RealGM Top 100 List #30

[Snakebites]

Alright fine, I'm sold.

Vote: Rick Barry
Nominate: Dominique Wilkins

[Dr Positivity]

Paul's career is way too short for me. 2010 should be essentially irrelevant, he plays 45 Gs which means you miss the playoffs in almost any situation with it, plus he plays 7 Gs after January 29th and is pretty much a shell in them, so even if the Hornets made the playoffs, he'd have given you virtually nothing.

So you've got 2 MVP caliber years in 2008 and 2009 and then 3 very good ones. His rookie season while an all-time one, was still a rookie season - I'm dubious of almost all rookie's real impacts due to lack of experience, especially defensively. His sophmore year he plays 64 Gs and his team misses the playoffs likely as a result. 2011 he has great PER numbers but didn't match up to that level from the eye test for me. All 3 years are decent, good, but not at the level of the other primes he's going against. So those 2 years has to elevate him.

Are those 2 years enough to overcome Miller, Allen, Wilkins, English, McHale, Parish, Gasol doing their work for a full decade. Or even Hill, Mourning and Reed having 5-7 prime years and then some other role player years.

I understand the value of highest upside in regards to being able to win a title, but Paul gives you 2 years at that 'higher than everyone else' level, assuming he is. Give me 5 at that level and I'd give him the nod, but 2 is just too short. If it wasn't Paul would've done better than 2nd round by now. And while I love Paul's game, I do think the 2009 Hornets could've done better than they did. They weren't the early 2000s Wolves in supporting talent.

[penbeast0]

More fuel for the Dominique Wilkins v. Alex English debate. Both were primarily scorers, Nique mainly in isolation, English as part of a motion offense. Let's look at how their team's offensive rating (pts scored per 100 possessions so pace shouldn't matter) show their offensive impact during their prime years in Atlanta and Denver.

Nique – offensive ratings for ATL

82 (18th without Nique
83 – 18/23
84 – 18
85 – 16 -- Nique scored 27.4ppg so pretty clearly part of his peak
86 – 11
87 – 4
88 – 5
89 – 4/25
90 – 4/27
91 – 8/27
92 – 16
93 – 10
(94 – 12th with Nique for half of year)

English -- offensive ratings for DEN

80 (18th/22 without English)
81 – 1st/23
82 – 1st
83 – 3rd
84 – 2nd
85 – 5th
86 – 12th
87 – 8th
88 – 8th
89 – 13th/25
90 – 14th/27
91 (21st with no English)


Denver with English was very clearly the better offensive team. That isn't despositive; the players around them matter and Denver had Dan Issel who was better offensively (and worse defensively) than any big Nique played with but it does show that the Denver offense English led was pretty effective, not just fast paced; while the Atlanta offense Nique led was pretty mediocre on the whole (some good years, some bad) despite the highlight films.


There is no doubt in my mind from having watched them that English was the better player and Nique, while a class act for a long time, benefitted from all the hype about his flashy play.

CHANGING TO VALUE LONGEVITY RATHER THAN PEAK FOR THE MOMENT

VOTE -- JOHN STOCKTON

NOMINATE -- ALEX ENGLISH

[TMACFORMVP]

Honestly, the ORTG's posted GREATLY strengthen the argument for Nique with me. His first three years in the league are not really considered part of his peak, so I don't know how much bearing it has in this argument. Then consider his teams were generally around the Top 10 in ORTG, with no other consistent offensive option; I'd consider that pretty darn impressive (including 5 times within the Top 5 -- the same as English led Nuggets). Consider, the Nuggets entire philosophy was based on out scoring their opponents, with their ridiculous pace/scoring #'s, I'm surprised they don't stand out more than they did, when compared to Nique's Hawks.

BTW, the '92 season was when Nique missed half the season due to injury, thus the explanation for being slightly below average in ORTG. And it's interesting to note that the years the Nuggets were in the Top 5 in ORTG (five seasons), the offensive numbers from other than English were staggering as well. In '81, David Thompson was the scoring leader for the team, in '82, English had two other 21+ PPG scorers, same thing in '83 (Vandeweghe nearly scored 27 PPG), and in '84 Kiki Vandeweghe led the team in scoring at nearly 30 per game on over 60% TS. So, when we consider English taking on a bigger role offensively, his teams were in fact similar with Nique's led Hawks in ORTG, if not worse.

That's pretty telling isn't it?

...[/quote]

Nique averaged 27.4 ppg in his 3rd year in the league, one of his best scoring seasons so you can't really say that isn't part of his peak. But let's take out the 1st two of Nique's ATL seasons and the last two of English's DEN seasons when the offense was running more through Michael Adams and Fat Lever and you get an average ORTG for ATL of 78/9=8.67 and an average ORTG for DEN of 40/8=5.00 . . . still a significant team advantage for English's Nuggets.

And you had solid offensive players around Nique, just an offense which features a constant isolation by Nique with his not particularly great passing skills doesn't let them shine whereas Denver's motion offense let all sorts of players shine because they were able to showcase their skills (Fat Lever posting, Michael Adams setting 3 point shooting records, Kiki and Issel playing outside, Jay Vincent going for 20+) and English adapted to all those different styles of teammates, helped them play their best, and did whatever the team needed. Nique's style just wasn't that adaptable.

[penbeast0]

First place, Offensive Rating specifically isn't about pace but about points per 100 possession, ie. efficiency. The Celtics in the Cousy era were the highest scoring team in the league but didn't have good offensive ratings, they made it on defense. Next, there is a big difference between 4th in the league (Nique's best team rating) and 1st (English's Nuggets were #1 twice after being #18/22 before he joined them -- WITH THOMPSON AND ISSEL). Finally, the playoff difference is even bigger than the regular season difference in efficiency -- a player whose main value is scoring needs to be efficient.

As for defense, in Fat Lever's 4 year prime (with Michael Adams rather than TR Dunn in years 2,3, and 4), the Nuggets were 15th the first year then 6th, 7th, and 8th. The greatest defensive SF in NBA history isn't going to produce good defense with Dan Issel (undersized and slow footed) and Kiki Vandeweghe (also slow defensively, didn't read or switch well, and arguably the worst rebounding PF to ever play) -- possibly the WOAT defensive C/PF combination of all time.

Nique was not as good individually (remember that stars tend to get their points regardless of pace -- good article about it by TrueLAFan in the Statistical Analysis section), his playoff efficiency declined more, and despite his supposed offensive prowess in drawing attention, his teams weren't as efficient offensively as English's (efficiency per possession so pace isn't involved) probably due to his mediocre passing skills and English's team even got further in the playoffs (though only once).

Was Nique more physically talented? sure. Did he produce more in actuality? no. Was Nique the better player? no.

[drza]

I must admit, I find TMacforMVP's posts on Dominique much more informative and logical than PenBeast's counters. The essence seems to be that Nique was doing more to carry his teams to their high ORtgs than English was doing to carry his, and the available data seems to bear that out. I think it very telling that from '87, the first year that Nique improved his scoring efficiency (based on TMac4MPV's last post) until he left Atlanta in '94, the team's strong offensive ratings seemed to be directly tied to him playing big minutes. They were consistently top 5 to top-10, then Nique is injured for half a year in '92 and the offense drops to 16th. Seems like very clear impact.

[therealbig3]

I'm actually somewhat a Vince Carter fan, as I have fond memories of him as a Net, because I thought he played great.

With regards to his All-NBA selections...he WOULD have made a lot of All-NBA teams, if he wasn't injured for two straight years in 02 and 03, and if he didn't have a bad 04 season...and then he started off horribly in the 05 season. Because of all that, the media hated him, and called him "soft, a choker, a whiner".

But from 05-09 in New Jersey, he played at an All-NBA level. Some people called him the best player in the NBA after the trade to New Jersey, and I think you can make the case for it, especially considering their run that got them into the playoffs.

05: 25/5/4, 54% TS; Allen was picked 2nd team with 24/4/4 on 56% TS

06: 24/6/4, 54% TS; can't really argue with the players selected over him though

07: 25/6/5, 56% TS; Billups made 3rd team with 17/3/7 on 59% TS, Wade only played 51 games and wasn't really that much better than Carter, and T-Mac made 2nd team averaging 25/5/7 on 52% TS...also, all of these guys missed at least 11 games, while Carter played all 82. This is his biggest All-NBA snub imo.

08: 21/6/5, 55% TS; Ginobili made 3rd team as a bench player averaging 20/5/5 on 61% TS, and T-Mac made 3rd team averaging 22/6/5 on 49% TS and only playing 66 games.

09: 21/5/5 55% TS; Billups made 3rd team averaging 18/6/3 on 59% TS, Parker made 3rd team averaging 22/3/7 on 56% TS, and he missed 10 games

Honestly, I think the media looked for excuses to avoid giving a selection to Carter, because he definitely deserved it after 01 imo. I don't really see the rationale for giving it to guys like Billups, Parker, Ginobili, T-Mac, and Wade in some of those years.

Anyways, I'm just trying to point out that Carter was robbed of All-NBA awards because he was generally disliked...I think if he had Kobe's reputation as a killer on the court, he would have been a perennial All-NBAer, specifically because of his dunking talent.

So I think the point about Nique is fair...he might have been given more love for All-NBA selections than he deserved, because he was a high-flyer, and he was generally liked.

[ronnymac2]

^^^Vince's Net peak was just as good as his Raptor peak, just in a different way. In NJ, he was a more complete scorer with much better playmaking, especially on the pick-n-roll. In TOR, he was more aggressive and athletic.

[TMACFORMVP]

I wasn't merely referring to pace. I thought I made that clear; even alluded to TLA's thread on the Statistical Board in my post. I was trying to point out that when the Nuggets were among the top 5 in ORTG, English nearly always had two other big time scorers with him - to the point that he didn't even lead the team in scoring for two of those seasons. When English did become the 1A, and 1B sort option (meaning, no other big time scorer), the teams ORTG was similar with Nique's Hawks, if not worse; and that's saying something, considering the Nuggets game-plan offensively under Doug Moe was to push the ball, and score. The Hawks were more of a half-court team that under Fratello were a defensive based team. It's also interesting to note that when English didn't have another 20 PPG sort scorer next to him, his efficiency declined.

As for the defense, I did include that I do not blame English for the Nuggets lack of defense. They were an offensive team with a poor defensive front-court, but I just don't see how he had somehow significant defensive impact to the point where it affects my thought process in who is the better player. English perhaps worked harder on defense, but I don't think he was really that much better.

Re: Carter. I wasn't arguing that he didn't deserve more All-NBA recognition. The comparison was that English was a Pierce like figure that lost out on All-NBA teams due to a more fancy player in Nique (Carter), and that just isn't true. I'm actually a big believer that Carter isn't such a big waste of talent, and has generally been underrated for the most part of his career. His all round game in New Jersey improved, and I still remember the sort of impact he had on that Nets team - ridiculous in all aspects of the game.

But there are cases for those players you mentioned in those particular years. I remember in '05, Allen and the Sonics won 50+ games, and were one of the bigg-er surprises of that particular season. I'd take VC personally, but if we're talking about full season sort impact, Allen was better, IMO. In '07, he deserved to make it over Wade and Billups, but I'd still argue that McGrady was better than him that season (20-10 w/out Yao, when everyone claimed we'd miss the playoffs, 30/7/6 month of January to spark that run with out Yao, with ridiculous play-making). I honestly don't mind Ginobili or Mac in '08 either. I think Ginobili was as good as Carter that season, but on a 58 win team, and while McGrady's statistics were very poor efficiency wise, he was still the base of the offense, and led us to a 22 game winning streak, more than half of that without Yao as well (at one point, had the best record in the Western Conference, the media was stupidly talking about him being in the MVP discussion). In '09, Carter wasn't even the leading scorer of the team (though the best player), but the Nets were horrible, Chauncey "changed" the Nuggets, and Parker was terrific for the Spurs that year. I know team record shouldn't be a huge factor, but that's unfortunately a large proponent in making the All-NBA teams.

So, he has a strong case for 1-2 more All-NBA teams, definitely. But that still wouldn't prove the point about fancy dunking somehow correlating to getting more accolades. I suppose, I could buy the argument that Nique was more liked than a guy like English, and that got him more coverage, but the argument here is "I saw English play, and thought he was better," when All-NBA and MVP shares would indicate otherwise. But really, almost all of that is moot, since All-NBA, and other accolades aren't even the base argument for Nique over English; rather just a "look and see how they fared."

[Dr Positivity]

Good points about English, I actually quite like his game and feel he should've gone over Tmac, and I feel he deserves to be called level with Nique. I don't have a strong feel on choosing between them, but at this point it seems to me Nique put more pressure on the defense and was the better halfcourt player, which I value

English's defensive reputation is as bad as Nique's, I believe

[drza]

I'm actually somewhat a Vince Carter fan, as I have fond memories of him as a Net, because I thought he played great.

With regards to his All-NBA selections...he WOULD have made a lot of All-NBA teams, if he wasn't injured for two straight years in 02 and 03, and if he didn't have a bad 04 season...and then he started off horribly in the 05 season. Because of all that, the media hated him, and called him "soft, a choker, a whiner".

But from 05-09 in New Jersey, he played at an All-NBA level. Some people called him the best player in the NBA after the trade to New Jersey, and I think you can make the case for it, especially considering their run that got them into the playoffs.

05: 25/5/4, 54% TS; Allen was picked 2nd team with 24/4/4 on 56% TS

06: 24/6/4, 54% TS; can't really argue with the players selected over him though

07: 25/6/5, 56% TS; Billups made 3rd team with 17/3/7 on 59% TS, Wade only played 51 games and wasn't really that much better than Carter, and T-Mac made 2nd team averaging 25/5/7 on 52% TS...also, all of these guys missed at least 11 games, while Carter played all 82. This is his biggest All-NBA snub imo.

08: 21/6/5, 55% TS; Ginobili made 3rd team as a bench player averaging 20/5/5 on 61% TS, and T-Mac made 3rd team averaging 22/6/5 on 49% TS and only playing 66 games.

09: 21/5/5 55% TS; Billups made 3rd team averaging 18/6/3 on 59% TS, Parker made 3rd team averaging 22/3/7 on 56% TS, and he missed 10 games

Honestly, I think the media looked for excuses to avoid giving a selection to Carter, because he definitely deserved it after 01 imo. I don't really see the rationale for giving it to guys like Billups, Parker, Ginobili, T-Mac, and Wade in some of those years.

Anyways, I'm just trying to point out that Carter was robbed of All-NBA awards because he was generally disliked...I think if he had Kobe's reputation as a killer on the court, he would have been a perennial All-NBAer, specifically because of his dunking talent.

So I think the point about Nique is fair...he might have been given more love for All-NBA selections than he deserved, because he was a high-flyer, and he was generally liked.

Some good things in here. I, too, find the "soft" narrative to be overblown and that Vince tends to therefore be underrated. Glad to see a post like this.

[drza]

As far as the vote goes, I'm not overly enthusiastic about any of the candidates in this spot. I would actually like it if someone made a good Gilmore post to get him into the mix right now. It looks like it's between Barry and Stockton, and...not really feeling it right now. I'll let it play out further and see how it goes.

As for the nominees, I could see any of Dominique, Mchale, Rodman, Mourning, Hayes, or one of the other 70s bigs here. Perhaps even a good case could be made for Iverson in the near future.

I thought Rodman or Zo here when the thread first began, but once again the Nique case has been well made and I am persuaded. Especially since neither Worm nor Zo have any momentum whatsoever here, I'm leaning Nique. Once I figure out what the heck to do with my vote, I'll make something official.

[drza]

I need someone to make a good Stockton post. Of the two "finalists", I could imagine myself getting more behind Stockton if someone could show me his impact in a quantitative and convincing way. I guess, for that matter, I'd like for someone to do that for Barry as well. Take me beyond "epic championship run!" and show me his year-in/year-out impact. I think someone, maybe RonnieMac, did that several threads ago. I'd be fine with a re-post if anyone knows where it is...

[lorak]

Looking at quantitative data Stockton's impact was clearly much bigger than Isiah's (I still don't know how you could vote for Isiah, drza. It was vote clearly against your normal - on/off, +/-, APM - standards, as Thomas impact was very doubtful, for sure not as big as some other players left). 1998 season is one example of that, Winstons' APM, 82games +/- and RAPM is another strong evidence.

And I'm really disappointed with outcome of last thread - as we see many posters have connections issues and votes of people like fatal and Gonxi weren't count.

Anyway,, vote: Barry.
nominate: McHale

[penbeast0]

I'm sorry but Nique is exactly the type of player that gets badly overrated. I don't think a high scoring, weak defense, inefficient scoring player helps you that significantly at any position. English came up as a potential defensive specialist out of college when he was drafted by the Bucks and always played decent defense, Nique didn't. English was an efficient high scoring forward who got his points within the flow of the offense and kept his teammates involved. Nique was an inefficient high scoring forward who got his points in isolation. I'd take guys like Bobby Jones, Larry Nance, James Worthy, or even Shawn Marion over Nique as well (and possibly even over English depending on team need, they just aren't in the mix yet).

If it gets close I will switch to Kevin McHale; I liked Nique, he was a classy guy, but he was way overrated to be talked about this soon.

[Gongxi]

I appreciate Chris Paul's peak as much as anyone this side KG-NO-AI, but I don't think his body of work is large enough to compare to Zo/Nique/English. And I'm really feeling Barry here: he's who I would've voted for last thread if RealGM had been working right.

[penbeast0]

Re: Chris Paul, can anyone compare his peak and impact to Nate Archibald and Kevin Johnson for me? That's who I was thinking of as comps in the competition for the next PG slot.

[colts18]

I need someone to make a good Stockton post. Of the two "finalists", I could imagine myself getting more behind Stockton if someone could show me his impact in a quantitative and convincing way. I guess, for that matter, I'd like for someone to do that for Barry as well. Take me beyond "epic championship run!" and show me his year-in/year-out impact. I think someone, maybe RonnieMac, did that several threads ago. I'd be fine with a re-post if anyone knows where it is...

As far as Stockton, we have 1 year of +/- data and 2 years of RAPM data:

2002: +2.2 RAPM (0.6 offense), 12th in the league
2003: +3.0 RAPM (1.8 Offense), 13th in the league, +7.0 +/- (+5.5 on court, Malone was +3.2)

Interesting to note that Antoine Walker was in the top 10 in 2002 which proves my point that Pierce didn't have a crap team team in 2002. Walker was a good player at that time. Doug Christie finished 2nd in 02 and 03. Just goes to show much depth those Sacramento teams had ( 2 in the top 10, 3 in top 15 both years).

[colts18]

Re: Chris Paul, can anyone compare his peak and impact to Nate Archibald and Kevin Johnson for me? That's who I was thinking of as comps in the competition for the next PG slot.

Here is Kevin Johnson's peak, 9 years from 89-97:
599 G, 19.8 PPG, .590 TS%, 10 AST, 3.3 TOV, 3.0 AST/TO, 3.4 Reb, 1.6 STL, 84.8 WS, 21.5 PER, .187 WS/48
Playoffs:
92 G, 21.1 PPG, .561 TS%, 9.7 AST, 3.6 TOV, 2.7 AST/TO, 3.6 Reb, 1.4 STL, 19.6 PER, .121 WS/48

Outside of those years, his contributions were marginal. He had a ridiculous 95 playoff where he averaged 25-9-4 on .663 TS% and a 27.1 PER (lead NBA). In 84, He averaged 27-10-4 but on average efficiency (.537 TS%)

CP3, here are his total 6 year career numbers:
425 G, 18.7 PPG, .571 TS%, 9.9 AST, 2.5 TOV, 4.0 AST/TO, 4.6 Reb, 2.4 STL, 76.4 WS, 25.2 PER, .233 WS/48
Playoffs:
23 G, 21.9 PPG, .577 TS%, 11.1 AST, 3.0 TOV, 3.8 AST/TO, 5.3 Reb, 2.0 STL, 27.1 PER, .207 WS/48

in 2011, he averaged 22-12-7 with a .670 TS% and 28.9 PER (lead NBA). In 08 he averaged 24-11-5 with a 30.7 PER (lead NBA). All 3 years he lead in AST% with a 53.5 AST% which is basically what John Stockton averaged when he went on his ridiculous run of Assists.

Basically Kevin Johnson has a 174 game advantage (Over 2 years) and 4x the playoff games. CP3 certainly was better, but does that make up for the longevity advantage and you have to take CP3's playoff numbers with a grain of salt because he has only had 3 playoff years with 2 great ones and 1 bad one.

[penbeast0]

How many years were KJ and Paul injured for significant parts of the year and/or the playoffs?

I count 3 years, 93, 94, and 97 where KJ missed at least 25 games (33, 35, and 26 respectively) and in 1998 he missed 15 which was always the knock against him -- but on the other hand he never missed any significant time in the playoffs so I can't count it against him that much.

Paul had one year out of his 6 year career where he missed 37 games and another where he missed 18. Paul's team failed to make the playoffs n 2010 which is a legitimate issue with him, and in his first two years his team failed to go anywhere as well but he did play full time in 3 playoff runs.

As for Tiny, his 4 year peak from 72 to 76 had a year where he missed 47 games then he missed another 48 in 77 and the full season in 78 after being traded to the Nets before finishing his career healthy as a lesser player with the Celtics (6 years of being a 2/8/13 guy with 3 All-Star and one All-NBA 2nd appearance despite the numbers). His peak numbers for those 4 healthy years in Cin/KC averaging 42.4mpg (not including rookie year) were 2.8/8.8/28.4 on ts% of .548. Of course, those were weak teams, only over .500 and making the playoffs once.