#20 Highest Peak of All Time (Nash '05 wins)

[therealbig3]

For once -- and UAB can attest to this, because I disagree with him all the time -- I side a bit with UAB. Looking at raw box numbers are frowned upon here (and for good reason), but when the same people will also look at 10 games of on/off, with/without, +/- numbers and draw a conclusion from them, it's just as misguided.

The 76ers without him were already a 5.7 SRS team, with him that improved to 8.15 SRS with a healthy Erving playing in 1983. When Erving missed 10 games (2 games in January and 8 games in March with a wrist injury) the 76ers went down to a 3.06 SRS team. The 76ers without a absolute peak Malone were better than the 76ers with absolute peak Malone and without past peak Erving.

First of all, saying past peak Erving is better than peak Moses...is that really such an "out there" concept? Erving was damn good.

Second of all, I think he's just pointing out the trend in those 10 games...it's a weird thing to see for a supposedly MVP-caliber player. You'd expect the team to fall apart, relatively speaking. But it seems that the "second option" was more integral to the team than Moses. Of course, it's a small sample size, and of course you can't draw definitive conclusions from that data, but definitely information that's useful, and it's something to think about.

And btw, that data doesn't even surprise me that much...like bastillon has pointed out, his style of play doesn't impress me. He was not a good defender, and he was a poor passer. He was a good scorer, and he was a dominant rebounder. But his rebounding was primarily on the offensive boards, his defensive rebounding was actually worse than Dirk, or at least, comparable. And we do have a huge sample size of data for this, and offensive rebounding is not nearly as important as defensive rebounding. So he's scoring a lot of points on ok efficiency, and he's not rebounding the way I would personally want him to. I'm just not that impressed with his style of play.

To me, a big that doesn't provide defensive-anchor type ability has a serious flaw, and the only guys that can get away with it are the super-dominant offensive big men, like Shaq or Kareem...but even they were very good defensive anchors at their peaks. That's why Barkley and Moses are probably lower on my list than most other people's, and why I don't really have a problem with Ewing going in the last vote. He was an excellent defensive piece, and he was a solid offensive option. Like I said though, I did disagree with Ewing going that high, but for people to act like it was WAY premature, I think they need to re-evaluate where he stands on their list. He's right at 25 for me, so it wasn't too much of a stretch.

[MisterWestside]

First of all, saying past peak Erving is better than peak Moses...is that really such an "out there" concept? Erving was damn good.

Second of all, I think he's just pointing out the trend in those 10 games...it's a weird thing to see for a supposedly MVP-caliber player. You'd expect the team to fall apart, relatively speaking. But it seems that the "second option" was more integral to the team than Moses. Of course, it's a small sample size, and of course you can't draw definitive conclusions from that data, but definitely information that's useful, and it's something to think about.

And btw, that data doesn't even surprise me that much...like bastillon has pointed out, his style of play doesn't impress me. He was not a good defender, and he was a poor passer. He was a good scorer, and he was a dominant rebounder. But his rebounding was primarily on the offensive boards, his defensive rebounding was actually worse than Dirk, or at least, comparable. And we do have a huge sample size of data for this, and offensive rebounding is not nearly as important as defensive rebounding. So he's scoring a lot of points on ok efficiency, and he's not rebounding the way I would personally want him to. I'm just not that impressed with his style of play.

Honestly, I'd rather see these type of arguments (your post going over style of play) than using a ample 10-game sample size of with/without data. When you consider that it's simply with/without data and nothing else; and that it's over 10 games, AND it was said with such conviction as if that data is the definitive, be-all end-all basis for making that claim, I take those posts with a grain of salt.

[C-izMe]

Just for two great YouTube channels for TMac games. BMACPOLAND1 and TmacClutch have a ton of his big games (and a few not so big ones).

[bastillon]

@UAF, if you wanna convince anyone, you have to put some more context around this whole thing. you really did a good job of defending Moses, some of the best pro-Moses posts came from you. but you still have a long way to go because there are many unanswered arguments for Moses fans. I didn't re-post all that stuff from mysticbb and me just so there is some argument. I actually did this for you to make a response. your analysis is going in a good direction but its just too shallow to sway anyone. you're comparing completely different teams without noticing there were major differences between them.

main concerns for Moses:
-style of play (realbigthree did a good job here), for more look at my re-posted comments and mysticbb's; also this fatal9 post from top100: viewtopic.php?p=28602295#p28602295

-defense, Rockets posting bottom 3 DRTG multiple times... how did that happen ? major concerns for many posters on this one

-no major +/- impact in surrounding seasons, typically underperforming teams relative to their talent, watch this TrueLAFan comments from RPOY: viewtopic.php?p=24431024#p24431024 (80 RPOY) viewtopic.php?p=24471848#p24471848 (79 RPOY)

I think this is pretty big for Moses opponents. if you'd like to convince them (me included), start with answering to those arguments. don't just focus on 83 because even it's a peak thread, we're still trying to figure out how impactful Moses was and there is some value in his surrounding years to determine his basketball "goodness".

[colts18]

Some good arguments here on Moses. I'm leaning towards Nash. I don't see how West is ahead of Nash. West missed way too many games for my liking. Here is another post on how damaging those missed games are. Here are the average wins/SRS of each seed since 1996 (since NBA expanded to 29 teams). You can't compare a 8 seed in a 23 team league to one in a 30 team league so I started my cutoff at 1996.

#1 seed: 61 wins, 6.62 SRS
#2 seed: 56.1 wins, 5.07 SRS
#3 seed: 53.8 wins, 4.18 SRS
#4 seed: 51.2 wins, 3.19 SRS
#5 seed: 48.9 wins, 2.78 SRS
#6 seed: 46.2 wins, 1.64 SRS
#7 seed: 44.2 wins, 1.23 SRS
#8 seed: 42.5 wins, 0.55 SRS

West's team based on his missed games would end up around 4 seed. That means his team would need to beat a 49 win team, 61 win team, 56 win team, then a 61 win team in the finals with the final 3 without HCA. Only 3 teams in NBA history beat 2 60+ win teams in the playoffs without HCA. They are the 93 Bulls, 06 Heat, and 09 Magic. The only other teams to beat 2 60+ win teams in the playoffs were the 96 and 97 Bulls. So its impressive that MJ has 3 of the 5 seasons of teams that beat 2 60+ win teams in the playoffs.

Thats such a tough gauntlet for a lower seeded team to go through even if they are good. The 06 Mavs, 03 Lakers, 90-92 Suns were solid teams but were not able to beat 3-4 tough teams in a row. It just doesn't happen often so the Rockets 95 run is amazing in that context.

[An Unbiased Fan]

All of the games Malone missed were in the final four games of the season with Philly having secured the best record in the league and Doc/Toney/Cheeks playing limited minutes (around 20-25 or so). So your with/without numbers are completely meaningless. I don't know why you wouldn't mention that considering you had to be aware as you looked at those specific games to record the MOV without Moses.

The '82 Rockets also lost their second best and great all around player in Robert Reid who abruptly retired right before training camp at the age of 27 to "concentrate on religion" (then he magically came back next year after they got Sampson). These are basic facts that should have been mentioned.

Again, I don't think with/without numbers are very valuable to begin with. But if some are going to use 10 game samples to diminish Moses, I felt it important to point out how they did without him that season too.

I would also point out that Philly had 4 back2back games in that 10 game stretch without Doc, but still maintained a 8-2 record. It seems a bit much to criticize Moses for leading a .800 team in Erving's absence.

As for Reid...well he was a guy who put up a sub 50% TS in 1982 & 1984. Even with the addition of Sampson and Reid, the 1984 Rockets were still a bad team. If anything that only supports Mose's case even more.

[MisterWestside]

since I called you out specifically, I'll re-post any Ewing-related post from the previous thread just to show you how wrong you are.

And like I said, Ewing was only mentioned a couple times and only one person voted for him until page 9. Most of the discussion was centered around T-Mac, West, Malone. Most of your quotes came after the page I was talking about. Ewing is a great player and I'm not necessarily objecting his placement at #19, but the push for him didn't come until alot later.

Please refrain from "calling me out". I wasn't the only person with this sentiment.

[fatal9]

Re: People arguing for Moses' defensive impact based on the fact Philly was the 5th best defensive team.

I'll give him solid post defense and solid defensive rebounding which allowed the perimeter guys to play pressure defense without having to worry about hitting the boards (this had hurt them in the past especially against LA), so overall was probably a positive impact defender that year (playing on a contender also naturally increases a player's willingness to play defense as well). But Philly was the best perimeter defensive team in the league. It was the unbelievably active defense applied by the backcourt and Erving/Jones which made them a top 5 defensive team year in year out. What hurts Moses to me, especially in comparison to other guys at his position like Zo or Dwight for example, is that I see them making Philly an all-time great defensive team (with all those active perimeter defenders, you put Zo or Dwight's shot blocking in the middle to shut down the paint, who also provide similar level or better defensive rebounding...how is that not the best defensive team of that era? Moses was better offensively, but the point is that impact wise, given their strengths, they appear very close to me).

Again, I don't think with/without numbers are very valuable to begin with. But if some are going to use 10 game samples to diminish Moses, I felt it important to point out how they did without him that season too.

I would also point out that Philly had 4 back2back games in that 10 game stretch without Doc, but still maintained a 8-2 record. It seems a bit much to criticize Moses for leading a .800 team in Erving's absence.

I didn't say anything about the relevance of Philly's stretch without Doc. I said the "without Moses" numbers you used were completely meaningless (Doc avgd 26 mpg, Toney avgd 24 mpg, Cheeks 26.5 mpg) and the fact that you wouldn't even mention the circumstances surrounding those games was kind of...odd. This is when the discussion becomes pointless to me, when people become so concerned with arguing for/against a player that they have to completely misrepresent what happened.

[C-izMe]

since I called you out specifically, I'll re-post any Ewing-related post from the previous thread just to show you how wrong you are.

And like I said, Ewing was only mentioned a couple times and only one person voted for him until page 9. Most of the discussion was centered around T-Mac, West, Malone. Most of your quotes came after the page I was talking about. Ewing is a great player and I'm not necessarily objecting his placement at #19, but the push for him didn't come until alot later.

Please refrain from "calling me out". I wasn't the only person with this sentiment.

I don't get why the amount of posts matter. There was definetly a ton of evidence backing him up in those few long posts. Regurgitating the same information doesn't make the argument stronger.

[penbeast0]

Now that the project has reached the 20s and is putting in guys like Patrick Ewing who came up short of a ring, a couple of names that people might not be considering but probably should . . .

Artis Gilmore '75 or Connie Hawkins "68 -- monster years with a title

Sidney Moncrief (not sure which year of his great 4 healthy year stretch) -- 20 ppg, GOAT perimeter defense and leading a team with rotating mediocre bigs to top 2 defense in league, 60% ts%, shutdowns defensively against playoff opps like Dennis Johnson. Always came up short but when he did it was against the prime Bird Celtics and when he beat them one year, he ran into the Moses/Erving/Bobby Jones/Toney/Cheeks "fo fo fo" Sixers.

[bastillon]

since I called you out specifically, I'll re-post any Ewing-related post from the previous thread just to show you how wrong you are.

And like I said, Ewing was only mentioned a couple times and only one person voted for him until page 9. Most of the discussion was centered around T-Mac, West, Malone. Most of your quotes came after the page I was talking about. Ewing is a great player and I'm not necessarily objecting his placement at #19, but the push for him didn't come until alot later.

Please refrain from "calling me out". I wasn't the only person with this sentiment.

originally you stated: People can vote for whom they want to vote for, but where did Ewing come from? The voting in these threads seem to be haphazard.

after all these posts I brought up, do you still think the voting was random ? there were major reasons to vote for Ewing and this is clearly true. I only adressed you because you were bringing it up after I made a general post about those comments before. I felt like there was no other way than to adress people specifically. there were many posters putting a lot of effort into voting/discussion and I don't think anyone is voting without any reasoning to get behind. the type of comment that you made was not only incorrect, it was also discouraging for those very people who made pro-Ewing case. if you wanna outright accuse people of random-voting, you better make a good argument for why you're doing this.

as for the source of that discussion, it had started in the 18# pick year already, then discussion was picked up at pages 3/4. but the real debate didn't really pick up until UAF made an anti-Ewing case. it sounds reasonable that people would put more effort in the debate once there was actually something to argue against. (I don't think people realise it in this project, many of the posters still probably think Duncan/Bird/Magic were voted as anti-LeBron bias... there is only little discussion when opponents don't raise good points against the selections). so what's your problem ? there was still major debate surrounding Ewing, as I showed in the post above. if anything, voters willingness to change their selections should be praised, not criticized. it means people have come to this project with open minds, not with biased preconceived notions of some "right" list. if Ewing was voted very quickly, it was thanks to the good arguments his followers made, not due to random voting that we're being accused of.

I stand by what I said. your statement was WAY OFF. I'm not going to continue this debate though. I'm going back to the substance of this project. I don't really care if I convince you or not, but the truth is the truth. voting has been fine so far, debates have been very good (some legendary) and there is no reason to complain about the project unless you're disappointed that your selections haven't yet been voted in. now let's continue to do good job. EOT for me.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Second of all, I think he's just pointing out the trend in those 10 games...it's a weird thing to see for a supposedly MVP-caliber player. You'd expect the team to fall apart, relatively speaking. But it seems that the "second option" was more integral to the team than Moses. Of course, it's a small sample size, and of course you can't draw definitive conclusions from that data, but definitely information that's useful, and it's something to think about.

I have to ask what you're basing this on. Philly went 8-2 without Dr. J. There is nothing to suggest Doc was more important to Philly than Moses in 1983.

And btw, that data doesn't even surprise me that much...like bastillon has pointed out, his style of play doesn't impress me. He was not a good defender, and he was a poor passer. He was a good scorer, and he was a dominant rebounder. But his rebounding was primarily on the offensive boards, his defensive rebounding was actually worse than Dirk, or at least, comparable. And we do have a huge sample size of data for this, and offensive rebounding is not nearly as important as defensive rebounding. So he's scoring a lot of points on ok efficiency, and he's not rebounding the way I would personally want him to. I'm just not that impressed with his style of play.

I seriously have to ask what numbers you're looking at.

How was Moses "primarily" an offensive rebounder? His DRB% was fairly great. The fact that he was great on the offensive board in addition, is a credit to his hustle.

And did you really say Dirk's defensive rebounding was better......really? Moses was a career 23.3% DRB in the NBA, while Dirk is a 21.9% DRB. In 1983, Moses grabbed 25.9% DRB, while 2011 Drik grabbed 20.8% DRB.

Better yet, let's comapre Mose's defensive rebounding in 1983 to other peak centers(post 3pt era)....

2009 Dwight - 29.5%
1983 Moses - 25.9%
2000 Shaq - 24.8%
1994 Hakeem - 23.3%
1990 Ewing - 22.4%
1994 DRob - 20.3%
^
This notion that Moses was just some guy grabbing his misses, and that his rebound numbers are padded is completely false. Moses was a monster on the boards.

To me, a big that doesn't provide defensive-anchor type ability has a serious flaw, and the only guys that can get away with it are the super-dominant offensive big men, like Shaq or Kareem...but even they were very good defensive anchors at their peaks. That's why Barkley and Moses are probably lower on my list than most other people's, and why I don't really have a problem with Ewing going in the last vote. He was an excellent defensive piece, and he was a solid offensive option. Like I said though, I did disagree with Ewing going that high, but for people to act like it was WAY premature, I think they need to re-evaluate where he stands on their list. He's right at 25 for me, so it wasn't too much of a stretch.

Except Moses WAS a super-dominant offensive big. he dropped 25 ppg on the same TS% that 2000 Shaq did, while controlling the offensive boards to the tune of 16.8%.

In the playoffs, he put up 26 ppg on 58.7% TS, which is more efficient than Shaq at 30 ppg on 55.6% TS. Moses grabbed 15.3% ORB in the PS.

In the FInals against KAJ, Mose grabbed 6.75 ORpg, which is nearly as many TOTAL rebounds KAJ got.

[therealbig3]

I have to ask what you're basing this on. Philly went 8-2 without Dr. J. There is nothing to suggest Doc was more important to Philly than Moses in 1983.

Did you not see what I responded to? Philadelphia with a healthy Dr. J and without Moses were ~5 SRS team, with Dr. J and Moses, they were ~8 SRS team, and without Dr. J and with Moses, they were ~3 SRS team.

And did you really say Dirk's defensive rebounding was better......really? Moses was a career 23.3% DRB in the NBA, while Dirk is a 21.9% DRB. In 1983, Moses grabbed 25.9% DRB, while 2011 Drik grabbed 20.8% DRB.

One of the reasons why I personally wasn't voting for Dirk in 11 was because his rebounding fell off significantly. He was a much better rebounder earlier in his career. Up until 09 in fact, he was over 22% DRB.

Dirk's peak DRB% was 25.1% in 03. Moses's was 27.1% in 79. From 01-09 (Dirk's prime rebounding years), Dirk posted an average 23.3% DRB, while Moses from 77-90 was at 23.5% DRB. I did say worse or comparable, because I didn't know exactly how they matched up, because I knew they were very similar. I had thought I read that Dirk was better, but regardless, they're pretty similar.

Better yet, let's comapre Mose's defensive rebounding in 1983 to other peak centers(post 3pt era)....

2009 Dwight - 29.5%
1983 Moses - 25.9%
2000 Shaq - 24.8%
1994 Hakeem - 23.3%
1990 Ewing - 22.4%
1994 DRob - 20.3%
^
This notion that Moses was just some guy grabbing his misses, and that his rebound numbers are padded is completely false. Moses was a monster on the boards.

No doubt Moses was a great defensive rebounder. So is Dirk actually. But clearly, Moses's reputation as a rebounder is overrated when I can say that Dirk was a comparable defensive rebounder, because nobody associates Dirk with great rebounding. Furthermore, Moses's huge rebounding numbers come in large part from his offensive rebounding, which may seem to be no big deal, but when you say "he dropped 26/16", keep in mind that 5-6 of those rebounds are offensive, many of them coming off his own misses. His actual defensive rebounding, although still great, wasn't anything we haven't seen from other players.

Offensive rebounding is associated with problems that really limits its value of extending possessions: loose ball fouls pile up, and the player isn't back on defense when he fails to grab an offensive rebound. mysticbb's data shows that offensive rebounding has BARELY correlated with winning historically, and even deceptive stats like blocks and steals have a stronger correlation with winning. Defensive rebounding is way more important.

Except Moses WAS a super-dominant offensive big. he dropped 25 ppg on the same TS% that 2000 Shaq did, while controlling the offensive boards to the tune of 16.8%.

In the playoffs, he put up 26 ppg on 58.7% TS, which is more efficient than Shaq at 30 ppg on 55.6% TS. Moses grabbed 15.3% ORB in the PS.

In the FInals against KAJ, Mose grabbed 6.75 ORpg, which is nearly as many TOTAL rebounds KAJ got.

None of that tells me how his production ultimately benefitted the offense. It doesn't tell me about the opportunities he's creating for teammates (we know he was a poor passer and he turned it over a lot). It's box score stats, which has been what the anti-Moses crowd has been arguing against: our stance is that his box score stats overrate how good he actually was, since (for me personally and for others), the eye test and impact data is telling us something completely different.

Shaq's 30 ppg on 56% TS is WAY better than Moses's 26 ppg on 59% TS because he's still benefitting his teammates in a monumental way, due to the defensive attention Shaq receives, and due to how often he forces opposing teams into foul trouble and into the penalty. He was also a much better and more willing passer from the post, and he turned it over less. All of this plays into why Shaq is one of the 7 best offensive players of all time, and why Moses isn't really close. Shaq's offensive impact on a team level is very measurable and tangible. We can see how much LA's offense was benefitting from having Shaq out there, and how much it suffered without him.

[Dr Positivity]

From the last thread

To defend Moses a little bit, I don't love the 82 and 83 Sixers comparison because the 82 team lost Caldwell Jones (3rd MP, 4th WS), Steve Mix (9th MP, 6th WS), Lionel Hollins (5th MP, 7th WS), Daryl Dawkins (7th MP, 8th WS), Mike Bantom (8th MP, 10th WS) all who had pretty good careers. While the 83 Sixers are one of the ultimate depth-less great teams, after Moses/Erving/Jones/Toney/Cheeks, they pretty much just had fill-ins like Clint Richardson, Franklin Edwards, Clemon Johnson, Mark Iavaroni making up the rest of the team. I think with C Jones, Hollins, Mix, Dawkins coming off the bench instead of replacement players, that team could've stepped it up a notch. The way they dismantled the playoffs when the rotation got shorter, also gives me confidence that the Sixers top 5 guys could take on just about anyone's

I don't think Moses deserves to go here, but the lack of jump from 82 to 83 Sixers isn't reliable evidence to me. Hollins, Mix, Caldwell were former all-stars, Dawkins had all-star talent, and all 5 of Hollins/Mix/Caldwell/Dawkins/Bantom had good "starter" careers. Now Hollins/Mix/Caldwell/Bantom were past their prime in 82, but I'd venture the gap between them and replacement players, which the 83 team basically had in their place, is well enough to make any 82 Sixers + Moses = ??? comparison pretty useless. Also while SRS is useful it's not the only metric that matters, cause teams can cruise in wins more than others. The Sixers started 57-9 (71 W pace), then ended the season 8-8, doesn't that scream they just didn't give a f*ck once nobody could touch them for 1st overall? Also as mentioned at 64-14 they shut down Moses and lost 3 of 4. Then they went 12-1 in the playoffs and swept the Lakers... What more could you ask of them? Especially with replacement players as their 6th-10th men. The 83 Sixers are definitely one of the best teams of all time.

[bastillon]

I seriously have to ask what numbers you're looking at.

How was Moses "primarily" an offensive rebounder? His DRB% was fairly great. The fact that he was great on the offensive board in addition, is a credit to his hustle.

And did you really say Dirk's defensive rebounding was better......really? Moses was a career 23.3% DRB in the NBA, while Dirk is a 21.9% DRB. In 1983, Moses grabbed 25.9% DRB, while 2011 Drik grabbed 20.8% DRB.

Better yet, let's comapre Mose's defensive rebounding in 1983 to other peak centers(post 3pt era)....

2009 Dwight - 29.5%
1983 Moses - 25.9%
2000 Shaq - 24.8%
1994 Hakeem - 23.3%
1990 Ewing - 22.4%
1994 DRob - 20.3%
^
This notion that Moses was just some guy grabbing his misses, and that his rebound numbers are padded is completely false. Moses was a monster on the boards.

first of all, you need to take a look at mystic's posts I re-posted viewtopic.php?p=33196700#p33196700 playoff Dirk was a very good defensive rebounder, arguably better than Moses himself viewtopic.php?p=32957923#p32957923

as for Moses DRB impact, it doesn't seem to be huge generally. Philly was starving for a rebounding center so it was easy to make them better but look at this post viewtopic.php?p=33186918#p33186918 and you'll see Moses impact on the boards has been argued against already. Moses had an inflated DRB% in 83 because Philly didn't play with a true defensive PF (Bobby Jones), him and Erving did a lot of help D together so they left many rebounds on the table for Moses. so he did have a big impact on their rebounding but it's overstated if you look at his stats without the context of the surrounding seasons. also Moses unlike other mentioned players didn't play sound defense and chased after rebounds instead of contesting shots or blocking them. all mentioned above were great shotblockers to go along with their defensive rebounding. but the post about DRB ranks of Moses teams really seems to be the most overwhelming evidence of his little impact on the defensive glass.

again, you're not reading the re-posted comments that I told you to look at. without analysing those comments we can't really move on with the discussion so it's kinda hard for either of us to argue either way. you have to read those threads if you wanna keep up the pace and then respond to those arguments. no point in further debate otherwise.

[colts18]

I have to ask what you're basing this on. Philly went 8-2 without Dr. J. There is nothing to suggest Doc was more important to Philly than Moses in 1983.

Did you not see what I responded to? Philadelphia with a healthy Dr. J and without Moses were ~5 SRS team, with Dr. J and Moses, they were ~8 SRS team, and without Dr. J and with Moses, they were ~3 SRS team.

What are talking about? The 83 Sixers went 1-3 when Moses missed games so no way they were a 5 SRS team without him.

[therealbig3]

I have to ask what you're basing this on. Philly went 8-2 without Dr. J. There is nothing to suggest Doc was more important to Philly than Moses in 1983.

Did you not see what I responded to? Philadelphia with a healthy Dr. J and without Moses were ~5 SRS team, with Dr. J and Moses, they were ~8 SRS team, and without Dr. J and with Moses, they were ~3 SRS team.

What are talking about? The 83 Sixers went 1-3 when Moses missed games so no way they were a 5 SRS team without him.

I'm basing this on mysticbb's post, and I believe he's referring to the 82 Sixers, who were very similar to the 83 Sixers sans Moses.

[An Unbiased Fan]

@UAF, if you wanna convince anyone, you have to put some more context around this whole thing. you really did a good job of defending Moses, some of the best pro-Moses posts came from you. but you still have a long way to go because there are many unanswered arguments for Moses fans. I didn't re-post all that stuff from mysticbb and me just so there is some argument. I actually did this for you to make a response. your analysis is going in a good direction but its just too shallow to sway anyone. you're comparing completely different teams without noticing there were major differences between them.

main concerns for Moses:
-style of play (realbigthree did a good job here), for more look at my re-posted comments and mysticbb's; also this fatal9 post from top100: viewtopic.php?p=28602295#p28602295

-defense, Rockets posting bottom 3 DRTG multiple times... how did that happen ? major concerns for many posters on this one

-no major +/- impact in surrounding seasons, typically underperforming teams relative to their talent, watch this TrueLAFan comments from RPOY: viewtopic.php?p=24431024#p24431024 (80 RPOY) viewtopic.php?p=24471848#p24471848 (79 RPOY)

I think this is pretty big for Moses opponents. if you'd like to convince them (me included), start with answering to those arguments. don't just focus on 83 because even it's a peak thread, we're still trying to figure out how impactful Moses was and there is some value in his surrounding years to determine his basketball "goodness".

First, I REALLY hate searching through other threads. In the future, it would be better to just quote relevant posts, or pose the question/statements yourself.

1) Style of play - I just not sure what you're arguing here. Mose's fit great with that 76ers aggressive style of 1983. Very few players fit all kinds of systems. For example, Russell on a team that needs him to be a 1st option scorer will have issues. Moses was a dominant rebounder on defense AND offense, where he kept quite a few possessions alive for Philly. Physically, he was just a bit much for opposing players to handle down low. Was he Shaq dominant, no, but he was still taking it to the likes of KAJ that season. His aggressive, relentless style of play was the driving force for Philly's dominance.

I posted this in the last thread, but let me put it here....start at 1:07
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PQz4BGMYHk[/youtube]


2) Defense - This is a peak discussion, so I'm not sure how you can hang those 79 and before teams on Mose's feet. He was 4 years away from his peak, and played on a team with a coach who wasn't interested in defense. All of Tom Nissalke's teams were bad defensively.

Speaking to 1983, Moses committed to defense due to Philly's team culture. This is no different from a guy like Shaq having his one great defensive year when Phil came to LA in 2000, and demanded it. Or Ewing's Knicks jumping from mediocre to #1 with the addition of Riley, or KG going from a horrible defensive team in 2007, to the best in 2008 thanks to Doc/Thibs.

What we do know is that Moses was a blue-collar banger down low, with tremendous hustle on the defensive boards. He was picked as a 1st teamer on D, so clearly I'm not alone in this assessment. Philly's DRtg also improved in comparison to the league average with Moses.

So we have better team defense, defensive rebounding, and recognition of Moses as a defender by his peers. Moses wasn't Hakeem, but again, he's was fairly good on defense at his peak.

3) no major +/- impact in surrounding seasons - I'm also curious about why RPOY threads concerning 79 & 80 are relevant to a 1983 season. That's about 3-4 years removed from his peak, so I wouldn't call them surrounding years. Why not the 1982/1983 RPOY threads where Moses won back2back at a .971 & 1.000 clip?

For exmaple, this is what Doc Mj wrote in the 1982 RPOY thread

I want to chime in here for some context I've noticed:

One may ask how a guy on a team that bad wins the MVP. One may also be puzzled why the increase in esteem for Moses compared to the very similar '80-81 season. Seems to me like it has to be because of the Rockets '81 run to the finals where Moses very much seemed to be the best player no matter what court he was on.

Of course, they didn't have a similar run in the '82 playoffs, and in general people might ask whether Moses was just a guy putting up big numbers on non-elite teams. I think this is where it's so helpful to see what happened in subsequent seasons. The '82-83 season if obviously huge in Moses evaluation because he led one of the great teams in history - but also look at what happened to the Rockets. They fell to become one of the worst teams in history. To me, what Moses seems to be doing here is proving the normally faulty fanboy-logic correct. How often do we hear "They wouldn't win a game without him, and if he had good players around them, he lead them to the best history EVER!!!1one!" It's always proved wrong - except here.

Going to be hard for Moses not to be #1 for me this year or the next thread.

Houston fell off a cliff, Philly improved, so I'm not sure what else is to be expected of Mose's impact. The 1983 76ers had perhaps the 2nd best PS run ever behind the 2001 Lakers. Mose's was dominating teams in ways very few ever have. When you have exceptional individual + team results, i'm not sure what else there is. At this point we're basically holding Moses to Created Player 99 standards.

BTW, I find it interesting that Barkley was voted #3 in the 1990 RPOY, where Ewing was #4. how did RealGm's opinion change so much.

[MisterWestside]

after all these posts I brought up, do you still think the voting was random ?

When West, T-Mac, and Malone were runner-ups in the #18 thread and most voters were mainly discussing/going with those players until the bottom of 9th page of the #19 thread, I said that the voting seems random. That's all. If you believe that Ewing should go in at #19 then I respect your opinion.

[MisterWestside]

UAB, keep it going Definitely seems like that team was extra motivated that season, including Moses:

When we made that trade, we could just see the change in the whole team. They understood, they knew this is the man. And he was on a mission, and he came to Philadelphia to get a ring.

We already established ourselves as a premier team, and one of the things we were really looking for was a title. And everyone felt in our hearts that once we got Moses we could reach that goal.

Also this idea that Moses couldn't create his own shot is wrong. It's not like the guy was Tyson Chandler on the inside getting most of his points from lobs, dunk assists and putbacks; Toney, Malone, and Erving led the team in usg% that season.