RealGM Top 100 List #36

[john248]

Can anyone do a comparison between Zo, Deke, Reed, and Dwight?

[RSCD3_]

Also in case anyone wants to know who has the highest PER left since win shares has been used a lot
...
15. George Gervin 21.38 *
...
*PER lowered when combined with NBA

I was pretty sure you were wrong on this so I looked it up on B-R.com.

George Gervin PER in ABA 20.3
George Gervin PER in NBA 21.7

So no, his PER is not lowered when combined with NBA

I meant that his ABA career had the lower PER, awkward phrasing on my part


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[DQuinn1575]

Broken record time -

I feel Durant's peak is much higher than anyone (other than Walton) 's left - 2nd best player in league over a five year span - most everyone else being considered here were rarely in the Top 5.

There is a huge difference between Top 2 and Top 10.

Vote Kevin Durant

[Notanoob]

I am personally a bit surprised not to see more support for Tracy McGrady here, given the support that Durant has received. I understand it, but I am surprised to see that he hasn't been brought up very much.

Durant and Payton are my two favorites here. It's hard to compare them because they are very different as players. However, I am pretty confident that they're a notch above the remaining options.

[RSCD3_]

I am personally a bit surprised not to see more support for Tracy McGrady here, given the support that Durant has received. I understand it, but I am surprised to see that he hasn't been brought up very much.

Durant and Payton are my two favorites here. It's hard to compare them because they are very different as players. However, I am pretty confident that they're a notch above the remaining options.

Some things people are probably considering

Although he has 400 plus games he only leads Durant by 9 win shares, the took a while to get going and played games after he was a shell of himself, not to mention the constant injuries even missing one season where his team pushed the lakers to 7 without him. So not a big longevity advantage.

The fact his team never made the second round with him playing a key role. People complained about Chris Paul's chops in the playoffs, what kevin Garnett did in Minnesota but it's certainly a black mark to man participants



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[penbeast0]

Reed v Cowens v. Beaty

All three shared some things in common . . . undersized, mobile centers with good range and good defense. Reed is the strongest, Cowens the most physical, Beaty has a Bill Laimbeer/Vlade Divac rep for annoying opps with a lot of dirty/veteran tricks.

All had shortened careers, Reed played only 7 years over 20 games in a season, Cowens played 10 but with increasing missed games plus a half year attempted comeback in Milwaukee, Beaty played 12 seasons (2 as reserve) but 2 were cut short by his recurring knee injuries; it's not a coincidence that his best season (72 in Utah) came after being forced to sit out a year. Beaty is considered a step down from Reed and Cowens but seems a reasonable comp to show their strengths.

Prime numbers

Reed (67-71) 20.5ppg 13.5reb 2ast .540ts%
Cowens (72-76) 19.5ppg 15.5reb 4ast .495ts%
Beaty* (65-69) 20ppg 12reb 1.5ast .535ts%
*(using NBA numbers only)

As the numbers show, Cowens was the best passer and rebounder, but the worst shooter. Reed is slightly better than Beaty in all areas but only slightly (and the NBA had expansion in these years so Reed was playing against slightly inferior competition). Beaty has the longevity edge. Very comparable players if you consider their defensive abilities roughly equal. I didn't use Beaty's ABA years because I don't want to get into a debate about how much to discount them.

[trex_8063]

After Baylor and Kidd got voted in, my initial leanings were really toward Gary Payton. I was subsequently swayed to Gilmore, but now that he's in, I'm back on Payton.

Reasonable given I was recently supporting Kidd, and Kidd/Payton make a nice comparison. I’d rate Payton’s peak marginally higher than Kidd’s. Payton’s clearly the better scorer, and by a fair margin; imo he’s pretty close as play-maker in the half-court setting, too. He’s at least Kidd’s equal defensively, as well.

One might now be asking why I rank Kidd ahead of Payton, given my perceptions outlined above. Well, it’s based on a few things:
*Kidd’s the better rebounder.
**Longevity: 19 to 17 in seasons played. And if looking at “relevant seasons”, it’s more like 19 to 15-16: Kidd was a starter (or mostly a starter) and never less than a primary role-player during each and all of his 19 seasons. The same really can’t be said for Payton’s final season (at the very least), in which he avg 22.1 mpg with a dismal 9.0 PER.
However, I did just notice that Kidd actually only has 56 more rs games played (although can potentially claim the ‘12 hold-out shortened the gap by 16 games; and Kidd does have nearly 3,000 career minutes over him).
***Better transition passer.
****More portable and more consistent: Kidd proved he can meld with multiple supporting casts, and very smoothly transition into whatever role was required of him. Thus he always managed to have some significant value even into his 19th season. The same perhaps cannot quite be said for Payton. Just as a little evidence of this: Kidd had 16 consecutive seasons with an above average (15) PER, and never failed to have a PER >13. Payton had 13 seasons with an above average PER and TWICE failed to have a PER as high as 13 (or even 11).

However, looking at it closely, the gap between them now looks very small. As a “for instance”, I just noted that Payton is actually +6.9 on Kidd in career rs WS (although he’s -3.4 in career playoff WS).

Payton really looks very good on impact data, too, even though we’re missing a few years of his prime. Nonetheless, even selecting from the finite years of data available, Payton’s 5 best RAPM’s add up to +16.75, which is better than the “Best 5 total” of Tony Parker and actually marginally better than Chauncey Billups (even though we have the entire careers to select from for those two). Payton’s best (that we have record of) was ‘00 at +6.26 (6th in the league).

His prime looks pretty good by other measures, too:
Payton (‘95-’03)
21.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 8.1 apg, 2.1 spg, 2.7 tov on .535 TS%
21.9 PER, .177 WS/48, 113 ORtg/105 DRtg (+8) in 39.6 mpg

Minimal step down in playoffs, but still very very good:
21.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 7.2 apg, 1.7 spg, 2.8 tov on .529 TS%
19.5 PER, .130 WS/48, 111 ORtg/110 DRtg (+1) in whopping 43.4 mpg

So his career package is looking more and more formidable. And given some of the parallels with Kidd, he feels like the most natural next choice for me.


Still waiting on a mind-blowing post about Durant, though......
He's probably the highest peak left (except maybe Walton???). But tbh, I'm leaning away from him, and it's largely a longevity issue as it pertains to total career value. It's just hard to compare seven seasons to seventeen (and as noted above, Payton was pretty good too).

To some degree, I think some of the databall numbers have soured me on Durant, too, although only slightly. I'm still not at all convinced of the reliability of RAPM, so it's merely one more little piece of the puzzle for me. In some instances I merely use it to settle a comparison where I am otherwise stumped and could go either way. That could be the case here.
In his first two seasons his RAPM is atrocious; he had his first positive one in '10 (just +0.87), and is steadily getting better, although his best 5 years combined comes to +12.42......which is slightly less than that of Tracy McGrady, or ~2 pts less than that of Tony Parker or even Chris Webber (and we don't even have the data to select from for Webber's first four seasons).
Again, I don't put a ton of weight on that; but where I'm having trouble deciding, that certainly doesn't help his case (especially because Payton looks very good via RAPM).

Official vote for #36: Gary Payton

[SactoKingsFan]

Can anyone do a comparison between Zo, Deke, Reed, and Dwight?

Haven't had time to figure out where exactly in the top 40-50ish players I'd rank them, but I'm pretty sure I'd put Dwight at the top (most impressive peak/prime, best rebounder, most efficient scorer) followed by Zo/Deke and Reed.

Howard Prime (07-14): 604 G, 27.9 PTS, 19.1 TRB, 2.3 AST, 4.8 STL+BLK, 4.8 TOV per 100
23.1 PER, .605 TS%, .591 eFG%, .863 FTr, .191 WS/48

Mourning Prime (93-00): 534 G, 31.0 PTS, 14.8 TRB, 2.2 AST, 5.5 STL+BLK, 4.7 TOV per 100
22.4 PER, .587 TS%, .527 eFG%, .606 FTr, .178 WS/48

Mutombo Prime (94-02): 687 G, 17.2 PTS, 17.9 TRB, 1.8 AST, 5.7 STL+BLK, 3.1 TOV per 100
18.0 PER, .583 TS%, .529 eFG%, .632 FTr, .161 WS/48

Reed Prime (67-71): 395 G, 23.4 PTS, 15.5 TRB, 2.2 AST per 100 (STL+BLK not recorded)
20.1 PER, .540 TS%, .494 eFG%, .339 FTr, .188 WS/48

They all look like unimpressive/poor passers and very good rebounders, with Dwight taking the rebounding edge. Reed had an impressive peak/prime, but it only lasted 5 seasons, which leads me to the conclusion that he provides less career value than Dwight, Zo and Deke, who all have greater prime longevity. Mourning looks like a better overall player than Deke due to his offensive value, however, Deke's longevity edge makes me think that they should be ranked within 4-5 spots in the same tier.

[Doctor MJ]

And also I voted for Deke last thread so I have him higher than Zo(and Dwight) atm. Would really love some of the Zo supporters to detail why they feel like he had the superior career to Deke. I know he was the superior scorer, but Zo wasn't that special as an offensive player, so I know there is more to it. Would love to see some posts on him as well.

I know you're not looking for just some RAPM report, but I was curious what Zo's offensive edge would look like over Deke before we got the data. It was at least big as I was expecting.

For Zo, we've got 2.5 all 3 pre-illness years, and he's near +5 in the best of those years.

For Deke, we've got -2 or worse virtually every year we have data for.

Mutombo's edge on defense is big, but not that big.

[The Infamous1]

Forget zeke, What makes reggie miller better than Joe Dumars.

[Jaivl]

Names I'm considering in the fight from here to #40: Deke, Miller, Durant, Payton, Mourning, Reed, Gervin. I'm most definitely voting Mutombo again, though. Just wanna hold it a bit.

[colts18]

Forget zeke, What makes reggie miller better than Joe Dumars.

Playoff performance. Stretching the D. I doubt that Dumars was capable of leading his team and putting up awesome numbers vs the GOAT Knicks D. Once Isiah/Laimbeer started aging after 91, the Pistons did nothing with Dumars leading the team.

[Texas Chuck]

Forget zeke, What makes reggie miller better than Joe Dumars.

Playoff performance. Stretching the D. I doubt that Dumars was capable of leading his team and putting up awesome numbers vs the GOAT Knicks D. Once Isiah/Laimbeer started aging after 91, the Pistons did nothing with Dumars leading the team.

I think we should tap the breaks on overselling his performance against the Knicks. In 1993 Pippen also put up very impressive individual numbers against that Knicks D. In 1994 Derrick Coleman put up impressive individual numbers as well. In 1995 Rik Smits actually had better numbers than Reggie. In 1998 Tim Hardaway had better numbers.

I'm not trying to sell Reggie short as he was a good playoff scorer, and he played well against those Knick teams. But of course the goal of a defense is to make it tough for the team to score, not just stop one guy and thus we see other individuals also having very good indvidual series against the Knicks.

Now could Dumars have done it? Well in 92 he was pretty effective albeit on low volume. It was the other scorers who really struggled in Zeke and Aguirre and Woolridge. He was pretty good in 1990 as well. I'm not sure he is likely to match Reggie from a scoring numbers standpoint, but frankly that's not really what Dumars game was about.


edit: and to be clear I am not arguing Dumars ahead of Reggie, but rather trying to put some context around part of the Reggie narrative.

[Clyde Frazier]

Just looking at mutombo offensively, his largest volume of scoring came during his first 7 seasons:

13 PPG, 52.6% FG, 66.1% FT (5.5 attempts per game), 57.4% TS, 110/101 OFF/DEF RTG

Essentially, he would've been a solid 3rd option on a title contender. No doubt his defensive impact goes beyond a "third option". Looking at his teammates during those 7 seasons, he really only got close to that with the hawks, and even then they were outmatched come playoff time.

I don't think i'll be voting for him just yet, but I do appreciate that he was able to contribute offensively while still being an elite defensive big. This is why i put him in a different tier than rodman / ben wallace.

[john248]

Forget zeke, What makes reggie miller better than Joe Dumars.

Playoff performance. Stretching the D. I doubt that Dumars was capable of leading his team and putting up awesome numbers vs the GOAT Knicks D. Once Isiah/Laimbeer started aging after 91, the Pistons did nothing with Dumars leading the team.

I think we should tap the breaks on overselling his performance against the Knicks. In 1993 Pippen 104 ORTGalso put up very impressive individual numbers against that Knicks D. In 1994 Derrick Coleman put up impressive individual numbers as well 105 ORTG. In 1995 Rik Smits actually had better numbers than Reggie. In 1998 Tim Hardaway had better numbers.

I'm not trying to sell Reggie short as he was a good playoff scorer, and he played well against those Knick teams. But of course the goal of a defense is to make it tough for the team to score, not just stop one guy and thus we see other individuals also having very good indvidual series against the Knicks.

Now could Dumars have done it? Well in 92 he was pretty effective albeit on low volume. It was the other scorers who really struggled in Zeke and Aguirre and Woolridge. He was pretty good in 1990 as well. I'm not sure he is likely to match Reggie from a scoring numbers standpoint, but frankly that's not really what Dumars game was about.


edit: and to be clear I am not arguing Dumars ahead of Reggie, but rather trying to put some context around part of the Reggie narrative.

Why tap the brakes on any of the players you listed? And which of them have consistently done it like Miller has? You're making up some arbitrary rules.

"Oh, I can point out other players who have done well once against the Knicks in the playoffs, so lets tap the brakes on Miller here."

Well, there's no reason to make a statement similar to this. The argument for Miller is he's played well against all defenses in the playoffs, and the numbers definitely show this. Now if you want to just have tunnel vision about his performance against the Knicks while pointing out other players have had a good series against them, Miller has done it repeatedly against that team. I know you've probably went through each of those Knicks series to see who did well against them each year and found those guys.

"Oh we are romanticizing Miller's clutch moments."

Again, why penalize a player for coming through when his team needed him? I want to squash this before I have to read something like this again. He came up with baskets to keep his team in the game and has had great 4th quarters. Miler was one of the better elimination game players out there. Game 4 against the Bulls in 98. 18 in the 4th against the Bucks game 5. Game 1, 01 against the Sixers. Completely owned the Nets in game 5 of 2002. He's effectively shown what he can do to create his own shot over the last 30 seconds in the 4th, in the 4th, elimination games, over a series, over the playoffs, over his career...where his volume goes up without taking a hit on his efficiency which translated to winning basketball for his teams.

It's absolutely insane to me to read about a player's accomplishments as if they're overrated when said accomplishment has a LARGE sample size against different teams. Not talking about 1 series; talking a whole playoff career. This isn't to say that Miller hasn't had his playoff duds. They had a chance to beat the Bulls in 98 but fizzed out in the 4th. Lost to the 8th seeded but Finals Knicks team in 99 where Miller put up a bunch of bricks in game 6. But these games happen just as other good players will have a good series against the Knicks. But if you base your argument on well...Reggie and the Knicks. .....

[Texas Chuck]

uh sorrry I guess?

I only pointed out that other players also played well against the vaunted Knicks D because it was mentioned so many times in regards to Reggie. I wanted everyone to be clear that Reggie wasnt the ONLY guy to have done it. I'm not anti-Reggie by any means. And while I remembered Pippen's performance in 93 and Smits in 95 I did go look up to see how other offensive players did against the Knicks. Not to put Reggie down, but to see for myself how unique his performance was against them since it was being hyped.

I think I was pretty clear that I think very highly of Reggie's playoff performances, but I do think MSG and Spike Lee do give them a larger than life feel. That obviously doesn't diminish him or his performance in any way and I would have thought that to be clear, but I will try and spell out things like that in the future. Edit--I can see that I did make that clear in my post you don't like.

[penbeast0]

Gary Payton -- penbeast0, trex_8063

Isiah Thomas -- ronnymac2

Reggie Miller -- Doctor MJ

Kevin Durant -- RSCD3_, DQuinn1575

[Warspite]

Forget zeke, What makes reggie miller better than Joe Dumars.

What makes Reggie Miller better than Dantley, Aguirre, English, Worthy, Arizin, Greer??? or Ray Allen for that matter?


Thats not to mention that he cant play at a all star level in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s or post 2004.

I think Cheryl Miller might have a better argument than Reggie.

[ThaRegul8r]

Playoff performance. Stretching the D. I doubt that Dumars was capable of leading his team and putting up awesome numbers vs the GOAT Knicks D. Once Isiah/Laimbeer started aging after 91, the Pistons did nothing with Dumars leading the team.

I think we should tap the breaks on overselling his performance against the Knicks. In 1993 Pippen 104 ORTGalso put up very impressive individual numbers against that Knicks D. In 1994 Derrick Coleman put up impressive individual numbers as well 105 ORTG. In 1995 Rik Smits actually had better numbers than Reggie. In 1998 Tim Hardaway had better numbers.

I'm not trying to sell Reggie short as he was a good playoff scorer, and he played well against those Knick teams. But of course the goal of a defense is to make it tough for the team to score, not just stop one guy and thus we see other individuals also having very good indvidual series against the Knicks.

Now could Dumars have done it? Well in 92 he was pretty effective albeit on low volume. It was the other scorers who really struggled in Zeke and Aguirre and Woolridge. He was pretty good in 1990 as well. I'm not sure he is likely to match Reggie from a scoring numbers standpoint, but frankly that's not really what Dumars game was about.


edit: and to be clear I am not arguing Dumars ahead of Reggie, but rather trying to put some context around part of the Reggie narrative.

Why tap the brakes on any of the players you listed? And which of them have consistently done it like Miller has? You're making up some arbitrary rules.

"Oh, I can point out other players who have done well once against the Knicks in the playoffs, so lets tap the brakes on Miller here."

Well, there's no reason to make a statement similar to this. The argument for Miller is he's played well against all defenses in the playoffs, and the numbers definitely show this. Now if you want to just have tunnel vision about his performance against the Knicks while pointing out other players have had a good series against them, Miller has done it repeatedly against that team.

Agreed, that I'm unsure why one-off performances are brought up in comparison to a consistent history of performance. Everything I've seen written on Miller talks about his consistent ability to elevate his performance in the postseason, not one series.

And the Knicks were the best defensive team of the era. I'm not sure how consistently being able to elevate one's performance against the best defense that exists at the time is anything other than noteworthy. It's why Jerry West continues to be talked about some four decades later. He did it consistently, not one time.

To use another example to lampshade this, Russell is his GOAT. If I said that Ben Wallace was able to help his team—also one of the greatest defensive teams of all time—win a championship, from the defensive end of the floor, and against the Wilt Chamberlain of his era, no less, so we should pump the breaks on overselling Russell, I'm certain he would take exception to that.

I only pointed out that other players also played well against the vaunted Knicks D because it was mentioned so many times in regards to Reggie. I wanted everyone to be clear that Reggie wasnt the ONLY guy to have done it.

It's disingenuous though, in that I'm looking at my notes on Miller right now, and at the posts that have been written on this board, everything written about Miller talks about multi-year performance. Whereas you're bringing up isolated series. In order to compare apples to apples, one would have to list every one of the other players' postseason performances against the Knicks in order to show how they consistently performed. Only then can you say whether or not other players have "done it."

[john248]

uh sorrry I guess?

I only pointed out that other players also played well against the vaunted Knicks D because it was mentioned so many times in regards to Reggie. I wanted everyone to be clear that Reggie wasnt the ONLY guy to have done it. I'm not anti-Reggie by any means. And while I remembered Pippen's performance in 93 and Smits in 95 I did go look up to see how other offensive players did against the Knicks. Not to put Reggie down, but to see for myself how unique his performance was against them since it was being hyped.

I think I was pretty clear that I think very highly of Reggie's playoff performances, but I do think MSG and Spike Lee do give them a larger than life feel. That obviously doesn't diminish him or his performance in any way and I would have thought that to be clear, but I will try and spell out things like that in the future. Edit--I can see that I did make that clear in my post you don't like.

Apology accepted?

I'm not even sure what it would prove if Miller wasn't the ONLY guy to have scored against the Knicks (as if that were even possible) which no one is claiming to be unique. I'd understand your point if it weren't translating to team success, however his teams have done well. We're talking about a guy who's been to 6 ECFs with 1 Finals appearance. If talking about the Knicks specifically in the playoffs, the Pacers as a team advanced past them twice where the team with the higher SRS generally won out except in 99 when the Knicks made a Cinderella before falling to the Spurs.

The Knicks and the Bulls were the 2 teams that the EC had to go through, so all those series against the Knicks were unavoidable and how rivalries are born. When I read a sentence like this "I think I was pretty clear that I think very highly of Reggie's playoff performances, but I do think MSG and Spike Lee do give them a larger than life feel." ... There's something holding you back where it does sell Miller short. I understand where you're coming from; heck, there was a documentary made about that. But we're also talking about a player who has other huge moments where there are numbers that back-up the claims and the team contributions to that success of deep playoff runs ... which extends beyond the Knicks rivalry, and the level of play was just as good which leads me to my next point.

As it is, there are maybe 3 or 4 people either considering or voting Miller for this spot. My point of contention falls mainly on his Knicks performance being hyped. While the arguments for Miller have used the Knicks as evidence (I've mentioned them), at least for this project, it isn't being used solely to prop him up given his body of work. I know I've used far less keystrokes in regards to the Knicks when propping up Miller where there's been very little of Knicks discussion other than now.