RealGM Top 100 List #42

[andrewww]

havent followed this project for a little while now, but if tmac's in at 36 what makes him superior to someone like grant hill who hasnt even been nominated yet? ditto for penny, although his prime was shorter than either of mac or hill.

Was Hill clearly better than T-Mac in any area? I'd give T-Mac a big edge as a scorer and creator, and he was pretty close, if not equal, defensively (he obviously didn't have the reputation, but I think he was a very good defender).

Hill did have an edge as a rebounder, as T-Mac was around a 9% TRB in his prime, and he peaked at 11.4%. Hill was at 12.1% in his prime, and he peaked at 14.5%.

But I don't think that Hill has such a big edge as a rebounder that it compensates for T-Mac's advantages elsewhere.

i agree that tmac has had the better career simply through longevity alone when compared to hill, and is the better scorer hands down. but tmac has always struck me as one of those guys whose impact isnt as strong as the box scores would suggest, and grant hill even as a phoenix sun..you can tell the man is a student of the game and imo had a bigger impact than what an approximate prime stat line of 21/8/7 would suggest.

im just surprised there hasnt been more talk of him to be nominated when players like reggie are recieving consideration at #42. realgm always emphasizes "peak" play (provided the player has had a long enough career) but if you use that logic, then shouldnt guys like grant hill at least be in the discussion by now? im pretty confident that hill at his best was a more impactful player than reggie ever was..

[Dr Positivity]

Vote Miller

Nom KJ

Not buying Rodman over KJ, Pau, Lanier, Parish, English, etc. I still consider Rodman as "3rd best guy", ideally. And DEFINITELY not buying the Rodman was the most valuable Piston stance. Was he more valuable than Bill Laimbeer for them, let alone Isiah and Dumars? Rodman as the Pistons MVP is a bigger stretch than Debusschere as the Knicks MVP to me. I really like Rodman, Debusschere and the mentioned Ben Wallace, but too many studs on the board left. I think Pau, Parish, Lanier have more success than Rodman in most situations (best player, 2nd best player, 3rd best player). While it seems like Rodman can fit better beside star scorers, we've seen fits like Pau in LA, KJ in early Barkley Phx, Parish in Bos that just led to magnificent amounts of success. So I'm not sold that if you have a great scorer, you need Rodman more than another offensive stud. For me if I'm building a team, the strategy is still to get dominant offensive players and then fit defenders and specialized athletes around them rather than the other way around - which is how the top 10 defensive teams in the league are almost always full of teams led by offensive superstars

[Dr Positivity]

havent followed this project for a little while now, but if tmac's in at 36 what makes him superior to someone like grant hill who hasnt even been nominated yet? ditto for penny, although his prime was shorter than either of mac or hill.

The Tmac vote was just... not good

[Doctor MJ]

Understood. Then again my counterargument could then be that he was always widely regarded as a one of the hardest workers and most disciplined players of his time with one of the best scorers IQ the league has ever seen. However I see your POV because he was indeed a bit troublemaker of sorts.

In all honesty, I'd love to hear a really monster post detailing and defending Dantley's role on his teams and rebutting his reputation as someone teams always decided was not a reasonable franchise player for them to have. I won't claim to know everything.

From what I see, the man had significantly less net offensive impact than you expect, negative defensive impact, and negative intangible impact. His offensive game was predicated on "working" his man over time which throughout history has a had tendency to mean that the offense gets significantly less "bites at the same apple" compared to power/quick players of high volume/efficiency.

[Doctor MJ]

Nom KJ

[ronnymac2]

OK, I want to preface this by stating I'm a huge Rodman fan, and without sounding like a know-it-all, I think I know his game and how he impacts basketball on the court quite well.

So to other Rodman supporters, I pose this question: How great of a team do you think you can build around Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

I know we're between 40-50 on our list now, and we're starting to leave the historic megastars behind. We aren't comparing anybody to Barry or James or Olajuwon here. But how comfortable are you with Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

I would refer you to the recent great Piston teams who I don't think anyone as impactful to Rodman, and urge you to consider that finding decent scorers really isn't that hard. I absolutely think I could build a title winner with Rodman as the best player.

Where my concern is though is having such a non-leader as my most important cog. There would be volatility to any team that considered Rodman to be the franchise.

I wouldn't be troubled with the leader thing. All I need is Derek Fisher or somebody like that. I'm not saying it's easy to find a leader, but I think there are probably more leaders in the NBA than there are superstars.

The 2004 Detroit Pistons are the exception to much of NBA history. And they got a tremendous amount of good fortune along the way (Jason Kidd sans a kneecap led N.J. to game 7 against them, the Lakers imploded, and 2004 was an incredibly weird transition year for the NBA). But regardless of good fortune, Ben Wallace and Chauncey Billups most certainly are comparable to Worm.

What kind of offensive players are you looking for to surround Rodman with, making sure Worm is still the top overall player?

[ronnymac2]

OK, I want to preface this by stating I'm a huge Rodman fan, and without sounding like a know-it-all, I think I know his game and how he impacts basketball on the court quite well.

So to other Rodman supporters, I pose this question: How great of a team do you think you can build around Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

I know we're between 40-50 on our list now, and we're starting to leave the historic megastars behind. We aren't comparing anybody to Barry or James or Olajuwon here. But how comfortable are you with Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

I think Rodman could be the best player, but not be recognized as such, if you know what I mean. Like, you're obviously going to surround him with scorers, and even though Rodman might still have the biggest positive impact on the game, one of the scorers might be recognized as the best player on the team. Kind of like a Ben Wallace in Detroit situation. Billups and Hamilton were the ones getting the credit, because they were the best offensive players, but I'd argue that Ben Wallace's defense and rebounding made him the most valuable Piston.

I get what you're saying. See above post.

The '04 Pistons had a bunch of indispensable parts. Billups shouldered an enormous load offensively because he was the only trusty ball-handler among the starters and his efficient scoring was important. Big Ben was the all-time defensive anchor. Rasheed connected everything because he allowed Ben to roam and rebound while he boxed out, defended the bigger post player, and cursed at referees. And Rip supplied the most consistent 18-20 ppg.- not creatively, but valuable nonetheless. Prince was a glue-ish skinny guy- a glue stick if you will.

To me, Billups and Wallace were the MVPs of that team.

[ronnymac2]

I'd love to see a Dantley post as well. I talked about him way before now and questioned his bad reputation, but I didn't really research much. All I found was that Dantley was a pretty damn good piece on the strong 1987 and 1988 Detroit Pistons.

If Detroit wins the 1988 title- and they were ever so close to doing so, aided by Dantley's contributions- I think he's perceived differently. He would have been an efficient 20 ppg. second option on a title team. You're looking at a possible 2008 Paul Pierce-like transformation in perception (not saying he's as good as Pierce, but you get what I mean).

[Doctor MJ]

I wouldn't be troubled with the leader thing. All I need is Derek Fisher or somebody like that. I'm not saying it's easy to find a leader, but I think there are probably more leaders in the NBA than there are superstars.

The 2004 Detroit Pistons are the exception to much of NBA history. And they got a tremendous amount of good fortune along the way (Jason Kidd sans a kneecap led N.J. to game 7 against them, the Lakers imploded, and 2004 was an incredibly weird transition year for the NBA). But regardless of good fortune, Ben Wallace and Chauncey Billups most certainly are comparable to Worm.

What kind of offensive players are you looking for to surround Rodman with, making sure Worm is still the top overall player?

Well there's a difference between a star who is not really a leader, and one who actively needs to be led. The Spurs will talk about how Avery Johnson was the true star of the Spurs over David Robinson, but Robinson did plenty of leading-by-example. Rodman was a troubled soul who needs people around him he respects to point him in the right direction. A non-star might be able to pull it off, but I don't think there's any doubt that a star would have more authority over him.

Who to build around Rodman? I like the ensemble casts Houston & Denver have right now. I could see Rodman coming and taking those teams to a new level having more impact than any of the players could.

[lorak]

ElGee I believe is using a model something like this:

Improvement = (Series offense - Opponent season defense) - (Season offense - League average defense)

No, he's using simply that: Series offense - Opponent season defense

Lets look at example of what Elgee said:
Pacers RS relative to league, then PS relative avg. opponent DRtg
90 +3.4 +0.0

In 1990 Pacers had 111.5 ortg in RS
In playoffs 103,5 ortg
Pacers playoff opponents RS drtg: 103,5 - and that's why Elgee's value here is 0,0 (Pacers playoffs ORTG minus Pacers opponent regular season DRTG)


By your model(Improvement = (Series offense - Opponent season defense) - (Season offense - League average defense))the results for Pacers in 1990 playoffs is -3.4 (pretty close to my -4.0).

[Fencer reregistered]

OK, I want to preface this by stating I'm a huge Rodman fan, and without sounding like a know-it-all, I think I know his game and how he impacts basketball on the court quite well.

So to other Rodman supporters, I pose this question: How great of a team do you think you can build around Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

I know we're between 40-50 on our list now, and we're starting to leave the historic megastars behind. We aren't comparing anybody to Barry or James or Olajuwon here. But how comfortable are you with Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

Who else would you consider for the list at a similar spot (other than Walton)? KJ? Ray Allen? Zo? Billups? Ben Wallace? You'd need a pretty deep and balanced team around any of them to win a championship. Ditto Rodman.

[ronnymac2]

Who to build around Rodman? I like the ensemble casts Houston & Denver have right now. I could see Rodman coming and taking those teams to a new level having more impact than any of the players could.

I like Denver. I'm a fan of the Gallinari/Lawson combination Denver now boasts, so maybe if they develop into something really good, Rodman lifts them to contender status.

Not feeling Houston. No offensive anchor, and no potential for one, either. But I'm not a Kevin Martin fan...

[ronnymac2]

OK, I want to preface this by stating I'm a huge Rodman fan, and without sounding like a know-it-all, I think I know his game and how he impacts basketball on the court quite well.

So to other Rodman supporters, I pose this question: How great of a team do you think you can build around Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

I know we're between 40-50 on our list now, and we're starting to leave the historic megastars behind. We aren't comparing anybody to Barry or James or Olajuwon here. But how comfortable are you with Dennis Rodman as your best overall player?

Who else would you consider for the list at a similar spot (other than Walton)? KJ? Ray Allen? Zo? Billups? Ben Wallace? You'd need a pretty deep and balanced team around any of them to win a championship. Ditto Rodman.

Bob McAdoo for one.


Ray Allen led a team of screen-setters, offensive rebounders, and Rashard Lewis to over 50 wins and a tough confrontation with the champion Spurs. I think you'd need to put a better team around Rodman (not just differently constructed...I mean a better team, too.).

I get your point Fencer...The hypothetical team around Rodman would at least be comparable to the one around Ray-Ray if we're building a title team. Rodman belongs in the discussion at this point. I'm just trying to see where he fits in here, and it's difficult because he's unique.


Just throwing these names out again, because they seem to have a Rodman-like reputation as far as contributions on the court: Dave Debusschere and Bobby Jones. Now that Rodman is being discussed, what of these two, who have been associated with Worm in the past in this project?

[Fencer reregistered]

Ray Allen led a team of screen-setters, offensive rebounders, and Rashard Lewis to over 50 wins and a tough confrontation with the champion Spurs. I think you'd need to put a better team around Rodman (not just differently constructed...I mean a better team, too.).

I get your point Fencer...The hypothetical team around Rodman would at least be comparable to the one around Ray-Ray if we're building a title team. Rodman belongs in the discussion at this point. I'm just trying to see where he fits in here, and it's difficult because he's unique.

If you're saying that Rodman needs more help to win a championship than Ray does to lead a good team, I'm with you.

If you're saying Rodman needs more help to get a team to the same level, that's a more interesting discussion. I'm not sure what I think about that one.

It may be a bit circular, in that one can yea or nay agree with the theory that the scorer Worm needs is better than the defender/rebounder Ray needs, which is a lot like evaluating Ray vs. Worm.

Also, I caution you about judging teams by whether they're a hard out in the playoffs. E.g., the 2008 Hawks took the eventual champion Celtics to seven games, but they weren't really as good as that narrative suggests. And neither was Joe Johnson.

[Doctor MJ]

Ray Allen led a team of screen-setters, offensive rebounders, and Rashard Lewis to over 50 wins and a tough confrontation with the champion Spurs. I think you'd need to put a better team around Rodman (not just differently constructed...I mean a better team, too.).

We start getting into circular logic territory. The strength of that Sonic team was it's offensive rebounding, not it's ability to actually shoot the ball into the hole, and if you dismiss that as relatively easy to come by in a comparison with someone known for things like offensive rebounding then it's pretty hard to see how the offensive rebounder is going to win in your comparison.

[Doctor MJ]

ElGee I believe is using a model something like this:

Improvement = (Series offense - Opponent season defense) - (Season offense - League average defense)

No, he's using simply that: Series offense - Opponent season defense

Lets look at example of what Elgee said:
Pacers RS relative to league, then PS relative avg. opponent DRtg
90 +3.4 +0.0

In 1990 Pacers had 111.5 ortg in RS
In playoffs 103,5 ortg
Pacers playoff opponents RS drtg: 103,5 - and that's why Elgee's value here is 0,0 (Pacers playoffs ORTG minus Pacers opponent regular season DRTG)


By your model(Improvement = (Series offense - Opponent season defense) - (Season offense - League average defense))the results for Pacers in 1990 playoffs is -3.4 (pretty close to my -4.0).

Hmm. Okay, I need to look into this further.

[rocopc]

Dolph Schayes???
Tiny Archibald????
Alex English?????
Bill Walton????
Pete Maravich????

Not even in the nomination (almost 0 votes coutning all) and you are talking about vote CP3 or Moncrief or Miller wich I have below any of this forgoten list ..... ufff I love this proyect but... sometimes I simply dont understand you line of thinking, and vote Cousy please!!!! from your list of votes candidates Cousy should be in right now!!! if not him Hayes... but c-mon Miller CP3 ahead of them... thats not right

[penbeast0]

Chris Paul v. Sidney Moncrief

. . . pretty similar peak duration, pretty similar scoring volumes, Moncrief is more efficient and a better rebounder, Paul gets more assists, Moncrief is obviously much the better defender . . . so individually, it seems Sidney Moncrief is the superior player.

However, we have had some players like Steve Nash shown to be more than their numbers (and Adrian Dantley less) because of their team effectiveness so Paul may make New Orleans a superior team to what Milwaukee was. Does he? NO

Milwaukee during this peak was a slightly better offensive team than Paul's Hornets and was top 2 in the league in defense 4 of the 5 years despite having a rotating crew of 3 different centers and 3 different starting PFs (none of whom were exactly All-Defense candidates). Moncrief did have Quinn Buckner and Paul Pressey as good defensive players next to him but he was clearly the guy who set the tone that the team picked up and he, not Paul, had the effect of making his team elite.

The only downside to this thinking is that the year after his peak, when Moncrief was injured, they stayed at the same high level as Ricky Pierce and Paul Pressey stepped up and had their career years. But having watched those teams, they took their fire and lead from Moncrief and while Pressey and Pierce were great that year, they couldn't sustain it. Moncrief's whole peak the team was elite . . . just not elite enough to beat BOTH the Bird Celtics (they beat them 1 of 3) AND the Moses/Dr.J Sixers.

Paul has looked great in a couple of losing playoff serieses but didn't get his team to the playoffs as often and doesn't seem to me to have the defensive impact to match Moncrief either individually or in a team context.

[ElGee]

ElGee I believe is using a model something like this:

Improvement = (Series offense - Opponent season defense) - (Season offense - League average defense)

No, he's using simply that: Series offense - Opponent season defense

Lets look at example of what Elgee said:
Pacers RS relative to league, then PS relative avg. opponent DRtg
90 +3.4 +0.0

In 1990 Pacers had 111.5 ortg in RS
In playoffs 103,5 ortg
Pacers playoff opponents RS drtg: 103,5 - and that's why Elgee's value here is 0,0 (Pacers playoffs ORTG minus Pacers opponent regular season DRTG)


By your model(Improvement = (Series offense - Opponent season defense) - (Season offense - League average defense))the results for Pacers in 1990 playoffs is -3.4 (pretty close to my -4.0).

Hmm. Okay, I need to look into this further.

No - you got it 100% correct.

In the PS, the differential is calculated by the team's ORtg IN THE SERIES compared to the defensive environment (ie the opponent's RS DRtg).

In the RS, the differential is calculated by the team's Ortg FOR THE SEASON compared to the defensive environment (ie the league average).

The "improvement" would be the difference of the two. As I've said -- and it's clearly shown in teh cart -- 1990 is one of the only years they didn't improve.

And Doc MJ had it spot on earlier -- the reason we use the LA is because over an 82 games, it pretty much spot on tells us the average defensive environment a team goes up against. So it's a consistent measure -- I could use each game they play, and then average them out...and the number would be darn near close (or exactly) the LA.

No. You can't do it that way. Look, you assume that - imaginary example - when in playoffs will met team A - 90 drtg and team B - 110 ortg team, team's B offense would be called by you improved when in playoffs against team A they would had 95 ortg (because it's more than team's A RS drtg...). That's wrong way to look at this and I have done something similar, but only with Pacers ortg.

What we have to do is look at "expected value" = (Pacers opponent RS drtg + Pacers RS org)/2. And if Pacers playoffs ortg will be higher than expected value then yes, we could say their offense was better.

The only other way I can see do it is by looking at the percentage change instead of the raw change (a ratio instead of a differential). You are suggesting something entirely different to me, which involves adding a critical variable (Defensive Environment) midstream and thus doesn't tell me anything valuable. Let's look at your example to see this clearly:

Let's say the Pacers play teams all year with a DRtg of 110. Their ORtg is 110. They perform at the AVERAGE. There is no positive offensive performance relative to their defensive environment (by ratio or differential). YOUR METHOD IGNORES THEIR RS DEFENSIVE ENVIRONMENT. They could have played Bradley every game for all your method is concerned.

In the PS, they play teams with a Drtg of 90. They have an ORtg of 105. Now you want to generate a number suddenly based on defensive environment!

(They've outperformed that defense by 15 points! Yet you want to say they didn't "improve" because of the raw figure -- the whole point of the exercise is to adjust from the raw figure, which is what Neil Paine did in the study you cited as well, incidentally.)

To say there is an "expectation" that the offense performs at 100 ORtg *uses its regular season strength against it* BECAUSE in the regular season YOU DIDN'T MAKE THAT SAME ADJUSTMENT.

One way (be it ratio or differential) gauges performance against defensive environment in BOTH PS and RS against offensive performance.

The other way only factors in defensive environment in the PS.

Hope that's clear.

[ElGee]

vote: Reggie Miller
nominate: Bob Lanier (Changed to Kevin Johnson.)

OK, so the field is clearly craaaaazy right now. I'm guessing a lot of people haven't thought this far out and it feels like a free-for-all. That said, we're on a point on the bell curve with a much denser population of viable candidates, so it makes sense. There isn't a whole lot to separate my No. 60 from my No. 50.

Lanier's case is fairly simple - he's a really good offensive center. He was acknowledged as a viable MVP by contemporaries twice (and neither was even the season I consider his peak after season-by-season analysis in RPOY). He has pretty nice longevity. (72-81 of relevance) I like that he can be a banger, a bruiser and was regarded as a leader because on two occasions (74 and in Mil) he showed he can be the center of an excellent defensive team, despite not being a stalwart in that area.

Here are the 4 (sometimes incomplete) In/Out runs from 76-79:
Lanier 1976 (12g) 2.4 to -2.3
Lanier 1977 (19g) 4.2 to -0.1
Lanier 1978 (18g) 5.3 to -0.1
Lanier 1979 (28g) 0.3 to -2.6
Lanier 1981 (13g) 2.0 to 7.6

EDIT: I just noticed a discrepancy in my notes though, which is that Lanier injured his knee at the end of the 78 season. I don't think he could have played in the PS, which I was previously giving him credit for. That matters to me, and it moves him behind another player I will nominate. But I have to think the only reason no one is talking about Lanier is that they don't know that much about him. (?)

EDIT: Nominate Kevin Johnson