RealGM Top 100 List #61

[Doctor MJ]

I still haven't really seen any evidence for Webber at this point.

This is how I feel as well. To me Webber seems the classic case of someone who gets higher status than they deserve simply because they are the established star on a very good team. The fact that when he got injured the team did so well, and frankly his #2 Peja responded with a year I'd say superior to any Webber ever had is a real problem for me.

I will note a bit of shock that Penny's already been nominated when Webber hasn't. On my ranking of the 2003 Draft, I've always had Webber 1 and Penny 2 because of Webber's clear prime longevity edge. That said, while I didn't nominate Penny I have a hard time getting in an uproar about Penny going first here. Absolutely no doubt that Penny had the much better peak.

[therealbig3]

And nobody has addressed Brand yet...seriously, what are some feelings on him?

Can we blame his poor team success on him? I don't think so...other than that, did Brand have any negatives? A very efficient 20/10 post scorer, with very good defense. In his one playoff run in his prime, Brand was a beast...although he did go up against weak front courts.

[JordansBulls]

And nobody has addressed Brand yet...seriously, what are some feelings on him?

Can we blame his poor team success on him? I don't think so...other than that, did Brand have any negatives? A very efficient 20/10 post scorer, with very good defense. In his one playoff run in his prime, Brand was a beast...although he did go up against weak front courts.

Brand is a guy who puts up empty stats. He made the playoffs once in his career.

[Rapcity_11]

And nobody has addressed Brand yet...seriously, what are some feelings on him?

Can we blame his poor team success on him? I don't think so...other than that, did Brand have any negatives? A very efficient 20/10 post scorer, with very good defense. In his one playoff run in his prime, Brand was a beast...although he did go up against weak front courts.

Brand is a guy who puts up empty stats. He made the playoffs once in his career.

1. Wrong.
2. He played for the god damn Clippers.

[Dr Positivity]

Leaning towards an order of

Amare
Kemp
Brand
Webber
Bosh

Among those 5 PFs. I know there's a lot of concerns with Amare and Kemp's intangibles, but I'd rather have Amare and Kemp's hyperefficient rim attacking over Brand, Webber and Bosh's jumpshot parade if I'm trying to make a great offense, personally

[lukekarts]

The difficulty with guys like Brand, is that where other PF's have been capable of carrying poor teams to the playoffs (Kevin Garnett, Pau Gasol, even Chris Bosh), it's hard for me to bring him into the discussion. Now, at face value, he doesn't appear to have had any major weaknesses, but at the same time he wasn't a guy who had moments of individual greatness that really stood out. I'd rather see similarly talented guys, who did more with less, or more with more, get the recognition at this point. I'd still take Webber over Brand for that reason; sure he had better team-mates but he posted similar numbers and had similar impact to Brand, but was able to extend that into the post-season.

[Dr Positivity]

Brand's per 36 scoring numbers aside from 06 look scarily like David West's. We all know that's the best stylistic comparison for him too. With that said you can't just ignore a peak season and he's a very good defender and rebounder, so it's not fair to call him David West, but from an offensive functional perspective they may be closer than their reps suggested

[ElGee]

Brand's per 36 scoring numbers aside from 06 look scarily like David West's. We all know that's the best stylistic comparison for him too. With that said you can't just ignore a peak season and he's a very good defender and rebounder, so it's not fair to call him David West, but from an offensive functional perspective they may be closer than their reps suggested

I really don't understand why you continue to pick clearly weaker players and equate these candidates to them based on raw stats. It's such a basic way to evaluate guys, and it just seems like some weird justification for downgrading someone instead of actually evaluating them in depth.

I mean, hey, Julius Erving's per 36 numbers look scarily like Vince Carter's. He's just a version of Vince Carter, right?

[therealbig3]

It's weird...there have been threads comparing prime Brand and prime Gasol, and prime Brand and prime Amare, and at least half the people in those threads were going with prime Brand.

And speaking of efficiency...Brand had a .558 TS% from 00-07. That's pretty good...not Amare-level, but then again, guys like Tim Duncan and Hakeem Olajuwon had similar TS%'s in their primes. Not trying to put Brand on their level, but legit post scorers aren't exactly hyper-efficient. But they can maintain or up their efficiency in the playoffs, because their post game is so reliable, and in Brand's one playoff run, he did that. Brand is also an excellent rebounder and defender, and in the 6-year RAPM study (imo the best multi-year APM study), he actually beats out Pau Gasol.

I mean the only real knock on him is that we don't know how he would do in the playoffs, because he never really played there, except for one year. Now, I guess people want to say that proves he didn't have an impact...but I just think he had a really bad team...it was the Clippers after all. And the reason he couldn't carry a team like KG was simply that he wasn't as good as KG. And even KG couldn't carry Minnesota to the playoffs for three of those years. I feel like Brand played on teams like that almost every year.

[Dr Positivity]

Brand's per 36 scoring numbers aside from 06 look scarily like David West's. We all know that's the best stylistic comparison for him too. With that said you can't just ignore a peak season and he's a very good defender and rebounder, so it's not fair to call him David West, but from an offensive functional perspective they may be closer than their reps suggested

I really don't understand why you continue to pick clearly weaker players and equate these candidates to them based on raw stats. It's such a basic way to evaluate guys, and it just seems like some weird justification for downgrading someone instead of actually evaluating them in depth.

I mean, hey, Julius Erving's per 36 numbers look scarily like Vince Carter's. He's just a version of Vince Carter, right?

My reason for comparing Brand and West isn't statistics. I understand full well the difference between scoring stats when stylistically they come in opposite ways. My post before that one was saying Amare and Kemp are more valuable scorers than Bosh/Webber/Brand because of the value of rim crashing vs jumpshots that isn't captured in statistics (and I'd say the same thing about Pau Gasol being a post scorer having extra value)

But Brand vs West's skillsets are almost an exact match. Their signature go to is the pick and pop 20 footer, and they have solid post skill but don't use it as much as some other bigger players. Brand is the better ballhandler. Their physical profiles are very similar except Brand has slightly longer arms, West's are still long for his size but Brand's are freakish.

Now the reason people wouldn't compare them other than to say "Brand is a souped up David West" is Brand has higher scoring volume seasons. But actually, aside from 06 he's not really higher in anything but minutes, and these are on teams where he's the #1 option of a bad team

I don't think Brand gives you a significantly different look than West on the offensive end away from 06. You run them on the pick and pop and you get 18-20ppg on solid efficiency and floor spacing from PF. Defensively and on the boards he is better than West. He belongs in the top 100 on this list due to how outstanding the 06 season was with a solid 'West with defense/rebounding/tons of minutes career otherwise'

[Rapcity_11]

And speaking of efficiency...Brand had a .558 TS% from 00-07. That's pretty good...not Amare-level,

Consider also the Nash effect. In his one season in NY, Amare was a 56.5 TS% guy with a 109 Ortg. Not poor by any stretch but a far cry from his best Phoenix years and right in line with most of Brand's career. (Efficiency only)

I HATE to knock guys for playing on poor teams but the fact that Brand hasn't gotten the chance to show what he can (or can't) do in the playoffs in a big enough sample size makes it hard to put him over any proven playoff performers. Tough situation.

[Doctor MJ]

Realized deadline approaching so phone voting

Marques
Deke

[drza]

Re: Webber

Grinding my teeth at not having the time to really put into an in-depth look right now. Because I'm very curious as to what I'd find. My feeling, from when he played, was that Webber was one of the best bigs in the league and the foundation for one of the better teams in the league. But, as others have pointed out, that's also a recipe for a player getting overrated. Webber wasn't a great defensive big, and he more of a volume scorer than an efficient one. Two pretty clear red flags. He also lacked durability, and wasn't a great postseason performer. Two more red flags.

But on the flip side, even knowing that, if we could have a draft right now for the next decade of player, being promised that they would play at the exact same level that they actually played at...I would still unquestioningly take Webber over Vince at the moment, and likely would take him over Penny as well. Which tells me that either I'm guilty of preconceived notions, or that my gut knows something that I haven't yet done the requisite research to help my mind figure out.

I DO wonder what Webber's APM would have looked like for those early Kings, and failing that, ElGee I'd love to see some in/outs for Webber. I would suspect that his in/outs aren't that impressive for 2004, but that isn't exactly damning to me since this was after his major knee surgery. I'm curious to what his numbers would have looked like in the years up through 2003. I also wonder if big man passing/the ability to run an offense more through a big won't become the next "spacing" type phenomenon to hit the boards. "Efficiency" was one such buzzword that stuck with the rise of advanced box score stats; "big man defense" and "quarterback-style point guard offense" experienced a similar renaissance with the rise of APM stats. "Spacing" has been the most recent buzz word, also supported by APM and Dirk's title. I think ElGee is on to something with "shot creation" as another not-well-measured-but-valuable commodity, and I used that as part of the basis for arguments for players like Allen Iverson. And I'm curious as to whether Webber's big-man-offensive-hub game would fit under that general shot-creation umbrella, and if so whether he'd end up with surprisingly high APM values for a non-great-defensive/low-efficiency/high-volume scoring big.

Anyway, that was a long-winded way of saying that I just don't know what to do with Webber at the moment. Which is why I'm not nominating him now, despite my intuition that I'd also take him in a 10-year draft over Deke, who I AM actually nominating. But hopefully someone at some point gets to put in some time on him.

[drza]

Re: Brand

On the other end of the spectrum from Webber, both my gut and my brain are currently in agreement that Brand is worthy of discussion and better than players like Amare. To me, Brand is much closer to Gasol's value than he is to Amare's. Brand is not a defensive anchor, but he is a strong defensive player. Similarly, while not an offensive anchor, he is also a strong offensive player. And as I've said in the past, especially for a big, I don't think you can just give a value based on offense and then adjust a bit for being a good defender. Defense has VALUE, especially among bigs, and Brand's abilities there put him in a different tax bracket than a player like David West. Maybe there are some offensive similarities between West and Brand, but Brand's ability to make an impact at the other end makes him NOT a rich man's David West...he's just a different animal.

And that animal, to me, is clearly more valuable than Stoudemire. As I just pointed out in a long post discussing APM, to me there is a clear reason that Stoudemire consistently measures poorly in the stat...he sucks on defense. He's not just not good, he's generally bad as a defender. He doesn't have to be, because he has the athleticism to rebound and block shots, but he doesn't have the fundamentals and/or desire to get better at it. He doesn't get the position to keep his man out of the paint. He doesn't crash the boards hard. He doesn't seem to have a good grasp for defensive schemes and rotations. He shows neither the strength to play effective center defense nor the range to play effective power forward defense. In short, he's a bad defensive player. And his offense, while it can be efficient and high volume next to a creator like Nash, is not as efficient without said playmaker. He's still an offensive plus, but not a huge one, and when you add in the poor defense I wouldn't hesitate to take peak Brand over peak Amare.

[Dr Positivity]

Anybody have thoughts on Tiny Archibald? Not my favorite type of player but he has a decent resume with the one 34/11 year which gives him value since we're out of players who could conceivably lead a title team (not saying he can, but conceivably is the key word) but also 28/9, 26/7, 25/7 in his next 3 statistical prime years. Efficiency is better than most undersized gunners. Shows up in the top 5-6 in PER and WS in his peak years and has some of the best MVP/All-NBA recognition of players left on the board if you're into that stuff. Also plays pretty well in Boston

Tiny vs Penny seems like a reasonable question doesn't it? Am leaning Tiny for the extra years atm

[penbeast0]

Well, Marques Johnson gets in and there's another 3 way tie with 2 votes. Each time it's happened before, I've come off Bobby Jones to support someone else because I think there are just a lot of people with value at this point. This time it's either Worthy or Mutombo. Worthy was in a good situation and made the best of it as a key playoff performer; good efficient scorer (overrated but still good) but with limited range, above average defender, consistent. Mutombo was a terrific shotblocker but didn't have the hands or moves to be more than an occasional threat on offense -- unlike someone like Bobby Jones who sacrificed his game for his team, coaches tried making Deke a primary offensive weapon and it just didn't work. Although his blocks were great, I never got the feeling his teams played over their heads -- but like Worthy, he had a couple of big playoff runs, taking an 8th seed in Denver past the #1 seed Seattle then carry Iverson's 76ers to a run to the finals. No easy choices here. I guess I will go to Mutombo because I think he stands out from the other centers more than Worthy from the others forwards.

VOTE

Gasol – penbeast0, lukekarts, drza, Dr Mufasa

BKing – ronnymac2

Marques – therealbig3, DavidStern, FJS, ElGee, Doctor MJ

Penny -- JordansBulls

NOMINATE

BJones – DavidStern

Schayes – Fencer

Cunningham – ronnymac2

Worthy – lukekarts. FJS

Kemp – JordansBulls

Mutombo – penbeast0, drza, Doctor MJ

Webber – ElGee

Carmelo – Dr Mufasa