Re: RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #54

[iggymcfrack]

Just gonna copy/paste for Manu since we're close to deadline.

Selection: Manu Ginobili

There's no way that many impact stats can be a fluke. 4th in RAPM from 1997-2014, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the league in RAPM the 3 years he started, 2nd in playoff +/- since 2000. It's incredible and actually makes me think he should have gone much earlier.

4 rings, 2 of which he was an integral part of, including one where he was probably the most valuable player of the playoffs and had a very good argument for Finals MVP over Duncan. Went 23/4/7 on .757 TS% in the 81-74 Game 7 win over Detroit.

A very undervalued defender who led the league in steals twice. Holding the lack of minutes against him seems silly when it's jut a strategic decision by Pop to de-emphasize the regular season. If anything, very few players of his level would be willing to put the team first enough to come off the bench. In the playoffs, he's more than proven his worth time after time. And there's no question of longevity or court time there as Manu is #20 all-time in playoff WS.


Alternate: James Harden
Super elite peak. Has the ability to lead an offense with high efficiency. Impact stats are better than sometimes suggested. Finished 3rd in RPM 3 seasons ago. Not super married to this pick but think I like him a little better than McGrady whose inefficiency was likely the cause of his depressed RAPM.

[dhsilv2]

Vote Reed I still don't feel there's any real interest in this vote, but I'll stick with it. Winning matters. I know some people will argue that it's situational, it's your teammates and that is true. That said I've seen plenty of players who appeared to be in a situation to win and they failed. They didn't get along with teammates as well as you'd like, they were too much about their numbers, etc etc. Reed wasn't that kind of player and that matters. I think everyone knows this and yet we still constantly under value it. Along with that leadership and intangible argument, Reed was one of the most complete players (and big men) we have left. He was a strong plus defender if you want to say elite or great or whatever, I'll leave that for someone else. His offense was better than the box score would tell you, bringing in a very decent jump shot that allowed floor spacing in a era before we really fully understood it as such. His peak is as good or better than nearly anyone left on the board. Yes, longevity is a concern and I'm not sure how to fairly value peaks vs career value add.

Alt MANU GINOBILI Sorry, but you gotta scream his name, it's in a rules somewhere. I've had Iverson here, but after some of the threads on Manu, I've had to move him up. The big reason for this wasn't RAPM, VORP, BPM, 4 titles, his insane value at 35+, not international play... I am moving him up because I started looking at the spurs playoff runs. The spurs under Duncan lost in the first round 4 times. The first being 00 where Duncan missed the playoffs and Manu wasn't on the team. The second was 09 where Manu was injured and didn't play. The second was 11 where Manu by nearly every metric was the spur's best player, Manu missed game and was hobbled for the series, his numbers were great, and he hit about the most crazy clutch shot I can remember (Rex Chapman's 3 in phoenix is about the only shot I can think of I'd take over it), but I always felt had Manu been healthy and played game 1 the spurs find a way in that series. We should point out Duncan was horrible in that series but again had manu been 100% it would have opened the game up for Duncan a bit more. Then the spurs lost in 15 to the clippers in one of the weirder seeded playoffs of all time.

As for the counter to manu here, I completely dismiss the bench aspect of his career. I'll start with if you voted in McHale, Manu and him have very similar numbers of games started. The minutes concern is fair but that's why we are talking about Manu now and not 20 spots earlier. If you think RAPM has any value, then I'll leave you with these.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2 4th
https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm 8th
https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/xrapm-points-above-average-91-14 26th

Only the last one, and I have no idea how a 91-14 xRAPM works, but that is the only one that would rank anyone over manu who we don't have in yet. (Tmac plus some all time great defenders in wallace, Mutombo, and AK47).

If you don't care about those metrics VORP stands very strong in favor of Manu. Yes it would also like us to look at Ben Wallace (i see a pattern forming on him), Larry Nance, and Shawn Marion (who I'll be interested to see how the board judges). Of course the playoff's are left out of VORP and Manu's 213 playoff games (18% of his career games were in the playoffs).

I really want to get back to Iverson, especially against players like English, but the more I look over Manu vs the field the more I'm drawn to the absurd impact he had. If I have the choice between a volume scorer, a rim protector, or Manu...I'm taking Manu. There are only a few guys left who you win a title with if they're your best player unless you pair them with a killer number 2 or 3. Reed is absolutely one of them and so is Manu. After that we get into guys who'd need a good bit of luck, but would make your team relevant (and that matters too).

[penbeast0]

Vote Reed I still don't feel there's any real interest in this vote...

He's been runner up in the last few votes and he and Manu are almost certainly going to be the candidates here. Can't see how you think there's no interest.

[dhsilv2]

Vote Reed I still don't feel there's any real interest in this vote...

He's been runner up in the last few votes and he and Manu are almost certainly going to be the candidates here. Can't see how you think there's no interest.

That was a copy and paste, but the issue if lets say the voting is like this

13 voters.

5 - Have Reed high
7 - Think Reed is way out there still.
1 - Not sure

In this case we can get Reed as runner up over and over again, but he won't have a real chance of winning until we get 1-2 in the no way yet into the "not sure" group.

This is the flaw of this voting process is that we end up with 2-3 people in a runoff that are super polarizing and one gets in. Otherwise a more "well eh he was good" candidate can jump in almost out of nowhere. That said this remains fun

[THKNKG]

Vote: Manu Ginobili
Alt: Dave Cowens

HM: Nate Thurmond, Tracy McGrady, Willis Reed

Short version because we're pressed for time, will try to make a bigger post later. Manu was incredible impactful, and I don't think that's just based on RAPM or through playing against reserves. He was a smart player who was one of the best passers ever. He also had a knack for knowing when to score and when to facilitate.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #25:

Willis Reed - 3 (dhsilv2, Clyde Frazier, fundamentals21)
Bob Lanier - 2 (Dr Positivity, trex_8063)
Manu Ginobili - 2 (micahclay, iggymcfrack)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)
James Harden - 1 (pandrade83)

Eliminating those with 1 vote transfers one vote to one of the remaining candidates (Ginobili), tying him with Reed. So will eliminate Lanier (transfers one more vote to Ginobili)…..

Willis Reed - 3 (dhsilv2, Clyde Frazier, fundamentals21)
Manu Ginobili - 4 (Dr Positivity, penbeast0, micahclay, iggymcfrack)


So we will enter a runoff (which will go ~24 hours from now) between Reed and Ginobili. If yours is not one of the names showing above, please state your pick and reasons why.

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[SactoKingsFan]

Still not quite ready to vote for Reed. Manu's also had durability issues but you still get a per minute superstar with decent prime longevity and more post prime value than Reed.

Runoff vote: Manu Ginobili

Sent from my ONEPLUS 3T using Tapatalk

[pandrade83]

Ginobili. I know he only made 2 all-star teams, but he was good enough for 6 - and could've made an All-NBA Team to boot as well. Reed is a great 1B guy in my mind; but Ginobili has him beat on # of quality years fairly handily I think.

Run-off vote: Ginobili!!!!

[dhsilv2]

Just for the voters, there's only 2k minute between these two guys. Manu gets a massive gain from the playoffs, but I'll leave that for the voting process. But we're talking 23073 minutes vs 25581 minutes (and that includes a game or two of this year which I think is supposed to be off limits?).

[trex_8063]

Just for the voters, there's only 2k minute between these two guys. Manu gets a massive gain from the playoffs, but I'll leave that for the voting process. But we're talking 23073 minutes vs 25581 minutes (and that includes a game or two of this year which I think is supposed to be off limits?).

We're still talking about ~+2500 rs minutes, and more than double the number of playoff minutes; even if we pro-rated Reed an extra 1,000 playoff minutes [which would be generous] for reasons you alluded to previously, Manu still has like +2,300 ps minutes (~ +65%).

Even with the limited minute aspect of Manu's career, he's played what is basically the equivalent of at least one full starter-minutes season more minutes than Reed.......which is roughly the deficit I feel he has to Manu. That is: if Reed had played ONE more [injury-free] prime or even near-prime season, I'd be more comfortable with him here.

Of all the guys of relatively limited minute careers left on the table, Manu is probably the most impressive. I mean he's got an 8-year span ('05-'12) in which he is consistently in the league's top 10 [or really close to it] in both WS/48 and BPM (frequently even in the top 5 in one or both); sporadically makes a top 10 appearance in PER, too. He was, collectively, in that 8-year span a 22.9 PER, .226 WS/48, and ~+6.5 BPM (playing anywhere from 23.3 to 31.1 mpg). And fwiw, his minutes pretty consistently go UP in the playoffs with minimal slide in his rate metrics (21.1 PER, .177 WS/48, +5.5 BPM in avg 32.1 mpg over those same years in the playoffs). And his impact metrics would place his league rank even higher......year after year.

Can look at a more broad span of years one which exceeds the entire length of Reed's career: 11 years from '04-'14.
In those ELEVEN years collectively, he was a 21.9 PER, .214 WS/48, ~+5.6 BPM in 27.7 mpg.
In the playoffs he was 20.5 PER, .172 WS/48, +5.5 BPM in 30.1 mpg.

And again, the per-minute impact appears monstrous consistently over virtually his entire career.


I feel bad, like we're just piling on Reed in this project. But I've got to go with Manu in this runoff.

Runoff vote: Manu Ginobili

[KempwiththeDunk]

Ginobili should be no where near top 50. He's just a good player with longevity. He usually averages around 13 ppg in his playoff games on somewhat low shooting. And he's known for his offense more than his defense. Tony Parker is way better than Ginobili and means a lot more to the wins the Spurs have had. Without Tony Parker the Spurs would've had very little scoring. Parker for the better part of a decade was 20 ppg basically on very high FG%. Also he dishes out 6 dimes. He also has a Finals MVP. Manu is basically Suranus Marcilonous with Longevity. I don't even know it he's as good as Dan Majerle. Maybe he played another 3-4 years than Dan Majerle but Majerle was better.

Why is Webber, Kemp, Worthy, Wilkins, Connie the Hawk, David Thompson, Archibald, Elvin Hayes, Rodman, Kevin Johnson, Chris Mullin, Alex English, Aguire, McAdoo, Carter, Dantley no mentioned yet. They are all top 50 type players.

[dhsilv2]

Ginobili should be no where near top 50. He's just a good player with longevity. He usually averages around 13 ppg in his playoff games on somewhat low shooting. And he's known for his offense more than his defense. Tony Parker is way better than Ginobili and means a lot more to the wins the Spurs have had. Without Tony Parker the Spurs would've had very little scoring. Parker for the better part of a decade was 20 ppg basically on very high FG%. Also he dishes out 6 dimes. He also has a Finals MVP. Manu is basically Suranus Marcilonous with Longevity. I don't even know it he's as good as Dan Majerle. Maybe he played another 3-4 years than Dan Majerle but Majerle was better.

Why is Webber, Kemp, Worthy, Wilkins, Connie the Hawk, David Thompson, Archibald, Elvin Hayes, Rodman, Kevin Johnson, Chris Mullin, Alex English, Aguire, McAdoo, Carter, Dantley no mentioned yet. They are all top 50 type players.

I think the cases for manu have been posted and are clear. It might be more helpful to question the reasoning of those voting for him than just blankly saying he has no case.

I will tell you this. PPG is not one of the first 15 stats i look at for a player here. It influences some i look at, but that isnt a metric that is going to move many peoples views.

[KempwiththeDunk]

Ginobili has no case. This list is trash. Chris Paul at 23? Isiah Thomas at 38.
Yeah the only player in World history other than Bird that beat Jordan.

Chris Mullin was a lot better than Ginobili if you're looking for a shooter around 6'6, that also gets around 4-5 assists and 5 rebounds with 2 steals. Mullin was a better shooter and averaged over 25 ppg for 4 Straight seasons. Also this is in an Era where you played every other night. Now they just play 2 times per week, they get to rest 20 games per season for no real reason. Also they all get a green light on the three point line even if they're not that good at threes. Chris Mullin today would have a longer career and also would average more ppg becasue of the green light on the three point line. Some experts say he's the best spot up shooter ever, even better than Steph Curry.

[KempwiththeDunk]

This board is just picking players that were born after 1976 or still play and were popular. Then they'll throw in a guy born in the 1930's just to seem smart.

It's very easy for me. We know who the good players were, the idea is to say who was better than who when making a list or ranking like this.

Here's how. Would the 2001 Kings seriously take the 2001 Lakers to game 7 and the brink without Webber and instead they will have Manu Ginobili. The ANSWER IS NO. A resounding no. That Kings team with Ginobili instead of Webber would only win about 45 wins and probably lose in a quick 4 game series in the first round.
Also Manu on any other team would've been just a regular type player. He's only popular because he is a San Antonio Spur. He's not even the second best Spur. He's the third best Spur on all his teams.

had we put Duncan, With Worthy and Parker then that would've won 3-4 Titles in a ROW let alone 7-9 of them.
Same with Duncan, Webber, Parker as a Big Three.

This demonstration proves that there are many many players better than Ginobili. Had Ginobili went to the Charlotte Bobcats no one would even know him and most likely he would've gone back to Argentina instead after about 3-4 years.

Same thing if you put Nocioni on the Spurs all of you kids would be calling Nocioni a top 50 player all time.

I hate to dig in and tell it like that, but that is pretty much the truth. Ginobili was just a pretty good player. More like 150th-175th rank. Some of you kids have to realize how many players have played in the NBA and how many really good talents have been in the NBA.

For Instance Mark Aguire was the 1st pick in his draft for the Mavericks and averaged over 25 ppg for his career as a Maverick and often led his team to game 7 vs the Showtime Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.

Ginobili has never been the leader on a team and average 25 ppg or a prerennial All Star that is the Face of a Franchise year in and year out that is Magic Johnson. Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas direct Rivalery

If you took off Duncan and Parker in all those years the Spurs would've sucked.

[KempwiththeDunk]

Vote: Shawn Kemp The Reign Man. Because of the way he took a 40 win team to 60 wins within a year or two.

[PaulieWal]

Vote: Shawn Kemp The Reign Man. Because of the way he took a 40 win team to 60 wins within a year or two.

You don't have a vote. To request a vote, please post here:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1573442&p=59074337#p59074337

Also, stop posting talking about how wrong everyone else is here and how right you are.

[KempwiththeDunk]

Isn't that what you just did? I can tell people when they're wrong if I want. Also you're the one that said I am So right.

Alright, that's enough. PW

[iggymcfrack]

Chris Mullin today would have a longer career and also would average more ppg becasue of the green light on the three point line. Some experts say he's the best spot up shooter ever, even better than Steph Curry.

No one says this unless they have a massive fetish for olds. It's an absolutely ludicrous comparison.

Curry: 1930 3-pointers made on 44% in 9 seasons
Mullin: 815 3-pointers made on 38% in 16 seasons

If Curry stuck to the kind of easy open looks from near the 3-point line that Mullin shot, he might actually shoot over 50% from 3. Mullin wouldn't even be a Top 10 shooter in today's league. That's just a skill people have gotten much better at. Mullin vs. Manu is actually a much better comparison when it comes to 3-point shooting.

Mullin: 815 3-pointers made on 38% in 16 seasons
Manu: 1432 3-pointers made on 37% in 16 seasons

Is 1% efficiency worth getting up 600 less good shots? I'd say absolutely not. Looks like Ginobili's the better shooter all day.

[iggymcfrack]

Oh, and as for Mullin averaging more PPG today? Certainly not. He played on one of the fastest paced teams of the last 30 years in an era where coaches hadn't figured out managing minutes to preserve their players for the playoffs yet. Also, the defense was super LOL compared to now. If Mullin went from a team with 103 possessions/game to 88 and got his minutes cut, he likely would have scored less per game than Ginobili while certainly having nowhere near the impact that Manu had in the NBA Finals where he put up 19/6/4 on .636 TS% against one of the best defenses of all-time to win in 7. That included going 8/13, 2/2 from 3, and 5/5 from the line while the rest of the team shot 21/55 in the decisive 7th game, an 81-74 Spurs victory.

[dhsilv2]

Ginobili has no case. This list is trash. Chris Paul at 23? Isiah Thomas at 38.
Yeah the only player in World history other than Bird that beat Jordan.

Chris Mullin was a lot better than Ginobili if you're looking for a shooter around 6'6, that also gets around 4-5 assists and 5 rebounds with 2 steals. Mullin was a better shooter and averaged over 25 ppg for 4 Straight seasons. Also this is in an Era where you played every other night. Now they just play 2 times per week, they get to rest 20 games per season for no real reason. Also they all get a green light on the three point line even if they're not that good at threes. Chris Mullin today would have a longer career and also would average more ppg becasue of the green light on the three point line. Some experts say he's the best spot up shooter ever, even better than Steph Curry.

Well I've been voting for Reed for about the last 15 spots, 1942 btw. I have however have Manu next on this list. There is zero case for Mullin over manu. Manu by ever metric we have was simply a better player. Manu is a top 10 all time passer. His defense, despite your claim he isn't known for it, is in the top 10% of all wings to ever play the game. Mind you on the low end of that. Manu by most metrics was a top 10 player in the league for about 6-8years with an injury in 09 throw in some of that off. He's remained an elite role player since then.

Mullin was a poor defender. He had poor at best play making skills. He was a great shooter and could score. I'll take a guy like manu who can create for himself and others vs a spot up shooter, even a great one.

While I think the list has flaws, the process has been pretty good. Sure Paul and Thomas were a bit overrated here. I'd have paul a few more spots back and Thomas wouldn't be in yet if it were my list. I'm not sure what the pistons a team where it's debatable if Thomas was even the best player beating mJ doesn't mean much.