RealGM Top 100 List #54

[therealbig3]

Gasol's coming up for me too...he's my next choice after King.

I'm behind with both of those guys in terms of my vote though, because as of right now, they'd be projected to go mid-60's, when I have them mid-50's.

Guys that got voted in that wouldn't make my top 53: Hayes, Walton, Cousy, and Cowens. These guys got voted in a while ago too, so obviously I think they got really overrated in this project.

But meh, can't really complain too much. It's just that Ray Allen not making the top 50 is kind of weird.

[ElGee]

Vote: ray Allen
Nominate: penny hardaway

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Ray Allen

Nominate: Bernard King

Just wanted to explain why I kept Allen...

The posts in the thread were convincing. Also, Hill never really had a great playoffs. If you go game-by-game and look at his stats, you start thinking this guy really couldn't take on volume creation in the playoffs. That's Hill's big claim to being at this level in the project: offensive creation along with efficient production in raw stats. He never really proved he could take it, and that sucks, because he never really got a chance.

2000 saw him make a leap in scoring average during he regular season, but his post-season was squashed with the ankle injury, so we don't know if THAT version of Hill was any different from previous versions.

Allen has the obvious longevity edge and a track record of excellent playoff performances, while being comparable- inferior, but comparable- in terms of skill set/game.

That's why Allen gets my vote, and that's why I probably won't be voting for Grant Hill next either. What puts Hill over Penny Hardaway, who actually had stupendous post-seasons?

[ElGee]

Oops. My nomination is for sam jones. Forgot he wasn't in already...

[drza]

I'm not really seeing the case for Ginobili over Ray Allen. Anyone care to enlighten me?

I agree I can't see a case for Manu over Ray; the latter has a higher peak and greater longevity; the only knock against Ray is he didn't play alongside Duncan.

I hate that I've been so busy lately and unable to participate in the discussion as much as I'd like. I know this thread is already decided, but I did want to address this.

I thought Lukekarts' point was interesting: "the only knock against Ray is he didn't play alongside Duncan." The opposite side of the coin is true too, though...the reason that Manu isn't thought of as being as good as Ray is that he DID play next to Duncan. One of the goals of this project as I saw it was to try to ignore a player's situation to the best of our abilities, and to cut to how good the player was at what HE was doing. If that's true, and I brought this up many threads ago back when we were talking about Mchale or Pippen, but if that's true then we can't hold a player's role against him.

Ray had years when he was on teams where he was the best player, and he showed that he could be a 25 ppg player on good efficiency with 5 rebounds and 4 assists. And that's to his credit. But in his lead role he didn't exactly set the bar out there as an elite first option...he led his teams to the playoffs 4 times in 11 years and his teams had a career losing record. And to show that it wasn't JUST that his teams weren't that talented, his APM scores were merely solid but not great (+3.1, good for 55th in Ilardi's '04 - '09 study).

Manu, on the other hand, never had the chance to be the Man on a less talented team. So he never got the chance to show what he might or might not be able to do in that situation. He's had durability issues in his career, so I can certainly entertain the argument that he wouldn't have been able to hold up to those minutes. But we don't KNOW. What we DO know is that during the same time period when Ray was flirting with 25/5/5 on good efficiency...Manu was putting up better per-minute numbers (slightly higher PER, much higher WS/48) for around 30 min/game.

In fact, in the years leading up to Ray going to Boston in 2007, Manu averaged more Win Shares per season once he hit his prime (9.9 WS/year from '04 - '07) than Ray did once he hit his prime (9.4 WS/year, 2000 - 2007). Again, this is total win shares, minutes included. And though I'm having trouble finding it at the moment, I'm pretty sure that according to Berri's wins produced Manu also tended to outperform Ray. This would indicate that, despite Ray playing more total minutes, Manu tended to have a bigger impact on games in his limited minutes than Ray was in his heavier minutes according to the box score stats.

And in the APM stats, the gap was wider. While Ray was a pedestrian 55th in Ilardi's 6-year APM study, Manu was 3rd overall with a whopping +8.2. So it's not just the box score stats that think Manu was better...the nonboxscore APM stats also suggest strongly that Manu was having a bigger impact on games than Ray. And remember, this is a greater impact than 25/5/5 Ray.

Then, and most importantly to me, we've gotten to see both Ray and Manu in similar roles for the past four years. Both of them have been part of a group leading a contender, next to similar bigs with similar calibers of perimeter teammates. And again, Manu measures out better. This time in the same situation. Manu had MUCH higher PERs, much better Win Shares, and again much higher APM scores (Manu 5th at +7.6, Ray 30th at +3.0 in Englemann's '06 - '11 study).

Getting away from the numbers, I think that while Ray is one of the best shooters that's ever lived, Manu is also an excellent shooter out to long range but also one of the best point-wings of this generation. His ability to mix very strong dribble penetration with excellent ability to draw fouls and his own clutch sense of the moment makes him a much more versatile offensive threat than Ray. And on defense it's no contest, as Manu's defensive APM scores tend to be among the best perimeter defenders of this generation while Ray's...isn't.

If you can't get past that Ray was at some point a #1 on mediocre teams while Manu wasn't...ok. If Manu's durability concerns bother you I can understand, though he's at 8 years and counting now of very big impact even with the injury concern issues mixed in. And if the fact that he was a 30 mpg guy sticks in your craw...there's nothing I can say, except that Manu had more impact in 30 mpg than just about any other wing was having in 40 mpg. And that includes Ray. I've got no problem with Ray going in now, but I think Manu was better.

[penbeast0]

Since there is a tie, I was thinking of switching to Pau Gasol. My real problems with him are (a) eye test -- he just never seems dominant, and (b) Phil Jackson keeps saying he's soft -- only other player I can remember him getting on that much about being soft is Kwame Brown and that's not a good comparisom. It's why I supported Bobby Jones over him since coaches I respect like Larry Brown talked him up, not down -- I know it's motivational but . . .

King impressed me as a selfish gunner, very talented but very selfish -- that plus the injuries and off court issues keep me from supporting him. Still, I blocked a nomination earlier by voting for a tie, I will leave this one intact and put both players in.

VOTING

Alex English -- penbeast0, FJS

Ray Allen – Fencer, therealbig3, Dr Mufasa, lukekarts, ronnymac2, Doctor MJ, ElGee

Bob Lanier – Snakebites

Wes Unseld -- JordansBulls

Manu Ginobili -- drza

NOMINATE

Bobby Jones -- penbeast0

Sam Jones – Fencer, ElGee

Bernard King – therealbig3, Snakebites, ronnymac2

Pau Gasol – Dr Mufasa, drza, Doctor MJ

Penny Hardaway – JordansBulls

James Worthy -- FJS