RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #51 (Russell Westbrook)

[scrabbarista]

51. Elvin Hayes
52. Dave Cowens

For combined (RS) points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals, Elvin Hayes is 9th in the history of the NBA and ABA combined.

9th and 51st! C'mon! Some of the rankings that have gone up so far have disregarded literally TENS OF THOUSANDS of raw stats in the Big Five categories for Hayes. I could never bring myself to go that far.

Hayes was the most productive player on the '78 Bullets title team, as he was on nearly every team for which he played for most of his career.

He was a Top 5 MVP candidate three times (Top 3 twice) and was a 12x All-Star.

It is incomprehensible to me how low this guy gets ranked sometimes. "He was a jerk who shot too much" just doesn't seem to explain it...

[iggymcfrack]

Thoughts on Billups vs Westbrook? I think in Westy’s best years it’s obvious he shines brighter. But Billups still has a lead of about 10K total career minutes. Chauncey obviously struggles mightily his first few years in the league, but the same can be said for Westbrook. I think despite the gaudy totals, a pretty easy case is made for Westy being an “empty calories” type of player as a youngster, so while he may appear more impressive, it’s not obvious to me it was anything other than OKC betting big on him when they had nothing else. Now by 2012 he was a big time player, and by 2015 he was at an MVP type level.

But that’s still not a ton. Billups was ridiculously effective, and seemed to make magic whatever team he joined, even we’ll into his mid 30s before breaking down with LAC. At his peak plenty looked at him as a top 10 player, his vía RAPM his 06-11 stretch looks comparable to the best we saw from, say, Kidd.

I don't believe in just adding up total minutes. Billups had 10 seasons where he was providing significant value: from 2001/02 (second year in Minnesota) through 2010/11 (season traded from Nuggets to Knicks). The other seasons, he was either playing at or near a league average level, was putting in very few minutes, or both. Westbrook has had 8 seasons so far where he's provided significant value starting with his second year in the league where he finished 33rd in RAPM.

Over Billups 10 years, he ranged from an above average player to one of the best PGs in the league at his peak with maybe 3 years playing at a very high level. Westbrook ranged from an above average player to one of the very best offensive players in the history of the league with 3 years at a higher level than Billups ever played, and 7 years that were as good as Billups' peak. In that kind of comparison, I just can't see valuing the 2 extra years of low end production more than having 3 extra years of elite production or 4 extra years playing at a very high level.

[iggymcfrack]

51. Elvin Hayes
52. Dave Cowens

For combined (RS) points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals, Elvin Hayes is 9th in the history of the NBA and ABA combined.

9th and 51st! C'mon! Some of the rankings that have gone up so far have disregarded literally TENS OF THOUSANDS of raw stats in the Big Five categories for Hayes. I could never bring myself to go that far.

Hayes was the most productive player on the '78 Bullets title team, as he was on nearly every team for which he played for most of his career.

He was a Top 5 MVP candidate three times (Top 3 twice) and was a 12x All-Star.

It is incomprehensible to me how low this guy gets ranked sometimes. "He was a jerk who shot too much" just doesn't seem to explain it...

What's the value of taking tons of shots with a .491 TS%? In the weakest era in the history of the NBA when there's an entire competing league drawing away stars, maybe slightly positive. In almost any other era in history, it's negative. Like he'd have way more value just taking 5 or 6 shots a game when he's open or gets a board, and just staying out of the offense the rest of the time. How about when you factor in that with the much tougher defenses from the 90s or today he wouldn't be putting up a .491 TS% but an even lower number, maybe .465? That's gotta be hugely negative, right?

I'd liken it to a CB that was 9th on the all-time tackles list in the NFL. Yeah, he's involved in a lot of plays, but they're not positive plays. They're plays where he was beaten, his man made a catch, and then he had to tackle them to keep from compounding his mistake and making it worse. Likewise, Hayes' points weren't positive points. They were close to neutral in his era and would have been negative in any other era where the competition was tougher.

BTW, I'm not that impressed with what he did on the '78 title team either. That was probably the worst team to ever win an NBA championship in relative terms, and in even a little bit tougher era, they would have missed the playoffs. Being arguably the top contributor on a super-balanced team that's at best maybe as good as last year's Pistons? That don't impressa me much.

[penbeast0]

Re: Dantley and Iverson......

But the core point is that all that motion, all that running, creates chaos. All 24 seconds of the shotclock, effort has to be made to keep an eye on Iverson, because he was going to find a way to score, and this is important, score quickly if he gets some space. This doesn’t change anything about the negatives attached to him, but it does say something positive: when he’s out there, he’s moving, and he forces himself to be accounted for.

He wasn't going to find a way to score, he was going to find a way to shoot . . . it's not the same thing. And, you can't say it did much for his teammates when they didn't get more efficient playing with him and his offenses were generally close to the bottom of the league.

Dantley just doesn’t do this. ...As we’ve seen over and over and over again... one way is just more effective....

Again, it wasn't more effective for Iverson, not at an individual level and not at a team level. And,
Iverson was ineffective with one of the top 5 coaches in NBA history, Larry Brown. A guy who led a team with rookie Bobby Jones as its best player to the best record in the ABA; a guy who turned Billy Cunningham from a good player into an ABA MVP; a guy with a record of creating good teams wherever he went (until he went to Isiah Thomas in NY well after the Iverson era). Dantley didnt' achieve any more than Iverson in terms of team offense but he certainly didn't achieve any less, and that was playing for Frank Layden who was fat and sometimes funny but rarely considered a great basketball mind or coach.

One final thing: Dantley was a good shooter, but there’s a ton of footage of defenses not actually respect+ting it. For example, look at the highlight video of him against a Phoenix in 84, they literally just let him take jumper after jumper. I don’t know if that’s an aberration, but it’s weird.

Yeah, that's weird. You can see him play catch and shoot and shoot very early in the shot clock too, not a lot of ball stopping going on.

[penbeast0]

...

BTW, I'm not that impressed with what he did on the '78 title team either. That was probably the worst team to ever win an NBA championship in relative terms, and in even a little bit tougher era, they would have missed the playoffs. Being arguably the top contributor on a super-balanced team that's at best maybe as good as last year's Pistons? That don't impressa me much.

We long suffering Bullets/Wizards fans prefer to think of it as a group of scrappy underdogs pulling together to make one of the great playoff runs in NBA history.

IT AIN'T OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS!

And then the next year we were back to being a legit contender instead of a .500 team . . . and losing in the finals again, never to even sniff them again since.

[70sFan]

Dantley didn't like outside shots. He wanted to find the most possibly efficient shot in given situation. That's why he didn't shoot much from far away and that's why defenders gave him so much room.

I think many posters here haven't watched AD outside of some highlights on YT. It's not possible to understand Dantley with only highlights.

When you watch YT videos, you see him with a lot of space to operate on perimeter. Then, you think "people don't respect his jumpshot" or (in more disrespectful way) "defense suck".

When you watch full games, you see why it happened. He wanted you press him. Contact game was his paradise, his home. You can't make him get out of control. Press him far away, then he'll blow you with ease. Then you can only hope that he misses, because you can't defend him wthout foul in this situation.

Even though players knew he'd fake you to death, they still couldn't react rightfully. He was maestro, real teacher on the court. Even the best defenders couldn't do anything with him.

I can make a video about his midrange game if some of you would like to see it. I've been watching 1988 ECSF recently and Dantley schooled young duo of Pippen and Grant. They were unable to do anything to slow him down (outside of game 2 when he couldn't make shots he normally made at 80% clip. It happens).

[penbeast0]

I loved rewatching him with Detroit v. Larry Bird and the Celtics a few weeks ago, made Bird look like he had JaVale McGee's defensive IQ out there. Dantley had spinning in circles.

[iggymcfrack]

Not sure if I have a vote yet, but if I do, its for:

1. Russell Westbrook
It's easy to dismiss Westbrook's season last year as empty stats with a bad team, but I don't think that's really fair at all. Maintaining the exact same efficiency while your usage goes up from 31.6 to an all-time record of 41.7 is incredibly difficult. Doing that while leading the league in AST% and leading all guards in rebounds is even tougher. The fact is, Westbrook is NOT the same player he was with Durant, he clearly made a leap last year talent-wise, and his incredible historic season is indicative of him becoming a legitimately elite player.

I feel like Kobe Bryant's a good comparison peak-wise since both were capable defenders who were mostly above average in the early part of their career before letting it slide later on as they got older/took on greater offensive responsibilities. They're also two huge perimeter scorers who took on giant loads on bad teams in the prime of their careers at roughly the same age. Well, here's how Kobe did in his 3 seasons with no help in LA:

Kobe "Bean" Bryant, age 26: 27.6 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 6.0 APG, 23.3 PER, .563 TS%, .145 WS/48, 4.6 BPM, 34-48 record, missed playoffs
Kobe "Bean" Bryant, age 27: 35.4 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 4.5 APG, 28.0 PER, .559 TS%, .224 WS/48. 5.3 BPM, 45-37 record, lost 1st round
Kobe "Bean" Bryant, age 28: 31.6 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 5.4 APG, 26.1 PER, .580 TS%, .199 WS/49, 4.7 BPM, 42-40 record, lost 1st round


Westbrook had an extremely similar situation this year as well as 3 seasons ago when Durant missed most of the year and this is how he did:

Russell Westbrook, age 26: 28.1 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 8.6 APG, 29.1 PER, .536 TS%, .222 WS/48, 11.0 BPM, 45-37 record, missed playoffs
Russell Westbrook, age 28: 31.6 PPG, 10.7 RPG, 10.4 APG, 30.6 PER, .554 TS%, .224 WS/48, 15.6 BPM, 47-35 record, lost 1st round

Given their extremely similar roles, skillset, and level of defense played, I feel that these numbers are pretty decisive for Russell peaking higher than Kobe in this instance who is ranked #11 overall in this project. Granted, a lot of that's for the longevity of his career, but still food for thought when Russell has a higher BPM in one year than Kobe had in 3 years combined. If you're worried about it being a fluke, Westbrook also put up very good numbers the intermediate year in a slightly different role:

Russell Westbrook, age 27: 23.5 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 10.4 APG, 27.6 PER, .554 TS%, .245 WS/48, 10.0 BPM, 55-27 record, lost conference finals

Given that he peaks much higher than one of the all-time greats in the same role, and already has more games played than several candidates thus far including Willis Reed and Bill Walton, I feel like it's beyond time to take him.


2. Alonzo Mourning
There's arguments for modern guys in this spot but they're basically a poor man's version of Westbrook. Instead I wanted to grab a guy with a little different skillset who was a legitimate defensive anchor. He led the league in blocks twice, and averaged at least 2.4 blocks in each of his first 10 seasons before developing kidney disease. And he was anything but empty numbers on the defensive end. He ranked 10th in DRAPM for the 97-14 seasons combined and 14th in RAPM overall during that period even though a lot of his seasons were post-illness where he declined heavily from his peak (although not heavily enough not to be a very useful player). He also was a solid force on the offensive end, averaging over 20 PPG and 10 RPG throughout that period on TS% of at least .563 in each season.

Also, even though he was well, well past his prime at age 35 and only played 226 minutes, he made very solid contributions to the championship team in '06 in a backup role, leading the entire playoffs with a TS% of .721 and a block percentage of 8.9. That was his second consecutive year leading the playoffs in both block percentage and field goal percentage so I don't think sample size issues were the key.

[trex_8063]

Do you seriously think that Adrian Dantley couldn't have done more than Iverson with Iverson's teams?

Both unguardable one on one, both have to have the offense run through them, both at times questionable on defense (though Dantley got complements from Chuck Daly who I greatly respect) . . . but one is below average efficiency while the other is up there with Barkley in terms of most efficient great scorer of all time.

I think Dantley, on those Philly teams, adds a not insignificant amount of value over Iverson . . . consistently.

My counter to that is (and has been, as I'd presented on this in prior threads) to then ask: why didn't we SEE BETTER from those Dantley-led Jazz offenses? Those supporting casts were not appreciably worse [offensively] than what Iverson generally had during his tenure in Philly. Or if they were, I'll say it's not by a huge margin and at any rate is reflected in worse ORtg's than we see in Philly during Iverson's time.

With Dantley, his box-based metrics tend to overstate his offensive impact because we can get a little overly focused on individual shooting efficiency. There are other components and factors at play:
*Dantley was not a note-worthy playmaker, Iverson was.
**Dantley didn't break down defenses in a way that enabled or potentiated offensive rebounders; Iverson did.
***Iverson had better turnover economy as well.
****Iverson was able to play slightly larger minutes, too, fwiw.
EDIT: I'd also mention spacing benefits. Not that Iverson was a particularly good shooter, but Dantley wasn't an outside shooter at all.

Hmmm, this is all otoh, as I don't want to spend the time I normally would crafting a response but

C: Eaton and Jeff Wilkins vs Mutombo/Ratliff/Dalembert, Maculloch, Mohammed, Geiger
I'd say there is a large gap there, both because of quality of depth and the pain of having an immobile non-finisher.

PF: Poquette, Bailey (rookie Malone) vs Hill, Coleman, Kenny Thomas (bits of Van Horn, Kukoc)
Poquette is a CNP. The Philly crew are generally sound role players.

etc

Short version, my instinct is Philly's crew are (certainly) better, especially at their particular roles and would want convincing otherwise. Or at very least to be confident it had been looked at closely.

I don't think what you've listed above paints a full picture of things with respect to their supporting casts (on offense). And it’s mostly in what you didn’t list, though sometimes name-dropping can [potentially] be misleading unless we look up the details (e.g. the Coleman Iverson had as teammate was post-injury/prime and one of the years they were together Iverson himself was not yet in his prime; and is Tyrone Hill really a prize [offensively] at starting PF?). And Kukoc and Van Horn (one season each) played primarily SF for Philly.

I don’t disagree that the PF/C’s that Iverson had were better [offensively] than those of Dantley’s time in Utah; though I’m not sure just how big you’re implying this gap is (especially if we remove the bits of Kukoc and Van Horn from the list of Iverson’s bigs). Offense-only, is Tyrone Hill noteworthy (even compared to someone like Thurl Bailey)? I don’t think so. We’re talking about a guy whose single-best scoring season was 13.8 ppg @ 55.4% TS, and who was utterly useless as playmaking big (had career avg of 0.8 apg with a 0.52 Ast:TO ratio despite having a fairly low usage). If we’re talking offense-only (and we are), I’m comfortably taking Thurl Bailey over Hill.
And where Utah’s depth at the C position is concerned, fwiw, you didn’t mention Rich Kelly, plus about a season and a half of Danny Schayes.

But looking beyond the bigs…...what about the backcourt and SF’s?
For Dantley, we’re looking at a backcourt accompaniment of Rickey Green and Darrell Griffith, with a couple seasons of early (pre-prime) John Stockton, some post-prime John Drew and Bobby Hansen filling in at SG/SF.

For Iverson, we’re looking at primary backcourt accompaniment of Eric Snow and Aaron McKie, with a rotating door of misc including Kevin Ollie, Greg Buckner, bits of guys like Rodney Buford, etc. At SF it was George Lynch and a bit (one season) of Matt Harpring, and one season each of a couple whom you already mentioned above: one season of Kukoc, one season of Van Horn. Rotating door of bench SF’s, the best of whom was maybe someone like Jumaine Jones.

I know which group of PG/SG/SF’s I think is better offensively, and not particularly close, imo.
I’ll leave you and others to deliberate where that leaves us overall in offensive quality of supporting casts.

The playmaker point is fair.

The turnover economy is ... true (moreso if playmaking burden is factored in) but not a large difference and ... less if calculated per bucket rather than shot attempts.

Fwiw, I have a “Modified TOV%” formula as follows:

TO / [TSA + (2 * Ast) + TO + (0.04 * Reb)]

Iverson’s career rs Mod TOV% is 8.55%. Career playoff mark is 6.82%.
Dantley’s career rs (minus ‘77) Mod TOV% is 9.79%. Career playoff is 10.14%.

That’s what I’m basing that statement from.

And that he didn't shoot from outside "at all" (and emphasised) ... my gut is just a no on that one. Versus the Spurs in a 47 point 8 assist outing you see the Spurs double him at 20 feet a three times, they sometimes collapse on him in the post (if his move isn't too quick). Dantley seems to have got his points from a versatile offensive game (just off highlights we see: aggressive in transition, off-ball movement, 20 foot J, drive to the hoop off the threat of J, drive and pullup and postup scoring), but I'm not sure where the idea his game wasn't "outside" "at all", would come from.

Don’t really want to debate the semantics of the use of “at all”. Maybe it was a poor choice of wording. I didn’t really remember him shooting much outside of 17-18 feet. Perhaps I need to edit that to say “outside of 20 ft” (20 ft being the figure you’ve stated). I think I’d still stand by that statement. So maybe the semantics of the word “outside” is what we need to debate, because that still leaves nearly four feet remaining until we reach the 3pt line.
Incidentally, I’ve put on a game (on YouTube) from the ‘84 Jazz/Suns series…..this one:

Watch on YouTube

9:10 - Dantley has received the ball on the right wing ~21-22 feet from the basket. His defender has taken up defensive stance dropping his right foot back (to force a potential drive to the middle): that right foot is ~2’ from the paint; his CLOSEST foot to Dantley is still 4-5’ from where Dantley stands with the ball. This does not seem like the positioning of a defender who is worried about that outside shot (and Dantley doesn’t shoot it from there either).
9:45 - Dantley receives the pass near the left elbow, about 20’ from the hoop. Again his defender is backed about 4’ off of him; again Dantley does not shoot from there.
10:16 - Dantley receives the pass at the top of the key about 20’ out (toe is on the top of the circle). His defender is about 4-5’ off of him (standing on the FT-line), and does NOT bite on the first pump fake. He DOES bite on the 2nd pump fake, Dantley takes one dribble and pulls up from 16-17’ (miss, fwiw).

Anyway, point being that I didn’t have to look far (happened right away---on consecutive plays----in a game I selected at random) to find what I more or less remembered of Adrian Dantley: he wasn’t particularly comfortable shooting from [I’ll amend to] 20’ or further.

I should also note that after that first play (the one at 9:10 in the above film), one of the commentators commented on the other thing that is potentially problematic [from a team offense perspective] about Dantley’s style: him holding the ball too long and the rest of the team standing around as spectators.

You might have a better chance at rebound on an Iverson shot (or more pertinently on one of his misses - missing more often isn't an advantage).

Additional misses does not---in and of itself---effect team OREB%, though. I did not base that statement on ORebs/game, but rather on OREB%. This is partially a scouting observation related to Iverson’s style of play and particular capabilities, which appears to be reflected in his team’s OREB%; this relationship appears to continue right up until ‘05 (when they changed the hand-check rules), whereupon Iverson’s finishing rate in the close range improves sharply (as well as some improvement in his FTr).

But Dantley gives you a better chance to set your defense via a make, you can more often assume a make and so send guys back…..

This is probably true. I was speaking entirely to the offensive side of the ball.

You discuss offensive ratings and that you don't think Dantley creates offensive rebounding ... but hidden behind this is that the case for AI hinges on offensive rebounding, because Dantley does, otoh, do well for shooting efficiency and so you have to be fairly confident that Dantley is a cause of bad offensive rebounding in Utah ... at the present time, I'm not convinced.

I said I’d noted a [positive] relationship between Iverson and this aspect of team offense

I said nothing whatsoever (good or bad) about Dantley’s style effecting the offensive rebounding rate (and to be honest, I haven’t even investigated that). Though based on the same “scouting observation” technique that inspired me to look into this for Iverson, I can’t say I’ve noted anything about Dantley’s game that I would expect to create an increase in OREB% (like you said: if anything, probably the inverse is true-->that his teammates will assume a make or trip to the FT-line, and focus more on getting back on defense).

[trex_8063]

I looked at the Utah numbers from 80-86 (the Dantley years) and yes, generally those offenses were bad (one average year, one top 10 (9), 4 awful). In 80, there was no playmaker (F Allen Bristow led the team in assists) but they added one in Ricky Green by 1982. The bigs early on were complete stiffs, but they added Thurl Bailey who was a decent post scorer (even if too skinny to rebound or hold position defensively well). His main sidekick was Darrel (Dr. Dunkenstein) Griffith whose game I never liked but who was a legit second scorer.

So, I was ready to concede on this point until I looked at the Iverson offenses you were comparing them to and they were near the bottom of the league 7 of his 10 years there too (twice around the middle, once top 10) and despite having Larry Brown as coach rather than the questionable Frank Layden. So, I don't see this as an advantage for Iverson either, though it makes me wonder if EITHER of them belong this early.

Generally speaking, no, there's not much separating their team offensive success (in their primes, as the front man with poor offensive supporting casts). But if anything, I thought perhaps a tiny edge to the Iverson-led offenses:

Best team rORTG
Iverson: +1.4
Dantley: +1.4

Worst team rORTG
Iverson: *-3.8 (*in an injury year in which Iverson missed 34 games, playing slightly below usual standards when active)
Dantley: *-4.6 (*Dantley missed 27 games that year)

Worst team rORTG in a non-injury year
Iverson: -2.6
Dantley: -3.0

Years team rORTG >0
Iverson: 2 (out of 9, '98-'06)
Dantley: 1 (out of 7, '80-'86)

Avg team rORTG
Iverson: -1.62
Dantley: -1.94

I spoke at length regarding respective quality of offensive supporting casts in my reply to Owly (post #29, I think).

[trex_8063]

(a) Iverson played the point much of his career, SG the rest, relative to other PGs his playmaking is weak, relative to other SGs it is above average. I certainly wouldn't consider him a "noteworthy playmaker." Dantley was not a point forward type but he does have a positive assist to turnover ratio despite his very high shooting numbers. Better than the Dominique Wilkins or Bernard King, not as good as Mark Aquirre or Alex English.

I generally refer to my Modified TOV% formula, as I feel it strikes a reasonable balance between shot/scoring load and playmaking being accounted for. TO / [TO + TSA + (2 * Ast) + (0.04 * Reb)]

Dantley's career (minus '77) rs mTOV% is 9.79%. His playoff mTOV% is 10.14%.
Wilkins' career rs mTOV% is 8.05%. His career playoff mTOV% is 8.27%.

Turnover economy is definitely an area where Wilkins has Dantley beat.

(b) Have you looked at offensive rebounding on Dantley teams like you did on Iverson teams? And, is this really the equivalent of the massive individual efficiency difference?

I haven't investigated this for Dantley, no (I spoke wrt this in more detail in post #29).
Is any Iverson advantage here---by itself---the equivalent of Dantley's advantage in individual shooting efficiency? No, almost certainly not (or even close).

But could a positive effect on team offensive rebounding PLUS more facilitating/playmaking PLUS better turnover economy PLUS better spacing PLUS less ball-stopping PLUS his higher mpg all add up to being equivalent [or greater??] than Dantley's advantage in individual shooting efficiency? idk, but that's where it starts to get interesting.

(c) Per hundred possessions Iverson turned the ball over 4.5 times/game, Dantley only 3.4. Numbers are similar for per game and per minute. Not sure what you mean with this statement.

Number of turnovers per 100 possesions (or per game, or per 36 minutes, or whatever unit) is directly related to how much you're expected to produce (by way of scoring opportunities---whether for yourself or others). Iverson was asked/expected to do a lot more (per 100 possessions) by way of shot taking/creating and playmaking.

I again refer to my Modified TOV%:
Dantley rs: 9.79%
Iverson rs: 8.55%
Dantley ps: 10.14%
Iverson ps: 6.82%

fwiw, bbref's regular TOV% also pegs Iverson marginally better, and he has a significantly better Ast:TO ratio, too, if you'd rather do it that way.

(d) Every study I have looked at has concluded that minutes per game tend to be more coach determined than any other factor (possibly except for a very few players like asthmatic Bobby Jones).

Be that as it may......as we generally presume these players to have an overall positive impact while in the game (and since all the measures we tend to use are rate metrics), it's worth noting that Iverson was typically in the game longer. That's the only reason I mention it.

[trex_8063]

btw, [not that I necessarily want to personally remain in the thick of it] I'm thrilled we've had this nice stretch (one solid page of it) of debate/content directly relating to candidates currently on the table! That's been somewhat lacking at times in recent threads.

[dhsilv2]

I'm moving my vote to Iverson, I don't think Reed can at this point win in a run off. I'll fill this in tomorrow, but I'd honestly at this point in their careers feel pretty bad being apart of a group that took westbrook here over Iverson.

[pandrade83]

I'm moving my vote to Iverson, I don't think Reed can at this point win in a run off. I'll fill this in tomorrow, but I'd honestly at this point in their careers feel pretty bad being apart of a group that took westbrook here over Iverson.

For me, Westbrook = Iverson in sabermetric friendly form - & I love Iverson - I just can't objectively put him higher in this project.

Pick a metric (WS, PER, RAPM, BPM, VORP, On/Off) any metric & Westbrook has Iverson beat pretty handily. Westbrook > Iverson seems pretty straightforward.

[trex_8063]

I'm moving my vote to Iverson, I don't think Reed can at this point win in a run off. I'll fill this in tomorrow, but I'd honestly at this point in their careers feel pretty bad being apart of a group that took westbrook here over Iverson.

I'd rather you didn't, at least not for the reasons you're expressing here: voting for someone who is not your actual top pick (because your actual top pick doesn't have any traction) is one thing. But Reed does have traction: obviously, as he's been in the runoff like 3-4 times. And he's not exactly losing these runoffs in landslides. The primary argument against him in runoffs against prior inductees has been lacking longevity.......that argument doesn't have much footing against Westbrook, fwiw.

At any rate, voting in a manner to strategically direct it away from someone you don't want to get in is precisely the kind of strategic manipulation that is not allowed.

I'd appreciate it if you'd stick with Reed as your pick, unless you've genuinely been convinced to switch it to someone else (Iverson or whoever). Otherwise, you put me and the other mods in a difficult position of examining this grey area to determine if your actions represent dishonorable vote manipulation (which could result in temporary suspension from the project).

EDIT: I know it can get frustrating when your candidate keeps losing runoffs (in the last project, I think Iverson lost SIX----or maybe seven----runoffs in a row before finally getting in; as one of his primary supporters in that one, I was getting frustrated). Just be patient, and try to remember the order of the list is not the most pertinent component of this project.
It's not YOUR personal list, so you need not attach any personal dissatisfaction, embarrassment, or other negative feelings to the order itself.

.

[pandrade83]

'For modern players, I am looking at Manu Ginobili and Russell Westbrook at the moment. 90s have been picked through pretty well except for Mourning, \Mutombo and the oddity that is Dennis Rodman; GOAT rebounder in regular season, but big dropoffs in the postseason or I'd probably be looking at him here.

80s, Sidney Moncrief had a short career but every time I saw him he was brutally effective, particularly defensively. Bobby Jones is another great two way player with limited time (not length of career for him but minutes per game). On the other end, Adrian Dantley is probably the next great scorer over Nique (and King/Aguirre/Marques who didn't have the longevity even if they peaked higher). To paraphrase LA Bird, the only real argument for Nique over English is style over substance; they scored roughly equivalent amounts but English was more efficient, a clearly superior defender, and he scored them in the context of the Nuggets offense without having to have constant isos run for him. No one left is as offensively impressive to me as English and Dantley except for the shorter modern careers like Westbrook and Harden.

60s guys, I am looking at Sam Jones, Hal Greer, Dave Debusschere, and Nate Thurmond, maybe Chet Walker. Thurmond is hurt by his offense and his team winning a title just after trading him for Cliff Ray. 70s there are a bunch of guys like Daniels, Cowens, Hayes, Reed, and McAdoo just among big men. Of these, I'd rather have Dave Cowens though the stats don't always back me up. But having watched them a lot, he had an Alonzo Mourning attitude with stretch the floor midrange shooting. 50s guys, Arizin and Cousy are the best left plus maybe Neil Johnston, the Amare of the 50s, whose great looking numbers overrate his impact.

Vote: Alex English
Alternate: Adrian Dantley

Nique's TO efficiency is pretty off the charts and he has some impressive WOWY impact in '92 & '93. English appears to have decent rebounding or elite turnover efficiency - but not both at the same time; so Wilkins appears to have an edge there.

English is a relative unknown to me - didn't get to see him play live & his youtube clips don't wow you. His metrics don't blow you away so I'm trying to learn a little bit more about the case for him.

[pandrade83]

I'm moving my vote to Iverson, I don't think Reed can at this point win in a run off. I'll fill this in tomorrow, but I'd honestly at this point in their careers feel pretty bad being apart of a group that took westbrook here over Iverson.

I'd rather you didn't, at least not for the reasons you're expressing here: voting for someone who is not your actual top pick (because your actual top pick doesn't have any traction) is one thing. But Reed does have traction: obviously, as he's been in the runoff like 3-4 times. And he's not exactly losing these runoffs in landslides. The primary argument against him in runoffs against prior inductees has been lacking longevity.......that argument doesn't have much footing against Westbrook.

At any rate, voting in a manner to strategically direct it away from someone you don't want to get in is precisely the kind of strategic manipulation that is not allowed.

I'd appreciate it if you'd stick with Reed as your pick, unless you've genuinely been convinced to switch it to someone else (Iverson or whoever). Otherwise, you put me and the other mods in a difficult position of examining this grey area to determine if your actions represent dishonorable vote manipulation (which could result in temporary suspension from the project).

EDIT: I know it can get frustrating when your candidate keeps losing runoffs (in the last project, I think Iverson lost SIX----or maybe seven----runoffs in a row before finally getting in; as one of his primary supporters in that one, I was getting frustrated). Just be patient, and try to remember the order of the list is not the most pertinent component of this project.
It's not YOUR personal list, so you need to attach any personal dissatisfaction, embarrassment, or other negative feelings to the order itself.

Just a smidge off-topic but relevant to the post - Reed is 179th in Career ABA/NBA WS; a decent barometer of quality longevity. Thurmond is the only other person outside the Top 150 to have gotten any traction.

I think it's going to be a long time before longevity is not part of the argument against Reed.

[pandrade83]

For this spot, I'm tentatively giving my picks to a couple somewhat similar player types. One peaked higher, but the other did it for longer.

1st vote: Russell Westbrook
2nd vote: Allen Iverson

Westy doesn't have great longevity, but it's not terrible either. With 9 seasons, 668 rs games (including a hold-out year), 3 superstar seasons and 4 other All-Star to All-NBA level years to his credit, his longevity is certainly just as strong as Reed's (arguably marginally better).
Rather than regurgitate his numbers, I'm just going to speak in more generalities.
What he's done from a pure production standpoint [this past season] is almost unprecedented. I'd have been backing him sooner if it had resulted in a more high-octane offense. To be fair though, when Steven Adams and Victor Oladipo [overrated, imo] are the 2nd and 3rd best offensive players, and you have a decided lack of 3pt shooters (OKC was 18th/30 in 3PA and dead-last in 3pt%).....there's only so much one star can do. And one wonders how the lanes might open up for Westbrook if he DID have shooters.

Somewhat similar with Iverson (there's a cap to how good your offense will be---unless we're talking about a Lebron-level offensive star---if your 2nd and 3rd-best offensive players are guys like Mutombo and Aaron McKie; though indeed '01 was the only year he manged to top average).
And for all his low efficiency shooting, I noted previously that he gets a lot of shots up on the rim in instances after he has broken down the defense and forced the low-post defenders to come help and contest the shot (thus leaving teammates with no one boxing them out). And indeed I noted some upward trends in team OREB% associated with Iverson's presence (I'll see if I can locate that data and present it later).


One can question whether Westbrook can truly mesh WELL with another superstar, though his time with Durant at the very least proves he doesn't mesh poorly with one. They had some fairly relevant success together, especially considering strength of conference.
Iverson has perhaps more question marks in this regard, which is a valid question wrt the ceiling of an Iverson-led team. But there's no denying he had a mighty significant career nonetheless, ample enough to give him consideration here.

Thoughts on Billups vs Westbrook? I think in Westy’s best years it’s obvious he shines brighter. But Billups still has a lead of about 10K total career minutes. Chauncey obviously struggles mightily his first few years in the league, but the same can be said for Westbrook. I think despite the gaudy totals, a pretty easy case is made for Westy being an “empty calories” type of player as a youngster, so while he may appear more impressive, it’s not obvious to me it was anything other than OKC betting big on him when they had nothing else. Now by 2012 he was a big time player, and by 2015 he was at an MVP type level.

But that’s still not a ton. Billups was ridiculously effective, and seemed to make magic whatever team he joined, even we’ll into his mid 30s before breaking down with LAC. At his peak plenty looked at him as a top 10 player, his vía RAPM his 06-11 stretch looks comparable to the best we saw from, say, Kidd.

I think it's pretty clearly Westbrook here.

In terms of quality years, you're talking 9 to 8 in Billups favor on my scorecard ('03-'11 vs. '10-'17) and wrt Westbrook's early years being "empty calories", b RAPM has Westbrook @ 33rd in year 2 & had a strong playoff outing against defending & eventual champ LA - putting up 21-6-6 while being the best player on OKC while Durant struggled in a respectable 4-2 showing. He only goes up from there.

[trex_8063]

Just a smidge off-topic but relevant to the post - Reed is 179th in Career ABA/NBA WS; a decent barometer of quality longevity. Thurmond is the only other person outside the Top 150 to have gotten any traction.

I think it's going to be a long time before longevity is not part of the argument against Reed.

Westbrook is only 148th in career ABA/NBA WS......not really a heck of a lot better. So I'd still say longevity is not a place where Westbrook holds a significant edge (most other players will though, yes).

Reed has some other things going for him: narratives, accomplishments, intangibles, defensive rep (which is TOTALLY unaccounted for in the box-based metrics we've just cited). I also suspect (from the games I've watched) that Reed's got a low turnover rate; very savvy and quickly decisive with the ball. More complete stat-keeping is only likely to improve his box-based metrics, imo.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #39:

Russell Westbrook - 3 (trex_8063, iggymcfrack, pandrade83)
Elvin Hayes - 1 (scabbarista)
Bob Lanier - 1 (Dr Positivity)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)

This thread will go to runoff in ~24 hours. Please get your picks and arguments in by then.

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