RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #30

[Lou Fan]

SG -- Like the PGs, the guy with the best 5 year prime has a very short career (as short as Curry and unlike Curry, his knees left him a shadow of himself for his last few years). That would be Sidney Moncrief, the GOAT defensive 2 and a superefficient, 20ppg scorer on a spread the wealth offense (sensing a theme!). Longevity would favor Clyde Drexler though and they are probably close enough that Drexler should get the edge. Gervin's defense is a problem, Reggie Miller and Sam Jones are also worth considering, maybe Ray Allen too. Lots of scorers here.

To the part in bold:
You would take Moncrief's five best over McGrady's? Tbh I can't see that at all. McGrady's 03 season is tied with Michael Jordan for the GOAT offensive season OF ALL TIME according to OBPM.
In General:
Given the guys you mentioned here like Reggie, Sam Jones, Moncrief, and Ray don't you think it's appropriate to at least give T-Mac a mention. Definitely not saying he should be considered here because he shouldn't but I think an argument for McGrady can be made for over these guys (and I support that argument). Just curious of your thoughts on this. To be fair McGrady is my favorite player of all-time so I probably let my emotions get the best of my reasoning a little bit when discussing him, but I don't think it's unreasonable to mention him in the same tier as those you mentioned above.

[euroleague]

I do see some recency bias - not by percentages, but just by players voted in. CP3, Nash, Ewing, Wade over Hondo/Cousy/Baylor seems strange.

Cousy is what - 10x first team all NBA, multiple time champion, regular season MVP, all-star game MVP, etc... with a huge impact on the entire league (forget only his team). What more does he need? Ewing only made one all-nba 1st team.

Pick: Cousy
Alt: Hondo
HM: Baylor

[Doctor MJ]

So the count now:

50s- 2 (Petit/Mikan*- late 40s)
60s- 4 (Wilt/Russell/Oscar/West)
70s- 2 (Kareem/Dr J)
80s- 3 (Magic/Bird/Moses)
90s- 7 (MJ/Hakeem/Malone/D-Rob/Barkley/Stockton/Ewing)
00s- 7 (Shaq/Duncan/Kobe/Dirk/KG/Nash/Wade* could go here too)
10s- 4 (Lebron/CP3/Durant/Curry)

Is there a recency bias going on, or is the break-up of the voting implicitly indicative of how folks view different eras? 90s onwards is dominating this list.

The big 4 from the 60s are featured in the top 15, with 2 of them in the top 10, but from there on, it's a blow-out going in favor of the post- 90s era.

I don't see this as a recency bias.

The 50s was largely a bunch of amateurs learning how to be pros.

The 60s was 4 outlier talents far better than everyone else, plus a 5th guy allowed to volume shoot way above his station.

The 70s was a broken decade that could have killed the sport, and we didn't really get an influx of great talent until the mid-80s which you classified as 90s players.

The climate for creating god-like basketball players has improved over time and this is why more recent players were more likely to reach potential. We can adjust for this to a degree, but there's only so much we can reasonably do. We should not pretend MIkan was Shaq, he was nowhere near that talented. We should not pretend Baylor played wisely simply because people at the time couldn't tell the difference very easily, and we shouldn't slap guys like Oscar & West in the face arguing that that shouldn't. It would be great if Bill Walton had been healthy, but he wasn't. Just how it goes.

[Doctor MJ]

I do see some recency bias - not by percentages, but just by players voted in. CP3, Nash, Ewing, Wade over Hondo/Cousy/Baylor seems strange.

Cousy is what - 10x first team all NBA, multiple time champion, regular season MVP, all-star game MVP, etc... with a huge impact on the entire league (forget only his team). What more does he need? Ewing only made one all-nba 1st team.

Pick: Cousy
Alt: Hondo
HM: Baylor

Cousy was a guy who chucked inefficiently relative to his teammates who is supposed to be a legend because he was a great floor general. He was overrated in his day because people didn't have the basis to really understand how far from optimal he was, and meanwhile his teammate Bill Sharman was underrated, and Bill Russell was underrated as well until Cousy retired and the team rose further with that lead weight removed.

I like Hondo, but he's not a guy you want volume scoring for you and it is his scoring peak that convinces many that he was something more than he was.

Baylor was someone who only had a few years before he was next to a teammate who was much better than him, and since Baylor never adjusted his play he held the team back by a good amount compared to what he could have accomplished. Like Cousy, it's a double whammy because he got big stats because of his sub-optimal approach, and this then led him to get accolades from the naive journalists of the time.

Last: I understand it seems the height of moxie to proclaim people at the time as naive but do people clear I'm not dismissing them outright, I'm specifically saying that they lacked an understanding of the diminishing returns of inefficient volume scoring, which should not be controversial because many journalists still don't understand this.

[Doctor MJ]

I think Elgin and Barry are other contenders for me at this spot at the SF position. I give the advantage to Baylor because I think he was a better player, though I'm open to learning more about each.

When those around the Warriors of the mid-70s talk about how the team was structured when they had great success, they talk about how Barry set the tone. He was the explicit and implicit leader. He was the primary decision maker on the court with the ball and with his mouth. He taught the other guys how to think out there.

I don't think Baylor was capable of such a role, and I believe such a role is more impressive than anything Baylor did.

[Doctor MJ]

Not voting yet, but the main guys I'm considering are:

Gilmore
Reggie
Pippen
Hondo
Barry
Frazier

I'm not considering Kidd because I've sided with Frazier.
I'm not considering Paul Pierce because I've got Reggie over Pierce, I feel questionable about having Hondo on my list but not having Pierce.

Rick Barry has been sticking in my mind over the past day. Of the players in question, he's the most clear cut alpha superstar in his approach, and the reality is that no one had a larger role on a champion team, and he also had a longevity edge at least compared to Frazier.

So I suppose I'd say that I'm leaning toward Barry, but still want to hear the opinions of others very much.

In my commentary of Barry, I acknowledged the amazing carry job that he pulled off in getting the chip in '75. But that title doesn't happen in a merged league or if Kareem doesn't break his hand. Ugh.

The title thing is tricky. I mention it because I think it makes things more concrete for people, but I don't like the ring counting aspect of it. What is indisputable though is that elite teams were built with Barry as the leader in pretty much every possible way.

[70sFan]

Pippen vs. Havlicek - I'm not really convinced that Hondo actually did anything better than Pip - don't get me wrong, he was great, but Pippen was like the evolution of Hondo.

Yes he did. He was much better shooter, better off-ball offensive player, had better stamina, was better scorer in playoffs actually, had better intangibles and leadership for what it's worth.

They aren't the same players and Pippen wasn't "evolution of Hondo". Havlicek played against some of the most amazing players in NBA history and many praised him for his defensive toughness and craftyness. Hondo was more like slightly bigger, much better defensively and less efficient version of Manu Ginobili with GOAT level stamina. I'd actually say that he was better offensive player in his prime (1967-74) than Pippen overall. Not as good defensively but still damn great.

[70sFan]

So the count now:

50s- 2 (Petit/Mikan*- late 40s)
60s- 4 (Wilt/Russell/Oscar/West)
70s- 2 (Kareem/Dr J)
80s- 3 (Magic/Bird/Moses)
90s- 7 (MJ/Hakeem/Malone/D-Rob/Barkley/Stockton/Ewing)
00s- 7 (Shaq/Duncan/Kobe/Dirk/KG/Nash/Wade* could go here too)
10s- 4 (Lebron/CP3/Durant/Curry)

Is there a recency bias going on, or is the break-up of the voting implicitly indicative of how folks view different eras? 90s onwards is dominating this list.

The big 4 from the 60s are featured in the top 15, with 2 of them in the top 10, but from there on, it's a blow-out going in favor of the post- 90s era.

I don't see this as a recency bias.

The 50s was largely a bunch of amateurs learning how to be pros.

The 60s was 4 outlier talents far better than everyone else, plus a 5th guy allowed to volume shoot way above his station.

The 70s was a broken decade that could have killed the sport, and we didn't really get an influx of great talent until the mid-80s which you classified as 90s players.

The climate for creating god-like basketball players has improved over time and this is why more recent players were more likely to reach potential. We can adjust for this to a degree, but there's only so much we can reasonably do. We should not pretend MIkan was Shaq, he was nowhere near that talented. We should not pretend Baylor played wisely simply because people at the time couldn't tell the difference very easily, and we shouldn't slap guys like Oscar & West in the face arguing that that shouldn't. It would be great if Bill Walton had been healthy, but he wasn't. Just how it goes.

This is disrespectful post without any piece of knowledge.

1950s players were pro basketball players and NBA wasn't the first pro league in USA. Stop with that nonsense.

1960s isn't a decade with "4 outlier talents far better than everyone else, plus a 5th guy allowed to volume shoot way above his station". If you really believe that, you don't know much about 1960s NBA. You forgot even one player who is already voted (Bob Pettit).

Your amount of hate on Elgin Baylor is also not fair. He was great player and was actually one of the best players in the league until injuries. You are talking only about his post prime years (1965-70) but he was still decent and his 1959-64 seasons are on all-time great level. He was much more than just a volume scorer and you call him like you'd talk about Allen Iverson. He was above average defender, GOAT rebounder for SF position, excellent passer, great player in transition. He had questionable shot selection but he's not the only all-time great with that problem.

[dhsilv2]

[quote="Doctor MJ]
I'm not considering Paul Pierce because I've got Reggie over Pierce, I feel questionable about having Hondo on my list but not having Pierce.

[/quote]

I don't know if that's fair. Miller was considered a perennial all star type which is in the same vein as Pierce. Pierce also has great playoff performances and unlike Reggie rates well above average as a defender in his prime years - sometimes defensive team consideration worthy. Havlicek doesn't seem to have proven more than Pierce did relative to era, either (though I think Pablo or Penbeast would have to say a thing or 10 about that).[/quote][/quote]

Hmm, if what's fair?

If it's Hondo vs Pierce, then I'd say I agree. I think Pierce has a pretty good argument over Hondo.

If it's Pierce vs Reggie, well that's just my opinion. Fine if you disagree.

Here's the thing: Reggie is the archetypical off-ball shooter, a role which I think was always undervalued, and has become considerably more valuable with recognition of the true value of the 3.

Pierce was great, but when I say Reggie's role was undervalued, I basically mean relative to Pierce's role. Isolation ability has value, and I'm not denying that, but I'm more impressed by what Reggie did than Pierce.[/quote]

How do you reconcile that Reggie was a 5 time allstar and 3 time all nba guy (all 3rd team)? He was listed as a forward so it wasn't like that was a brutally stacked position over his career either.

That's always been a struggle for me with him. It wasn't like he wasn't a well known and highly talked about guy most of his career. He was a scorer which should have worked in his favor.

[dhsilv2]

So the count now:

50s- 2 (Petit/Mikan*- late 40s)
60s- 4 (Wilt/Russell/Oscar/West)
70s- 2 (Kareem/Dr J)
80s- 3 (Magic/Bird/Moses)
90s- 7 (MJ/Hakeem/Malone/D-Rob/Barkley/Stockton/Ewing)
00s- 7 (Shaq/Duncan/Kobe/Dirk/KG/Nash/Wade* could go here too)
10s- 4 (Lebron/CP3/Durant/Curry)

Is there a recency bias going on, or is the break-up of the voting implicitly indicative of how folks view different eras? 90s onwards is dominating this list.

The big 4 from the 60s are featured in the top 15, with 2 of them in the top 10, but from there on, it's a blow-out going in favor of the post- 90s era.

I don't see this as a recency bias.

The 50s was largely a bunch of amateurs learning how to be pros.

The 60s was 4 outlier talents far better than everyone else, plus a 5th guy allowed to volume shoot way above his station.

The 70s was a broken decade that could have killed the sport, and we didn't really get an influx of great talent until the mid-80s which you classified as 90s players.

The climate for creating god-like basketball players has improved over time and this is why more recent players were more likely to reach potential. We can adjust for this to a degree, but there's only so much we can reasonably do. We should not pretend MIkan was Shaq, he was nowhere near that talented. We should not pretend Baylor played wisely simply because people at the time couldn't tell the difference very easily, and we shouldn't slap guys like Oscar & West in the face arguing that that shouldn't. It would be great if Bill Walton had been healthy, but he wasn't. Just how it goes.

This is disrespectful post without any piece of knowledge.

1950s players were pro basketball players and NBA wasn't the first pro league in USA. Stop with that nonsense.

1960s isn't a decade with "4 outlier talents far better than everyone else, plus a 5th guy allowed to volume shoot way above his station". If you really believe that, you don't know much about 1960s NBA. You forgot even one player who is already voted (Bob Pettit).

Your amount of hate on Elgin Baylor is also not fair. He was great player and was actually one of the best players in the league until injuries. You are talking only about his post prime years (1965-70) but he was still decent and his 1959-64 seasons are on all-time great level. He was much more than just a volume scorer and you call him like you'd talk about Allen Iverson. He was above average defender, GOAT rebounder for SF position, excellent passer, great player in transition. He had questionable shot selection but he's not the only all-time great with that problem.

I'm really struggling with calling the nba even into the 60's as a real pro league. Do we have any data on the number of players who did a second job? I mean I used to work with a "pro football" player, who's day job was working in a call center. He was a cool guy, but calling him a pro because he made a 150 bucks a week playing football or whatever is a stretch. I'm sure the nba guys were making more than that, but still if the league doesn't pay for the best talent, it won't have it. I'm sure the league did.

[Doctor MJ]

So the count now:

50s- 2 (Petit/Mikan*- late 40s)
60s- 4 (Wilt/Russell/Oscar/West)
70s- 2 (Kareem/Dr J)
80s- 3 (Magic/Bird/Moses)
90s- 7 (MJ/Hakeem/Malone/D-Rob/Barkley/Stockton/Ewing)
00s- 7 (Shaq/Duncan/Kobe/Dirk/KG/Nash/Wade* could go here too)
10s- 4 (Lebron/CP3/Durant/Curry)

Is there a recency bias going on, or is the break-up of the voting implicitly indicative of how folks view different eras? 90s onwards is dominating this list.

The big 4 from the 60s are featured in the top 15, with 2 of them in the top 10, but from there on, it's a blow-out going in favor of the post- 90s era.

I don't see this as a recency bias.

The 50s was largely a bunch of amateurs learning how to be pros.

The 60s was 4 outlier talents far better than everyone else, plus a 5th guy allowed to volume shoot way above his station.

The 70s was a broken decade that could have killed the sport, and we didn't really get an influx of great talent until the mid-80s which you classified as 90s players.

The climate for creating god-like basketball players has improved over time and this is why more recent players were more likely to reach potential. We can adjust for this to a degree, but there's only so much we can reasonably do. We should not pretend MIkan was Shaq, he was nowhere near that talented. We should not pretend Baylor played wisely simply because people at the time couldn't tell the difference very easily, and we shouldn't slap guys like Oscar & West in the face arguing that that shouldn't. It would be great if Bill Walton had been healthy, but he wasn't. Just how it goes.

This is disrespectful post without any piece of knowledge.

1950s players were pro basketball players and NBA wasn't the first pro league in USA. Stop with that nonsense.

1960s isn't a decade with "4 outlier talents far better than everyone else, plus a 5th guy allowed to volume shoot way above his station". If you really believe that, you don't know much about 1960s NBA. You forgot even one player who is already voted (Bob Pettit).

Your amount of hate on Elgin Baylor is also not fair. He was great player and was actually one of the best players in the league until injuries. You are talking only about his post prime years (1965-70) but he was still decent and his 1959-64 seasons are on all-time great level. He was much more than just a volume scorer and you call him like you'd talk about Allen Iverson. He was above average defender, GOAT rebounder for SF position, excellent passer, great player in transition. He had questionable shot selection but he's not the only all-time great with that problem.

I've gone over the early NBA before. When niches come of age, they tend to grew in S curves: Slow, fast, then slow again. In the 1930s, the best center was 6 foot 4 which tells us pretty clearly that the sport had not yet reached its "fast" phrase. The question then is when it did and when it ended.

What's clear is that no league really had massive success until the NBA and that over the first decade of the NBA statistics give indications of rapidly increasing skill levels. I don't see any way then to argue that the early NBA players weren't apart of the fast phase.

Note that I'm not damning guys just for playing in the 50s, but players whose peak performance was in the early to mid 50s and who failed to adapt beyond that should be seen as suspect.

Re: you don't know much about... First, I was considering Pettit a 50s player first and foremost. I respect him in no small part because of how he continued to grow into the 60s, but most would not call him a 60s player. As for my knowledge, you're being very general. This is fair in the sense that I was general in my statement, but it's not a helpful response. You think other guys were very near the ability of the big 4 I mentioned, well, I expect you'll be arguing for them soon. If not, then you're basically agreeing with me and just don't like my tone.

Re: Baylor. He was the best Laker until Jerry West was allowed to shine in '62. After that point there's a fundamental issue in his primacy relative to West, and I'm sorry, all the evidence I see suggests to me it was a big deal.

You talk about Iverson as if Iverson was far more problematic, but Iverson wasn't the 2nd chucking-est guy in the entire league on teams where another teammate was a far more effective alpha threat. Don't get me wrong, I prefer Baylor over Iverson, but it's a really damn big deal when a guy flirts with most shots taken in the entire league and he isn't even the guy on his team who should be shooting like that.

[Doctor MJ]

[quote="Doctor MJ]
I'm not considering Paul Pierce because I've got Reggie over Pierce, I feel questionable about having Hondo on my list but not having Pierce.

[/quote]

I don't know if that's fair. Miller was considered a perennial all star type which is in the same vein as Pierce. Pierce also has great playoff performances and unlike Reggie rates well above average as a defender in his prime years - sometimes defensive team consideration worthy. Havlicek doesn't seem to have proven more than Pierce did relative to era, either (though I think Pablo or Penbeast would have to say a thing or 10 about that).[/quote][/quote]

Hmm, if what's fair?

If it's Hondo vs Pierce, then I'd say I agree. I think Pierce has a pretty good argument over Hondo.

If it's Pierce vs Reggie, well that's just my opinion. Fine if you disagree.

Here's the thing: Reggie is the archetypical off-ball shooter, a role which I think was always undervalued, and has become considerably more valuable with recognition of the true value of the 3.

Pierce was great, but when I say Reggie's role was undervalued, I basically mean relative to Pierce's role. Isolation ability has value, and I'm not denying that, but I'm more impressed by what Reggie did than Pierce.[/quote][/quote][/quote]

How do you reconcile that Reggie was a 5 time allstar and 3 time all nba guy (all 3rd team)? He was listed as a forward so it wasn't like that was a brutally stacked position over his career either.

That's always been a struggle for me with him. It wasn't like he wasn't a well known and highly talked about guy most of his career. He was a scorer which should have worked in his favor.[/quote]

People were wrong. The end.

Look people back then went largely based on volume stats, particularly scoring, with a flag in there to adjust based on team record. People back then though you would much rather have a guy like Dominique Wilkins than Reggie Miller, and they were just wrong.

The smart way to play the game is not with your volume scorer iso-ing, but with the team working together. Reggie played in a way that opened things up for teammates, he did so incredibly shrewdly, he did so for a very long time, and on top of everything else, he was able to reliably scale to great volume scoring in the playoffs with the situation called for it.

He was an absolutely devastating player.

Re: he wasn't an unknown though. Ah, here's what's interesting. Reggie's got the off-ball factor underrating him, and the playoff notoriety potentially overrating him. As such it's often fashionable to say Reggie was actually OVERrated, because guys who gain prominence through the playoffs often are. But a broken clock is still right twice a day, and so sometimes the most simplistic basketball evaluation schemes actually stumble upon something real.

[rebirthoftheM]

[quote="Doctor MJ]
I'm not considering Paul Pierce because I've got Reggie over Pierce, I feel questionable about having Hondo on my list but not having Pierce.

[/quote]

I don't know if that's fair. Miller was considered a perennial all star type which is in the same vein as Pierce. Pierce also has great playoff performances and unlike Reggie rates well above average as a defender in his prime years - sometimes defensive team consideration worthy. Havlicek doesn't seem to have proven more than Pierce did relative to era, either (though I think Pablo or Penbeast would have to say a thing or 10 about that).[/quote][/quote]

Hmm, if what's fair?

If it's Hondo vs Pierce, then I'd say I agree. I think Pierce has a pretty good argument over Hondo.

If it's Pierce vs Reggie, well that's just my opinion. Fine if you disagree.

Here's the thing: Reggie is the archetypical off-ball shooter, a role which I think was always undervalued, and has become considerably more valuable with recognition of the true value of the 3.

Pierce was great, but when I say Reggie's role was undervalued, I basically mean relative to Pierce's role. Isolation ability has value, and I'm not denying that, but I'm more impressed by what Reggie did than Pierce.[/quote][/quote][/quote]

How do you reconcile that Reggie was a 5 time allstar and 3 time all nba guy (all 3rd team)? He was listed as a forward so it wasn't like that was a brutally stacked position over his career either.

That's always been a struggle for me with him. It wasn't like he wasn't a well known and highly talked about guy most of his career. He was a scorer which should have worked in his favor.[/quote]

I suspect (though can't say 100% sure till we see primary material from people who voted in all NBA teams) that the fact that Reggie hovered around a modest 19-21 PPG, and his box score beyond that very thin (3 RBG-3APG dude) factored in. His most discernible strength was shooting, and people at the time did not really appreciate the significance of having an off-ball shooter on your squad. His box score stats really did him a disservice.

[dhsilv2]

People were wrong. The end.

Look people back then went largely based on volume stats, particularly scoring, with a flag in there to adjust based on team record. People back then though you would much rather have a guy like Dominique Wilkins than Reggie Miller, and they were just wrong.

The smart way to play the game is not with your volume scorer iso-ing, but with the team working together. Reggie played in a way that opened things up for teammates, he did so incredibly shrewdly, he did so for a very long time, and on top of everything else, he was able to reliably scale to great volume scoring in the playoffs with the situation called for it.

He was an absolutely devastating player.

Re: he wasn't an unknown though. Ah, here's what's interesting. Reggie's got the off-ball factor underrating him, and the playoff notoriety potentially overrating him. As such it's often fashionable to say Reggie was actually OVERrated, because guys who gain prominence through the playoffs often are. But a broken clock is still right twice a day, and so sometimes the most simplistic basketball evaluation schemes actually stumble upon something real.

I can understand if we were talking about all nba. Only 6 forwards make that team. But the allstar game?

[Doctor MJ]

People were wrong. The end.

Look people back then went largely based on volume stats, particularly scoring, with a flag in there to adjust based on team record. People back then though you would much rather have a guy like Dominique Wilkins than Reggie Miller, and they were just wrong.

The smart way to play the game is not with your volume scorer iso-ing, but with the team working together. Reggie played in a way that opened things up for teammates, he did so incredibly shrewdly, he did so for a very long time, and on top of everything else, he was able to reliably scale to great volume scoring in the playoffs with the situation called for it.

He was an absolutely devastating player.

Re: he wasn't an unknown though. Ah, here's what's interesting. Reggie's got the off-ball factor underrating him, and the playoff notoriety potentially overrating him. As such it's often fashionable to say Reggie was actually OVERrated, because guys who gain prominence through the playoffs often are. But a broken clock is still right twice a day, and so sometimes the most simplistic basketball evaluation schemes actually stumble upon something real.

I can understand if we were talking about all nba. Only 6 forwards make that team. But the allstar game?

Yes. They were THAT wrong, and it's not actually hard to figure out why.

Off guards get underrated in almost all situations. The don't have the ball a lot, so they don't get assists. They run along the perimeter so rebounds aren't there thing either. It's a classic mistake to think that that means they aren't doing anything valuable. You don't need 5 guys racking up assists and you don't need 5 guys racking up rebounds. As John Wooden once said, 90% of the players don't have the ball at any given time, so if you aren't doing something valuable when you don't have the ball, I won't let you get on the court.

An off-ball threat like Reggie is a devastating spacing force which makes it easier for his teammates to attack the defense.
An off-ball threat like Reggie wears out whoever is guarding him and is mentally taxing to more than just his man.
An off-ball threat like Reggie, if he's wise, pops out for a shot at opportune moments when an easy pass can be made to give him a high value shot. Reggie was literally the GOAT at this. (Curry is a better off-ball scorer now, but it's because he's a superhuman shooter, not because he's a sharper decision maker.)

So yeah, Reggie was getting evaluated as a guy who wasn't a full on volume scorer and couldn't really do much else. Even those who knew better didn't know have anything concrete to point to back then. And so, he was treated as a fringe all-star guy who basically got in when Indiana "deserved" an all-star.

So what's different now?

1) We started appreciating efficiency more. Dean Oliver, the godfather of basketball analytics, said that when he first saw what his stats said about Miller he assumed he'd made a typo. It was completely out of line with what he had realized when he was simply a nerdy basketball player.

2) We got access to bkref, and saw how jawdropping those numbers were when they added up. Miller is 17th all-time in Win Shares. Among players not yet inducted on our list, only Artis Gilmore is higher.

3) We started getting access to +/- data. We don't have a lot for Reggie, but when the Pacers were a contender in the early 00s, when Reggie was an old, old man, it was pretty stunning to see how effective his presence seemed to be.

4) These things eventually helped lead to changes in how NBA teams approached strategy, which is why teams now absolutely love having off-ball players who can shoot the 3 (pretty common actually), even more so if they can create their own open shot by movement and were experts at drawing fouls along the way (almost non-existent).

[dhsilv2]

People were wrong. The end.

Look people back then went largely based on volume stats, particularly scoring, with a flag in there to adjust based on team record. People back then though you would much rather have a guy like Dominique Wilkins than Reggie Miller, and they were just wrong.

The smart way to play the game is not with your volume scorer iso-ing, but with the team working together. Reggie played in a way that opened things up for teammates, he did so incredibly shrewdly, he did so for a very long time, and on top of everything else, he was able to reliably scale to great volume scoring in the playoffs with the situation called for it.

He was an absolutely devastating player.

Re: he wasn't an unknown though. Ah, here's what's interesting. Reggie's got the off-ball factor underrating him, and the playoff notoriety potentially overrating him. As such it's often fashionable to say Reggie was actually OVERrated, because guys who gain prominence through the playoffs often are. But a broken clock is still right twice a day, and so sometimes the most simplistic basketball evaluation schemes actually stumble upon something real.

I can understand if we were talking about all nba. Only 6 forwards make that team. But the allstar game?

Yes. They were THAT wrong, and it's not actually hard to figure out why.

Off guards get underrated in almost all situations. The don't have the ball a lot, so they don't get assists. They run along the perimeter so rebounds aren't there thing either. It's a classic mistake to think that that means they aren't doing anything valuable. You don't need 5 guys racking up assists and you don't need 5 guys racking up rebounds. As John Wooden once said, 90% of the players don't have the ball at any given time, so if you aren't doing something valuable when you don't have the ball, I won't let you get on the court.

An off-ball threat like Reggie is a devastating spacing force which makes it easier for his teammates to attack the defense.
An off-ball threat like Reggie wears out whoever is guarding him and is mentally taxing to more than just his man.
An off-ball threat like Reggie, if he's wise, pops out for a shot at opportune moments when an easy pass can be made to give him a high value shot. Reggie was literally the GOAT at this. (Curry is a better off-ball scorer now, but it's because he's a superhuman shooter, not because he's a sharper decision maker.)

So yeah, Reggie was getting evaluated as a guy who wasn't a full on volume scorer and couldn't really do much else. Even those who knew better didn't know have anything concrete to point to back then. And so, he was treated as a fringe all-star guy who basically got in when Indiana "deserved" an all-star.

So what's different now?

1) We started appreciating efficiency more. Dean Oliver, the godfather of basketball analytics, said that when he first saw what his stats said about Miller he assumed he'd made a typo. It was completely out of line with what he had realized when he was simply a nerdy basketball player.

2) We got access to bkref, and saw how jawdropping those numbers were when they added up. Miller is 17th all-time in Win Shares. Among players not yet inducted on our list, only Artis Gilmore is higher.

3) We started getting access to +/- data. We don't have a lot for Reggie, but when the Pacers were a contender in the early 00s, when Reggie was an old, old man, it was pretty stunning to see how effective his presence seemed to be.

4) These things eventually helped lead to changes in how NBA teams approached strategy, which is why teams now absolutely love having off-ball players who can shoot the 3 (pretty common actually), even more so if they can create their own open shot by movement and were experts at drawing fouls along the way (almost non-existent).

I see a lot of players who didn't do a whole lot more than miller however who got selected as reserves over him.

WS is an interesting miller stat. A lot of really good but never great year and he remained really solid for a long long time. Meanwhile VORP which i use a proxy for "GREAT" seasons, isn't that excited by him. PER which I"d think would love the 3's and low turnovers, doesn't get excited either.

It's a fair point about off ball impact, but if we're talking Miller why not Ray Allen here? I'd argue a part of Miller's WS success was being on one of the better teams in the league. Allen didn't get that, but if off ball spacing and shooting are to be discuss, then Ray Allen should be front and center.

[Doctor MJ]

I can understand if we were talking about all nba. Only 6 forwards make that team. But the allstar game?

Yes. They were THAT wrong, and it's not actually hard to figure out why.

Off guards get underrated in almost all situations. The don't have the ball a lot, so they don't get assists. They run along the perimeter so rebounds aren't there thing either. It's a classic mistake to think that that means they aren't doing anything valuable. You don't need 5 guys racking up assists and you don't need 5 guys racking up rebounds. As John Wooden once said, 90% of the players don't have the ball at any given time, so if you aren't doing something valuable when you don't have the ball, I won't let you get on the court.

An off-ball threat like Reggie is a devastating spacing force which makes it easier for his teammates to attack the defense.
An off-ball threat like Reggie wears out whoever is guarding him and is mentally taxing to more than just his man.
An off-ball threat like Reggie, if he's wise, pops out for a shot at opportune moments when an easy pass can be made to give him a high value shot. Reggie was literally the GOAT at this. (Curry is a better off-ball scorer now, but it's because he's a superhuman shooter, not because he's a sharper decision maker.)

So yeah, Reggie was getting evaluated as a guy who wasn't a full on volume scorer and couldn't really do much else. Even those who knew better didn't know have anything concrete to point to back then. And so, he was treated as a fringe all-star guy who basically got in when Indiana "deserved" an all-star.

So what's different now?

1) We started appreciating efficiency more. Dean Oliver, the godfather of basketball analytics, said that when he first saw what his stats said about Miller he assumed he'd made a typo. It was completely out of line with what he had realized when he was simply a nerdy basketball player.

2) We got access to bkref, and saw how jawdropping those numbers were when they added up. Miller is 17th all-time in Win Shares. Among players not yet inducted on our list, only Artis Gilmore is higher.

3) We started getting access to +/- data. We don't have a lot for Reggie, but when the Pacers were a contender in the early 00s, when Reggie was an old, old man, it was pretty stunning to see how effective his presence seemed to be.

4) These things eventually helped lead to changes in how NBA teams approached strategy, which is why teams now absolutely love having off-ball players who can shoot the 3 (pretty common actually), even more so if they can create their own open shot by movement and were experts at drawing fouls along the way (almost non-existent).

I see a lot of players who didn't do a whole lot more than miller however who got selected as reserves over him.

WS is an interesting miller stat. A lot of really good but never great year and he remained really solid for a long long time. Meanwhile VORP which i use a proxy for "GREAT" seasons, isn't that excited by him. PER which I"d think would love the 3's and low turnovers, doesn't get excited either.

It's a fair point about off ball impact, but if we're talking Miller why not Ray Allen here? I'd argue a part of Miller's WS success was being on one of the better teams in the league. Allen didn't get that, but if off ball spacing and shooting are to be discuss, then Ray Allen should be front and center.

I mean, name me the year and I can pretty much tell you what people were thinking, not because I'm so smart, but because the "all-star equation" is so well established. Guys like Reggie have always been "if there's a slot left over" type guys who tend to get in based on the standing of their team.

Re: VORP. I'm not really a fan of VORP, though I'll concede that you can definitely argue it's better than WS. It's certainly more sophisticated in its creation than WS, but it's not entirely an improvement. Some players to me get vastly underrated by the stat for predictable reasons. Steve Nash for example is said by VORP/BPM to be almost as damaging on defense as he is helpful on offense, and that's just ridiculous. Clearly what's happening is that they are judging defenders based on the box score, and the box score is ball-oriented. A defender like Nash who knows that's not his game just focuses on playing his role within the scheme making very, very few errors, and oftentimes it makes him actually better than average on defense (not to say he couldn't be exploited by specific matchups, but VORP/BPM isn't knocking him based on those matchups.)

Really though my frustration with VORP is that it was obsolete when it came out. We had quite clearly progressed to a point where statistical +/- (such as VORP/BPM) was the future...but only when it was based off of player tracking data. The world didn't need another box score stat, and yet it got promoted as if it was a true advancement. That's a bias I have. You can do quality analysis with these stats once you understand their weakness, it's just that those who understood box score weakness already had compensated for the weaknesses of WS so they didn't really need BPM, and those who didn't understand that weakness would inevitably use it problematically.

Re: PER. This stat overrates volume scoring systematically. If you look at the formula and add things up you'll see that a guy can actually chuck quite inefficiently and still improve his PER. PER was actually a GREAT stat for its time and was among the first to start factoring in efficiency, which was why it had Efficiency in the name, but it still very much underrated the value of efficiency among volume scorers (and it was all over the map when it came to fringe players off the bench).

Re: Why not Ray Allen? Great thing to bring up. He's basically the next best thing to Reggie. He just wasn't anywhere near as savvy as Reggie was. Ray couldn't really draw fouls that well, where Reggie was a master, plus Ray didn't have that miraculous ability to crank up his volume scoring in crunch time.

Now, it's tricky because Ray is far more proven than Reggie as an on-ball threat, which is why he got bigger volume numbers than Ray in Seattle...but Seattle was not when Ray was at his most effective. Ray is a lock for my Top 50 specifically because of his time as an off-ball player in Milwaukee and Boston. He's on the Mount Rushmore of all-time NBA off-ball shooting threats, and he's really not anywhere near that much on outlier in other roles.

[dhsilv2]

Yes. They were THAT wrong, and it's not actually hard to figure out why.

Off guards get underrated in almost all situations. The don't have the ball a lot, so they don't get assists. They run along the perimeter so rebounds aren't there thing either. It's a classic mistake to think that that means they aren't doing anything valuable. You don't need 5 guys racking up assists and you don't need 5 guys racking up rebounds. As John Wooden once said, 90% of the players don't have the ball at any given time, so if you aren't doing something valuable when you don't have the ball, I won't let you get on the court.

An off-ball threat like Reggie is a devastating spacing force which makes it easier for his teammates to attack the defense.
An off-ball threat like Reggie wears out whoever is guarding him and is mentally taxing to more than just his man.
An off-ball threat like Reggie, if he's wise, pops out for a shot at opportune moments when an easy pass can be made to give him a high value shot. Reggie was literally the GOAT at this. (Curry is a better off-ball scorer now, but it's because he's a superhuman shooter, not because he's a sharper decision maker.)

So yeah, Reggie was getting evaluated as a guy who wasn't a full on volume scorer and couldn't really do much else. Even those who knew better didn't know have anything concrete to point to back then. And so, he was treated as a fringe all-star guy who basically got in when Indiana "deserved" an all-star.

So what's different now?

1) We started appreciating efficiency more. Dean Oliver, the godfather of basketball analytics, said that when he first saw what his stats said about Miller he assumed he'd made a typo. It was completely out of line with what he had realized when he was simply a nerdy basketball player.

2) We got access to bkref, and saw how jawdropping those numbers were when they added up. Miller is 17th all-time in Win Shares. Among players not yet inducted on our list, only Artis Gilmore is higher.

3) We started getting access to +/- data. We don't have a lot for Reggie, but when the Pacers were a contender in the early 00s, when Reggie was an old, old man, it was pretty stunning to see how effective his presence seemed to be.

4) These things eventually helped lead to changes in how NBA teams approached strategy, which is why teams now absolutely love having off-ball players who can shoot the 3 (pretty common actually), even more so if they can create their own open shot by movement and were experts at drawing fouls along the way (almost non-existent).

I see a lot of players who didn't do a whole lot more than miller however who got selected as reserves over him.

WS is an interesting miller stat. A lot of really good but never great year and he remained really solid for a long long time. Meanwhile VORP which i use a proxy for "GREAT" seasons, isn't that excited by him. PER which I"d think would love the 3's and low turnovers, doesn't get excited either.

It's a fair point about off ball impact, but if we're talking Miller why not Ray Allen here? I'd argue a part of Miller's WS success was being on one of the better teams in the league. Allen didn't get that, but if off ball spacing and shooting are to be discuss, then Ray Allen should be front and center.

I mean, name me the year and I can pretty much tell you what people were thinking, not because I'm so smart, but because the "all-star equation" is so well established. Guys like Reggie have always been "if there's a slot left over" type guys who tend to get in based on the standing of their team.

Re: VORP. I'm not really a fan of VORP, though I'll concede that you can definitely argue it's better than WS. It's certainly more sophisticated in its creation than WS, but it's not entirely an improvement. Some players to me get vastly underrated by the stat for predictable reasons. Steve Nash for example is said by VORP/BPM to be almost as damaging on defense as he is helpful on offense, and that's just ridiculous. Clearly what's happening is that they are judging defenders based on the box score, and the box score is ball-oriented. A defender like Nash who knows that's not his game just focuses on playing his role within the scheme making very, very few errors, and oftentimes it makes him actually better than average on defense (not to say he couldn't be exploited by specific matchups, but VORP/BPM isn't knocking him based on those matchups.)

Really though my frustration with VORP is that it was obsolete when it came out. We had quite clearly progressed to a point where statistical +/- (such as VORP/BPM) was the future...but only when it was based off of player tracking data. The world didn't need another box score stat, and yet it got promoted as if it was a true advancement. That's a bias I have. You can do quality analysis with these stats once you understand their weakness, it's just that those who understood box score weakness already had compensated for the weaknesses of WS so they didn't really need BPM, and those who didn't understand that weakness would inevitably use it problematically.

Re: PER. This stat overrates volume scoring systematically. If you look at the formula and add things up you'll see that a guy can actually chuck quite inefficiently and still improve his PER. PER was actually a GREAT stat for its time and was among the first to start factoring in efficiency, which was why it had Efficiency in the name, but it still very much underrated the value of efficiency among volume scorers (and it was all over the map when it came to fringe players off the bench).

Re: Why not Ray Allen? Great thing to bring up. He's basically the next best thing to Reggie. He just wasn't anywhere near as savvy as Reggie was. Ray couldn't really draw fouls that well, where Reggie was a master, plus Ray didn't have that miraculous ability to crank up his volume scoring in crunch time.

Now, it's tricky because Ray is far more proven than Reggie as an on-ball threat, which is why he got bigger volume numbers than Ray in Seattle...but Seattle was not when Ray was at his most effective. Ray is a lock for my Top 50 specifically because of his time as an off-ball player in Milwaukee and Boston. He's on the Mount Rushmore of all-time NBA off-ball shooting threats, and he's really not anywhere near that much on outlier in other roles.

As we're into the career stats discussion and increasingly I expect this to be a factor this isn't a bad time to go here.

WS fails for me in that it over values players who just hang around as quality but not great players and under values great players. VORP imo got the scaling right for us to judge the all time great players better. Both formulas having plenty of faults which should be addressed separately. I did a quick test by reducing WS/48 down by 0.08333 (i will call it starter minute replacement player as that scales to a 20 win season with 5 players producing that). I didn't have a full data set but we moved Miller down about 4-5 spots (NBA data only). The updated list looks better imo, players like Wade shot up which sounds right to me. To be honest I think it's still under valuing peak level play, if I play more I'll make a post elsewhere iwth results, but I'd have to add in a few more years of data.

Now back to Miller, do we have data on him turning up scoring in crunch time? I know we have some playoff games and some huge moments, but was it really consistent? I'd love to see both players crunch time play if we have that. I've always felt Allen was just a bit better peak and while he dropped off a bit faster, longevity was close enough to take Allen. It's also hard as I think Miller was just a much better team around him overall.

[LA Bird]

1. Scottie Pippen
The GOAT second banana and played a key role in the greatest dynasty in NBA history. I have him as the best perimeter defender of all time but I think his defense relative to his offense is overrated and he is barely a top 20 defensive GOAT when including big men. One of the best point forwards and deadly in transition when he wasn't taking pull up 3s. Pippen was the 2nd best perimeter player of the 90s after Jordan IMO.

2. Jason Kidd
Longevity is pretty much the only reason Kidd is this high. Solid peak but otherwise not too special for most of his career.

[scrabbarista]

I do see some recency bias - not by percentages, but just by players voted in. CP3, Nash, Ewing, Wade over Hondo/Cousy/Baylor seems strange.

Cousy is what - 10x first team all NBA, multiple time champion, regular season MVP, all-star game MVP, etc... with a huge impact on the entire league (forget only his team). What more does he need? Ewing only made one all-nba 1st team.

Pick: Cousy
Alt: Hondo
HM: Baylor

Cousy was a guy who chucked inefficiently relative to his teammates who is supposed to be a legend because he was a great floor general. He was overrated in his day because people didn't have the basis to really understand how far from optimal he was, and meanwhile his teammate Bill Sharman was underrated, and Bill Russell was underrated as well until Cousy retired and the team rose further with that lead weight removed.

I like Hondo, but he's not a guy you want volume scoring for you and it is his scoring peak that convinces many that he was something more than he was.

Baylor was someone who only had a few years before he was next to a teammate who was much better than him, and since Baylor never adjusted his play he held the team back by a good amount compared to what he could have accomplished. Like Cousy, it's a double whammy because he got big stats because of his sub-optimal approach, and this then led him to get accolades from the naive journalists of the time.

Last: I understand it seems the height of moxie to proclaim people at the time as naive but do people clear I'm not dismissing them outright, I'm specifically saying that they lacked an understanding of the diminishing returns of inefficient volume scoring, which should not be controversial because many journalists still don't understand this.

To me personally, it doesn't seem fair to penalize players for something no one - coaches, players, or journalists - knew at the time. It's kind of like saying Einstein was "better" than Newton because gravity was something he didn't struggle to solve and easily moved beyond. It's a valid perspective, but it's not mine.