RealGM 2017 Top 100 #74 (Bobby Jones)

[penbeast0]

Greer also played more minutes (and longer with less injuries). Looking at he and Sam per 36 gets you:

Hal Greer RS: 5.1/4.1/19.5
Sam Jones RS: 6.4/3.3/22.8

Hal Greer PS: 5.0/3.9/18.5
Sam Jones PS: 5.6/2.8/22.5

Similar regular season efficiency, Jones has a .010 lead in postseason efficiency

[Outside]

Yeah, I didn't bring up longevity, but that's something in Greer's favor.

The per-36 thing adds to it. The point I was attempting to make is that they were similar players who played at generally the same time/era and that Greer stands up well in the comparison.

[Owly]

Vote: Hal Greer

Very good all-around player who excelled in the PS, highlighted by 27.7 pts, 5.9 reb, and 5.3 ast for the 1967 Philly team that won the title with Wilt, Chet Walker, Billy Cunningham, Walli Jones, and Luke Jackson. His efficiency was good for his era. Highly respected by teammates and opponents.

PER isn't everything.

I'm undecided on an alternate.

To be fair, as Trex said, he rarely went to the line and if you look at the competition, it's fairer to say his (RS) efficiency was average for his period. He did have a strong defensive rep and was a guy you could count on to be very good every year for a long time.

I'd say that's true. Perhaps a better way to discuss his efficiency is to compare him to Sam Jones, who was a roughly similar player. Their RS TS% were basically the same (50.6 Greer vs 50.3 Jones), Greer's PS TS% was slightly less (49.1 vs 50.1 for Jones). Greer's scoring production (19.2 RS career average and high of 24.1, 20.4 PS average and high of 27.7) is comparable or slightly better than Jones (17.7 RS career average and high of 25.9, 18.9 PS average and high of 28.6).

Greer also has better stats in other areas.
RS career 5.0 reb, 4.0 ast, highs of 7.4 reb, 5.1 ast
PS career 5.5 reb, 4.3 ast, highs of 7.4 reb, 6.0 ast

Jones
RS career 4.9 reb 2.5 ast, highs of 6.0 reb 3.2 ast
PS career 4.7 reb 2.3 ast, highs of 7.1 reb 3.0 ast

I do recall Greer as being the better playmaker of the two.

It's a tad misleading posting raw numbers for Greer versus Jones given the minutes gap. It essentially assumes that Jones' sub did literally nothing. Given that the people who either allowed or forced Jones to sit were Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey and John Havlicek that assumption is false. I mean it would be false in any situation. But maybe, interpreting in a vacuum you could argue for replacement level production for the marginal extra minutes. That seems a little unfair to me, though, in this instance, given there's a clear argument that Jones was sitting not because he couldn't play more but due to situation factors (high quality alternatives, keeping everyone rested, keeping everyone happy).

[penbeast0]

Yeah, I didn't bring up longevity, but that's something in Greer's favor.

The per-36 thing adds to it. The point I was attempting to make is that they were similar players who played at generally the same time/era and that Greer stands up well in the comparison.

Greer v. Sam Jones was a favorite debate from that era, like Oscar v. West, or Russell v. Wilt . . .

[trex_8063]

Does that equate to a top 75 career with all things considered? Well, I personally don't think so, but it's far from an absurd suggestion. It's certainly less absurd than suggesting Danny Green has had a better career.

Not really. Danny Green’s put up RPMs of +3.51, +5.41, +3.25, and +1.26 for full seasons. He’s consistently been a major impact player.

I'll assume those are his four best RPMs; with fourth-best being 1.26, can I assume 5th and 6th best are basically neutral or just barely above? Without going over it with a fine-toothed comb (as to exact minutes or possessions played per season), that gives him an average RPM of ~+2.25 over his six best seasons.

Few things:
1) I'd advise against throwing all of your eggs into a single basket (stat), as every metric will provide some dubious results from time to time. A combined approach is likely to yield more "reliable" conclusions, imo. But for the sake of argument, we'll proceed here with the purely impact metric approach just to give some food for thought (I realize RPM is not actually a "pure" impact metric, but for now let's use Green's RPM numbers as though it perfectly represented a pure impact metric like RAPM).......
2) Let's not overlook that impact metrics are not direct measures of player goodness; it's a measure of player goodness + fit (complimentary pieces around him?) + role/deployment (is he being utilized in a manner that suits his skillset/attributes?). I would say there isn't a basketball organization that is [or perhaps ever has been] better about making sure the "fit" works and getting the most out of the talent they have than the San Antonio Spurs have been in the last ~15 years.
3) Let's also not overlook these are rate metrics. Green averaged just 26.1 mpg over these six seasons, vs the 38.1 mpg I'd previously mentioned for Greer during his prime (a prime which lasted 9 years, vs these six for Danny Green). Now......if we take that average +2.25, factor in the six seasons at 26.1 mpg, let's say that brings us to a measure of the "total impact towards the team's success" that Danny Green has exerted in his entire career (because his first two seasons----grand total of 207 minutes---are negligible).
If Greer, in his prime, had an average RPM that was literally only half of Danny Green's average (like +1.1), once factoring in his larger mpg and more seasons, his "total impact toward the team's success" that he would have exerted over those nine seasons would still be greater than what Green has done (that's before we even consider his additional non-prime seasons, which were mostly fair to decent). If his average RPM in his prime was even +1.55 or higher, he would be exerting more impact per game (and thus per season) than Green.

Relatively modest positives like that are not at all hard to imagine for prime Hal Greer.

Now when they go to the bench, it's not like the position is empty; someone replaces them. Since Danny Green goes to the bench more, theoretically that could be a good thing [relative to Greer] if you have a positive impact replacement player coming in for him. But how many teams have replacement players for each position who shift the needle positively? If the replacement players are neutral impact, how much time Green/Greer spend on the bench is irrelevant in a comparison to the other. If the replacement players are NEGATIVE impact players (which is arguably the case more often than not--->that's why they're replacements), then this is a further strike against Danny Green in this comparison (he's providing an extra 12 mpg in which a negative impact player is on the court in his stead).

Now, can we really say Greer was an impact player that moved the needle at all? When his role is purely volume scorer and he has a career PER of 15.7? When in the 22 paragraph case for him, his defense is never mentioned other than in a quote from himself?

wrt Greer's defense.....
I can't seem to locate the quote, but I seem to remember Alex Hannum praising (or at least complimenting) his defense once, too. And at any rate, Greer stating such a degree of concern about how he was playing defense---while might seem a little like a self-aggrandizing statement on the one hand---doesn't seem like it would ever come from someone who didn't genuinely care about how they were playing defense. Thus seems like a decided different mindset from someone like Melo, for instance (whom I don't think gives a tinker's damn about how he plays on the defensive end most of the time, and who I'm sure has never lost any sleep over it).
I'd also note that quote from Walt Frazier, about how Hal Greer literally made him cry after the game by outplaying him so badly. While he didn't state it explicitly, was perhaps referring to both sides of the ball?.....especially considering Frazier was held to 2 pts on 1/8 shooting (no FT attempts) in 34 minutes?


Jumping back to the impact in the Green vs Greer debate.....
How, do you think, is Danny Green exerting all his positive impact?
He's a good defensive player, and though I don't have much eye-test to go by for Greer, I'll comfortably give Green the edge based on what I've seen of him (and his more advantageous size).
What does he do otherwise? He doesn't do any relevant playmaking for others, just a minimal 2.3 assists/36 minutes (that's like Andrew Wiggins territory); Greer does more on that front.
Green isn't a noteworthy rebounder (hardly better than Greer, despite the notable height advantage).
What does he provide on offense? Purely a catch-and-shoot guy to help spread the floor (do we not think that Greer helped spread the floor as much as was possible in his era?). Despite largely taking assisted attempts and rarely having to create his own shot (slight contrast from Greer) and scoring significantly lower volume compared to Greer, Danny Green's shooting efficiency relative to league has actually been marginally LOWER than Greer's (he's even got two seasons with raw TS% better than what Green is currently doing, despite no 3pt line).


Anyway, I'm gonna leave it there. I think you're dug in at this point, so we may just be spinning our wheels.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #25:

Bobby Jones - 2 (Doctor MJ, LABird)
Hal Greer - 2 (Outside, Clyde Frazier)
Chris Bosh - 1 (pandrade83)
Tony Parker - 1 (trex_8063)
Mel Daniels - 1 (penbeast0)


OK, we're going to move on to runoff between Greer and Jones. Eliminating the single vote recipients and transferring brings this total:

Bobby Jones - 3 (penbeast0, Doctor MJ, LABird)
Hal Greer - 2 (Outside, Clyde Frazier)


If your name isn't shown here, please state your pick between these two with reasons why.

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[dhsilv2]

Darn was just writing up my vote, but Greer was my vote so all good.

[pandrade83]

I think it's too early for either of these guys & I'm traveling for the Holidays so I'll be brief.

I think what Jones did is more impactful than Greer. Greer was an offensive anchor for pretty average offensive teams of the day. I know he made a lot of All-NBA Teams but guard play in his day was pretty awful. There's a reason that the only real 60's guards we've put in thus far are West & the Big O.

Run-off vote: Bobby Jones

[trex_8063]

Runoff vote: Bobby Jones

This is a pinch too early for him to my eye, but between him and Hal Greer----as much as I've been defending Greer from criticism in recent posts----I gotta go with Jones here. Pretty good man defender (who almost always drew the assignment of whoever was the bigger offensive threat between the opposing SF and PF), but outstanding help defender who was also able to use his length/athleticism to generate some turnovers. EDIT: I've watched a couple old Sixer games (or part of them anyway) recently, and I also note he usually boxes out nicely on the defensive glass, which is a trait I really like to see in the frontcourt (as opposed to the guys who simply "chase" rebounds without putting a body on anyone). Leads me to believe he might have been a pinch better "team rebounder" than his individual rebounding rate implies.

Offensively, he provided a nice moderate volume of scoring at generally excellent shooting efficiency (nice mid-range catch-and-shoot set shot, made his FT's, and one of the best running/finishing transition forwards of his time), some decent big-man passing (turnover economy could be a little better, though) while taking basically nothing off the table from teammates.

Considering how durable he was during his 12 seasons and the length of his prime, his longevity is actually decent. The small mpg hurts him in my eyes and is the reason I wasn't quite ready for him (I simply feel there are other stars who provided more lift per game as result of higher minutes); with minutes this small I'd like to see at least a little bit better player while on court. Doesn't have to be as good as Manu (another small minutes guy, but a whole other tier as a player, imo), but just a little better would make me more comfortable with him here.
But I do feel he was a better all-around player than Hal Greer, and I do have somewhat less reservations wrt era competitiveness.

Greer is an interesting case, as historically it would not have been uncommon to find somewhat recent "mainstream" all-time lists placing him in the top 60 (or even top 50).......I think because they're basing a lot on awards/accolades and status quo thinking (the latter which is often slow to dispense with nostalgia). But the more I've looked at things over the last several years, the more I'm convinced he isn't deserving of that kind of status [or perhaps even close to it]. I still think he's an extremely relevant player in history and likely has his place in the top 100; just not ready for him here.

[trex_8063]

Darn was just writing up my vote, but Greer was my vote so all good.

Can you post a bit of what you were about to, so I can count your runoff vote?

[dhsilv2]

Darn was just writing up my vote, but Greer was my vote so all good.

Can you post a bit of what you were about to, so I can count your runoff vote?

Will post what I was going to post, which was a greer and parker look based on some of the topic later tonight. It's halfway done.

[iggymcfrack]

Does that equate to a top 75 career with all things considered? Well, I personally don't think so, but it's far from an absurd suggestion. It's certainly less absurd than suggesting Danny Green has had a better career.

Not really. Danny Green’s put up RPMs of +3.51, +5.41, +3.25, and +1.26 for full seasons. He’s consistently been a major impact player.

I'll assume those are his four best RPMs; with fourth-best being 1.26, can I assume 5th and 6th best are basically neutral or just barely above? Without going over it with a fine-toothed comb (as to exact minutes or possessions played per season), that gives him an average RPM of ~+2.25 over his six best seasons.

No, the first year for which RPM data is available is 2013/14. I listed Green's RPM for every season since the stat was available in chronological order. In 2012/13, Green's RAPM was +3.4, good for 25th in the league. In 2011/12, his RAPM (NPI only available) was +1.2, still solidly positive.

Few things:
1) I'd advise against throwing all of your eggs into a single basket (stat), as every metric will provide some dubious results from time to time. A combined approach is likely to yield more "reliable" conclusions, imo. But for the sake of argument, we'll proceed here with the purely impact metric approach just to give some food for thought (I realize RPM is not actually a "pure" impact metric, but for now let's use Green's RPM numbers as though it perfectly represented a pure impact metric like RAPM).......
2) Let's not overlook that impact metrics are not direct measures of player goodness; it's a measure of player goodness + fit (complimentary pieces around him?) + role/deployment (is he being utilized in a manner that suits his skillset/attributes?). I would say there isn't a basketball organization that is [or perhaps ever has been] better about making sure the "fit" works and getting the most out of the talent they have than the San Antonio Spurs have been in the last ~15 years.
3) Let's also not overlook these are rate metrics. Green averaged just 26.1 mpg over these six seasons, vs the 38.1 mpg I'd previously mentioned for Greer during his prime (a prime which lasted 9 years, vs these six for Danny Green). Now......if we take that average +2.25, factor in the six seasons at 26.1 mpg, let's say that brings us to a measure of the "total impact towards the team's success" that Danny Green has exerted in his entire career (because his first two seasons----grand total of 207 minutes---are negligible).
If Greer, in his prime, had an average RPM that was literally only half of Danny Green's average (like +1.1), once factoring in his larger mpg and more seasons, his "total impact toward the team's success" that he would have exerted over those nine seasons would still be greater than what Green has done (that's before we even consider his additional non-prime seasons, which were mostly fair to decent). If his average RPM in his prime was even +1.55 or higher, he would be exerting more impact per game (and thus per season) than Green.

Relatively modest positives like that are not at all hard to imagine for prime Hal Greer.

Now when they go to the bench, it's not like the position is empty; someone replaces them. Since Danny Green goes to the bench more, theoretically that could be a good thing [relative to Greer] if you have a positive impact replacement player coming in for him. But how many teams have replacement players for each position who shift the needle positively? If the replacement players are neutral impact, how much time Green/Greer spend on the bench is irrelevant in a comparison to the other. If the replacement players are NEGATIVE impact players (which is arguably the case more often than not--->that's why they're replacements), then this is a further strike against Danny Green in this comparison (he's providing an extra 12 mpg in which a negative impact player is on the court in his stead).

Now, can we really say Greer was an impact player that moved the needle at all? When his role is purely volume scorer and he has a career PER of 15.7? When in the 22 paragraph case for him, his defense is never mentioned other than in a quote from himself?

wrt Greer's defense.....
I can't seem to locate the quote, but I seem to remember Alex Hannum praising (or at least complimenting) his defense once, too. And at any rate, Greer stating such a degree of concern about how he was playing defense---while might seem a little like a self-aggrandizing statement on the one hand---doesn't seem like it would ever come from someone who didn't genuinely care about how they were playing defense. Thus seems like a decided different mindset from someone like Melo, for instance (whom I don't think gives a tinker's damn about how he plays on the defensive end most of the time, and who I'm sure has never lost any sleep over it).
I'd also note that quote from Walt Frazier, about how Hal Greer literally made him cry after the game by outplaying him so badly. While he didn't state it explicitly, was perhaps referring to both sides of the ball?.....especially considering Frazier was held to 2 pts on 1/8 shooting (no FT attempts) in 34 minutes?


Jumping back to the impact in the Green vs Greer debate.....
How, do you think, is Danny Green exerting all his positive impact?
He's a good defensive player, and though I don't have much eye-test to go by for Greer, I'll comfortably give Green the edge based on what I've seen of him (and his more advantageous size).
What does he do otherwise? He doesn't do any relevant playmaking for others, just a minimal 2.3 assists/36 minutes (that's like Andrew Wiggins territory); Greer does more on that front.
Green isn't a noteworthy rebounder (hardly better than Greer, despite the notable height advantage).
What does he provide on offense? Purely a catch-and-shoot guy to help spread the floor (do we not think that Greer helped spread the floor as much as was possible in his era?). Despite largely taking assisted attempts and rarely having to create his own shot (slight contrast from Greer) and scoring significantly lower volume compared to Greer, Danny Green's shooting efficiency relative to league has actually been marginally LOWER than Greer's (he's even got two seasons with raw TS% better than what Green is currently doing, despite no 3pt line).


Anyway, I'm gonna leave it there. I think you're dug in at this point, so we may just be spinning our wheels.

I'd say that Greer is a little above average offensive player and probably an average defender (seemed to be trying, wasn't noted for it). Green meanwhile is probably an average offensive player, and a serious impact player on defense that can really shut down a top scorer on the other end of the floor. Here's his DRAPM/DRPM each season:

2012: +0.3
2013: +1.9
2014: +2.7
2015: +2.2
2016: +2.9
2017: +1.7

That's a serious, steady impact, and it's consistent with the eye test. I'd rather have a guy who made a real impact somewhere for 6 years than someone who was a little above average for 10 years and a little below average for 5. Obviously, Danny Green and Hal Greer is a relatively close debate though where based on what you value, you could see either side. If those two players were being considered for this spot, I wouldn't be arguing so vociferously. However, obviously no one's taking Danny Green right now because there are much, much better options available. When you have guys like Ben Wallace, Bobby Jones, Kawhi Leonard, and Dennis Rodman available, it's silly that we're sitting here debating players in the Danny Green/Hal Greer tier.

[dhsilv2]

Due to iggymcfrack's obsession with PER and refusal to look at scaled PER, I thought I'd look at Parker and Greer in PER based terms. It's a poor stat, but if voters are using it then so be it. Oh and in no way was Bobby Jones a contemporary of Greer. One guy started his career in 1959 and the other in 1975!

OK, as PER is not minute scaled I decided that I had to address minutes and as Hollinger's value added numbers imo are awful (for starters he uses position weighting). I also don't really see a value in comparing separate seasons with PER as each season is scaled. Now I'm sorry if you one thinks that higher PER's today are signs of players being better, but it could mean a lot more than that. The biggest factor is likely reduces minute loads on stars allows them to have more impact, but it also adds more minutes to lower value players who drive down the impact a "15" which drives up the higher guys. We also have to address that PER for Greer and for modern players (like Jones for example) use a different formula due to reduced box score metrics. So the simple solution was just PER * minutes played. This is a player's lets call it "minute adjusted PER value". The number has no value but ranking by year which is all I used it for. From there I decided to only use players that basketball reference in some way shape or form called a "guard" which again going back to the 50's we see a lot of g/f or f/g and non traditional "PG" or "SG" designations.

Tony Parker's results. You'll see he has 9 top 25 fishes in this PER adjusted metric, and by year I have the number of NBA players who played over 500 minutes (apples to oranges with the data since the table is only guards, but for simplicity I just wanted a quick and dirty context for the league size). Anyway Parker has 2 top 10 years and peaked at 8th. Now of course we can debate if Pop was just holding back Parker's minutes to be on the safe side and if he'd have been as productive in higher minutes like his peers played.

Spoiler:

Greer's results. Here you see from 61-69 Greer finished from 3rd to 7th each year.

Spoiler:

Anyway, I think this illustrates my reasoning for Greer in this spot or at least adds additional color to it. Greer certainly isn't a no question easy choice and since we've moved to a runoff with Jones, I guess I wish I'd written this sooner or included Jones in the analysis, but unfortunately my computer did not like how I did this work in excel.

Greer shows as being one of the best guards in the NBA from 61-69 and still an impact guy in his first two years and all but his last two years by this method. I personally think the guard player in the NBA was weak during this era due to a poor talent pool in addition to rules but I think rules were the bigger factor.

As for scouting I've seen very little of Greer but I have seen enough combined with stats to believe he was among the best shooters in the game in his era. His TS% was excellent given he was taking jump shots and he seemed to have range out beyond 15 feet. Given the era often saw all 10 players within 15 feet of the basket, a "volume scorer" who can do so from jump shots would be insanely valuable in creating space inside. We already known players that create spacing tend to score well in RAPM data so why there's a debate going on if Greer would have positive impact in this regard is beyond me.

[Owly]

Due to iggymcfrack's obsession with PER and refusal to look at scaled PER, I thought I'd look at Parker and Greer in PER based terms. It's a poor stat, but if voters are using it then so be it. Oh and in no way was Bobby Jones a contemporary of Greer. One guy started his career in 1959 and the other in 1975!

OK, as PER is not minute scaled I decided that I had to address minutes and as Hollinger's value added numbers imo are awful (for starters he uses position weighting). I also don't really see a value in comparing separate seasons with PER as each season is scaled. Now I'm sorry if you one thinks that higher PER's today are signs of players being better, but it could mean a lot more than that. The biggest factor is likely reduces minute loads on stars allows them to have more impact, but it also adds more minutes to lower value players who drive down the impact a "15" which drives up the higher guys. We also have to address that PER for Greer and for modern players (like Jones for example) use a different formula due to reduced box score metrics. So the simple solution was just PER * minutes played. This is a player's lets call it "minute adjusted PER value". The number has no value but ranking by year which is all I used it for. From there I decided to only use players that basketball reference in some way shape or form called a "guard" which again going back to the 50's we see a lot of g/f or f/g and non traditional "PG" or "SG" designations.

Tony Parker's results. You'll see he has 9 top 25 fishes in this PER adjusted metric, and by year I have the number of NBA players who played over 500 minutes (apples to oranges with the data since the table is only guards, but for simplicity I just wanted a quick and dirty context for the league size). Anyway Parker has 2 top 10 years and peaked at 8th. Now of course we can debate if Pop was just holding back Parker's minutes to be on the safe side and if he'd have been as productive in higher minutes like his peers played.

Spoiler:

Greer's results. Here you see from 61-69 Greer finished from 3rd to 7th each year.

Spoiler:

Anyway, I think this illustrates my reasoning for Greer in this spot or at least adds additional color to it. Greer certainly isn't a no question easy choice and since we've moved to a runoff with Jones, I guess I wish I'd written this sooner or included Jones in the analysis, but unfortunately my computer did not like how I did this work in excel.

Greer shows as being one of the best guards in the NBA from 61-69 and still an impact guy in his first two years and all but his last two years by this method. I personally think the guard player in the NBA was weak during this era due to a poor talent pool in addition to rules but I think rules were the bigger factor.

As for scouting I've seen very little of Greer but I have seen enough combined with stats to believe he was among the best shooters in the game in his era. His TS% was excellent given he was taking jump shots and he seemed to have range out beyond 15 feet. Given the era often saw all 10 players within 15 feet of the basket, a "volume scorer" who can do so from jump shots would be insanely valuable in creating space inside. We already known players that create spacing tend to score well in RAPM data so why there's a debate going on if Greer would have positive impact in this regard is beyond me.

Hmm ... a few questions/points/notes

1) Isn't there an issue with using minutes x metric, with a metric where 0 doesn't mean anything. 0 BPM means average. 0 WS/48 means contributing no wins. 0 WARP means no wins above replacement level (can't remember how many wins Pelton pegged this as but I think there is a number). For instance doing (PER - 15) x minutes, would render a number meaningful (PER production above average), or it could be a number you think gives replacement level or 0 wins, but where 0 doesn't mean anything I don't like multiplying to find some notion of production.

2) Regarding "minutes scaled PER" and someones "refusal to look" at it ... do we have easily available, comprehensive numbers there? And have we established it as better than regular PER (e.g. how does it compare in terms of correlation with wins)?

3) How much do you think this table justifies picking Greer at this spot? I think most will already have him as the fourth best guard that's primarily "of the sixties". But the table suggests only two specific seasons as a top four guard (and only one after West became a starter).

4) I realise you're quoting "volume scorer", but is that label really accurate? Looking at his top 5 ppg seasons (for time reasons, can dig further if necessary) he only once led his team in points per 36 minutes ('64). Now he's normally second (though not always to huge names, in '62 Lee Shaffer is the leader). Specifically versus guards within his era (so no Chamberlain, Baylor or Barry) he's closer to less fabled guards than he is so Sam Jones (cf: http://bkref.com/tiny/NGTvt). Now this cuts both ways (iggymcfrack cited PER as overrating volume scorers and thus Greer) but I would question how much Greer matches what we think of a "volume scorer".

5) You talk about scaling for league size ... Greer's last year on the periphery of the top 4 was fifth in '67 amongst 10 teams (20 starting guards). You're talking about being better than 75% of the league's guards ... that's a top 15 guard today. For the years he's fifth among 9 teams (18 guards) he straddles that 75% line. He's good but I suspect I could find players and probably guards doing better.

6) Your measure seems to putting out some ... curious names (Van Exel tops 2002; McInnis, Mike James and Giricek top 10 in '04 etc). I'd want to check inputs or be looking at how well this metric does at evaluating players and start tweaking.

This isn't so much anti-Greer, though I am a sceptic at this point, as reasons why I'm not sure I find the line of reasoning offered persuasive and why and where I'd look at tweaking it and what any numbers as they are might mean for Greer's case.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #34:

Bobby Jones - 5 (penbeast0, pandrade83, trex_8063, Doctor MJ, LABird)
Hal Greer - 3 (dhsilv2, Outside, Clyde Frazier)


Count hasn't changed for awhile. Calling it for Bobby Jones. Will have the next up in a minute.

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[dhsilv2]

Due to iggymcfrack's obsession with PER and refusal to look at scaled PER, I thought I'd look at Parker and Greer in PER based terms. It's a poor stat, but if voters are using it then so be it. Oh and in no way was Bobby Jones a contemporary of Greer. One guy started his career in 1959 and the other in 1975!

OK, as PER is not minute scaled I decided that I had to address minutes and as Hollinger's value added numbers imo are awful (for starters he uses position weighting). I also don't really see a value in comparing separate seasons with PER as each season is scaled. Now I'm sorry if you one thinks that higher PER's today are signs of players being better, but it could mean a lot more than that. The biggest factor is likely reduces minute loads on stars allows them to have more impact, but it also adds more minutes to lower value players who drive down the impact a "15" which drives up the higher guys. We also have to address that PER for Greer and for modern players (like Jones for example) use a different formula due to reduced box score metrics. So the simple solution was just PER * minutes played. This is a player's lets call it "minute adjusted PER value". The number has no value but ranking by year which is all I used it for. From there I decided to only use players that basketball reference in some way shape or form called a "guard" which again going back to the 50's we see a lot of g/f or f/g and non traditional "PG" or "SG" designations.

Tony Parker's results. You'll see he has 9 top 25 fishes in this PER adjusted metric, and by year I have the number of NBA players who played over 500 minutes (apples to oranges with the data since the table is only guards, but for simplicity I just wanted a quick and dirty context for the league size). Anyway Parker has 2 top 10 years and peaked at 8th. Now of course we can debate if Pop was just holding back Parker's minutes to be on the safe side and if he'd have been as productive in higher minutes like his peers played.

Spoiler:

Greer's results. Here you see from 61-69 Greer finished from 3rd to 7th each year.

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Anyway, I think this illustrates my reasoning for Greer in this spot or at least adds additional color to it. Greer certainly isn't a no question easy choice and since we've moved to a runoff with Jones, I guess I wish I'd written this sooner or included Jones in the analysis, but unfortunately my computer did not like how I did this work in excel.

Greer shows as being one of the best guards in the NBA from 61-69 and still an impact guy in his first two years and all but his last two years by this method. I personally think the guard player in the NBA was weak during this era due to a poor talent pool in addition to rules but I think rules were the bigger factor.

As for scouting I've seen very little of Greer but I have seen enough combined with stats to believe he was among the best shooters in the game in his era. His TS% was excellent given he was taking jump shots and he seemed to have range out beyond 15 feet. Given the era often saw all 10 players within 15 feet of the basket, a "volume scorer" who can do so from jump shots would be insanely valuable in creating space inside. We already known players that create spacing tend to score well in RAPM data so why there's a debate going on if Greer would have positive impact in this regard is beyond me.

Hmm ... a few questions/points/notes

1) Isn't there an issue with using minutes x metric, with a metric where 0 doesn't mean anything. 0 BPM means average. 0 WS/48 means contributing no wins. 0 WARP means no wins above replacement level (can't remember how many wins Pelton pegged this as but I think there is a number). For instance doing (PER - 15) x minutes, would render a number meaningful (PER production above average), or it could be a number you think gives replacement level or 0 wins, but where 0 doesn't mean anything I don't like multiplying to find some notion of production.

2) Regarding "minutes scaled PER" and someones "refusal to look" at it ... do we have easily available, comprehensive numbers there? And have we established it as better than regular PER (e.g. how does it compare in terms of correlation with wins)?

3) How much do you think this table justifies picking Greer at this spot? I think most will already have him as the fourth best guard that's primarily "of the sixties". But the table suggests only two specific seasons as a top four guard (and only one after West became a starter).

4) I realise you're quoting "volume scorer", but is that label really accurate? Looking at his top 5 ppg seasons (for time reasons, can dig further if necessary) he only once led his team in points per 36 minutes ('64). Now he's normally second (though not always to huge names, in '62 Lee Shaffer is the leader). Specifically versus guards within his era (so no Chamberlain, Baylor or Barry) he's closer to less fabled guards than he is so Sam Jones (cf: http://bkref.com/tiny/NGTvt). Now this cuts both ways (iggymcfrack cited PER as overrating volume scorers and thus Greer) but I would question how much Greer matches what we think of a "volume scorer".

5) You talk about scaling for league size ... Greer's last year on the periphery of the top 4 was fifth in '67 amongst 10 teams (20 starting guards). You're talking about being better than 75% of the league's guards ... that's a top 15 guard today. For the years he's fifth among 9 teams (18 guards) he straddles that 75% line. He's good but I suspect I could find players and probably guards doing better.

6) Your measure seems to putting out some ... curious names (Van Exel tops 2002; McInnis, Mike James and Giricek top 10 in '04 etc). I'd want to check inputs or be looking at how well this metric does at evaluating players and start tweaking.

This isn't so much anti-Greer, though I am a sceptic at this point, as reasons why I'm not sure I find the line of reasoning offered persuasive and why and where I'd look at tweaking it and what any numbers as they are might mean for Greer's case.

Ok responding on my phone so hopefully this is readable.

1. Not really meaningful even if we changed the scale that way, negative values are not good imo.

2. Yeah on espn hollinger numbers but it doesnt go back before johns espn days.

3. I made the table after picking him. I value his all nbas and leading scorer on a title team along with his shooting range and scoring value in a centers league. The table says that he was a top tier gueard for nearly a decade, it was more to be used to look at parker and greer who are very similar imo. I think if you value a long career of being very good, this table makes the case. If you value peaks, it doesnt make a great case, but it shows he was better imo than some who have dismissed him.

4. It isnt unfair, but so was mj. He was effecient which imo is a distinction to when a player is dismissed as just a volume scorer.

5. But can you find the career length?

6. Yeah, i would check the formulas but away from home. Maybe someone could post his per and minutes, that seems high.

[dhsilv2]

you know what, i may have messed up people traded mid year. Darn didnt fix the per value.