Gilmore should get more cred from people

[penbeast0]

Passivity is a legit criticism, if Gilmore had the personality of a Shaq, he'd be a top 10 candidate -- he was appreciably more talented than, say, Moses Malone because of his size, strength, and athleticism. The issue is that his results ARE top 30, maybe top 25 if you really favor centers through 1990 as I do, just he didn't create them in an exciting way.

Discounting Mikan and maybe Neil Johnston, he's the 8th/9th best center ever behind only Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, DRob, and Moses . . . and maybe Ewing . . . but his defensive and offensive results (if not his excitement factor) put him ahead of anyone else although Dwight Howard is pushing his way into that company and that translates into a top 30 player. .

[DocHoops]

^It pisses me off that that is such a fair and good point.

I have Mikan, the eight you mentioned, plus Walton, Cowens, Reed, Unseld, Thurmond, Ben Wallace and Bob McAdoo above Gilmore.

I could bend on Wallace (my Gilmore) and McAdoo, but I won't ever see Gilmore as better or certainly not more historically significant than those other guys.

A guy like Gilmore is part of why I don't trust stats to evaluate an individuals worth. Almost no one who seen him feels like he was as good as his stats suggest. His teams results also suggest he did little or nothing to provide that mythical intangible of making others better. Gilmore in the top 50, like Karl Malone in the top 20 or Kareem at #1 is far too depressing for me to ever consider. I hate guys who could have done more but didn't for lack of desire to. I can take a guy like Wilt who did everything he thought was right, or a guy like Shaq who did everything his unearthly body could handle, but guys who just didn't care enough...yuck.

Gilmore had a perfect physique for basketball and a perfect disposition for basket weaving. Tragic really.

[GilmoreFan]

That list is completely disingenuous. Wilt was 34 years old in the 1971 season, and was retired 2 years later. By 74 Thurmond had fallen off completely as a player, Walton debuted in 75 (and played 35 games this season, and 51 games the next). Willis reed was done after 71 and was never the same player again (and was always injured). McAdoo didn't take off until the 74 season. And would the existence of some of these guys have mattered terribly to Artis dominance? I doubt it. Did having more good C's in the mid 90's hurt Shaq's stats? It doesn't seem like it. He posted just as impressive stats then as he tended to do later.

The important question is how good were the teams Gilmore played against, and while the ABA was a bit weaker than the NBA in the late 60's, early 70's, by the time Artis won a title, they were as good as the NBA, and it showed in how the ABA teams did in the NBA, like the almost unchanged Spurs and Pacers ripping it up (despite the loss of key players). The reason they won in 75 was because the Colonels finally made Artis the focus of the offense, and he was pretty much unstoppable.

Cowens above Gilmore! Unseld!! Ben Wallace!!! Not a serious list.

[DocHoops]

That list is completely disingenuous. Wilt was 34 years old in the 1971 season, and was retired 2 years later. By 74 Thurmond had fallen off completely as a player, Walton debuted in 75 (and played 35 games this season, and 51 games the next). Willis reed was done after 71 and was never the same player again (and was always injured). McAdoo didn't take off until the 74 season. And would the existence of some of these guys have mattered terribly to Artis dominance? I doubt it. Did having more good C's in the mid 90's hurt Shaq's stats? It doesn't seem like it. He posted just as impressive stats then as he tended to do later.

The important question is how good were the teams Gilmore played against, and while the ABA was a bit weaker than the NBA in the late 60's, early 70's, by the time Artis won a title, they were as good as the NBA, and it showed in how the ABA teams did in the NBA, like the almost unchanged Spurs and Pacers ripping it up (despite the loss of key players). The reason they won in 75 was because the Colonels finally made Artis the focus of the offense, and he was pretty much unstoppable.

Cowens above Gilmore! Unseld!! Ben Wallace!!! Not a serious list.

I'm having a hard time seeing how I am the one be biased when debating a guy named GilmoreFan. Cowens went to a last place team, they won two titles. Wallace went to a team without a playoff series win in eight years, they won a title and went to 5 straight ECF's. Unseld won an MVP in a 1969 NBA that was superior to Gilmore's 1972 ABA. In addition he won a most merger title and Finals MVP while Gilmore had nearly as many post moves as NBA series won...

[GilmoreFan]

You continue to distort things by pointing out stuff that is technically true, but devoid of context (eg "such and such big men were in the NBA those years... but, oh yeh, most of them were never there at the same time... that doesn't matter though, right?"). Cowens went to a last place team and won 2 titles... um, no... Cowens went to a team who had won 34 games the previous year (which was not last)... and they won 44 with Cowens. The team was full of talented guys, including Havlicek, a guy alot of people think was better than Cowens. What a totally disingenuous and inaccurate way of describing Cowen's impact

Ben Wallace went to a team who obtained other players aside from him, and played in a historically crappy conference, and who won a title with 5 different starters to the pre-Wallace Pistons. Indeed, in Ben's first year with the Pistons, before any of the other guys got there, the team won 32 games. It was only after they added Billups, Rip, Prince, Sheed, etc, that the team massively improved each step of the way.

Unseld's 69 MVP was one of the most undeserved in history, so to hold it out like a trump card is beyond pathetic.

[DocHoops]

You continue to distort things by pointing out stuff that is technically true, but devoid of context (eg "such and such big men were in the NBA those years... but, oh yeh, most of them were never there at the same time... that doesn't matter though, right?").

I never implied they were all there at the same time and I'm pretty sure most of the people I am addressing this to are aware of when those guys careers started and ended. There was NO distortion at all. The point stands, the NBA had at any given time five centers better than anyone in the ABA not named Artis Gilmore.

Cowens went to a last place team and won 2 titles... um, no... Cowens went to a team who had won 34 games the previous year (which was not last)... and they won 44 with Cowens. The team was full of talented guys, including Havlicek, a guy alot of people think was better than Cowens. What a totally disingenuous and inaccurate way of describing Cowen's impact

I was wrong, they did win three more games than last place Detroit. That was an honest mistake, I just knew they bottomed out after Russell retired. And they did win two titles in Cowens first five years and while agree Hondo was as important to those titles, Cowens was the one who won an MVP.

Ben Wallace went to a team who obtained other players aside from him, and played in a historically crappy conference, and who won a title with 5 different starters to the pre-Wallace Pistons. Indeed, in Ben's first year with the Pistons, before any of the other guys got there, the team won 32 games. It was only after they added Billups, Rip, Prince, Sheed, etc, that the team massively improved each step of the way.

No exactly true and again, I would take you more seriously if you were as "honest" with the details about Gilmore and the ABA and you expect me to be about the NBA.

To correct your presumptions about Wallace and the Pistons turn around. The team won 50 games before Billups, Hamilton, Sheed or Tayshaun arrived. Wallace led a starting line-up of Michael Curry, Uncle Cliff Robinson, Chuck Atkins and Jerry Stackhouse to the central division title in 2002. Wallace had become the teams leader that off-season by pushing himself and his teammates like never before (source: Terry Foster, Detroit News). The Pistons jumped from 32 to 50 wins. The next season they added Rip and Chauncey and drafted Prince. And won games and one more playoff series. The next year they added Larry Brown and Sheed at the deadline, they won 54 games and the title. Gilmore was clearly a better player skill wise and physically he was twice the size. Yet he never did nor could have done what Wallace did. He created an image for that team. The Palace was full of giant fro wigs and people holding up signs with the Pistons blue collar slogan, "Goin' to Work" That was Wallace's mantra and the rest of the guys bought in.

Unseld's 69 MVP was one of the most undeserved in history, so to hold it out like a trump card is beyond pathetic.

I hold it in higher regard than Gilmore's from the ABA. Obviously the 1969 NBA was better than the 1972 ABA right? Remember that the NBA MVP then was voted on by the players. That tells you all you need to know.

My trump card however is not the MVP, it is Unseld's career. It's better than Gilmore's. Unseld took his team to four NBA finals and the playoffs every year. I am just reminding people how similar the start of his career was to Gilmore's MVP, ROTY, best record in the league, upset in the first round of the playoffs.

[penbeast0]

Funny, I can't think of a single year from 70-74 where there were 5 NBA centers better than Mel Daniels.

[DocHoops]

Funny, I can't think of a single year from 70-74 where there were 5 NBA centers better than Mel Daniels.

I did say 71-72 to 73-74

Let me help you...

1971-72: Unseld, Cowens, Jabbar, Chamberlain, Thurmond, Lanier, Elvin Hayes

1972-73: All except Hayes who moved to forward

1973-74: Replace Wilt with McAdoo

There are six from each season.

See, I told you.

As for '70 and '71, I'd take Wilt, Jabbar, Unseld, Reed, Hayes and Thurmond over Daniels...so actually I disagree wholly, the ABA never had one of pro basketball's top five centers not named Artis Gilmore.

Now my guess is you'll argue against one of those guys, but how many people without a pro-Gilmore agenda will actually agree?

You know all those guys are appearing on the top 100 list before Daniels.

[penbeast0]

Unseld . . . 74 clearly isn't correct, he was injured and ineffective, much worse than his normal
Cowens . . . at least arguable as he was at his peak in this era, just his peak was arguably below Daniels
Kareem . . . absolutely, best player in the game over this period
Wilt . . . agree for 71 and 72
Thurmond . . . Nate's defense was better, his offense was appreciably worse (see the Thurmond thread, he was one of the worst offensive players to ever score 20ppg), both were superb rebounders, Daniels's team achieved/overachieved during this era, Thurmond's consistently underachieved, so NO
Lanier . . . consistently big stats but piss poor team defense and results imply that Big Foot wasn't the player his numbers imply so NO
Hayes . . . Again, big numbers that don't translate into team success as a center but poor players around him so since it is about helping your team win, NO
McAdoo . . . Big big numbers with average teams and weak defense but such a great offensive player so YES

That leaves
72 -- Kareem, Unseld, Wilt, maybe Cowens
73 -- Kareem, Unseld, maybe Cowens
74 -- Kareem, McAdoo, maybe Cowens

Even giving the edge to Cowens (in addition to Danlels having better stats, the Pacers beat the Celtics more often than not HtH in their exhibitions -- and both teams really wanted them as Auerbach and Slick Leonard disliked each other intensely), Mel Daniels is a top 5 center every year pretty easily unless Artis beats him out in 72 although his play slipped a bit in 74.

[GilmoreFan]

As has been noted above, it's ridiculous to say there were 5 C's better than the next best C in the ABA. It's also not hugely relevant, for reasons I'm sure will only confuse you. Go to page 2 of the Ewing v.s Oscar thread for further elaboration on a tangental subject.

You also grossly underrate Zelmo Beaty, but then again everyone does. He was an awesome big man, better than Cowens in his prime.

But yeh, it's disingenuous to name a bunch of guys, and provide no context as to how most of those guys weren't around for most of the period you named.

Cowens was the one who won an MVP

I fail to see how Cowens winning an undeserved MVP, in a time ripe with undeserved MVP's, is relevant to the point you were making (badly), namely that Cowens came on to the Celtics and turned them from "last place" into a title team. You were wrong about this. He came in and gave an already good team 10 extra wins, and the team gradually improved to become a title team because of alot of guys on that team, including someone who was better than Cowens. And the Celtics were 7 games ahead of the worst team, is it so hard to look this stuff up?!

To correct your presumptions about Wallace and the Pistons turn around. The team won 50 games before Billups, Hamilton, Sheed or Tayshaun arrived. Wallace led a starting line-up of Michael Curry, Uncle Cliff Robinson, Chuck Atkins and Jerry Stackhouse to the central division title in 2002

Ignoring the "such and such is being a real leader" that teams and papers put out about players all the time, often with little explanation of why said player didn't lead before/after the narrative driven newspaper article says they did, let's get to the 02 Pistons.

Things to consider about the 02 Pistons:
a) There were changes to the previous years team. A very good coach was brought in, Cliff Robinson who was still a very good role player joined the team, Corliss was healthy and had a 6th man of the year season, Michael Curry their defensive wing was much healthier, etc, etc. So there were quite a few changes here. Ben joining the team doesn't seem like the key catalyst, because he was there the previous season they won 32 games as well, with none of the suggested impact. Of course, Ben is a great player to have, but you're comparing him to Artis Gilmore here, a guy whose 2 litmus tests for coming onto a team with minimal changes led to improvements of 24 wins and 20 wins respectively.
b) The East was unbelievably bad in 2002, just sucktacular. It was one of the weakest Easts in history. Their win-loss record v.s the West was a thing of comedy as usual. Some absolutely awful teams made the playoffs around this time, ones with no business being playoff teams in the West, or in today's NBA, and that is important because the Pistons played these easier teams twice as much. And that shows in the win-loss record, where the "50 win Pistons" were not even playing 500. ball v.s the Western Conference (12-16). So while 50 wins sounds great, you have to add some context.

Yet he never did nor could have done what Wallace did. He created an image for that team. The Palace was full of giant fro wigs and people holding up signs with the Pistons blue collar slogan, "Goin' to Work" That was Wallace's mantra and the rest of the guys bought in

This has nothing whatever to do with NBA talent, and it's the sort of nonsense fans of a team always trumpet about the guys they like. They claim their player is better, because of something intangible and subjective and impossible to prove one way or the other. It's a comical argument.

I hold it in higher regard than Gilmore's from the ABA. Obviously the 1969 NBA was better than the 1972 ABA right? Remember that the NBA MVP then was voted on by the players. That tells you all you need to know.

a) Player votes were terrible, they gave us some of the worst MVP's ever. Again, this is nothing I'd be too quick to boast about.
b) That would prove nothing anyway. Imagine prime Shaq is transported in 2000 to the Euro-basket, and wins the MVP there. That doesn't mean he wouldn't win the 2000 NBA MVP too, all it tells me is he was the best in Euro-basket. This is even worse because you can't weigh an incorrect award against a correct one. You're trying to say "I treat Unseld's dubious MVP higher than Gilmore's probably accurate MVP"... why? If something is wrong, it's wrong. At least you can look at Gilmore's rookie season and see he was clearly the deserving winner. With Unseld he probably wasn't even a top 5 player that year.

My trump card however is not the MVP, it is Unseld's career. It's better than Gilmore's. Unseld took his team to four NBA finals and the playoffs every year. I am just reminding people how similar the start of his career was to Gilmore's MVP, ROTY, best record in the league, upset in the first round of the playoffs.

Unseld had better teams than Gilmore over his career, so he had better team success over his career than Gilmore. None of this explains why we would think Unseld's career was better than Gilmore's (it wasn't).

[penbeast0]

Unseld's MVP wasn't that ridiculous. He may not have been the best regular season player in the league that year (obviously Bill Russell gets it again if playoffs were counted but they aren't within the purview of the award), fellow rookie Elvin Hayes may have been it statistically, but it is tough not to say Unseld didn't have a greater effect on his team in terms of W-L. He took the worst team in the Eastern Conference and, despite injuries to HOF power forward Gus Johnson that limited him to 1/2 the seasons, took them to the best record in the league. Who else could get the credit? Earl Monroe matured a bit -- but Monroe's stats weren't appreciably different than in 68. Kevin Loughery had a career season (still a poor efficiency, weak defense gunner). Jack Marin had a slight improvement but big men Ray Scott and Leroy Ellis had big dropoffs (in both time and effectiveness) while the team lost SG Don Ohl. So, the only person to credit was Unseld -- similar to Steve Nash's MVPs only even more dramatic.

Who were the other "more deserving" candidates? League's leading scorer and fellow rookie Elvin Hayes who exploded for 28/17/1 taking an even worse Rockets franchise to 37 wins would be the most likely beneficiary of Unseld's not getting the title . . . my favorite line is that Unseld should have gotten the MVP and Hayes the Rookie of the Year. Russell's Celtics slipped to 4th in the regular season in his last season, Wilt played with Baylor and West . . . and still had a less impressive record than rookie Wes Unseld's Bullets. Willis Reed was at his peak, scoring about 5 more points a game with a loaded Knicks team (Frazier, Barnett, Bradley, DeBusschere, Russell, etc.) that also won less games than Baltimore. Oscar was Oscar, great numbers but even more team slippage.

If you really think Wes's MVP was so undeserved, who deserved it more? You know I'm a huge Gilmore fan, but I'm also a huge Unseld fan and he's one of those players with particular skills -- best outlet passer and pick setter I've ever seen even over Russell and Walton -- that aren't put into box scores. It's not necessary to bash great competitors to show how great a player like Artis Gilmore was; his skills were visible in the box score and in his team success -- as were his limitations. Top 10 center all-time even over Unseld, super efficient volume scoring is ridiculously valuable.

[GilmoreFan]

Unseld's MVP wasn't that ridiculous

So speaks the Wizards fan.

More deserving candidates? Well, assuming we're going with who was, like, a better player, as opposed to some media driven narrative, then I'd think Russell, Oscar, West, Frazier, Wilt... heck, I'm not even sure why he's ahead of Willis or Zelmo or Hondo. Some might put Cummingham ahead too.

I mean, for heaven's sake, even in the RPOY project for that year, Unseld gets 0 first or second placed votes, and 4/18 third place votes for a reason.

You're placing the credit for the Wizard's big season on Unseld, but the 69 Bullets look to me alot more like the 05 Sonics, which isn't to say they weren't a good team. They were both teams who found the right mix and balance under their relatively new coach, who was able to get his system working under Unseld... but it's more of an abberation/fluke season. The next 3 seasons they fell back to 50, 42 and then 38 wins, all without any real logical explanation for why the team got worse like injuries, or loss of key players... it looks like they just got hot in 69 and overachieved a little, and then other teams adjusted, and they never managed to look as good again. They lost Munroe in 72 for the 38 win season, but they replaced him with good players, and that was only 4 games worse than the previous year... it feels like giving the MVP to Ray Allen in 05, or Zelmo Beaty in 68, for a media driven narrative of how they improved their teams, but the improvement was probably more to do with team gelling and getting hot, since they never did it again.

The Bullets team that wins a title a decade later was significantly different, and even then they kind of got hot in a weak-ish period for the NBA, right before a golden age of basketball in which the Bullets would have been nothing special.