RealGM Top 100 list #33

[Clyde Frazier]

Interesting seeing the praise for miller by some earlier than expected in contrast with us knicks fans always being accused of overrating him because of the rivalry. He had a similar mindset to kidd in his competitive nature and "do whatever it takes to get an edge" style. His scoring efficiency on reasonable volume is impressive. Where i'd actually rank him comes down to looking at his entire skill set, and how that translated to his impact on the court.

[Basketballefan]

Interesting seeing the praise for miller by some earlier than expected in contrast with us knicks fans always being accused of overrating him because of the rivalry. He had a similar mindset to kidd in his competitive nature and "do whatever it takes to get an edge" style. His scoring efficiency on reasonable volume is impressive. Where i'd actually rank him comes down to looking at his entire skill set, and how that translated to his impact on the court.

Thing about Miller is, he's entirely one dimensional. He cannot rebound or get assists at an acceptable level. I do not know much about his defense but I'm aware he's not elite by any means.

[Laimbeer]

In terms of historical (published) rankings, Baylor is clearly the highest guy left. His average ranking is 11.47058824 with lowest rankings (highest number) of 15 (Book of Basketball paperback) and 16 (100 Greatest Basketball Players). Next is Cousy average 19.6875. Not saying we should follow this just putting something out there for discussion so I'm contributing something.

Do you have a link to these rankings and how they are making up the average?

[ronnymac2]

Still deciding on Isiah, Baylor, and KD. The Baylor arguments are persuasive; great research guys!

[Doctor MJ]

little Reggie Miller talk since his name has started popping up.

He has longevity which I value, but much like Paul Pierce this is a guy who was never a top 5 player and rarely even a top 10 player. But I noticed ElGee mentioned that he thought Miller had 14 all-star level seasons which for simplicity's sake I'll call top 30 seasons. And I was curious to see if I agreed with that notion.

Just from a quick glimpse, I can't find 14. 88 as rookie, he clearly isn't and it's hard for me to see that in 89 either. He's very efficient, but not enough productivity nor defense for me. Then if I skip to the end of his career, 02-05 don't appear to be that level either. So the most I can see would be 1990-2001 which is still impressive of course.

The question tho for me is what do I make of such a long run of offensive quality, but without any elite offensive seasons and without a level of defense to really bump him up. It seems like voting him in here is simply saying I think efficiency trumps most everything else, and I think this project has already started poking some holes in that notion.

Good player for a really long time and he does have some big playoff heroics many of which involve the Knicks plus the Spike Lee stuff which romantizes him, but I really just don't see a case for him this high.

Well first, just really simplistically.

Typically a season of 8 Win Shares or better will put you in the top 30 in the league. Reggie had 14 of those seasons. So just on that, it's easy to make a case for him to be all-star-ish for 14 years. The normal caveat of course applies - WS aren't the Holy Grail - but for anyone looking at Reggie's all-star appearances, and wondering where all the rest come from, you don't need any kind of fancy footwork to find an objective measurement that gets him to that number.

I personally don't know if I'd give him 14 years, but I think the key thing is just Reggie got only the accolades he did because his box score made him only any kind of lock if the Pacers were catching the league's attention in a big way, and that's not how he should have been seen.

I think ElGee did a better job of analyzing Reggie than I'm likely to do here, but going a bit more into it:

The guy I often contrast Reggie with is Nique. Nique is typically seen as a much more impressive scorer, but that notion is based entirely on the notion that scoring at volume is the paramount goal of a scorer. But it isn't. The goal is always just to do something that helps make your team's offense work, and the thing is, if playing off-ball like Reggie did is one of those things that really helps lubricate the rest of the offense. The defense having to worry about Reggie causes distortion constantly and exhaustion eventually. It's a really, really smart thing to include in your offense if you can...whereas relying on a more classic volume scorer often isn't really a strategic choice at all. More of a default setting, and it shows: It can so easily let the defense relax and let the offense get passive.

All of that exist for Ray Allen, and it's why he's a lock for Hall, and in general seen as a candidate for the Top 50. Bottom line is that a guy like that, who let's you use this lubricating role so well, doesn't come along that often.

But Miller's more than Allen on this front. He's better at losing his man, he's better at taking off balanced shots when he gets open, and he's crafty as a mofo at drawing fouls. All of this makes him a tier better as a player on a day in day out basis, but it's even bigger than that given what we've seen of him in crunch time.

In general you'd expect a player with high efficiency and only middling volume to be getting that efficiency through caution in some sense. If forced to really take more shots, his efficiency would fall off rapidly. But of course that's not what happened with Reggie. Reggie was known for exploding when his team needed him. When the rest of the offense truly did get frozen, he would just keep moving around until he could get an opening. Hence the thing limiting his volume in more normal location was simply how successful his teammates were...which itself was allowed in part by the space he created. Up the pressure on them, and you might chip away at their effectiveness in spite of the help he was giving, but that only made it make more sense to rely on Reggie repeatedly, and he delivered.

All of this is mushy stuff though. I understand, that if you start from traditional view of stats mixed with the accolades he got, trying to narrative-up Reggie to the degree this is as perceived as being is bound to make the argument fall short. I really don't expect to convince people Reggie should rank this high, but it is how I see him.

[john248]

My official vote is for Reggie Miller. He doesn't have an awesome peak. He's as 1-dimensional as it gets being a off-ball shooter, however he was so effective in that single dimension which helped the team. Defense is mediocre though at least understood rotations and put in effort. The argument for him is mainly how consistent he was over the course of his long career scoring between 18-20 ppg at high percentages. Much has already been said on the PC board about Miller's ability to rise in the postseason with some quotes below. Very competitive and a high IQ player.

Due to his off-ball ability, he can play in any offense. Being able to work off screens and run across the court puts a ton of pressure on the defense, and Miller was the best at doing so. While he had comparatively low scoring volume in comparison to other legit 1st options in the RS, Miller did score more in the post season when needed. He was also able to maintain his efficiency while doing so against great defenses of the time. His RS season high is 24.6 ppg, but he averaged more than that 4 times in the post season while having other post seasons fairly close. He wasn't doing this in just a series or 2, but rather over the course of his post season career; no serious sample size issue here. And of course, we're talking about a very clutch player with some rather famous moments. He's able to hit those clutch shots because his shooting is at that elite level. So whether that shot comes closing the game, or the shots come over the course of the 4th quarter, elimination game, a series, or a playoff run, the consistency is rather remarkable. And at how high level it is, more so.

The thing is, Reggie can create his own shot, he just needs screens. Per the rules of the sport, EVERY player in the NBA can set screens for him, and he runs off those screens better than maybe anyone ever. So he's simply not using his dribble to create the shot with bouncing the ball (threat of a drive) and a quick pullup move getting the shot-release high-enough over a defender...instead he's using speed/quickness without the ball to create this kind of shooting space by running his defender through an obstacle course of obstructions.

It is my belief, having watched his career fairly closely and having analyzed it quite a bit, that this is why his offensive game was essentially "resistant" to any kind of defense. (And, NB, the Pacers offense as a whole was too by extension -- Miller's spacing and attention HELPED all the other players.) It doesn't matter if you have a great defensive scheme, or great individual defenders, no one can run through screens, and everyone has a hard time adjusting to that MANY screens when the guy running off them is (a) super smart and crafty and (b) a GOAT-level shooter.

Literally, just about the only time I can remember Reggie being defended well in a series is by the 98 Bulls, and there you had Phil Jackson's philosophy of taking away the opponent's 3 coupled with two of the GOAT perimeter defenders.

Miller is also a better defender than Richmond IMO. Position (draws charges), feisty, smart...look at his results against the top SG's of the 90's or how well the Pacers defended them -- people might find this surprising. He was an underrated defender.

Elimination games 91-02: 25.4 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.8 TOpg, 62.2% TS

Miller time baby!
http://www.backpicks.com/2011/12/02/mil ... n-offense/

Elgee's post is very interesting. shows you that Reggie was anchoring some amazing playoff offenses despite playing vs high level defenses all the time (Pacers played Knicks 35 times in the playoffs!).

Here are some of Reggie's series:

1993 vs NYK's "GOAT defense", 31.5/3/3 on 69% TS
1994 vs Shaq/Penny, 29/3/4 on 68% TS
1994 vs NYK's "GOAT defense", 25/2/5 on 58% TS
1995 vs NYK's "GOAT defense", 23/4/3 on 58% TS
1995 vs Shaq/Penny 26/3/1 on 67% TS
1998 vs NYK's "GOAT defense", 25/2/1 on 61% TS
1998 vs Jordan/Pippen, 17/2/2 on 58% TS
2000 vs Sixers, 26/2/3 on 67% TS
2000 vs NYK, 22/2/2 on 56% TS
2000 vs Lakers, 24/3/4 on 59% TS
2001 vs Sixers, 31/3/2.5 on 61% TS
2002 vs Nets, 24/3/3 on 63% TS

Generally, when Pacers lost, it was because of their defense. Meanwhile Reggie's improvement as an individual coincided with Pacers team improvement...and they improved to all-time levels basically. It's not like Reggie's supporting cast was stacked offensively. Smits was solid post presence, and Mark Jackson was a good point guard, but many great players had better supporting cast players (Drexler, Penny, Kemp, Stockton & Hornacek) and couldn't anchor similarly effective playoff offenses.

So was Reggie Miller 2nd best offensive player of the 90s ?

Stats per/100 ... Seasons past 1st round in prime.
94 30.7/4.1/4.8, 63.6% TS, 123 ORTG, .212 ws/48
playoffs 35.2/3.5/4.6, 58.1% TS, 120 ORTG, .236 ws/48

95 31.8/4.2/4.8, 62.5% TS, 123 ORTG, .204 ws/48
playoffs 37.3/5.2/3.1, 63.2% TS, 125 ORTG, .197 ws48

98 30.8/4.5/3.3, 61.9% TS, 121 ORTG, .206 ws/48
playoffs 28.6/2.5/2.9, 58.8% TS, 116 ORTG, .151 ws/48

99 28.6/4.2/3.5, 59% TS, 119 ORTG, .172 ws/48
playoffs 30.3/4.4/5.9, 55.5% TS, 117 ORTG, .188 ws/48

00 25.4/4.1/3.2, 60.3 %TS, 118 ORTG, .162 ws/48
playoffs 31.9/3.2/3.6, 59.6% TS, 122 ORTG, .195 ws/48

[Doctor MJ]

Thing about Miller is, he's entirely one dimensional. He cannot rebound or get assists at an acceptable level. I do not know much about his defense but I'm aware he's not elite by any means.

I held off saying some other stuff in my last post because it made sense to address it here.

The tyranny of the quantifiable manifests itself in many ways in basketball but two of them go directly against Miller:

1. I have a huge fetish for playmakers, and I hold Miller below the very best of that lot...but on the whole assists associated with scorers don't reflect actual playmaking impact. Somebody's going to get assists. I'd rather it be someone whose truly great at it, and so typically I'd rather have my lead scorer in Miller's role than in the on ball role.

You name the scorer in history. I'm probably calling him a guy getting the offense's damn way, and yet when we look at the box score, Miller looks like he's "one-dimensional" compared to these guys mucking it all up.

2. Some roles produce stats, some don't. Miller running around the perimeter is an actual role. It's not something he's doing to avoid rebounding. He accomplishes a bunch of great things while he does this...including produce more space which makes it easier to get offensive rebounds. To compare him to another guy and treat him as if he's doing nothing while the other guys does something real, is to completely go about things backwards.

So, 3 big ways to accumulate stats on offense:

Scoring, in which Reggie looks phenomenally impressive to me. People point out the smaller volume, but as I've pointed out, that isn't actually a bad thing.

Assists...which is a relevant thing, if you're comparing Reggie to truly great playmaker, but only then.

Rebounds...which Reggie's valuable role is completely orthogonal.

So this is how I see Reggie. I don't see a guy with questionably weak stats. I see him as a guy playing a scoring role on an all-time great level.

Now look, obviously there are still limitations here. I'm not putting Reggie up there with Jordan and it's not close...but I don't see Reggie as someone doing one thing while everyone else is doing a bunch of things. He plays a very valuable role with vastly greater effectiveness than most teams can even dream of getting someone to do.

[trex_8063]

Looking at baylor's passing ability is pretty interesting

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsNZMuNl6ko&list=UUFfDF7oCw7sVL7PzEg57E4g[/youtube]

Since we don't have TO data, it's hard to figure how much of the flashy passing was a negative. I'm really impressed with his court vision, though.

Thanks for this vid. I know it's just a highlight reel (meant to showcase the good), but I agree: very impressed with his court vision. There are more than a handful of really nice passes in transition and/or great outlet passes; and a few very precise passes in traffic, too. idk, perhaps an under-appreciated aspect of his game.

[trex_8063]

In terms of historical (published) rankings, Baylor is clearly the highest guy left. His average ranking is 11.47058824 with lowest rankings (highest number) of 15 (Book of Basketball paperback) and 16 (100 Greatest Basketball Players). Next is Cousy average 19.6875. Not saying we should follow this just putting something out there for discussion so I'm contributing something.

Do you have a link to these rankings and how they are making up the average?

I don't have all the info he's referring to, but other indicators along the same vein....

2008 RealGM PC forum: #21
2011 RealGM PC forum: #26
2009 Slam Magazine top 50 rank: #11
2011 Slam Magazine top 500 rank: #12
Bill Simmon's The Book of Basketball (2010) rank: #15
2012/13 InsideHoops.com top 100 rank: #19
Current http://www.ranker.com all-time rank: #25

[trex_8063]

Am enjoying the arguments for Reggie. He was my favorite player when young (I took the #31 in highschool for that reason). I nonetheless generally don't really have him on my radar just yet, but I'm finding the discussion interesting.

[FJS]

My vote goes to Elgin Baylor.
Dude had monster numbers comparable to wilt (of course Wilt’s were sicker)
He was elite for his entire carreer. Sure he wasn't the most efficient player and had not the best longevity but he had 12 or 13 seasons of superstar still playing with the logo.

[penbeast0]

Gary Payton -- penbeast0

Jason Kidd -- Doctor MJ, Chuck Texas

Isiah Thomas -- JordansBulls

Elgin Baylor -- trex_8063, Basketballefan, Clyde Frazier, Warspite, Jim Naismith

Reggie Miller -- john248

[RSCD3_]

Vote for Kevin Durant

Second highest peak on the board

3 time MVP runner up

MVP over prime LeBron

Led his team to the finals in only his 5th year by beating the only 3 WCF champions since 1999 going 12-4

Great scoring finals 30+ ppg on 55 % shooting, he was one dimensional but that one dimension is just so good as that was against a top Miami defense

Elite scorer more valuable in that department than anyone left on this list ( English, Baylor or Gervin )

Underrated man defender because of length and long space eating strides

GOAT Level month of January - probably a top 8 month of all time ( RS )

Played 7 years but 5.5 seasons of high impact and 4 near MVP or MVP level seasons

Arguably highest peak left, and the only other contender had only around 3 impact seasons (Walton)




Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[DQuinn1575]

Durant has been the #2 player in the league the last 5 years, he is second in win shares over the last 6.

I think his peak is much higher than anyone left, save Walton and Baylor.

Walton obviously has longevity - and will be behind the other 2 at least.

I think Durant has peaked higher than Elgin, and Elgin's longevity isn't enough to beat out Durant.
Right now I'm leaning toward Elgin as next best after Durant.

VOTE FOR KEVIN DURANT

[The Infamous1]

Interesting seeing the praise for miller by some earlier than expected in contrast with us knicks fans always being accused of overrating him because of the rivalry. He had a similar mindset to kidd in his competitive nature and "do whatever it takes to get an edge" style. His scoring efficiency on reasonable volume is impressive. Where i'd actually rank him comes down to looking at his entire skill set, and how that translated to his impact on the court.

Thing about Miller is, he's entirely one dimensional. He cannot rebound or get assists at an acceptable level. I do not know much about his defense but I'm aware he's not elite by any means.

Only thing he did at an above average level was shoot. He was below average to terrible at defense, ballhandling, playmaking, rebounding and wasnt great at creating his own shot.

The revisionist history on his career is amazing. You actually have people who think he was superstar, all because of some highlights against the Knicks in the playoffs

[Texas Chuck]

I'm normally against these types of response, but I couldn't figure out a better way, so....

Typically a season of 8 Win Shares or better will put you in the top 30 in the league. Reggie had 14 of those seasons. So just on that, it's easy to make a case for him to be all-star-ish for 14 years. The normal caveat of course applies - WS aren't the Holy Grail - but for anyone looking at Reggie's all-star appearances, and wondering where all the rest come from, you don't need any kind of fancy footwork to find an objective measurement that gets him to that number.

Yeah Win Shares just isn't an argument that resonates with me. I think its too easy to pick and choose which players to use it to promote while ignoring it when it doesn't showcase a player one likes. That said I wasn't accusing ElGee of fancy footwork in regards to getting Miller 14 all-star level seasons, but simply pointing I out I thought he had a couple less. I could care less how many times he was actually named an all-star and I think he has excellent longevity.

The guy I often contrast Reggie with is Nique. Nique is typically seen as a much more impressive scorer, but that notion is based entirely on the notion that scoring at volume is the paramount goal of a scorer. But it isn't. The goal is always just to do something that helps make your team's offense work, and the thing is, if playing off-ball like Reggie did is one of those things that really helps lubricate the rest of the offense. The defense having to worry about Reggie causes distortion constantly and exhaustion eventually. It's a really, really smart thing to include in your offense if you can...whereas relying on a more classic volume scorer often isn't really a strategic choice at all. More of a default setting, and it shows: It can so easily let the defense relax and let the offense get passive.

I'm confused why you felt the need to include this in response to me. I'm pretty sure I have made a total of zero posts in this project promoting a player based primarily on scoring volume. It should be obvious that the primary goal for any player is to win the game and if we want to break down a little further, the goal of any player on offense should be to get the team the best shot possible within the constraints of the team's talent, the defense they are facing, the shot clock etc. I don't disagree with that at all. Sometimes that requires a player to score at volume--AI, Kobe come immediately to mind at various points in their career. Other times it doesn't--the Spurs are a great example of this. But to make blanket statements about it allowing the defense to relax or the offense to get passive--I can't get behind that. This certainly never came up when talking about Mike and certainly opposing defenses didn't relax.

I think Nique brings some things to the table that Miller doesn't that make them reasonably close as overall players, but sure I think Miller is a better offensive player.

All of that exist for Ray Allen, and it's why he's a lock for Hall, and in general seen as a candidate for the Top 50. Bottom line is that a guy like that, who let's you use this lubricating role so well, doesn't come along that often.

But Miller's more than Allen on this front. He's better at losing his man, he's better at taking off balanced shots when he gets open, and he's crafty as a mofo at drawing fouls. All of this makes him a tier better as a player on a day in day out basis, but it's even bigger than that given what we've seen of him in crunch time.

Im not prepared at all to suggest that Miller is a tier above Ray Allen. I think we saw Ray Allen have to do more things because he played on some teams super dependent on him. And he showed quite capable of doing so. Then when he got to be more part of an ensemble like Miller did for much of his career, he was extremely effective in a reduced-volume off ball role. And again while Reggie's crunch moments tend to involve the Knicks and MSG and thus seem larger than life, I'm not sure he has that many more moments than Ray. I'd want to do more evaluation of both guys, but Ray Allen is also really really good.

In general you'd expect a player with high efficiency and only middling volume to be getting that efficiency through caution in some sense. If forced to really take more shots, his efficiency would fall off rapidly. But of course that's not what happened with Reggie. Reggie was known for exploding when his team needed him. When the rest of the offense truly did get frozen, he would just keep moving around until he could get an opening. Hence the thing limiting his volume in more normal location was simply how successful his teammates were...which itself was allowed in part by the space he created. Up the pressure on them, and you might chip away at their effectiveness in spite of the help he was giving, but that only made it make more sense to rely on Reggie repeatedly, and he delivered.

Sure. I agree with this. Reggie played within the team concept and didn't force things and was absolutely helping to create better opportunities for his teammates. And when the situation called for it, he would put the team on his figurative back. He was without question a very good offensive player.

[SactoKingsFan]

I'll vote for Payton over Kidd. Although Kidd is the better facilitator and rebounder, I prefer Payton since he’s a much more capable/efficient scorer, at least comparable as a defender, clearly peaked higher, had the more impressive 10 year prime and very good longevity.

Vote: Gary Payton

[trex_8063]

Gary Payton (2)-- penbeast0, SactoKingsFan

Jason Kidd (3)-- Doctor MJ, Chuck Texas, PCProductions

Isiah Thomas (2)-- JordansBulls, ronnymac2

Elgin Baylor (6) -- trex_8063, Basketballefan, Clyde Frazier, Warspite, Jim Naismith, FJS

Reggie Miller (1)-- john248

Kevin Durant (2)--RSCD3_, DQuinn1575

Corrected count, thru post #39.

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Isiah Thomas

I saw that adding a vote for Thomas would mean a 4-way tie for second place and figured I'd make things harder for everyone. It'd be funny.

Real reasoning...24-10 playoff PG over 4 years, and then started getting to NBA Finals. One of the finest 7-year point guard primes that there is.

The inefficiency doesn't bother me much for such a creative force. Look at Russell Westbrook. IIRC, his O-RAPM surprised a lot of people by ranking highly. I think Isiah would be the same way.

[PCProductions]

Vote: Jason Kidd

I like drza's breakdown of his team-to-team impact and I think his success is undeniable. He's one of the few true great two-way PG's and I think his game is so unique that's hard to measure his style without advanced stats. The advanced stuff speaks highly on him, and I love his versatile game.

He's led his team to back-to-back Finals, won a ring late in his career as a key member and refined his game as he aged.