#21 Highest Peak of All Time (West '66 wins)

[Dr Positivity]

I feel strongly that Barkley should go above Moses. The long story made short premises being:

- Both Barkley and Moses are offensive impact players who are somewhere between neutral and negative on defense

- Barkley is a better offensive player than Moses

I can live with someone arguing that Moses has more defensive impact than Barkley. But it can't be by much seeing Houston's poor DRTG records, Moses' teams weak DRB records (and Barkley vs PFs is a better DRB guy than Moses vs Cs), and the fact that Moses is supposed to be better defensively taking up the C minutes, while Barkley hypothetically could be put beside a defensive center better than Moses on that end

On the offensive end I actually think it's a BIG gap. Barkley is a monster creating offense for himself on the block, is 10x better as a passer/facilitator out of the attention he creates, spaces the floor. The argument I can see for Moses is the inverse of the D argument, that C is a lesser offensive position than PF and Moses has quite a high "OAR" (offense over replacement) for centers. But Barkley has one of the highest OARs vs a player's position, in history, at a PF position less offensive based than the guards, where he's absolutely ridiculous.

Finally I just wanted to point something out. The fact that 21 seems awfully low for a perfect season (MVP, Finals MVP, leads team to historic heights putting up dominant stats), this could be an illusion created by the fact that we're associating the 20s as having the same value as on the ATL, when it definitely doesn't. 66 West, 03 Tmac and 08 Paul all being on the board proves we're still in MVP/best player on a title team territory. Those guys are amazing do it all offensive players. Moses will still be voted in near elite players.

[Dr Positivity]

I don't consider peak Baylor to be inefficient. To use a crude method, an average year in present day has a league average of around .50 eFG, while in 62 the league average was .428. Baylor's eFG that year was literally .428. However he got to the FT line 13.1 times a game (converting at .754), bringing his TS% up to .492.

Now that alone indicates Baylor is not inefficient because his FGAs were still league average, so adding on historic levels of FT scoring HAS to make him above average in efficiency

Also, compare that to 2006 Kobe, where his eFG was .491 and the league average was .490. Kobe's 10 FTA+s a game at .85 conversion, brought him to .559 TS%. The difference between Kobe's TS% and league average eFG was +.069, this is compared to Baylor's +.064.

Basically Baylor's efficiency pre surgery is good, it's just not insane like West and Oscar. It's more Kobe than Iverson. But he definitely IMO doesn't deserve consideration over any of Tmac, West, Paul, Barkley, Moses who have more to their game outside of scoring. I would say King, Durant, Baylor is a decent 3 way battle that we'll have at some point, while I expect all of them go above Nique, English and Melo

[C-izMe]

Do you expect Melo, Nique, and English to even be on the list?

[Dr Positivity]

Oops, I forgot this thing was running to 50 instead of 100. Yeah Nique probably has a shot, but not Melo and English

[JordansBulls]

Oops, I forgot this thing was running to 50 instead of 100. Yeah Nique probably has a shot, but not Melo and English

Nique which year do you take? 1986, 1987, 1988 or 1989 or even 1993.

[ardee]

I don't consider peak Baylor to be inefficient. To use a crude method, an average year in present day has a league average of around .50 eFG, while in 62 the league average was .428. Baylor's eFG that year was literally .428. However he got to the FT line 13.1 times a game (converting at .754), bringing his TS% up to .492.

Now that alone indicates Baylor is not inefficient because his FGAs were still league average, so adding on historic levels of FT scoring HAS to make him above average in efficiency

Also, compare that to 2006 Kobe, where his eFG was .491 and the league average was .490. Kobe's 10 FTA+s a game at .85 conversion, brought him to .559 TS%. The difference between Kobe's TS% and league average eFG was +.069, this is compared to Baylor's +.064.

Basically Baylor's efficiency pre surgery is good, it's just not insane like West and Oscar. It's more Kobe than Iverson. But he definitely IMO doesn't deserve consideration over any of Tmac, West, Paul, Barkley, Moses who have more to their game outside of scoring. I would say King, Durant, Baylor is a decent 3 way battle that we'll have at some point, while I expect all of them go above Nique, English and Melo

I think King should be in the current discussion. He took efficiency while volume scoring to another level for a wing.

[Dr Positivity]

He was basically around Durant and LBJ level for efficiency. Great but not unheard of. Gervin is another player on King's level IMO (I'd take 78 for his year). With both it's hard for me to get past them being one dimensional scorers to consider them at this stage. I'm probably voting Baylor and Durant over them because I think they have more dimensions to their game

[PTB Fan]

We need more Baylor and Barkley posts.

I'll try to provide something after I'm done with my Malone post/

I don't think Baylor will get much consideration.

The man is an enigma to me. Wilt-like scoring and rebounding numbers, and it seems he was a great passer as well.

However, people make it a point to show how inefficient he was, and while it's not the be-all and end-all of the argument surrounding him, I will admit it's a knock.

Come to think of it, I can't remember seeing a box score where he shot above 50%. In the '62 Finals, in the game 7 that LA lost by a few points, he shot 13-40. That's absolutely harming your team, there's no two ways about it. I can certainly excuse a superstar for a poor shooting game in any circumstance, like Kobe and LeBron vs. the Celtics in game 7. Variance happens. But to shot that badly and to take FORTY shots.... There has to be a good reason for it.

True. However, he did have a good overall game if I'm not wrong.

Still, can't take away from Baylor who had a spectacular season overall in '62 and killed it without practice the whole season.

[flashwade33]

Do you guys include ABA players as well? If so, what do you guys think about '68 Connie Hawkins?

[Doctor MJ]

I wanted to throw Barkley back in the discussion as well:

To me it's not at all clear that Moses is better at peak than Barkley. On offense, I see Barkley as a comparable rebounder, a drastically better playmaker, and a more flexible scorer. Fascinating to me that Moses was "Mr. Put Back" but still has far weaker efficiency than Barkley.

There is no shame in having worse efficiency than Barkley

When you're in a comparison against Barkley, then yes being far less efficient is relevant to that comparison.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't consider peak Baylor to be inefficient. To use a crude method, an average year in present day has a league average of around .50 eFG, while in 62 the league average was .428. Baylor's eFG that year was literally .428. However he got to the FT line 13.1 times a game (converting at .754), bringing his TS% up to .492.

Now that alone indicates Baylor is not inefficient because his FGAs were still league average, so adding on historic levels of FT scoring HAS to make him above average in efficiency

Also, compare that to 2006 Kobe, where his eFG was .491 and the league average was .490. Kobe's 10 FTA+s a game at .85 conversion, brought him to .559 TS%. The difference between Kobe's TS% and league average eFG was +.069, this is compared to Baylor's +.064.

Basically Baylor's efficiency pre surgery is good, it's just not insane like West and Oscar. It's more Kobe than Iverson. But he definitely IMO doesn't deserve consideration over any of Tmac, West, Paul, Barkley, Moses who have more to their game outside of scoring. I would say King, Durant, Baylor is a decent 3 way battle that we'll have at some point, while I expect all of them go above Nique, English and Melo

Well, I guess for me, part of the thing is that there is a very strong historical tendency to talk about the Big 5 of the '60s, and then to say there's a pretty huge dropoff after that. While Baylor typically gets called the least of those 5, people see him as close and debatable with the top 5 to some degree.

So when I see that in the efficiency the #3 & #4 guys on the Big list are basically head and shoulder above their competition in addition to scoring at volume, playmaking, etc, and that Baylor really isn't even that clearly separating himself from the rest of the field, to me it's a clear concern.

When you add in the whole deal with him being on the team with one of those clearly superior scorers and basically never yielding the 1st option despite being so much less efficient he soon ceased to be the lead scorer, it moves over to a damning level. At the very least, this wasn't a guy showing evidence that he could gauge his own abilities compared to others all that well.

All this to say that I think there should be a very clear and significant gap in people's minds between Oscar/West and Baylor. If Oscar really has a 7 spot edge over West, it would seem simply bizarre if there was anything like a 7 spot gap between West & Baylor.

One footnote: Baylor's the 5th of the classic Big 5 of the '60s who were there the whole time. However, Pettit was their early on, and Barry was their later. I'm likely to vote for both before I vote for Baylor.

[Doctor MJ]

I think King should be in the current discussion. He took efficiency while volume scoring to another level for a wing.

I think King really should be discussed at this point. Even if people end up not that sold by him, his accomplishments are salient enough that he warrants getting a handle on now.

What's tough for me about King is that his peak is just so steep and short that I don't know what to make of it. His scoring numbers in the '84 playoffs are GOAT looking, and his continued high volume the next year I think tends to make people confident it was no fluke, but the team really wasn't successful while he was continuing to play at this new volume that he hadn't played at in the more successful '84 year.

I'm okay taking a single playoff run very seriously in theory, but I worry that with a player who took a while to reach that incredibly short peak we might be seeing the "happy" side of variance more than we'd like to admit.

[PTB Fan]

I don't consider peak Baylor to be inefficient. To use a crude method, an average year in present day has a league average of around .50 eFG, while in 62 the league average was .428. Baylor's eFG that year was literally .428. However he got to the FT line 13.1 times a game (converting at .754), bringing his TS% up to .492.

Now that alone indicates Baylor is not inefficient because his FGAs were still league average, so adding on historic levels of FT scoring HAS to make him above average in efficiency

Also, compare that to 2006 Kobe, where his eFG was .491 and the league average was .490. Kobe's 10 FTA+s a game at .85 conversion, brought him to .559 TS%. The difference between Kobe's TS% and league average eFG was +.069, this is compared to Baylor's +.064.

Basically Baylor's efficiency pre surgery is good, it's just not insane like West and Oscar. It's more Kobe than Iverson. But he definitely IMO doesn't deserve consideration over any of Tmac, West, Paul, Barkley, Moses who have more to their game outside of scoring. I would say King, Durant, Baylor is a decent 3 way battle that we'll have at some point, while I expect all of them go above Nique, English and Melo

Well, I guess for me, part of the thing is that there is a very strong historical tendency to talk about the Big 5 of the '60s, and then to say there's a pretty huge dropoff after that. While Baylor typically gets called the least of those 5, people see him as close and debatable with the top 5 to some degree.

So when I see that in the efficiency the #3 & #4 guys on the Big list are basically head and shoulder above their competition in addition to scoring at volume, playmaking, etc, and that Baylor really isn't even that clearly separating himself from the rest of the field, to me it's a clear concern.

When you add in the whole deal with him being on the team with one of those clearly superior scorers and basically never yielding the 1st option despite being so much less efficient he soon ceased to be the lead scorer, it moves over to a damning level. At the very least, this wasn't a guy showing evidence that he could gauge his own abilities compared to others all that well.

All this to say that I think there should be a very clear and significant gap in people's minds between Oscar/West and Baylor. If Oscar really has a 7 spot edge over West, it would seem simply bizarre if there was anything like a 7 spot gap between West & Baylor.

One footnote: Baylor's the 5th of the classic Big 5 of the '60s who were there the whole time. However, Pettit was their early on, and Barry was their later. I'm likely to vote for both before I vote for Baylor.

The real problem with Baylor is this. He's always one of the best... there's not a thing in which he was the best in the league (putting on show and high flying.. but that doesn't bring reputation). Still, he was really good.

[PTB Fan]

I don't consider peak Baylor to be inefficient. To use a crude method, an average year in present day has a league average of around .50 eFG, while in 62 the league average was .428. Baylor's eFG that year was literally .428. However he got to the FT line 13.1 times a game (converting at .754), bringing his TS% up to .492.

Now that alone indicates Baylor is not inefficient because his FGAs were still league average, so adding on historic levels of FT scoring HAS to make him above average in efficiency

Also, compare that to 2006 Kobe, where his eFG was .491 and the league average was .490. Kobe's 10 FTA+s a game at .85 conversion, brought him to .559 TS%. The difference between Kobe's TS% and league average eFG was +.069, this is compared to Baylor's +.064.

Basically Baylor's efficiency pre surgery is good, it's just not insane like West and Oscar. It's more Kobe than Iverson. But he definitely IMO doesn't deserve consideration over any of Tmac, West, Paul, Barkley, Moses who have more to their game outside of scoring. I would say King, Durant, Baylor is a decent 3 way battle that we'll have at some point, while I expect all of them go above Nique, English and Melo

I disagree. Baylor was a pretty great all-around player. He was one of the best rebounders in the league despite his size, among the top passers in the league, good defender and of course excellent offensive player as well.

Many coaches, players respected his all-around skills on which he got the consideration as the league's best (small percentage) in some time of his pro career. Hell, this quote by former teammate and fo Hawkins describes him best

"Pound for pound, no one was ever as great as Elgin Baylor. Elgin certainly didn't jump as high as Michael Jordan but he had the greatest variety of shots of anyone. He would take it in and hang and shoot from all these angles. Put spin on the ball. Elgin had incredible strength. He could post up Bill Russell. He could pass like Magic [Johnson] and dribble with the best guards in the league."

from Baylor's wiki page


Even Wilt mentioned him (and Pettit) as the best all-around player(s) in the league in 1960.

"As for other players in the NBA, Chamberlain lists St.Louis Bob Pettit and Elgin Baylor of the Minneapolis as the best all-around players in the game.

"I'd hate to have to chose between them. Petit has a tremendous jump shot and rebounds well. Baylor is a great shot and outstanding playmaker. Both are good defensively."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tg ... ever&hl=en

[ardee]

I don't consider peak Baylor to be inefficient. To use a crude method, an average year in present day has a league average of around .50 eFG, while in 62 the league average was .428. Baylor's eFG that year was literally .428. However he got to the FT line 13.1 times a game (converting at .754), bringing his TS% up to .492.

Now that alone indicates Baylor is not inefficient because his FGAs were still league average, so adding on historic levels of FT scoring HAS to make him above average in efficiency

Also, compare that to 2006 Kobe, where his eFG was .491 and the league average was .490. Kobe's 10 FTA+s a game at .85 conversion, brought him to .559 TS%. The difference between Kobe's TS% and league average eFG was +.069, this is compared to Baylor's +.064.

Basically Baylor's efficiency pre surgery is good, it's just not insane like West and Oscar. It's more Kobe than Iverson. But he definitely IMO doesn't deserve consideration over any of Tmac, West, Paul, Barkley, Moses who have more to their game outside of scoring. I would say King, Durant, Baylor is a decent 3 way battle that we'll have at some point, while I expect all of them go above Nique, English and Melo

I disagree. Baylor was a pretty great all-around player. He was one of the best rebounders in the league despite his size, among the top passers in the league, good defender and of course excellent offensive player as well.

Many coaches, players respected his all-around skills on which he got the consideration as the league's best (small percentage) in some time of his pro career. Hell, this quote by former teammate and fo Hawkins describes him best

"Pound for pound, no one was ever as great as Elgin Baylor. Elgin certainly didn't jump as high as Michael Jordan but he had the greatest variety of shots of anyone. He would take it in and hang and shoot from all these angles. Put spin on the ball. Elgin had incredible strength. He could post up Bill Russell. He could pass like Magic [Johnson] and dribble with the best guards in the league."

from Baylor's wiki page


Even Wilt mentioned him (and Pettit) as the best all-around player(s) in the league in 1960.

"As for other players in the NBA, Chamberlain lists St.Louis Bob Pettit and Elgin Baylor of the Minneapolis as the best all-around players in the game.

"I'd hate to have to chose between them. Petit has a tremendous jump shot and rebounds well. Baylor is a great shot and outstanding playmaker. Both are good defensively."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tg ... ever&hl=en

+1 about the rebounding.

I know people don't like his shot-taking tendencies, but seriously, a 6'5 forward third in the league in rebounding? Is that even real?

And I went over his stats one more time, and I noticed that during his '61-'63 peak years, he consistently posted an above 26 PER. PER adjusts for both pace and league strength. Not saying it's the total argument, but to some extent I definitely believe it adds an interesting dimension to the argument about him when you see his best PER was above both Kobe and Dirk's best PER. Certainly nullifies the argument that he only took too many shots and did nothing but hurt his team.

And then, he led the Playoffs in scoring 4 straight years. In '61 he actually shot 54% TS, which is incredible if you consider his statline was 38-15-5.

I know the Lakers were 36-43 in the regular season that year, but consider that he put up those incredible numbers and dragged such a bad team to within 2 points of the Finals that year. West was a rookie who had no great impact. Just an astounding feat.

'62 he missed games obviously because of the army duty. Could someone post the in-out? It's 32 games, so a large enough sample to trust.

The Playoff run in '62 was even more insane, 39-18-4 but on worse efficiency and in the Finals he didn't shoot above 50% even once, I think.

Still, I'm willing to look beyond shooting percentages, as should everyone, if he was making the kind of impact his numbers suggest (i.e. Russell!). People like to crucify him for continuing to shoot during West's peak years, but remember, we're talking about BAYLOR'S peak years, so let's keep it to those seasons.

[PTB Fan]

I don't consider peak Baylor to be inefficient. To use a crude method, an average year in present day has a league average of around .50 eFG, while in 62 the league average was .428. Baylor's eFG that year was literally .428. However he got to the FT line 13.1 times a game (converting at .754), bringing his TS% up to .492.

Now that alone indicates Baylor is not inefficient because his FGAs were still league average, so adding on historic levels of FT scoring HAS to make him above average in efficiency

Also, compare that to 2006 Kobe, where his eFG was .491 and the league average was .490. Kobe's 10 FTA+s a game at .85 conversion, brought him to .559 TS%. The difference between Kobe's TS% and league average eFG was +.069, this is compared to Baylor's +.064.

Basically Baylor's efficiency pre surgery is good, it's just not insane like West and Oscar. It's more Kobe than Iverson. But he definitely IMO doesn't deserve consideration over any of Tmac, West, Paul, Barkley, Moses who have more to their game outside of scoring. I would say King, Durant, Baylor is a decent 3 way battle that we'll have at some point, while I expect all of them go above Nique, English and Melo

I disagree. Baylor was a pretty great all-around player. He was one of the best rebounders in the league despite his size, among the top passers in the league, good defender and of course excellent offensive player as well.

Many coaches, players respected his all-around skills on which he got the consideration as the league's best (small percentage) in some time of his pro career. Hell, this quote by former teammate and fo Hawkins describes him best

"Pound for pound, no one was ever as great as Elgin Baylor. Elgin certainly didn't jump as high as Michael Jordan but he had the greatest variety of shots of anyone. He would take it in and hang and shoot from all these angles. Put spin on the ball. Elgin had incredible strength. He could post up Bill Russell. He could pass like Magic [Johnson] and dribble with the best guards in the league."

from Baylor's wiki page


Even Wilt mentioned him (and Pettit) as the best all-around player(s) in the league in 1960.

"As for other players in the NBA, Chamberlain lists St.Louis Bob Pettit and Elgin Baylor of the Minneapolis as the best all-around players in the game.

"I'd hate to have to chose between them. Petit has a tremendous jump shot and rebounds well. Baylor is a great shot and outstanding playmaker. Both are good defensively."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tg ... ever&hl=en

+1 about the rebounding.

I know people don't like his shot-taking tendencies, but seriously, a 6'5 forward third in the league in rebounding? Is that even real?

And I went over his stats one more time, and I noticed that during his '61-'63 peak years, he consistently posted an above 26 PER. PER adjusts for both pace and league strength. Not saying it's the total argument, but to some extent I definitely believe it adds an interesting dimension to the argument about him when you see his best PER was above both Kobe and Dirk's best PER. Certainly nullifies the argument that he only took too many shots and did nothing but hurt his team.

And then, he led the Playoffs in scoring 4 straight years. In '61 he actually shot 54% TS, which is incredible if you consider his statline was 38-15-5.

I know the Lakers were 36-43 in the regular season that year, but consider that he put up those incredible numbers and dragged such a bad team to within 2 points of the Finals that year. West was a rookie who had no great impact. Just an astounding feat.

'62 he missed games obviously because of the army duty. Could someone post the in-out? It's 32 games, so a large enough sample to trust.

The Playoff run in '62 was even more insane, 39-18-4 but on worse efficiency and in the Finals he didn't shoot above 50% even once, I think.

Still, I'm willing to look beyond shooting percentages, as should everyone, if he was making the kind of impact his numbers suggest (i.e. Russell!). People like to crucify him for continuing to shoot during West's peak years, but remember, we're talking about BAYLOR'S peak years, so let's keep it to those seasons.

For Baylor, I personally think that '62 was his best season overall but I'm glad that some of his other seasons pre surgery are getting some love.

In the '62 Finals, he did get close twice to 50% in Game 1 (48.3% FG) and in Game 5 (47.8%) from what I have. His efficiency was solid as well, around 51.1% TS from the available stats that I have (don't have the stats for Game 3 and 4).

His impact was super crazy this season though.

[Doctor MJ]

The real problem with Baylor is this. He's always one of the best... there's not a thing in which he was the best in the league (putting on show and high flying.. but that doesn't bring reputation). Still, he was really good.

Yeah, when I talk about his judgment "damning" him, it's important to understand I think most players don't have great ability to judge their performance. They just do their thing, and they've always been more talented than anyone else, so it works. When we see players busting in the NBA, to me it's because they just aren't talented enough to justify continuing to play in this way, and they can't adapt.

Baylor was at a level much beyond that, so he was never asked to change up and if West wasn't on the team maybe it wouldn't have made sense to change, but as it was, I really think he needed to change.

[Doctor MJ]

I know people don't like his shot-taking tendencies, but seriously, a 6'5 forward third in the league in rebounding? Is that even real?

Well, Barkley right? And it was going to be easier to be 3rd back in the '60s, but still:

Agree with you, Baylor I think had huge potential to be a permanently big impact guy if he were to focus more on being a complimentary rebounder and less as being someone who the offense had to go through when they already had West out there.

[PTB Fan]

The real problem with Baylor is this. He's always one of the best... there's not a thing in which he was the best in the league (putting on show and high flying.. but that doesn't bring reputation). Still, he was really good.

Yeah, when I talk about his judgment "damning" him, it's important to understand I think most players don't have great ability to judge their performance. They just do their thing, and they've always been more talented than anyone else, so it works. When we see players busting in the NBA, to me it's because they just aren't talented enough to justify continuing to play in this way, and they can't adapt.

Baylor was at a level much beyond that, so he was never asked to change up and if West wasn't on the team maybe it wouldn't have made sense to change, but as it was, I really think he needed to change.

Baylor deserves blame for his post '68 season, where despite playing with West and Wilt, he couldn't win a title because he didn't adjust to the situation very well. However, I think he still did a good job of playing alongside with West throughout their respective careers.

However, I pretty much understand what you are trying to say.

[GSP]

Why should peak Barkley get in before 12 Durant?