#29 Highest Peak of All Time (Baylor '61 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

"his time"? You're promoting him in '61, An older Pettit is already significantly more efficient than him, a rookie Oscar is already FAR more efficient than him, and once West adjusts to the NBA in the next couple years, he's far more efficient than Baylor too.

This "but look at him compared to the average player back then" is just kind of weird to me because if we did that for West and Oscar they'd have GOAT level efficiencies,

That's not true. Their TS% relatively to league average isn't GOAT level, especially when we include volume. For example +14.4 TS% and 24.1 PPG (Wilt '67) - that's GOAT level efficiency.
(besides, except of two Oscar years, their big efficiency seasons were AFTER peak Baylor we are discussing here...)

And Pettit was much lower volume scorer at the time, so saying he was significantly more efficient (+4.2 TS% vs +2.9 TS%) is simply not fair. Baylor in 1961 (34.8 PPG with +2.9 TS%) as a scorer (efficiency + volume) was close to Kobe '06 (35.4 PPG, +2.4 TS%) or Jordan '87 (37.1 PPG, +2.8 TS%).

Alright I'll clarify:

At the top of their game, West & Oscar were guys scoring at league leading volumes. They did this with edges over league average on the order of 8-10% TS. This puts them on par with Michael Jordan, and puts them well above the Kobe Bryants of the world. If we call what Jordan does GOAT-ish, and Oscar & West pulled off efficiency edges like Jordan, then their efficiency while volume scoring is worthy of the GOAT's standards, aka GOAT-worthy.

Re: after Baylor's peak. I've talked about this already, but let me put it another way:

The way Baylor's peak is being framed historically is rather amazing in it's tiny scope. Basically anything after Baylor's 4th year is considered completely off-limits for comparison. Something happened 2 years later? (And since West & Oscar barely got into the league before that cutoff happened, of course there isn't going to be much simultaneous comparison...though rookie Oscar already ran circles around Baylor) Irrelevant, it's an entirely different era. Who else in sports history would it even occur to speak about in this way?

So far as I can tell, the unstated theory here is that efficiency is increasing for reason that have nothing to do with player skill or talent, and the unstated corollary that Baylor would have gotten more impressive in his efficiency if not for the injury. However before the injuries we'd already seen players easily surpass Baylor's efficiency, so I don't see how this thinking makes sense.

Re: Baylor's higher volume, like Kobe/Jordan. I understand Baylor had the highest non-Wilt volume out of all these guys at his peak, and I understand that this is the reason why people are forgiving his inefficiency. But volume on this scale has just been shown again and again to not really be an accomplishment, just a team strategy that makes them easy for the defense to scheme against.

Here's how the league offenses looked by ElGee's estimation in '61, the year he's being argued for:

ORtg

Code: Select all

1.  Cincinnati    95.5
2.  Detroit       93.3
3.  Syracuse      92.9
LEAGUE AVG.       91.5
4.  New York      91.2
5.  Philadelphia  90.8
6.  St. Louis     90.7
7.  Los Angeles   90.0
8.  Boston        87.5


The two dominant offenses of the '60s were Cincy and the Lakers, but go look at any of the Laker years before West emerges as a co-star, and the Laker offense looks meh. Very much like what we see with Wilt's arrival on the Warriors in fact.

And then of course, in '62, Baylor misses half the season, but under West's leadership the team offense finally jumps to 3rd in the league for the first time in Baylor's career.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't think Baylor's lack of efficiency jump from his rookie season onwards is evidence of much. Rookies in general aren't the same players they become later.

I don't understand what you're saying. The second sentence is the reason why we'd expect an efficiency jump.

Baylor had the highest TS% on the team in 1961, though, so it did have a better chance of going in than his teammates'. And for most stars that doesn't happen. Many stars play on teams where they're the 3rd-5th most efficient player on the team beside low USG role players. I understand the concern about Baylor not adjusting after his surgery, coinciding with West's big leap up in shooting %, but we're judging 61-63 Baylor and not post surgery Baylor here. In the early 60s Baylor's efficiency doesn't indicate he was doing a wrong thing shooting instead of his teammates

It's a good point that he was indeed the most efficient Laker on that '61 team. That should be considered along with the fact that the offense was on the whole completely ineffective in a system designed for Baylor to operate at very high volume.

PS Isn't it time to start talking about Vince Carter? Pretty elite all around wing, behind Tmac but not that far behind

Not the answer that you're looking for I'm sure, but yes, if we're considering Baylor, then we need to be considering Carter. The gap between Kobe and Carter is not anywhere near as clear as the gap between West/Oscar and Baylor.

[Dr Positivity]

I'm saying the rookie stats don't matter period

[Doctor MJ]

I'm saying the rookie stats don't matter period

I'm not arguing for people based on their rookie season though, so I don't understand why you're bringing it up.

[fatal9]

vote: 2011 Howard

may change for '88 or '86 McHale or '12 Durant. tough to decide between these three guys. would comfortably have taken McHale if he was 100% in the '87 playoffs.

[therealbig3]

Good points about McHale's injury in 87. I'll switch my vote actually, to 88 McHale.

[ElGee]

Post surgery Baylor basically turned into Rudy Gay, but before that as far as I can tell he was closer to being the original Doctor J

Yes, it's not far off to say this about their offense. Of course, Baylor doesn't have the giant defensive impact that J did, so that explains why I think there's a fairly enormous drop-off between the impact of these players. Without such a defensive presence, you start to kill portability.

This is what Doc MJ's major points speak to more than anything -- if you put Baylor on a better team, would he balance his offense better? The idea that he led the 61 team in TS% is not entirely the issue then...what matters is how he would play would another offensive star or two, and the returns on that later in his career aren't *terrible* but they aren't promising (and he wasn't a good shooter anyway which is dampening his fit with multiple offensive weapons).

I do believe Baylor's peak is 1961. I do believe you can see he was a positive impact player, like Iverson, despite both player's having negative "efficiency reputations." But these kinds of players don't lead amazing offenses. They don't scale well in part because they jack up too many shots. You can be the 5th-leading TS% player in your starting lineup and still be the best offensive player (AND, still take the most shots)...if your decision-making leads to the highest global efficiency. It's not as bad as the numbers make it out to be for Iverson, Wilkins, Baylor, etc. But Elgin does exhibit problems on this front THROUGHOUT his career. So, to ignore this as part of what he brings to the table as a player in 1961 seems unreasonable, and I believe that's the crux of Doc's point.

[ElGee]

vote: Dwight Howard 2011

Probably Durant and Barry next...with McHale right there as well.

I have Baylor ~45th, and it's not clear to me I'd take him over Pettit. I'd like to hear some of the historians take on that one at some point...

[Doctor MJ]

Post surgery Baylor basically turned into Rudy Gay, but before that as far as I can tell he was closer to being the original Doctor J

Yes, it's not far off to say this about their offense. Of course, Baylor doesn't have the giant defensive impact that J did, so that explains why I think there's a fairly enormous drop-off between the impact of these players. Without such a defensive presence, you start to kill portability.

This is what Doc MJ's major points speak to more than anything -- if you put Baylor on a better team, would he balance his offense better? The idea that he led the 61 team in TS% is not entirely the issue then...what matters is how he would play would another offensive star or two, and the returns on that later in his career aren't *terrible* but they aren't promising (and he wasn't a good shooter anyway which is dampening his fit with multiple offensive weapons).

I do believe Baylor's peak is 1961. I do believe you can see he was a positive impact player, like Iverson, despite both player's having negative "efficiency reputations." But these kinds of players don't lead amazing offenses. They don't scale well in part because they jack up too many shots. You can be the 5th-leading TS% player in your starting lineup and still be the best offensive player (AND, still take the most shots)...if your decision-making leads to the highest global efficiency. It's not as bad as the numbers make it out to be for Iverson, Wilkins, Baylor, etc. But Elgin does exhibit problems on this front THROUGHOUT his career. So, to ignore this as part of what he brings to the table as a player in 1961 seems unreasonable, and I believe that's the crux of Doc's point.

Well, I think you say a lot of what I mean, but there's also simply the question:

What is the rationale behind adjusting efficiency by era?

Clearly the only way you could see Baylor as like Erving is if you find a way to ignore the fact that Erving was actually significantly more efficient as a scorer (to say nothing of him being a better playermaker, a more willing adjuster to other scoring talent, and a more capable help defender). The fact that you can use a technique (adjustment relative to league averages) to do it, doesn't answer why you SHOULD do it.

This is not to say I'm completely against the practice across the board, but I've always thought it to be pretty clear that it doesn't make sense to look at players' efficiency only relative to their contemporaries.

If you look at Baylor vs Erving and say that the difference in efficiency is due to era differences, then shouldn't you be looking at a rookie Oscar in '61 and giving him a similar adjustment? If you do that, then you go from he and Erving being in the same ballpark, to putting him far above Erving, which is pretty weird considering Oscar continued shooting in that same ballpark his whole career, which continued into Erving's era.

[Dr Positivity]

Player TS% vs league average eFG

61 Baylor - +.083
62 Baylor - +.066
63 Baylor - +.078
61 Oscar - +.14
63 Oscar - +.147
67 Oscar - +142
76 Erving (vs ABA) - +.081
77 Erving - +.088
80 Erving - +.082
87 Wilkins + .055
90 Wilkins +.067
93 Wilkins +.079

Since league average eFG is usually around .5 now, that basically means Baylor's play out like .56-.58 TS%, Oscar's like .64-.65, Erving's like .58-.59, and Wilkins' .55-.58 (I threw him in because he's basically the best Baylor comparison ever as a scorer), which makes sense with how we rank the players IMO.

I don't like the idea of adjusting TS% for era either, I believe players should be ranked by their skillsets, what I am arguing is that Baylor shouldn't be PUNISHED for his TS% looking poor by modern day standards. We know he plays like Erving and Dominique offensively in that he's a physically overpowering SF who attacks the rim and gets to the line as much. None of them are Durant from the perimeter, but can hit shots. Erving's number is the best and we can probably agree he's the best scorer of the group due to his bball IQ. I can't really justify treating Baylor's efficiency as less impressive than Dominique's though, who's numbers are still respectable. Baylor then is basically Nique with better passing and rebounding IMO. I'm fine with someone being out on Nique-like just above average TS% enough to say "that extra passing and rebounding isn't enough for me to vote for him anytime soon", though

To give an example of why I think the TS% context for Baylor matters, their shots attempts (by FGA + .44*FTA)

61 Baylor - 34.9
76 Erving - 25.8
93 Wilkins - 26.2

So Baylor takes about 9 more shots than either. My take on Baylor is that he looks to take just as many if not more high efficiency shots as Erving and Nique (at the rim/FT line), but the difference in efficiency is that Baylor takes a lot more BAD shots. I think we can assume these 9 extra shots in the above comparison, were seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel shot quality wise and coming up with some grey rotting mold. By punishing Baylor's lower efficiency, it's essentially saying it's his fault for taking these extra bad shots, when it may not have been. Baylor's 2nd and 3rd most efficient players (LaRusso and West) would've ranked would've ranked as the 7th and 10th most efficient players on the 76 Nets, and 10th and 12th most efficient players on the 93 Hawks. In modern day, a player shooting 35 times a game with a < .50 TS% would be bad because his roster is likely full of .54-.60 shooters. But when everyone else on the team is under .50, Baylor taking those shots instead of them probably didn't look so bad

[lorak]

That's not true. Their TS% relatively to league average isn't GOAT level, especially when we include volume. For example +14.4 TS% and 24.1 PPG (Wilt '67) - that's GOAT level efficiency.
(besides, except of two Oscar years, their big efficiency seasons were AFTER peak Baylor we are discussing here...)

And Pettit was much lower volume scorer at the time, so saying he was significantly more efficient (+4.2 TS% vs +2.9 TS%) is simply not fair. Baylor in 1961 (34.8 PPG with +2.9 TS%) as a scorer (efficiency + volume) was close to Kobe '06 (35.4 PPG, +2.4 TS%) or Jordan '87 (37.1 PPG, +2.8 TS%).

Alright I'll clarify:

At the top of their game, West & Oscar were guys scoring at league leading volumes. They did this with edges over league average on the order of 8-10% TS. This puts them on par with Michael Jordan, and puts them well above the Kobe Bryants of the world. If we call what Jordan does GOAT-ish, and Oscar & West pulled off efficiency edges like Jordan, then their efficiency while volume scoring is worthy of the GOAT's standards, aka GOAT-worthy.

Your premises are false.
First of all, Jordan wasn’t scoring at GOAT level. His best TS% relatively to league average is +7.8 in ’89 and ’90 with 32.5 and 33.6 PPG respectively. (and BTW, after 1991 - +6.2 TS% - his efficiency take big hit. +3.7 in 1992, then +2.8 in 1993. After first came back he had only one very good year, but in 1995, 1997 and 1998 he was again much worse)

Second, neither West nor Oscar achieved +10 TS% mark. Robetson’s best season was +9.5 with 28.3 PPG, second best +9.1 with 31.4 PPG and during most of his prime seasons he was between +8-9 TS%. That’s significant difference here. Similar story with West, whose best season was +9.3 with 31 PPG. But overall he was worse than Big O and during most of his prime years he was between +6-7.7 TS%.

Third, GOAT level efficiencies + volume look like that: +14.4 TS% and 24.1 PPG (Wilt), +12.7 TS% and 28.3 PPG (Barkley) or +10.6 TS% and 31.7 PPG (KAJ)

So far as I can tell, the unstated theory here is that efficiency is increasing for reason that have nothing to do with player skill or talent, and the unstated corollary that Baylor would have gotten more impressive in his efficiency if not for the injury. However before the injuries we'd already seen players easily surpass Baylor's efficiency, so I don't see how this thinking makes sense.

Who except Wilt was scoring with Baylor’s volume and surpass him easily in efficiency?! Really Doc, you can't ignore volume here.

We can talk about how much of this efficiency tone deafness is due to tone deaf coaches, but the fact remains that Baylor showed major efficiency issues compared to the other scoring superstars of his day as a baseline, and also showed less ability to improve that efficiency over time. If Baylor wasn't tone deaf, he did a remarkably accurate impression of one possessing that handicap.

(…)
I do understand that the pro-Baylor argument here is resting on the notion that while Baylor eventually was problematic on this front, early on his efficiency was tolerable enough that you couldn't look at it as ridiculously weak. Where I take the biggest issue with this is the fact that I feel like people are adjusting for league efficiency without any particularly good reason. Efficiency was rising like crazy in this era because basketball was getting WAY better.

A player then who looked okay early on but stagnated as competition increased needs to be viewed as someone who dominated in an inferior league. I think it's pretty clear that people are already thinking along these lines when we consider the stars of the '50s, but Baylor is getting immunity on this front, and I don't see why he should.

We don’t really know if league was better or maybe it’s because of rules changes? Or maybe defense was worse and worse and that’s why offensive stats looks better? (in fact some biggest rules changes were done because people wanted to limit bigs domination under the basket – also on defensive end.) Who knows for sure.

Look Doc, your narrative is something like that: “Baylor was inefficient, look how worse he looks than Robertson and West”. Sure, Elgin wasn’t the most efficient player of his generation (the same with KB or Dr J), but he also wasn’t inefficient like Hayes or Iverson (in reality Baylor had only three seasons with TS% below league average…). In fact he was very close to Julius Erving or Kobe Bryant. He was that kind of player when we look at volume + efficiency.

Interesting fact: in 1970, when according to you league was far superior than during early 60s and Baylor can’t adjust, Elgin finally had coach who know how to use him and he played very good season with +2.6 TS% and 24 PPG. That’s better than Greer, Hondo, Bing, Goodrich or bellowed here, prime Billy Cunningham.

[fatal9]

Discussion about McHale inspired me to finish up this video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdtgUOiWHJg[/youtube]

These were his main one on one scoring weapons. Pretty much unguardable at his peak due to the combination of long arms, amazing foot work and maybe unrivaled touch around the basket. So many moves to evade doubles (can turn away from them with the baseline hook or fadeaway without putting the ball on the floor or outright fake them out), the only defense is to literally sandwich him with two defenders before he gets the ball. I really think he would be amazing in a "4 around 1" system like Hakeem had, Duncan to an extent and Dwight had with the Magic. His passing and feel for the defense is really underrated (especially from '86-'88), way too much is made of the "black hole" joke by Ainge (at the end of the '86 season he actually took back the comment and noted McHale's improved passing). In his early years I'd agree with that assessment but not in '86-'88, he was part of some of the greatest passing teams ever, used to make some phenomenal passes and was competent at using defensive attention to create looks for teammates (it's just his role was to score and double teaming couldn't slow him down, he was efficient against any type of defense thrown at him).

Lot of people don't realize but he was actually the leading scorer for the Celtics in 1987 for most of the year, up until middle of March to be exact (this is in a year Bird had one of his highest scoring seasons). From end of Jan to middle March he had a stretch of scoring 28.6 ppg on 67% shooting, 82% from the line and overall 71 TS%. He broke the bone in his foot at the end of March against the Bulls. Was still doing work in the playoffs but defensively he had clearly lost a step. In my personal list I have '87 as his peak and overlook the freak injury, but for this project I would rather vote for '86 over '88. Much better on defense, missed just as many games, a bit more polished offensively in '88 but doesn't make up for the defense to me (he was still a good defender in '88 but in '86 he was great, had much better foot speed). His in/out is better in '88 only because peak Bird did some crazzzzy GOAT level things offensively when he was out in '86. In '86 he arguably the greatest playoff run by a second option ever. He was amazing in the '88 playoffs too but didn't have enough help. They probably get swept if he doesn't make a three to send game two to overtime, but Celtics had lot of nagging injuries to the starters, a dreadful bench and Bird had a horrific shooting series. He was the only one who showed up and kept the Celtics from getting embarrassed.

[C-izMe]

Fatal might be the MVP of this project do far. Even if you disagree with where he places players his posts have been great. That being said, great post fatal9.


Also do you think McHale really got that much worse in 88. To me it seems they just focused on offense more. His perceived defensive drop could just be a strategy shift.

[Doctor MJ]

Player TS% vs league average eFG

61 Baylor - +.083
62 Baylor - +.066
63 Baylor - +.078
61 Oscar - +.14
63 Oscar - +.147
67 Oscar - +142
76 Erving (vs ABA) - +.081
77 Erving - +.088
80 Erving - +.082
87 Wilkins + .055
90 Wilkins +.067
93 Wilkins +.079

Since league average eFG is usually around .5 now, that basically means Baylor's play out like .56-.58 TS%, Oscar's like .64-.65, Erving's like .58-.59, and Wilkins' .55-.58 (I threw him in because he's basically the best Baylor comparison ever as a scorer), which makes sense with how we rank the players IMO.

I don't like the idea of adjusting TS% for era either, I believe players should be ranked by their skillsets, what I am arguing is that Baylor shouldn't be PUNISHED for his TS% looking poor by modern day standards. We know he plays like Erving and Dominique offensively in that he's a physically overpowering SF who attacks the rim and gets to the line as much. None of them are Durant from the perimeter, but can hit shots. Erving's number is the best and we can probably agree he's the best scorer of the group due to his bball IQ. I can't really justify treating Baylor's efficiency as less impressive than Dominique's though, who's numbers are still respectable. Baylor then is basically Nique with better passing and rebounding IMO. I'm fine with someone being out on Nique-like just above average TS% enough to say "that extra passing and rebounding isn't enough for me to vote for him anytime soon", though

To give an example of why I think the TS% context for Baylor matters, their shots attempts (by FGA + .44*FTA)

61 Baylor - 34.9
76 Erving - 25.8
93 Wilkins - 26.2

So Baylor takes about 9 more shots than either. My take on Baylor is that he looks to take just as many if not more high efficiency shots as Erving and Nique (at the rim/FT line), but the difference in efficiency is that Baylor takes a lot more BAD shots. I think we can assume these 9 extra shots in the above comparison, were seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel shot quality wise and coming up with some grey rotting mold. By punishing Baylor's lower efficiency, it's essentially saying it's his fault for taking these extra bad shots, when it may not have been. Baylor's 2nd and 3rd most efficient players (LaRusso and West) would've ranked would've ranked as the 7th and 10th most efficient players on the 76 Nets, and 10th and 12th most efficient players on the 93 Hawks. In modern day, a player shooting 35 times a game with a < .50 TS% would be bad because his roster is likely full of .54-.60 shooters. But when everyone else on the team is under .50, Baylor taking those shots instead of them probably didn't look so bad

Okay, so your answer helps me understand things a bit better.

You're basically saying, "Hey, he's the same type of player as these other guys, just earlier on. When I see players I can not distinguish playing in different eras and having very different results, I'm not going to assume the guy who looks worse by absolute standards actually was worse." Along with this you're focusing on the similarities in how they separated themselves from contemporaries and seeing them all be similar.

This makes some sense. Where I differ:

1) I'm not comfortable equating guys with similar styles as roughly equal players when I see significant differences in effectiveness.

2) More importantly, it feels to me like people are talking about Baylor as if dragged a nothing team to greatness, and that's not how I see it at all.

I see an offense using a hyper-dominant super-volume scorer model which isn't working (2nd worst offense in the league in '61) which had a losing record in the regular season, and whose only claim to real playoff success is that they gave a better team a tough series.

We can of course debate whether Baylor's teammates were so weak that this kind of mediocre success was truly very noteworthy, but then we have to factor in that in the next year, Baylor plays 1000 less minutes and this coincides with the Lakers emerging as a truly dangerous offensive team.

So what I see with Baylor is a guy not having really that much impact on his team in his peak, and I have a real hard time then saying "But in another era, he wouldn't be an impact-less superstar, he'd really be having impact because other super-athletes were having impact."

Re: look at how much more Baylor shot, it's hard to be efficient when you do that. So don't do that. So much of my issue with Baylor is that I don't think his shot taking ever was based on what his offense truly needed from him.

[Doctor MJ]

Your premises are false.
First of all, Jordan wasn’t scoring at GOAT level. His best TS% relatively to league average is +7.8 in ’89 and ’90 with 32.5 and 33.6 PPG respectively. (and BTW, after 1991 - +6.2 TS% - his efficiency take big hit. +3.7 in 1992, then +2.8 in 1993. After first came back he had only one very good year, but in 1995, 1997 and 1998 he was again much worse)

Second, neither West nor Oscar achieved +10 TS% mark. Robetson’s best season was +9.5 with 28.3 PPG, second best +9.1 with 31.4 PPG and during most of his prime seasons he was between +8-9 TS%. That’s significant difference here. Similar story with West, whose best season was +9.3 with 31 PPG. But overall he was worse than Big O and during most of his prime years he was between +6-7.7 TS%.

Third, GOAT level efficiencies + volume look like that: +14.4 TS% and 24.1 PPG (Wilt), +12.7 TS% and 28.3 PPG (Barkley) or +10.6 TS% and 31.7 PPG (KAJ)

I'm a little perplexed that I have to clarify that I consider efficiency-deviation on the order of Jordan GOAT-worthy deviation.

Jordan is the GOAT scorer, therefore deviation equaling his is worthy of the GOAT. That's all I mean.

I also can't believe that you took issue with me giving an 8-10 deviation range for Oscar & West, because they never actually hit the 10 mark and had non-peak years below that deviation range. Of course they didn't break the 10 mark, that's why it was the top end of the range I gave, and of course they had non-peak years below the deviation range.

You're spending so much energy trying to poke wholes in this stuff, but the basic point is still obvious: Oscar & West were FAR more efficient than Baylor.

So far as I can tell, the unstated theory here is that efficiency is increasing for reason that have nothing to do with player skill or talent, and the unstated corollary that Baylor would have gotten more impressive in his efficiency if not for the injury. However before the injuries we'd already seen players easily surpass Baylor's efficiency, so I don't see how this thinking makes sense.

Who except Wilt was scoring with Baylor’s volume and surpass him easily in efficiency?! Really Doc, you can't ignore volume here.

Right, right, so Baylor's drastically inferior efficiency is irrelevant because he shot so damn much that we can't compare him to anyone in history except Wilt...who we know wasn't accomplishing much at all when he scored at higher volume & efficiency than Baylor.

More than anything else I suppose, I take issue with the notion that volume is itself a degree of difficulty accomplishment that forgives efficiency. I don't see any indications that you should want to run a team through a scorer like this even if he's pretty efficient, and when you do see signs of inefficiency and an overall offensive efficiency that is just bad, then all of this is just talking about something that's not working.

We don’t really know if league was better or maybe it’s because of rules changes? Or maybe defense was worse and worse and that’s why offensive stats looks better? (in fact some biggest rules changes were done because people wanted to limit bigs domination under the basket – also on defensive end.) Who knows for sure.

Eh, this isn't really a "God only knows" situation. There's room for debate relating to the exact timeline, but between the founding of the NBA and now players have gotten MUCH better.

Presumably you acknowledge that from Mikan's retirement to Baylor's prime roughly a half decade later there was a major improvement, else it's hard to imagine why you wouldn't be championing Mikan right about now. I don't disagree with you at all here, but certainly Mikan was after all a far more dominant force than Baylor if we just talk about success vs contemporaries.

So then, huge improvement from '55 to '60, which correlates with major improvements to offensive success that continue on after Baylor's peak...to me the idea that it's perfectly plausible that NBA improvement stopped with Baylor's peak is just too naive to take seriously. I'd feel much more comfortable is someone truly used a pure contemporary domination approach that only starts this approach a decade after the NBA starts.

Look Doc, your narrative is something like that: “Baylor was inefficient, look how worse he looks than Robertson and West”. Sure, Elgin wasn’t the most efficient player of his generation (the same with KB or Dr J), but he also wasn’t inefficient like Hayes or Iverson (in reality Baylor had only three seasons with TS% below league average…). In fact he was very close to Julius Erving or Kobe Bryant. He was that kind of player when we look at volume + efficiency.

Interesting fact: in 1970, when according to you league was far superior than during early 60s and Baylor can’t adjust, Elgin finally had coach who know how to use him and he played very good season with +2.6 TS% and 24 PPG. That’s better than Greer, Hondo, Bing, Goodrich or bellowed here, prime Billy Cunningham.

The most noteworthy thing to me is that you list 7 other players to compare Baylor favorably to, and none of these players are being talked about as serious candidates at this time. Many of them will not get any serious play in this project period at all in fact.

I mean, Hondo & Cunningham will probably get some love eventually, but both guys are revered precisely because they brought so much intelligence to areas other than scoring, and in scoring, when it was time for them to pass the damn ball to the superior scorer, they actually did it. It's not supposed to be a question whether those guys were in the same ballpark as Baylor as scorers.

[lorak]

[Oscar & West were FAR more efficient than Baylor.

And far more efficient than Kobe, Dr J, Hakeem, Malone or even Jordan and Shaq. So what?

You missed the point Doc - what matters is Baylor was efficient scorer.

Presumably you acknowledge that from Mikan's retirement to Baylor's prime roughly a half decade later there was a major improvement, else it's hard to imagine why you wouldn't be championing Mikan right about now.

In fact I was always championing Mikan during realGM projects, but most realGMers don't, so I stopped doing it because it's pointless.

So then, huge improvement from '55 to '60, which correlates with major improvements to offensive success that continue on after Baylor's peak..

Rules changes...

Look Doc, your narrative is something like that: “Baylor was inefficient, look how worse he looks than Robertson and West”. Sure, Elgin wasn’t the most efficient player of his generation (the same with KB or Dr J), but he also wasn’t inefficient like Hayes or Iverson (in reality Baylor had only three seasons with TS% below league average…). In fact he was very close to Julius Erving or Kobe Bryant. He was that kind of player when we look at volume + efficiency.

Interesting fact: in 1970, when according to you league was far superior than during early 60s and Baylor can’t adjust, Elgin finally had coach who know how to use him and he played very good season with +2.6 TS% and 24 PPG. That’s better than Greer, Hondo, Bing, Goodrich or bellowed here, prime Billy Cunningham.

The most noteworthy thing to me is that you list 7 other players to compare Baylor favorably to, and none of these players are being talked about as serious candidates at this time. Many of them will not get any serious play in this project period at all in fact.

You missed the point. These 7 players are know scorers and that's why I compared them do 35 year old Baylor. Besides it proves you are wrong saying about Baylor's low bb IQ, because he can't adjust. With proper coach he adjusted without problems.

But overall I compared Baylor to Julius Erving, who was of course better defender, but Baylor was similar scorer and better playmaker.

[SDChargers#1]

Vote: 1961 Elgin Baylor

[Doctor MJ]

[Oscar & West were FAR more efficient than Baylor.

And far more efficient than Kobe, Dr J, Hakeem, Malone or even Jordan and Shaq. So what?

You missed the point Doc - what matters is Baylor was efficient scorer.

Whether I am missing your point or not, you most certainly are missing mine here.

"So what?"..but Oscar & West WERE NOT far more efficient than Jordan or Shaq. That's the point. Your rules, when applied across the board, not only make Baylor's efficiency look adequate but make other guys look like GOATs who shouldn't. Your system is not coherent.

Presumably you acknowledge that from Mikan's retirement to Baylor's prime roughly a half decade later there was a major improvement, else it's hard to imagine why you wouldn't be championing Mikan right about now.

In fact I was always championing Mikan during realGM projects, but most realGMers don't, so I stopped doing it because it's pointless.

Okay, I take my statement back. If you're only championing Baylor because you think others will accept him more easily than Mikan, then I understand both your viewpoint and your strategy, I just don't agree with it obviously.

So then, huge improvement from '55 to '60, which correlates with major improvements to offensive success that continue on after Baylor's peak..

Rules changes...

When a sport goes from being played almost completely as an amateur sport to developing into a multi-billion dollar industry that let's you become an icon to the entire world, the talent pool you draw from gets much, much bigger. This has to be factored in when looking at the stars throughout the ages, if you want to understand which players were truly the greatest talents.

You missed the point. These 7 players are know scorers and that's why I compared them do 35 year old Baylor. Besides it proves you are wrong saying about Baylor's low bb IQ, because he can't adjust. With proper coach he adjusted without problems.

But overall I compared Baylor to Julius Erving, who was of course better defender, but Baylor was similar scorer and better playmaker.

Again, I might be missing your point, but your are clearly missing mine as well. You defending Baylor by comparing him to Allen Iverson doesn't do a lot for me given that I don't think much of Iverson.

I get though that you're saying "even old man Baylor could do this", implying peak Baylor could have done much more, but old man Baylor's entire virtue here is that he stopped shooting the bad shots so much as became more of a tertiary member of the team and his energy sagged. How is that relevant to his peak play?

It'd be one thing if you could say, "He adjusted and played a hugely valuable new role when that was what his team needed" a la Oscar, but the team did basically fine without him in this role and only really exploded the year he retired.

[Doctor MJ]

Last few minutes, current tally:

Baylor '61 4 (PTB, ardee, DS, SDChargers)
Howard '11 3 (Doc, fatal, ElGee)
McHale '88 2 (realbig, bast)

Howard '09 (Dr P)
McHale '87 (C-izeMe)
Durant '12 (Lightining)
Barry '75 (JB)