RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #52 (Alonzo Mourning)

[janmagn]

Vote: Bill Walton
2nd vote: Kawhi Leonard

Walton to me has the best peak remaining quite clearly. He dominated offensively, scored on his opponents, was a great rebounder, elite passer for a big man but also an elite defender. His talent didn't fade with injuries, he just didn't get the chance to show them.

And for my secondary vote, Kawhi Leonard. Somebody asked me why I didn't vote Kawhi over Walton a few threads back. Here's why Walton>Kawhi, but also why Kawhi is my secondary vote.

Kawhi has a great peak, one of the best remaining, but in my opinion it lacks just a bit too much to overtake Walton. He is one of the best perimeter defenders of all time and can also score well. He's got decent longevity so far. But I also think that him playing for the Spurs, playing for Gregg Popovich, the best coach of all time in my opinion, gives him maybe a tad more scoring and assists than maybe his skillset would give: Pop's system is so good.

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[Owly]

I've been arguing in Iverson's favor recently (posts 5, 11, and 14 itt), mostly showing indicators of his impact via WOWY data. He's somewhat a puzzler for because much of our conventional wisdom wants to say that someone shooting that much on mediocre efficiency can't be doing much good. That's where I went looking at other potential explanations...

...
All of these things can help explain his impact (which seems more substantial than efficiency-minded advanced metrics would imply).

Wouldn't one obvious factor which might inflate his "impact" be his uniqueness and the lack of a replacement.

Where a player is an outlier in terms of usage (or any other factors, e.g. Rodman on the boards), and suddenly that player is gone (especially in the short-term, where there will be a tendency to "make do" and struggle through, rather than seriously adjust strategy and/or roster construction), the notional impact is likely not reflecting a highly portable positive impact, but a fragile, high-downside roster eco-system.

Who did take Iverson's minutes? Who could take Iverson's role?
http://bkref.com/tiny/cwDJw

There might even be a case that Iverson's effectiveness/impact encourages/necessitates such a fragile balance (that might not be such an important thing, few teams will be able to compete without their best player). Even allowing for this as acceptable (or disagreeing) this somewhat begs the question what Iverson's upside is? What does a consistent contender that is capable of multiple of a string of ~5 or 6+ SRS seasons and decent probility for perhaps capturing a championship (or two) look like. Is it a team on which Iverson is the best player? Not that a no would necessarily be damning - one could argue about whether Isiah was on his title teams, although you perhaps wouldn't if the titles had been won with 84-86 version of Isiah - but I think bears consideration.


Per previous discussions of Dantley, something that damages Dantley's notional "impact" is the availability of a pretty good (especially for a reserve already on your team) "poor mans ..." replacement on the bench for Dantley's longest absence (John Drew, a volume scoring small forward).

[iggymcfrack]

To be fair, when Iverson was traded to Denver, he had a career-high TS% of .545 the rest of the season and then followed that up with a TS% of .567 the next year which would point to the idea that he was capable of changing up his game when the conditions were right and that his high volume, low efficiency style was largely a product of his situation. Could also be a product of the way the game was called during his prime as his last full season in Philly had better efficiency numbers as well.

I don't feel like it's time for Iverson to actually go for a little while yet, but I do think it's unfair to say that's the only style Iverson could thrive playing, and I think the WOWY data is very relevant and important as to where he should be ranked.

[trex_8063]

I've been arguing in Iverson's favor recently (posts 5, 11, and 14 itt), mostly showing indicators of his impact via WOWY data. He's somewhat a puzzler for because much of our conventional wisdom wants to say that someone shooting that much on mediocre efficiency can't be doing much good. That's where I went looking at other potential explanations...

...
All of these things can help explain his impact (which seems more substantial than efficiency-minded advanced metrics would imply).

Wouldn't one obvious factor which might inflate his "impact" be his uniqueness and the lack of a replacement.

Where a player is an outlier in terms of usage (or any other factors, e.g. Rodman on the boards), and suddenly that player is gone (especially in the short-term, where there will be a tendency to "make do" and struggle through, rather than seriously adjust strategy and/or roster construction), the notional impact is likely not reflecting a highly portable positive impact, but a fragile, high-downside roster eco-system.

Who did take Iverson's minutes? Who could take Iverson's role?
http://bkref.com/tiny/cwDJw

There might even be a case that Iverson's effectiveness/impact encourages/necessitates such a fragile balance (that might not be such an important thing, few teams will be able to compete without their best player). Even allowing for this as acceptable (or disagreeing) this somewhat begs the question what Iverson's upside is? What does a consistent contender that is capable of multiple of a string of ~5 or 6+ SRS seasons and decent probility for perhaps capturing a championship (or two) look like. Is it a team on which Iverson is the best player? Not that a no would necessarily be damning - one could argue about whether Isiah was on his title teams, although you perhaps wouldn't if the titles had been won with 84-86 version of Isiah - but I think bears consideration.


Per previous discussions of Dantley, something that damages Dantley's notional "impact" is the availability of a pretty good (especially for a reserve already on your team) "poor mans ..." replacement on the bench for Dantley's longest absence (John Drew, a volume scoring small forward).

Fair point regarding Iverson, there's no doubt those teams were sort of constructed around him in order to maximize his benefit.
THough imo the record of impact still runs counter to the criticisms sometimes cast at him (that his low efficiency "hurts" his teams or that he doesn't shift the needle on offense, etc......basically a string of implications that he must have had a neutral or at best minimally positive impact [some even suggesting negative impact] because of the shooting efficiency).

wrt Dantley's lack of apparent impact, there may be some weight to this suggestion; however, there are a few years that cast more than a little doubt on this explanation:
John Drew was a member of the Jazz in '83-'85 (and missed most of '85, fwiw). So they were still mostly without any noteworthy replacement for Dantley. And yet in the 14 games that Dantley missed in '80 (no Drew to fill in), the Jazz had a better SRS without him (though a worse win%, fwiw). In the six games he missed in '86 (six games admittedly not much of a sample), the Jazz had a better win% and SRS without him.
In '83 (when Dantley missed 60 games), John Drew also missed 38 games, and was only available to fill in as starter for about half of the sample that Dantley missed. And still the Jazz had a better SRS without Dantley that year.

[Owly]

I've been arguing in Iverson's favor recently (posts 5, 11, and 14 itt), mostly showing indicators of his impact via WOWY data. He's somewhat a puzzler for because much of our conventional wisdom wants to say that someone shooting that much on mediocre efficiency can't be doing much good. That's where I went looking at other potential explanations...

...
All of these things can help explain his impact (which seems more substantial than efficiency-minded advanced metrics would imply).

Wouldn't one obvious factor which might inflate his "impact" be his uniqueness and the lack of a replacement.

Where a player is an outlier in terms of usage (or any other factors, e.g. Rodman on the boards), and suddenly that player is gone (especially in the short-term, where there will be a tendency to "make do" and struggle through, rather than seriously adjust strategy and/or roster construction), the notional impact is likely not reflecting a highly portable positive impact, but a fragile, high-downside roster eco-system.

Who did take Iverson's minutes? Who could take Iverson's role?
http://bkref.com/tiny/cwDJw

There might even be a case that Iverson's effectiveness/impact encourages/necessitates such a fragile balance (that might not be such an important thing, few teams will be able to compete without their best player). Even allowing for this as acceptable (or disagreeing) this somewhat begs the question what Iverson's upside is? What does a consistent contender that is capable of multiple of a string of ~5 or 6+ SRS seasons and decent probility for perhaps capturing a championship (or two) look like. Is it a team on which Iverson is the best player? Not that a no would necessarily be damning - one could argue about whether Isiah was on his title teams, although you perhaps wouldn't if the titles had been won with 84-86 version of Isiah - but I think bears consideration.


Per previous discussions of Dantley, something that damages Dantley's notional "impact" is the availability of a pretty good (especially for a reserve already on your team) "poor mans ..." replacement on the bench for Dantley's longest absence (John Drew, a volume scoring small forward).

Fair point regarding Iverson, there's no doubt those teams were sort of constructed around him in order to maximize his benefit.
THough imo the record of impact still runs counter to the criticisms sometimes cast at him (that his low efficiency "hurts" his teams or that he doesn't shift the needle on offense, etc......basically a string of implications that he must have had a neutral or at best minimally positive impact [some even suggesting negative impact] because of the shooting efficiency).

wrt Dantley's lack of apparent impact, there may be some weight to this suggestion; however, there are a few years that cast more than a little doubt on this explanation:
John Drew was a member of the Jazz in '83-'85 (and missed most of '85, fwiw). So they were still mostly without any noteworthy replacement for Dantley. And yet in the 14 games that Dantley missed in '80 (no Drew to fill in), the Jazz had a better SRS without him (though a worse win%, fwiw). In the six games he missed in '86 (six games admittedly not much of a sample), the Jazz had a better win% and SRS without him.
In '83 (when Dantley missed 60 games), John Drew also missed 38 games, and was only available to fill in as starter for about half of the sample that Dantley missed. And still the Jazz had a better SRS without Dantley that year.

On Iverson, sure the notion that he wasn't useful to the 76ers, sure it's absurd, but isn't that kind of beneath the level of analysis here (that reads weird/smug, but can't easily rephrase). Isn't the better question how much Iverson helps a good team to contendership.

On Dantley '83 (the main focus here) Dantley plays 22 of the first 24 games and misses the rest. Game logs are incomplete, but over those 24 games, Mark Eaton plays two games over 20 minutes in that span, six between 15 and 10, and eleven at less than 10 minutes, he misses one game entirely, leaving 4 games uncertain. Counting the game missed as zero minutes, Eaton is averaging 10.4 mpg for the games we have full minutes data on. If one assumes that to be accurate for the remaining 4 games Eaton plays 24x10.4= 249.6 of his minutes in the (mostly) with Dantley span. He plays in all 58 remaining games. With 1528 total minutes, he plays circa 1278.4 minutes in the sans Dantley span, divided over 58 games 22.04137931. So Eaton's playing time is up by nearly 12mpg. Neither Schayes nor Kelley is good over the Dantley span in Utah, but for that season (in contrast to later ones) Kelley is an improvement over Schayes. Dantley plays exclusively with Schayes, the remainder is split between Schayes and Kelley.

Mitchell "J.J." Anderson is the other small forward replacement for Dantley and seems to play over his head for the season [edit: Anderson was a free agent brought in after the Dantley injury]. Perhaps one could argue that playing with Dantley is what brings he and Kelley down. For me age-based decline (Kelley) and playing over their heads (Anderson, perhaps Kelley at the margin) are more plausible. The notion that Dantley was making these guys worse is made harder to buy into given no one else picks Anderson up (and he was unlikely to play with Dantley as an SF).

Dantley also gets "benefit" of playing with Freeman Williams. Check his advanced stats (PER 5.9 - this likes him most because of above average usage; WS/48 -0.050, BPM -9.8) Williams plays 15 games in the Dantley stretch, then appears in two after (playing 2 minutes in one and seemingly low minutes in the other).

There's a lot of apples to oranges with this comparison even within one season. It seems to me that at least in this instance Dantley was on the worse end of circumstances in pretty much all respects. I don't know about more broadly if there is a lack of impact, but I'd kind of want to look into the nuts and bolts of it whether circumstances remain the same (or know that someone else has done so).

Not sure whether to get into it (have a mostly written up post for the last thread that I abandoned that I could polish up and use, that sort of touched a little on this), but in '80 the other maybe significant sample you note where they got worse, they do have Bristow at SF. Clearly not like-for-like (Bristow a passing forward, though fwiw 07.8% usage difference between the two the year in question perhaps not as large is imagined and nothing like that of people taking AI's minutes) but a quality player to have on your bench at the position behind your elite guy.

[dhsilv2]

1st choice: Alonzo Mourning
2nd choice: James Harden

The difference between Mourning & those guys is he really separates himself from them at the offensive end and I don't know if we recognize Mourning for the offensive impact he had.

Mourning was a 6 time 20 PPG scorer who shot between 56-59% TS in those years. His turnover efficiency isn't terrible either at a 15% rate. Mutombo hit the 15 PPG mark just once on worse efficiency than any of Mourning's 20 PPG years, Thurmond creates an offensive drag with his TS%'s - he only hit 50% once in his whole career despite the relatively high volume, & Eaton/Wallace are like playing 4 on 5 offensively.

Mourning's career OBPM is -.06 with only 4 possitive seasons, 2 of which were short years. Yes he could score, but he was a terrible passer, perhaps worse than Hakeem and dare I say on the Mose Malone level. Ignoring what ever the hell was going on in 05-07 as a bench player, his field goal percentages dropped off in the playoffs. Now some of this is defense, playing against the knicks and bulls are hardly teams that help your field goal percentages, but non the less it doesn't make me feel like he's really that strong an offensive player as the 20 PPG would indicate.

Then there is longevity. Zo's career length before the kidney issues is about what Reed's was. After that while he played 200 more games he only totaled 10.9 total WS over those finals years.

He's only a 2 time all nba player, and his only real MVP runs were 99 and 00. Those were two rather terrible NBA seasons, I"m not sure if that should matter or not, but it has to be considered.

[dhsilv2]

And for my secondary vote, Kawhi Leonard. He's got decent longevity so far.

He had 398 career NBA games. He would be by far the shortest career in, even shorter than Walton's. EVen adding playoff games in there doesn't get him up with players who aren't getting votes due to shorter careers.

[janmagn]

And for my secondary vote, Kawhi Leonard. He's got decent longevity so far.

He had 398 career NBA games. He would be by far the shortest career in, even shorter than Walton's. EVen adding playoff games in there doesn't get him up with players who aren't getting votes due to shorter careers.

When I mean "so far" we have to look at the situation a bit. He was drafted in 2011, was FMVP in 2014. He's got three great seasons along with three decent onea

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[dhsilv2]

And for my secondary vote, Kawhi Leonard. He's got decent longevity so far.

He had 398 career NBA games. He would be by far the shortest career in, even shorter than Walton's. EVen adding playoff games in there doesn't get him up with players who aren't getting votes due to shorter careers.

When I mean "so far" we have to look at the situation a bit. He was drafted in 2011, was FMVP in 2014. He's got three great seasons along with three decent onea

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But that isn't longevity. Longevity is playing many seasons of basketball. He's been healthy(ish).

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Alonzo Mourning
Alt: Alex English

I'll jump on the Zo-wagon. To me he's a guy who really seems underrated nowadays. I see Zo at his best as a legit MVP-level player. DPOY level defense while capable of being pretty dang good on the offensive end, extreme competitive intensity but with a moderate enough ego he could be a beta or role player.

[penbeast0]

Vote: Alonzo Mourning
Alt: Alex English

I'll jump on the Zo-wagon. To me he's a guy who really seems underrated nowadays. I see Zo at his best as a legit MVP-level player. DPOY level defense while capable of being pretty dang good on the offensive end, extreme competitive intensity but with a moderate enough ego he could be a beta or role player.

Yeah!! The first sign of interest in Alex English

[iggymcfrack]

1st choice: Alonzo Mourning
2nd choice: James Harden

The difference between Mourning & those guys is he really separates himself from them at the offensive end and I don't know if we recognize Mourning for the offensive impact he had.

Mourning was a 6 time 20 PPG scorer who shot between 56-59% TS in those years. His turnover efficiency isn't terrible either at a 15% rate. Mutombo hit the 15 PPG mark just once on worse efficiency than any of Mourning's 20 PPG years, Thurmond creates an offensive drag with his TS%'s - he only hit 50% once in his whole career despite the relatively high volume, & Eaton/Wallace are like playing 4 on 5 offensively.

Mourning's career OBPM is -.06 with only 4 possitive seasons, 2 of which were short years. Yes he could score, but he was a terrible passer, perhaps worse than Hakeem and dare I say on the Mose Malone level. Ignoring what ever the hell was going on in 05-07 as a bench player, his field goal percentages dropped off in the playoffs. Now some of this is defense, playing against the knicks and bulls are hardly teams that help your field goal percentages, but non the less it doesn't make me feel like he's really that strong an offensive player as the 20 PPG would indicate.

That BPM's heavily influenced by some very negative seasons late in his career when he had a different role where he wasn't involved in the offense. Also, his 97-14 ORAPM has him at a respectable +1.01 even though that window misses much of his prime and catches all of his decline years.

I feel like OBPM probably is unduly harsh on his later years since he played a role that didn't involve him having the ball enough to put up good box score numbers, but he fulfilled that role very well as a screener/rebounder/hyper-efficient finisher. In his last 3 seasons, he had a TS% of at least .580 each season and at least .680 each postseason

Then there is longevity. Zo's career length before the kidney issues is about what Reed's was. After that while he played 200 more games he only totaled 10.9 total WS over those finals years.

He's only a 2 time all nba player, and his only real MVP runs were 99 and 00. Those were two rather terrible NBA seasons, I"m not sure if that should matter or not, but it has to be considered.

It's true he didn't have a very long peak, but I think that peak was very undervalued. I think you could make a strong argument that he was more valuable than Bird or Magic in his prime. I don't see what numbers you can use to say that scoring 20 PPG on close to .600 TS isn't very valuable on offense, and he was an elite rim protector, one of the best of all-time.

[dhsilv2]

1st choice: Alonzo Mourning
2nd choice: James Harden

The difference between Mourning & those guys is he really separates himself from them at the offensive end and I don't know if we recognize Mourning for the offensive impact he had.

Mourning was a 6 time 20 PPG scorer who shot between 56-59% TS in those years. His turnover efficiency isn't terrible either at a 15% rate. Mutombo hit the 15 PPG mark just once on worse efficiency than any of Mourning's 20 PPG years, Thurmond creates an offensive drag with his TS%'s - he only hit 50% once in his whole career despite the relatively high volume, & Eaton/Wallace are like playing 4 on 5 offensively.

Mourning's career OBPM is -.06 with only 4 possitive seasons, 2 of which were short years. Yes he could score, but he was a terrible passer, perhaps worse than Hakeem and dare I say on the Mose Malone level. Ignoring what ever the hell was going on in 05-07 as a bench player, his field goal percentages dropped off in the playoffs. Now some of this is defense, playing against the knicks and bulls are hardly teams that help your field goal percentages, but non the less it doesn't make me feel like he's really that strong an offensive player as the 20 PPG would indicate.

That BPM's heavily influenced by some very negative seasons late in his career when he had a different role where he wasn't involved in the offense. Also, his 97-14 ORAPM has him at a respectable +1.01 even though that window misses much of his prime and catches all of his decline years.

I feel like OBPM probably is unduly harsh on his later years since he played a role that didn't involve him having the ball enough to put up good box score numbers, but he fulfilled that role very well as a screener/rebounder/hyper-efficient finisher. In his last 3 seasons, he had a TS% of at least .580 each season and at least .680 each postseason

Then there is longevity. Zo's career length before the kidney issues is about what Reed's was. After that while he played 200 more games he only totaled 10.9 total WS over those finals years.

He's only a 2 time all nba player, and his only real MVP runs were 99 and 00. Those were two rather terrible NBA seasons, I"m not sure if that should matter or not, but it has to be considered.

It's true he didn't have a very long peak, but I think that peak was very undervalued. I think you could make a strong argument that he was more valuable than Bird or Magic in his prime. I don't see what numbers you can use to say that scoring 20 PPG on close to .600 TS isn't very valuable on offense, and he was an elite rim protector, one of the best of all-time.

He had 4 positive OBPM seasons total. So no, the poor seasons later in his career really aren't what's dragging him down. Those were low minute seasons so they won't cause that big an issue. he only had 3 clearly positive impact offensive seasons by that metric. 99, 00, and 96. If we've learned much over the years it is that ball stoppers even if they shoot reasonably well tend to not be high value offensive players.

Now can you explain why Zo in his prime was more valuable than Magic and Bird? I mean for me that would mean he was the goat level defender at his peak, and while he was darn good, but I recall him ever being anything close to THAT good!

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Willis Reed

Vote 2 - Elvin Hayes

On their way to the championship in 1970, willis helped the knicks knock off 2 of the most dominant centers of all time in wilt and kareem. Undersized for a center at 6’9”, his brute strength and good defensive instincts were still able to deter them. He also had a great outside shot for a big man, which was very effective against wilt in his later years. He would again get the best of wilt in 73 when the knicks took down the lakers in the finals.

I don’t have a problem with questioning his 2 finals MVPs relative to Clyde’s level of play in those series. However, I don’t doubt that reed was a player whose impact went beyond the box score, and I’d say that’s what voters were recognizing when selecting him as finals MVP in both seasons. This was best exemplified in the famous moment when reed came through the tunnel in game 7 of the 70 finals:

Watch on YouTube

As the lakers were warming up, they froze as they saw willis coming onto the court (he had previously missed game 6 with a torn muscle in his thigh, and no one expected him to play). He hit his first 2 jumpers, and the rest was history. Dramatic narrative? Of course, but Clyde himself said they wouldn’t have had the confidence to go out there and perform like they did without their captain leading the way. When you have the talent to back it up as willis did, that makes a difference.

He was certainly deserving of winning reg season MVP in 1970, leading the knicks to a 60-22 record and the #1 ranked SRS in the league. He put together season averages of 21.7 PPG, 13.9 RPG, 2 APG, 50.7 FG, 75.6% FT, 55.2% TS (+4.1% above league avg) and .227 WS/48.

From 69-73, reed would anchor a knicks defense that ranked in the top 3rd of the league for 4 seasons:

69 - 4th
70 - 1st
71 - 2nd
73 - 4th

The season after reed retired, the knicks dropped to 11th (of 18) in DRTG. His impact on that end of the floor was clear, as was the ability to lead a group of players to what’s often considered one of the best stretches of “team play” in NBA history.

[pandrade83]

Mourning's career OBPM is -.06 with only 4 possitive seasons, 2 of which were short years. Yes he could score, but he was a terrible passer, perhaps worse than Hakeem and dare I say on the Mose Malone level. Ignoring what ever the hell was going on in 05-07 as a bench player, his field goal percentages dropped off in the playoffs. Now some of this is defense, playing against the knicks and bulls are hardly teams that help your field goal percentages, but non the less it doesn't make me feel like he's really that strong an offensive player as the 20 PPG would indicate.

That BPM's heavily influenced by some very negative seasons late in his career when he had a different role where he wasn't involved in the offense. Also, his 97-14 ORAPM has him at a respectable +1.01 even though that window misses much of his prime and catches all of his decline years.

I feel like OBPM probably is unduly harsh on his later years since he played a role that didn't involve him having the ball enough to put up good box score numbers, but he fulfilled that role very well as a screener/rebounder/hyper-efficient finisher. In his last 3 seasons, he had a TS% of at least .580 each season and at least .680 each postseason

Then there is longevity. Zo's career length before the kidney issues is about what Reed's was. After that while he played 200 more games he only totaled 10.9 total WS over those finals years.

He's only a 2 time all nba player, and his only real MVP runs were 99 and 00. Those were two rather terrible NBA seasons, I"m not sure if that should matter or not, but it has to be considered.

It's true he didn't have a very long peak, but I think that peak was very undervalued. I think you could make a strong argument that he was more valuable than Bird or Magic in his prime. I don't see what numbers you can use to say that scoring 20 PPG on close to .600 TS isn't very valuable on offense, and he was an elite rim protector, one of the best of all-time.

He had 4 positive OBPM seasons total. So no, the poor seasons later in his career really aren't what's dragging him down. Those were low minute seasons so they won't cause that big an issue. he only had 3 clearly positive impact offensive seasons by that metric. 99, 00, and 96. If we've learned much over the years it is that ball stoppers even if they shoot reasonably well tend to not be high value offensive players.

Now can you explain why Zo in his prime was more valuable than Magic and Bird? I mean for me that would mean he was the goat level defender at his peak, and while he was darn good, but I recall him ever being anything close to THAT good!

For his prime years (93-00) he's in the black and rapm has him in the black as well. That coupled with the raw numbers paints him as having a positive impact during his prime. Which puts him light years ahead of the other defensive anchors on the board. I'm not making the case that he's a great offensive player - just a good one.

Longevity - there's still some Players with relatively high longevity left. Lanier, Hayes, manu, iverson and Wilkins are all guys left where longevity can be part of the case for and they've all been getting some traction. And that's fine - but I'd rather build around mourning than any of them.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #35 (9 votes):

Alonzo Mourning - 3 (Doctor MJ, iggymcfrack, pandrade83)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)
Allen Iverson - 1 (trex_8063)
Elvin Hayes - 1 (scabbarista)
Bill Walton - 1 (janmagn)
Bob Lanier - 1 (Dr Positivity)
Willis Reed - 1 (Clyde Frazier)


No majority, so will have to look to the 2nd-place votes to determine who gets to be in the runoff with Mourning. English, Hayes, and Lanier also received one 2nd-place vote each. So it looks like it will have to start out as 4-way runoff:

Alonzo Mourning - 3 (Doctor MJ, iggymcfrack, pandrade83)
Bob Lanier - 2 (Dr Positivity, trex_8063)
Elvin Hayes - 2 (scabbarista, Clyde Frazier)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)

If your name is not shown there, please state who your ONE choice between these four is, with brief reasons why. We will either declare a winner or at least narrow the runoff down to 2-3 candidates in ~24 hours.

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[iggymcfrack]

Mourning's career OBPM is -.06 with only 4 possitive seasons, 2 of which were short years. Yes he could score, but he was a terrible passer, perhaps worse than Hakeem and dare I say on the Mose Malone level. Ignoring what ever the hell was going on in 05-07 as a bench player, his field goal percentages dropped off in the playoffs. Now some of this is defense, playing against the knicks and bulls are hardly teams that help your field goal percentages, but non the less it doesn't make me feel like he's really that strong an offensive player as the 20 PPG would indicate.

That BPM's heavily influenced by some very negative seasons late in his career when he had a different role where he wasn't involved in the offense. Also, his 97-14 ORAPM has him at a respectable +1.01 even though that window misses much of his prime and catches all of his decline years.

I feel like OBPM probably is unduly harsh on his later years since he played a role that didn't involve him having the ball enough to put up good box score numbers, but he fulfilled that role very well as a screener/rebounder/hyper-efficient finisher. In his last 3 seasons, he had a TS% of at least .580 each season and at least .680 each postseason

Then there is longevity. Zo's career length before the kidney issues is about what Reed's was. After that while he played 200 more games he only totaled 10.9 total WS over those finals years.

He's only a 2 time all nba player, and his only real MVP runs were 99 and 00. Those were two rather terrible NBA seasons, I"m not sure if that should matter or not, but it has to be considered.

It's true he didn't have a very long peak, but I think that peak was very undervalued. I think you could make a strong argument that he was more valuable than Bird or Magic in his prime. I don't see what numbers you can use to say that scoring 20 PPG on close to .600 TS isn't very valuable on offense, and he was an elite rim protector, one of the best of all-time.

He had 4 positive OBPM seasons total. So no, the poor seasons later in his career really aren't what's dragging him down. Those were low minute seasons so they won't cause that big an issue. he only had 3 clearly positive impact offensive seasons by that metric. 99, 00, and 96. If we've learned much over the years it is that ball stoppers even if they shoot reasonably well tend to not be high value offensive players.

Now can you explain why Zo in his prime was more valuable than Magic and Bird? I mean for me that would mean he was the goat level defender at his peak, and while he was darn good, but I recall him ever being anything close to THAT good!

Nah, I don't think he's a GOAT-level defender. A lot of people seem to think that Russell can be a negative offensive player and a GOAT-level defender and be Top 4 all-time. I would submit that I think Zo was probably a positive offensive player for his career as shown by the RAPM which has him as a positive offensive player for his career skipping 5 prime seasons and say that for his peak he was probably a good to very good offensive player and a great defender which I would put as better than being a great offensive player and negative defensive player (Bird, Magic). I would also say that even if Bird was a neutral defensive player for the time, that's equivalent to being a negative defensive player 10-15 years later.

[70sFan]

That BPM's heavily influenced by some very negative seasons late in his career when he had a different role where he wasn't involved in the offense. Also, his 97-14 ORAPM has him at a respectable +1.01 even though that window misses much of his prime and catches all of his decline years.

I feel like OBPM probably is unduly harsh on his later years since he played a role that didn't involve him having the ball enough to put up good box score numbers, but he fulfilled that role very well as a screener/rebounder/hyper-efficient finisher. In his last 3 seasons, he had a TS% of at least .580 each season and at least .680 each postseason



It's true he didn't have a very long peak, but I think that peak was very undervalued. I think you could make a strong argument that he was more valuable than Bird or Magic in his prime. I don't see what numbers you can use to say that scoring 20 PPG on close to .600 TS isn't very valuable on offense, and he was an elite rim protector, one of the best of all-time.

He had 4 positive OBPM seasons total. So no, the poor seasons later in his career really aren't what's dragging him down. Those were low minute seasons so they won't cause that big an issue. he only had 3 clearly positive impact offensive seasons by that metric. 99, 00, and 96. If we've learned much over the years it is that ball stoppers even if they shoot reasonably well tend to not be high value offensive players.

Now can you explain why Zo in his prime was more valuable than Magic and Bird? I mean for me that would mean he was the goat level defender at his peak, and while he was darn good, but I recall him ever being anything close to THAT good!

Nah, I don't think he's a GOAT-level defender. A lot of people seem to think that Russell can be a negative offensive player and a GOAT-level defender and be Top 4 all-time. I would submit that I think Zo was probably a positive offensive player for his career as shown by the RAPM which has him as a positive offensive player for his career skipping 5 prime seasons and say that for his peak he was probably a good to very good offensive player and a great defender which I would put as better than being a great offensive player and negative defensive player (Bird, Magic). I would also say that even if Bird was a neutral defensive player for the time, that's equivalent to being a negative defensive player 10-15 years later.

Bird was pretty good defender until 1987. He was definitely above average for his career. Also, he would be above average today too. I don't see why Dirk in his prime could be positive defender but Bird couldn't.

Bird IQ, instinct, quick hands, rebounding ability and boxing out would make him positive defender in any era. Not to mention that today he would play basically only at 4 so he wouldn't have to defend Dantleys and Kings of the modern era.

[iggymcfrack]

I admit I don't have that deep of analysis of how good of a defender Bird was. I just figured that the fact I hear as many negative things about his defense as I have positive even though great offensive players with a lot of rings often get a very undeservedly strong defensive rep (*cough Kobe cough cough*) made me feel like he probably wasn't very good on defense.

[dhsilv2]

Darn I got busy last night and never got back on to post a vote. Oh well.

Of the 4 I honestly am not feeling any of them. I'll see if any of the votes here sway me, but Zo's peak being in that 99 00 timeline doesn't sit well with me. If I were looking at a defensive player I might look elsewhere. I also felt he was a bit under sized and sadly my biggest memory of him was hearing people point out that the 3 point line was clearly too close, even Zo is shooting 3's.

My gut feeling is Bob Lanier, but I have just not done enough homework on him to feel I can vote for him this high. But right now if I were going to vote I'd be going for him. Would love if anyone had some material, but I feel I'll be at work till late so not sure how much time I'll get today.

Hayes and English just seem like empty stats guys for me. English really falls off for me when I look at per 100 stats.

English has 0 top 10 WS seasons. 2 top 10 VORP seasons. 3 top 10 PER seasons, and 83 does jump out at me. But as I discussed earlier and i'll expand a bit. When I look at volume scorers there are two areas that I don't feel box score metrics are really able to capture and one will be missed in RAPM. The first being that offensive rebound rates are highest off of missed layups and 3's. The second is that drawing fouls, especially on bigs has a value add to the team that may or may not even been seen in RAPM as that value could be extended even when you're off the court as potentially a rim protector or two will be off as well due to foul trouble.

The one thing I will put in Hayes favor is that he was that he never missed games. 1303 games played and he never played less than 80 games in a season. That's pretty outstanding.