moses.

2) I guess it's not too bad though, since we have play-by-play data for those seasons.

Sorta off-topic, but do you know if it's possible to view on/off stats (like differential in team FG%, team TRB%, etc.) on stats.nba.com or media.nba.com for the pre-B-R seasons (97 through 00)? I tried that Player/Team comparison tool, but for most earlier seasons (I think before 03-04 or maybe it's later) those fields are blank.

3) I might agree. I remember you had a good thread about Duncan and Ewing a few months ago. Hopefully he picks up steam in the next round, would be interested in seeing some breakdowns.

[ceiling raiser]

I say let's throw Nash, Ewing, Wade, Walt, and Chuck in first.

One's thing for sure and that's that defensively I think people are overrating The Admiral's defense. He played in the best era for centers and he couldn't win a h2h matchup in the playoffs against bigs when he had the chance. Meanwhile Ewing was dominated by Hakeem but at least he limited Hakeem's effectiveness more than any other player from 93-95.

Also defensively I feel Ewing is underrated. He's right there with Robinson and Hakeem and from 88-93 he was making All-D teams yearly (I think he should've made it in 94 too). My top 5 defenders list is probably something like Russell, Hakeem, Deke, Duncan, Ewing with maybe Wallace and KG taking the next spots.

Thanks for the response. This thread looks like it's heading towards a runoff, but would you be interested in posting about Ewing next thread? Would be very valuable for the discussion generated.

[ronnymac2]

Ewing had to take on even more offensive responsibility than Charles did since the other Knicks sucked on offense while Barkley's PHX teammates were good, and Ewing still put up comparable offensive numbers to MVP Barkley. Ewing put up a tremendous 26/13 game in the closeout GM 6. Ewing was not the choker that he's painted to be.

Would you post his 94 Finals line for me, and then say he wasn't a choker again? Or his differential from RS to PS before the 2000s?

21.3 ppg on 52.1% TS and 105 ORTG from 88-99, btw.

And 18.9 ppg in 44 mpg on 39.0% TS, 85 ORTG, 36.3% TS.

He was awful in that series, totally picked apart when it counted most.

Ewing was a great defender and a more extreme version of D-Rob/Malone in terms of not performing so well come the playoffs, barring a small handful of performances. He dropped 3.7% in TS in the PS from 88-99 and 2 points od ORTG. With that 94 performance, he really sells the image of a guy who couldn't generally shoulder the load. Like D-Rob, he couldn't maintain RS scoring dominance in the PS. He was very good but doesn't belong on the list just yet.

Patrick Ewing's offense went down the tubes in the 1994 NBA Finals. There's no doubt about that. He was terrible.

You did not explicitly bring this comparison up, but using your post as a jumping off point: An obvious counter to talk of Ewing's candidacy at this spot is that Ewing faired worse against Hakeem Olajuwon than David Robinson did one year later.

However, Houston was a stellar -4.9 defensive team (101.4) in 1994, good for 2nd best in the league behind Ewing's Knicks that season. In 1995, Houston was a -0.9 defensive team (107.4), good for 12th best in the league. This decline in defense was due to a combination of factors:

1. Olajuwon was slightly worse as a defensive player in 1995, though I believe it to be his offensive peak.
2. A shift in strategy to focus more on offense than on defense. This includes more small lineups with pre-weight gain Robert Horry at PF. This 4-out-1-in offensive strategy was unique at the time and worked really well come playoff time. Houston signified this was the strategy going forward by trading their good 2-way PF and second-best rebounder Otis Thorpe for a star wing in Clyde Drexler.

So the Houston defense Patrick Ewing faced in the NBA Finals was much better than the Houston defense David Robinson faced in the 1995 WCFs.

I'll reiterate: Patrick Ewing's offense went down the tubes in the 1994 NBA Finals. There's no doubt about that. He was terrible. But considering the context in each situation, Robinson and Ewing were not in similar environments.

[trex_8063]

Does anybody know how/where penbeast is? Maybe something's come up or he's not well, etc; just appears to be MIA for now. That being the case, does any other mod have the authority/ability to officially put this one into a run-off, since this thread is now almost 72 hours old?

[penbeast0]

Sorry, lost track of days, thought it was day 2. We have about 20 minutes left before day 3 ends and it looks like DRob might avoid having to face a runoff anyway (thanks HK).

18 David Robinson -- penbeast0, Doctor MJ, Chuck Texas, trex_8063, ardee, magicmer1, shutupandjam, SactoKingsFan, PCProductions, drza, Owly, colts18, RSCD3_, fpliii, Quotatious, lukekarts, lorak, Heartbreak Kid

11 Moses Malone -- Jim Naismith, Ryoga Hibiki, batmana, JordansBulls, GCPantalones, DannyNoonan1221, DQuinn1575, Warspite, FJS, Basketballefan, rich316

6 Charles Barkley -- ShaqAttack3234, Ray-Ban Sematra, tsherkin, Narigo, ronnymac2, john248

[drza]

If Quotatious' count on page 8 is correct, then would Heartbreak Kid's switch from Walton to Robinson make the count:

Robinson 18
Moses 11
Barkley 6

Someone should double-check to make sure, but if these numbers hold up we might avoid a run-off (which would be great given the extra day.

[ShaqAttack3234]

Even in 94 he played great until he went up against Hakeem (and still be played great defense limiting Hakeem and the Rockets enough to get to game 7 unlike Robinson who wasn't such a great defender).

Yeah, his offense just fell off a cliff that series, to a surprising extent, but he played well vs Chicago and Indiana in very competitive series. It's not surprising Ewing started to decline around this time, though. He turned 32 a couple of months after the finals and had the bad knees.

[D Nice]

Spoiler:

I've run the numbers and nothing shows the Spurs defense having a significant falloff in the postseason. I agree with those who have expressed doubt here that without a causal explanation, it seems strange...and it it indeed verified by the results that nothing out of the ordinary happened to the Spurs on defense in the playoffs. There is a small decline against 110+ offenses in the PS as you can see on the graph below, but that decline comprises 33 games.



There is enormous variation in ORtg -- moreso that SRS. For SRS, the 95% significant point for a 33-game sample is about 2 points in differential. The standard deviation for the Spurs DRtg in this sample was 11.1, slightly higher than the 10.6 for their SRS in the same sample. Keep in mind that they only played 53 PS games in these 6 playoffs (Robinson missed 1992), and all of their opponents had a 108 offense or better (rounded). In the PS sample, the Spurs gave up 109.0 pts/100 at -1.4 pts relative to the opponent, a slight decline from their RS performance against 108+ defenses of 108.1 pts/100 at -2.2 pts relative to the opponent. Is that statistically significant?

I did not run a formal statistical test but significance seems impossible given that the variation is higher than the variance in SRS and that difference wouldn't produce significance for an SRS sample. In short, that small decline you're seeing in the Spurs PS defense, it's likely just noise. As an example to illustrate this, the 138-132 OT loss in Robinson's rookie season to Portland cost the Spurs 5 DRtg points that postseason and 0.6 points in the 53 game sample.

And of course, even if the sample were large enough for statistical significance...look at the absolute numbers. Less than 1 point per game...hardly enough that it seems it would matter, even if somehow all of the results could be attributed to Robinson.

PS There was a 0.96 correlation in the RS between opponent RS ORtg and the DRtg of the Spurs...meaning they don't feast on bad teams or anything like that -- their relative performance is essentially constant against all teams. Their graph of the above mapped to relative DRtg has a slope of 0.003.

This is very useful overall but...how do we discern individual data-points? Are the dots (circles) 1-per-year for the playoffs and 2-per-year for the regular season? Doesn't seem clear to me.

I guess it's one of those graphs where the inferences are easy enough to draw even if the individual data points aren't. Either way, thanks for posting.

My personal pick would be Barkley, but D-Rob is a fine choice too, he seems to be the more consistent choice given project voting trends.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

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).

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.

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.