RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #10 (Larry Bird)

[LA Bird]

Not in terms of playstyle but I feel like Oscar vs West comparison is similar to Nash vs Paul when it comes to the disconnect in two way play and overall ranking. If we consider West/Paul to be among the best offensive and defensive players at their position, they should logically be ranked a lot higher than Oscar/Nash even if the latter are slightly better on offense. However, when it comes to GOAT rankings, we usually find little separation between Oscar/West or Nash/Paul. The one way guys actually rank higher in ElGee's list and in WOWY scores. For that to make sense, either the defense of West/Paul is very overrated or Oscar/Nash are two tiers higher on offense than guys who are presumably top 10-15 all time on offense. I am not sure I agree with either statements but at the same time, wouldn't West/Paul have a case over someone like Magic if they really are among the best ever at their position on both offense and defense? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[Jordan Syndrome]

There's only one player left who was THE best player in the game for any extended time (Pettit a couple of years, Curry a couple of years) . . .

1. George Mikan -- yes, he was that dominant from what I can tell; yes his league was that weak, it's a balancing act
2. Larry Bird -- Again, a whole lot of greats very close here, could be Garnett, West, Oscar, Kobe, DRob, Moses, Erving, it's almost pick em to me but more convinced of Bird's case.
3. Jerry West -- The Garnett arguments almost convince me each time but then I look at David Robinson. Robinson did much more with weak teams pre-Duncan and even post injury, he was the defensive force on the Spurs 99 championship even more than Duncan while Duncan had passed him on offense. Garnett has him on length of prime and durability though. Curry would be my choice if he had even one more year as a top 5 in the league player, but the critiques of his durability are right, and durability matters (as it does for David Robinson). Then we have West and Oscar; Oscar produced better offenses but the other end never held up like it did for the Lakers despite their hole in the middle and West was an excellent defender so I give him some of the credit for that. That and, like Hakeem, he was a guy who produced deep into the playoffs, something Oscar never really got the chance to do in his Cincinnati days.

Really, I don't feel strongly that one guy stands out at this point so talk to me, you guys backed me off Curry, sell me on your guy.

I have a few comments/questions/thoughts.

If you have already considered Steph Curry why are you not considering Steve Nash?

Nash was the catalyst for the "Space and Pace" era which spawned the likes of Steph Curry. Statistically, Nash has a 10-year window, 2002-2011 where he was a 16.7/10.0/3.3 player on 49.7/43.6/91.0, 5.4 OBPM and +7.9 On-Court +/- and he finished 1, 1 and 2 in MVP voting in a 3-year period. Hell, add on 2001 and 2012 and Nash has an "arguably" longer prime than Magic and his on-court impact is similar.

I personally think Drza's post on Garnett have been some of the best posts and if they aren't able to convince you Garnett should be ahead of Bird or even West then I don't think you will be convinced of that in this project. Two big things I have learned in this project is 1) I am not alone on being high on Duncan and 2) the gap between Duncan and Garnett should not be more than 5 spots in an all-time sense.

Back to Nash, how much do team accolades and end-of-season team results matter here? To make a current comparison, Nash's post-season failures aren't the same as back-to-back MVP winner Giannis. Nash was never close to being shut-down in the post-season during his apex and his team falling short to the Duncan-Spurs multiple times, Dirk-Mavericks or Kobe-Lakers isn't a black mark on him in an all-time sense...or at least it shouldn't be one.

[trex_8063]

Clippers with Elton Brand played 7 games against this Suns team as well, so was it that big overachievement? And secondly, Bryant played subpar G1-G4 (23.0 PTS, 6.3 TRB, 6.3 AST, 4.5 TOV, 51.5 TS%), yet Lakers got 3-1 lead, and then had this amazing game 6 (50 pts or so in OT loss), but Lakers lost in 7, and his overall boxscore production wasn't even that great. I'm not saying he was one to blame or that he didn't play well, but I wonder why do you think this series is worthy of mentioning in context of this thread?

I think it was worth mentioning. The value of noting that example is that it shows Kobe + Mediocre Cast can still get to the playoffs and be respectably frisky. It's not a big part of his career resume but it does illustrate his floor-raising ability, particularly as an offensive anchor. IIRC LA was 6th in offense that season which goes to show how far Kobe shouldering the load could get you on that end of the floor.

The Lakers were 8th in Offensive Rating in 2006.

I'm not sure what value that season actually holds when compared to other players here.

I "hope" you're equally dismissive of '09 Wade when the time comes.

Aside from Lamar Odom, that was a bottom-3 cast in the league......but they made the playoffs, largely on the strength of their [+2.2 rORTG] offense, for which Kobe had a monstrous +18.9 offensive on/off [no one else on team had higher than +5.0]. His total on/of was +12.6 (next highest on team [not counting one guy who played 6 total minutes] was +4.8).

Kobe had the league's best ORAPM at +5.9 (Ray Allen was the only player even with 1.2 of him), and was 6th in total RAPM.

I mean, of course a season like this holds a lot of value.

[Jordan Syndrome]

I think it was worth mentioning. The value of noting that example is that it shows Kobe + Mediocre Cast can still get to the playoffs and be respectably frisky. It's not a big part of his career resume but it does illustrate his floor-raising ability, particularly as an offensive anchor. IIRC LA was 6th in offense that season which goes to show how far Kobe shouldering the load could get you on that end of the floor.

The Lakers were 8th in Offensive Rating in 2006.

I'm not sure what value that season actually holds when compared to other players here.

I "hope" you're equally dismissive of '09 Wade when the time comes.

Aside from Lamar Odom, that was a bottom-3 cast in the league......but they made the playoffs, largely on the strength of their [+2.2 rORTG] offense, for which Kobe had a monstrous +18.9 offensive on/off [no one else on team had higher than +5.0]. His total on/of was +12.6 (next highest on team [not counting one guy who played 6 total minutes] was +4.8).

Kobe had the league's best ORAPM at +5.9 (Ray Allen was the only player even with 1.2 of him), and was 6th in total RAPM.

I mean, of course a season like this holds a lot of value.

I responded to your other double post and it didn't work for some reason. I'll make a shorter post here.

My word choice was confusing. What I meant by value is that Kobe's season isn't adding more value than seasons of other players in contention here.

When I said "...what value it holds when compared to other players." it comes with the context that other players, notably Garnett, Bird and Dirk, all spent a year showing they could carry a weak/mediocre cast to results similar to Kobe's. Kobe doing such things in 2006 is respectable but it isn't something separating himself from the pack.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Dominance of their own era, 1 Mikan, 2 Oscar, 3/4 West or Bird
Best at peak 1 Bird, 2/3 David Ribinson/ Kobe (with their skills transported to any era with modern traveling not factored in)
Logevity, KG, Kobe, Dirk, not sure of order
I am not a voter

[Owly]

Copied from the last thread:

otoh, he's the ONLY one of the three who does NOT have any seasons that are more or less meaningless in terms of value added ... Bird, otoh, was ALWAYS adding value when on the court.

Hmm. WoWY for that last year painted him as a neutral. And the Barry Scouting Report graded him a D on defense after that year. Then he missed most of the playoff games, played limited minutes in the ones he was in. Depends on your bar and he's still productive but it's iffy. Mind you Hakeem's last 3 seasons look low impact, low productivity to me so maybe a different bar.

Do you have some net rating or SRS WOWY data from that year you're referring to that lists him as "neutral"?
Because I otherwise note the '92 Celtics were 31-14 (on pace for 56.5 wins) in the 45 games Bird played, and 20-17 (on pace for 44.3 wins) in the games he missed [12+ wins added to an already decent squad is no small thing].
And according to bbref splits they were a +4.8 rORTG in the 45 games he played [would have been good for #4 offense], while being just a +0.9 rORTG when he was gone (they averaged out to a +2.6 rORTG for the year [good for 8th/27]).

So it gives the appearance of him being the primary offensive anchor when he played.....which is pretty darn consistent with the box-based metrics too---->Despite being 35 years old and pretty much unable to bend over, he was still somewhat of a giant in the boxscore: basically averaging 20/10/7 on fairly good *efficiency (*both the shooting kind and the turnover-economy kind).

He had the team's best PER at 21.0, the team's best BPM [by far] at +5.5, and their 2nd-best WS/48 at .159, while basically tying Reggie Lewis for team-high mpg (36.9, just 0.5 behind Reggie).

So yeah, he still seems to be adding value, even with the immobile and poor defense. Insane as it seems given how immobile he was, I think he was still a top-10 (and maybe closer to top-5) offensive player in the league [that's an off-the-cuff statement, btw, without looking far into it].

ElGee's WOWY data NBA history spreadsheet.
0.8 SRS change, WoWY Score 0.5. Pwins change 2.
Neutral was otoh (I'm happy between 1 and -1 SRS as neutral but you could call this a small positive).
Control is Parish and McHale in (followed by brackets 55, so I assume looking at 55 total games).

Beyond the numbers the mess at guard could be a confounding factor (Shaw-Douglas trade, Brown presumably injured, Green presumably picked up.
Which players you figure as Bird's replacement and what you make of them may also be a factor (Pinckney has a productive year) in how you interpret any numbers.

[Dutchball97]

1. Larry Bird - I don't think there is much more I can say on Bird. I think his prime is slightly better than the three guys voted in before him. When I look at something like longevity it's about how many elite/prime years someone has and not just sheer amount of seasons. The main thing this will probably come down to is Bird vs Garnett if we look at last round's votes. KG's best play-off runs are 04 and 08, they're comparable to an average prime Bird play-off performance. Nothing KG has ever done in the play-offs even approaches the level Bird reached in 84 and 86. The idea that Duncan is #5 and KG isn't much worse so he shouldn't be too far off Duncan makes no sense when the same people don't look at Magic and Bird the same way. When Bird was better than Magic for most of their careers and Magic's case for being better than Bird is his few elite seasons after Bird was pretty much done, then how is that not a closer comparison than Duncan vs KG, where KG has always been behind Duncan outside of arguably those two years I mentioned earlier for KG (04 and 08)? We're looking at someone in Bird who did it all and has a legit top 10 resume but just doesn't have the best longevity vs a guy with a long career but a so-so prime devoid of consistent play-off success. This is probably the most invested I've been in a spot so far. Something about KG over Bird is just off to me but at this point in the project we just have to accept there are different ways of looking at players and we're always going to have some disagreements.

2. Kobe Bryant - This was not an easy choice. After Bird I think there are about 5 players who could be chosen here realistically. Besides Kobe I also strongly considered West, Oscar, Dr J and KG. I was leaning Dr J at the beginning. His 1976 peak is one of the most insane seasons in basketball, even if it was in the ABA. When he went to the NBA it took a few years to really get settled in again, which was a bit of a shame but he did show for a few years after that he was also an elite player by NBA standards. In the end I couldn't justify going for him due to the few down years in what was the middle of his prime, as well as the so-so performance during the legendary play-offs in 83.

Kobe vs KG is an interesting discussion imo. If the regular season is the most important to you then KG is surely top 10 and Kobe nowhere close but I put much more value on the play-offs than the regular season by quite a margin. In the play-offs it's similarly not close at all but this time with Kobe having the advantage. Between his great performance in 2001, his 08-10 run where he had a strong argument to be the best player in the league and also importantly for me is that he performed better than KG with trash rosters from 05-07. I also took Kobe over West/Oscar for the same reason I took Bird over them. Level of relative dominance/years on top. I don't want to penalize Oscar and West too much for playing against Russell and Wilt but with Oscar only having the argument for 64 and West not really even being in the conversation for best player untill the late 60s I can't see them really pushing the top 10 here.

3. Jerry West - Oscar's 64 peak is out of this world and it's not like he never had another season close to that level either but missing the play-offs three times consecutively in the middle of his prime at ages 29, 30 and 31 is a hard sell against West's impeccable consistency in play-off performance. West has some downsides as well of course. He took a bit longer than Oscar to get going in the league, he didn't peak as high and he missed the 67 play-offs due to injury sadly also in the midst of his prime.

I'm actually still not too sure about Kobe vs West. When I put their career arcs next to each other they're honestly pretty similar. They came into the league as insane second stars next to Baylor and Shaq respectively, they took over as the main guy in the middle of the decade with mixed results and then both had great peaks where individual excellence and team success overlapped in the late 60s/late 00s respectively. West's early 70s are better than Kobe's early 10s though and the main reason I have Kobe over West right now is the level of success each guy had. I'll be going more in depth on this one for the #11 spot and am open to arguments for both sides here (assuming Bird gets in of course, otherwise my ballot is unlikely to change for next round).

[Dutchball97]

I do think Mikan deserves consideration but between his competition being ass and the ruleset not even being half finished yet (lane was widened during his career, while the shotclock only came after he retired) I'm just not ready to vote him over guys that maybe had a little less dominance in their era but a lot less question marks besides that. He's just one of those guys you could make an argument for top 5 as well as not even top 50 and I'm undecided where I'm going to fall.

[limbo]

Not in terms of playstyle but I feel like Oscar vs West comparison is similar to Nash vs Paul when it comes to the disconnect in two way play and overall ranking. If we consider West/Paul to be among the best offensive and defensive players at their position, they should logically be ranked a lot higher than Oscar/Nash even if the latter are slightly better on offense. However, when it comes to GOAT rankings, we usually find little separation between Oscar/West or Nash/Paul. The one way guys actually rank higher in ElGee's list and in WOWY scores. For that to make sense, either the defense of West/Paul is very overrated or Oscar/Nash are two tiers higher on offense than guys who are presumably top 10-15 all time on offense. I am not sure I agree with either statements but at the same time, wouldn't West/Paul have a case over someone like Magic if they really are among the best ever at their position on both offense and defense? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I'm not sure about West, because there's not nearly enough data and footage on him, but imo Paul is definitely in conversation with Magic in terms of peak/prime when it comes to impacting the scoring margin.

By the numebers, Paul has performed some of the most insane carry jobs ever. Every team he's been on from 2008 to 2017 has been absolute garbage without him offensively... Even the Clippers teams with Griffin that most consider to be stacked have completely fallen apart without Paul, but with him they were ATG. Not only that, but in the 2016 and 2017 seasons, for instance, the Clippers fell apart even defensively without Paul.

His elite offensive footprint has also now been confirmed over 4 different teams, with wildly different lineups/styles/coaching, which is definitely a more varied/vulnerable sample size than either Oscar, West, Magic and Nash, not to say those guys just played in the same sort of environment for their entire careers.

Most of the criticism i've heard against Paul doesn't make sense either. First it was that he's too much of a 'perfectionist' on offense, and that's the reason why he was never a part of one as good as Nash or Magic... No, the Suns just weren't as incompetent without Nash as Paul teams were without him. Nash elevated an offense that had 107 ORtg with him off into +120 territory. Paul elevated a team that had a 100 ORtg without him to 117/118 ORtg territory. Then i've heard arguments about how it's somehow Paul's fault his team doesn't know to generate good offense without him on the floor, lol. Somehow Nash is so good, that even when he sits down, his presence on offense is just so massive from the bench that it holds his team together better than Paul. Paul is responsible for his teams having no playmaking outside of him, rarely having a competent bench and Doc Rivers being an inept offensive coach.

Then of course it was the myth of Paul being too ball dominant/controlling that his impact can only exist with him controlling every facet of the possession. Which was obviously dispelled in 2018 and in 2020 again to the highest extent possible.

At this point, all haters have left is health issues/durability and team success, and both of those are intertwined often in Paul's career. Which is why i personally don't rank him as high as Magic.

But if we're talking purely the ability to impact the game, in a variety of ways, floor raising, ceiling raising, offense, defense, different lineups/coaches, doing it from 2008 to 2020 on a all-nba level outside of years affected by injuries... Paul is up there with any PG ever.

Also, people love to slam on Paul 'choking' in the Playoffs, but Steph is a way worse Playoff performer if we're looking at 2014-2018, despite playing on way better teams. People love to harp on Steph's impact going beyond the box-score and what not, which is true, but then you look at how the Warriors played without Steph and how they played with him during most of those Playoff runs and the differences were small. For a guy many people claimed had GOAT level impact on offense, it was sure weird seeing Golden State do just fine without him on offense during the Playoffs, and not doing historically good with him in the lineup either, for multiple runs.

Paul's teams completely tanked on both ends with him missing time, and played on an ATG level with him on the floor, but since he can't afford to take a 2-week vacation during the Playoffs to rest his hammy like Curry could, he gets ostracized.

[The Master]

When Bird was better than Magic for most of their careers and Magic's case for being better than Bird is his few elite seasons after Bird was pretty much done

If the regular season is the most important to you then KG is surely top 10 and Kobe nowhere close but I put much more value on the play-offs than the regular season by quite a margin.

Are you consistent with your criteria (postseason >>> regular season)? If so, I don't think you can claim Bird was better than Magic for most of their careers, when Magic was worse than Bird in postseason in '81 (injury), '84 and '86, and that's it. ''Bird was better than Magic for most of their careers'' is heavily based on regular season, where Bird was clearly better in 80-86 period, in reality Magic was better in postseason in '80, '82, '83, and '87-91 period - and probably no worse in '85, because Bird played with injured finger (and we know rumors how he got injured) on much worse efficiency than in '84 and '86.

I find your approach (''I put much more value on the play-offs than the regular season by quite a margin'') contradictory to your opinions on Bird, because ... personally, I put much more value on the postseason than RS, and that's why I'm not fully sold on Bird. And his regular season impact (over 60W on average in 80-88 period) is a main reason I will maybe revisit my stance after some time, because it's ~GOAT RS prime in 8-year span, but ... you prioritize postseason ''by quite a margin''.

I'm not discussing with Bird at #10, I see Larry v. KG as 50/50 comparison.

[Dutchball97]

When Bird was better than Magic for most of their careers and Magic's case for being better than Bird is his few elite seasons after Bird was pretty much done

If the regular season is the most important to you then KG is surely top 10 and Kobe nowhere close but I put much more value on the play-offs than the regular season by quite a margin.

Are you consistent with your criteria (postseason >>> regular season)? If so, I don't think you can claim Bird was better than Magic for most of their careers, when Magic was worse than Bird in postseason in '81 (injury), '84 and '86, and that's it. ''Bird was better than Magic for most of their careers'' is heavily based on regular season, where Bird was clearly better in 80-86 period, in reality Magic was better in postseason in '80, '82, '83, and '87-91 period - and probably no worse in '85, because Bird played with injured finger (and we know rumors how he got injured) on much worse efficiency than in '84 and '86.

I find your approach (''I put much more value on the play-offs than the regular season by quite a margin'') contradictory to your opinions on Bird, because ... personally, I put much more value on the postseason than RS, and that's why I'm not fully sold on Bird. And his regular season impact (over 60W on average in 80-88 period) is a main reason I will maybe revisit my stance after some time, because it's ~GOAT RS prime in 8-year span, but ... you prioritize postseason ''by quite a margin''.

I'm not discussing with Bird at #10, I see Larry v. KG as 50/50 comparison.

Magic's consistency in the play-offs made me almost take him over Bird but I am generally very impressed by both Bird's peak play-off performances and his average post-season play as well as his regular season performance. When I said I value post-season more than the regular season I don't mean I disregard the regular season. My gripe was mostly KG never peaking exceptionally high in the post-season like all of Magic, Bird, Shaq and Hakeem did do, as well as KG not having a large sample size in the play-offs during his prime. This is why I'm saying putting KG this high is based more on what he could've done with better teams instead of what he actually did in the post-season.

[Odinn21]

Not in terms of playstyle but I feel like Oscar vs West comparison is similar to Nash vs Paul when it comes to the disconnect in two way play and overall ranking. If we consider West/Paul to be among the best offensive and defensive players at their position, they should logically be ranked a lot higher than Oscar/Nash even if the latter are slightly better on offense. However, when it comes to GOAT rankings, we usually find little separation between Oscar/West or Nash/Paul. The one way guys actually rank higher in ElGee's list and in WOWY scores. For that to make sense, either the defense of West/Paul is very overrated or Oscar/Nash are two tiers higher on offense than guys who are presumably top 10-15 all time on offense. I am not sure I agree with either statements but at the same time, wouldn't West/Paul have a case over someone like Magic if they really are among the best ever at their position on both offense and defense? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I definitely understand this. There's a misconception about out evaluation process. When we think of offense and defense, we mostly focus on performances and impact gets a second seat.

Robertson was indeed at least a tier ahead of West on offense and it does not solely come from their performances, it comes from the gap between their impacts on offense.

Let's use numbers for this;
West 8 on offense and 7 on defense out of 10.
Robertson 9 on offense and 4 on defense.

West's total score is better. But! players 9 on offense are much rarer and that 1 point difference would mean more in majority of the scenarios in Robertson-West case.

In terms of distributions, the average is not 5. Each position has their own standards. For example, guard defense average should be around 3 or 4 because the absolute 10 on defense is Bill Russell.

At the time, until the mid '00s, there was a too much focus on volume scoring. In the time, IMHO, we overcorrected that. Now, we punish more one-dimensional players.

---

In short, Robertson was the better player between him and West. To me, these West votes so far had it wrong if they chose West over Robertson.

[drza]

The week has started, so my time will again be hit or miss. So, where it makes sense, I can re-post relevant arguments that may have addressed present topics of discussion. In this case, this is from a couple of Top 100 projects ago, comparing Garnett and Bird in a reasonably comprehensive way. I use per-100 stats for the boxscore comps of regular season and playoffs, and I know feelings vary on that, but something has to be done to try to get them on a similar scale considering Bird's Celtics typically played at much faster paces. Anyway, here's hopefully some food for thought and discussion when discussing two of the greatest forwards of all-time.

KG vs Bird, per 100 stats over prime seasons

Regular season
80 - 88 Bird: 30.9 pts (57% TS), 12.7 reb, 7.6 asts (3.9 TOs), 24.2 PER
99 - 08 Garnett: 30.2 pts (55% TS), 16.8 reb, 6.6 asts (3.7 TO), 25.5 PER

Playoffs
80 - 88 Bird: 28.4 pts (55.5% TS), 12.4 reb, 7.4 asts (3.7 TOs), 21.9 PER
99 - 08 Garnett: 29.5 pts (52.3% TS), 16.8 reb, 5.9 asts (3.9 TOs), 23.9 PER

OK, I'll admit to being surprised that their scoring per 100 possessions is so close. I knew that the 80s was a higher pace, and I also know that pace adjusting isn't perfect, but still.

Box scores aside, at this point we know how these players played. Bird is on the short list of greatest offensive players ever, an off-ball savant as coined by Doc MJ, who could weave seamlessly between volume scoring and running the offense without being the primary ball-handler. Bird also has three all-defensive team nods, highlighting a part of his game that isn't often mentioned. All Defensive teams can be deceptive, but in Bird's case he actually was a good positional defender that recognized defensive angles with the same facility that he recognized offensive angles. He was used to playing off the ball, and his ability to recognize what the offense needed to do (no matter who had the ball) allowed him to defend better than his athletic ability should have allowed. Plus he was a great rebounder. With his style and substance, if there were RAPM data for the 80s I would expect Bird's offensive RAPM to be in the same range as LeBron's or Dirk's (the 2 highest scoring forwards in offensive RAPM in Doc MJ's 1998 - 2012 spreadsheet), perhaps a bit higher. On the flip side, though he was solid on defense, I don't think his defensive RAPM would be better than LeBron's.

In some ways, Garnett is his mirror: on the short list of greatest defensive players ever, while also a better-than-you-think on offense. Only, in Garnett's case, that "better than you think on offense" was pretty strong. He led four straight top-6 offenses in Minnesota from 2002 - 2005, with four different starting point guards and three different 2nd leading scorers (he led all four teams in scoring, and two of them in assists). Last thread I saw Olajuwon described as one of the few Bigs that could be dominant on both sides of the ball. For those that give any credence to RAPM, Garnett is the only player since 1998 to have measured out as the #1 offensive player in a given year (2004) as well as the #1 defensive player in a given year (multiple times). Those peaks came in different years, however, in 2004 in the PI RAPM study he measured out as the #1 offensive player and the #3 defensive player in the same season. In 2003 he measured out #2 on offense and #7 on defense. In 2008 in Boston he measured out #1 on defense and number 18 on offense. No one else in the (now 20-plus) years we have RAPM for has approached that kind of balance, neither over a career nor especially in any given season.

Longevity
Above I listed 9 years for Bird's prime and 10 years for Garnett's. After sitting out almost all of 1989, Bird had another good year in 1990. So call it 10 prime years each at this point.

Outside of that window, Bird had 1991 in which he missed 22 regular season games but was able to play solid when on the court:

1991 Bird reg season: 19.4 ppg (53% TS), 8.5 reb, 7.2 asts (3.1 TO) in 38 mpg
1991 Bird playoffs: 17.1 ppg (49% TS), 7.2 reb, 6.5 asts (1.9 TO) in 39.6 mpg

Clearly it's not what he once was, but this was a definite positive contributing season.

Then, Bird's final year was 1992. He was only able to play in 45 regular season games (though his production was better than 1991), but his body broke down and he was only able to play in 4 of Boston's 10 playoff games (and only able to start 2 of those games). While he was great when on the court, the fact that he could only play in half of the games and couldn't face the postseason makes it hard to count this season as value added for Bird.

Garnett, on the other hand, (is about to play in his 20th season out of what would be 21 overall). For the sake of this discussion, let's throw out Garnett's last couple years when he didn't play many minutes. Let's even throw out his rookie season, in which he produced pretty well, since he didn't move into the starting line-up until the 2nd half of the season. Even if we do this, we're looking at a huge longevity advantage. Garnett was an All Star in 1997 and 1998, 2009 (knee injury ended season early), 2010, 2011 and 2013 among the years not listed as his prime. He wasn't All NBA in any of those seasons, but he was all defense in three of them (two 1st teams and a 2nd team). Stepping away from accolades, the more statistical approach...

In the first year that we have PI RAPM (1998), Garnett measured out as the #5 player in the league. He was extremely raw, but already making strong contributions as a 3rd year player at 21 years old.

In 2010 Garnett was obviously slowed as he recovered from 2009 knee surgery, but his impact (especially on defense) was clearly the difference between a 2nd round Celtics squad (2009) and a team that was championship caliber.

In the last year in DocMJ's spreadsheet, 2012, Garnett measured out as the #5 player in the league. He capped that season by averaging 19.2 ppg (54% TS), 10.3 reb, and breaking the +/- scale with his defense while leading the Celtics to Game 7 of the ECF against the eventual champion Heat. This was Garnett's 17th season.

In year 18 he measured out near the top of ShutUpandJam's PI RAPM list while still playing 29.7 min/game. He then averaged 12.7 points, 13.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 35.3 mpg in the playoffs.

Bottom line: I take longevity with a grain of salt outside of extreme cases because I value primes, but I think this is a pretty extreme case. Garnett clearly has a massive longevity edge, in addition to the strong case that Garnett was as good/better in their respective primes as well. Both are on the short list of greatest of all-time, but across several important axes The Ticket has a very strong case against The Legend.

[Mazter]

10. Larry Bird
11. Jerry West
12. Karl Malone

I will stick with Bird. The Celtics had 2 losing seasons, turned around winning 60 and reached conference finals while he led them in scoring, rebounding and assists. Made 5 Finals in his first 9 years, 3 championships, averaged over 60 wins over 9 seasons. After he retired the Celtics wouldn't make it past the second round for 10 seasons. 12x All Stars, 10x All NBA, 3x All Defensive, 3x MVP, 5 additional times top 3 in MVP. Of the remaining no one comes close in team success + selections + awards in a consecutive period.

Jerry West had the same story, but basically was a third wheel in the story of Bill and Wilt. But he might have been more than that. Other than missing just a bit too many games, stopped him from being top 10 in scoring for 11 seasons, top 5 in 9 of them. 12x All NBA and 5x All Defensive. 9 Finals, 8x top 5 in MVP. Before Wilt joined, the Lakers won only 43% of the games he missed, while winning 60% when he played. Even in the Wilt period it was 70% against 52%.

The 12th spot is for Karl, but I might change it to Kobe, have to go a bit deeper into this. Karl has the longevity, the only thing missing is team success but he is the second scorer of all time for a reason. 14 All NBA, 4x All Defensive and 2x MVP in the Jordan era is not bad at all.

[mailmp]

With the stipulation that I see a very clear demarcation between the top nine and this next bunch:

1. Kevin Garnett
The top nine I see as guys who can take competent rosters to multiple championships. Despite how his rampant fanbase likes to project his regular season impact to an equivalent postseason level of those top nine, I see generally little evidence Garnett could do the same (and then other postseason elevators like West and Dirk and Reggie simply are starting from a weaker base). However, Bird has much more severe postseason dips, and obviously much worse longevity, and his 1984/86 playoff peaks do not do nearly enough to offset that, and narratives about “tHrEe sTRaiGhT mVps” or “wow he just did ‘it’ better than anyone!!!” have done a fantastic job of reducing my evaluation of Bird in a way the borderline myopic portability fixations of Garnett’s backers have not. If I am still around in three years, I hope I can link back to this when we get a few Garnett fans start arguing he should go at #2 or something.

2. Oscar Robertson
I am not judging these players for what they would do in the modern league. West’s spacing would indeed be an innate advantage now — but I am judging them in the context of the entire history of the league, and I think Oscar had a clear step up throughout their careers that would likely carry over up to the more recent three-point explosion. I also am not penalising Oscar for a smaller playoff sample resulting from inferior teams and a dramatically more difficult conference. I do not think West really had much of a true playoff advantage, if any, and for the talk about Oscar’s teams missing postseasons (because of the aforementioned team and conference obstacles), West missing postseasons his team made is a much more severe issue. I see West as a good defender but not by an amount that offsets Oscar’s stronger offence or his longevity edge.

3. Kobe Bryant
Mostly a longevity case here, but he did have high tier offensive impact, an excellent (if overblown) résumé, and clear evidence of complementary play with other stars. He and Oscar are much closer to #17 than they are to #9, so broad strokes I do not care if like West or Dirk end up getting enough backers to switch that up. And I need to save my outrage equity for the soon to arrive Robinson fanatics haha.

[freethedevil]

Alright, glad we got the proper top nine. I will echo Penbeast’s concerns about the Robinson/Garnett comparisons — with the acknowledgment that yes Garnett had much better longevity and was less routinely disappointing peak playoff performer. And I guess elements of that will probably show up when the Garnett supporters start trying to vote Robinson in at 14 or something, and then we get to do that classic debate.

But now that my top tier is in... I do not know, Kobe has his issues (and I am skeptical he actually qualified as a more impactful playoff performer than Garnett, although of course that is what his supporters argue).
well athe data on the matter say he's considerably less impactful in the playoffs:

https://backpicks.com/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/


Pretty sure rapm backs that up to. Heck even an offense slanted box compsite like bpm rates KG higher.


There's also the matter of garnett 8 years removed from his apex outplaying (arguably) peak bryant during the rs and the postseason.


I think the Bird arguments thus far have been profoundly weak and if anything have collectively lowered my opinion of Bird. Some of the Dirk arguments have been interesting (but then should we extend similar reasoning to elevate Reggie to top twenty-five?), even though I buy into Oscar more (West’s injury issues keep him lower for me, and I am not convinced his playoff peak was better than Oscar’s beyond the benefits of generally having a stronger team than Oscar did). And then broadly I am also concerned with how the Garnett backers have him so disproportionately high that in three years we will do the same thing

Magic is literally KG -longetvity.


If there's anyone whose disproportantely high its magic johnsons's whose _-issues-_ are just a somewhat less dramatic version of bird's.

, except this time maybe they do manage to get him in over Hakeem or Shaq or Magic. So for now I will hold off on an official vote. I will probably go Garnett/Oscar/Kobe but guess we will see.



Him being voted over magic would be a fantastic validation of our democracy I think. Tho I'll admit, you've done an exceptional job making me reconsider if i shoulding reconsider hav hakeem above him with that botched giannis comparison

[freethedevil]

Posted this in the wrong thread.


No 1. Is the easiest choice.


Kevn Garnett has the most career value left by a landslide, with his corp outright clowning two of the candidates voted above him.

KG's peak absolutely demolishes anyone left not named Bird.

KG's leadership is probably the best of any candidate left.

KG's playoff impact demolishes anyone left not named bird.

KG is easily the most portable player left of any of the serious candidates

KG's imapct is the least dubious of any of the candidates left(and many candidates above him) because he kept up his ability tio impact winning on a wide variety of supporting casts of various quality ranginf from garbage to 66 win teams.


There's zero doubt for me that KG is no. 1, the second in career value, kobe bryant, wasn't even as impactful at his peak as KG was 8 years removed from his(2008) and his longetvity is worse.



2. Kobe Lets be clear, in the playoffs, he's less valauble han peak dirk or wade, and his regular season is roughly on par. Kobe is not being ranked second because of his peak which is an outlier in terms of how bad it is compared to the remaining candidates. but despite all of that, by playing long enough, Kobe's spiked his value up. Bird should have considered not breaking his hand in bar fights if he wanted to be ranked higher.


3. Larry Bird KG-esque peak, too many injuries. The most likely to underperform in the playoffs compared to his rs level. He rounds out my top 12.


KG 1.
Kobe 2
Bird 3

[Mazter]

Kevn Garnett has the most career value left by a landslide

Karl Malone would care to differ on this.

KG's peak absolutely demolishes anyone left not named Bird.

I would say that at least Malone and Robinson had a peak that's close, maybe was even better than KG's.

KG's leadership is probably the best of any candidate left.

Hmm yeah, wasn't he the leader of the 04/05 T'Wolves? A team that had 3 other players who played in at least 1 All Star game, reached the conference Finals the season before with the exact same roster, was tied for second in the pre-season odds and...failed to make the play offs for the first time in 8 seasons.

KG's playoff impact demolishes anyone left not named bird.

Uhmm, is this the same player who played only 47 play off games in his first 12 seasons? Yeah sure, he did something, after he joined something, but "demolishes any one" are very big words.

KG had his moments, but he also had his "not so-moments". He could go from being an MVP or DPOY (candidate) one year, to not being anywhere close moments later.

[freethedevil]

Kevn Garnett has the most career value left by a landslide

Karl Malone would care to differ on this. He would care, and I wouldn' care because he was never anywhere near as valuable as KG.

KG's peak absolutely demolishes anyone left not named Bird.

I would say that at least Malone and Robinson had a peak that's close, maybe was even better than KG's.
If you ignore that KG was far more valuable than sure than Malone in both the rs and the playoffs and if you ignore that KG has a vastly better track record both defensively and offensively than robinson against good playoff offenses and good playoff defenses, sure. But I don't ignore those things, so I'm not going ot be treating players nowhere near as good as garnett as if they were as good as garnett.

KG's leadership is probably the best of any candidate left.

Hmm yeah, wasn't he the leader of the 04/05 T'Wolves? A team that had 3 other players who played in at least 1 All Star game, reached the conference Finals the season before with the exact same roster, was tied for second in the pre-season odds and...failed to make the play offs for the first time in 8 seasons.
What's your point? Why would I give a **** about pre-season odds and how do the timberwolves playing 45 win basketball at full strength with a garbage level supporting cast suggest kg is a bad leader? What evidence that you have that any of the players coming there would have a better leadership relatef effect? What we do know is KG turned around a toxic boston lockeroom showing off-court value we've never seen from anyone left

KG's playoff impact demolishes anyone left not named bird.

Uhmm, is this the same player who played only 47 play off games in his first 12 seasons? Yeah sure, he did something, after he joined something, but "demolishes any one" are very big words.
The fact that with such limied oppuruntity he put up several playoff stretches that clown kobe's best singular best, pretty strongly tells me he's a vastly better playoff player. The fact he was the best playoff performer 8 years off his peak tells me the regular season impact doesn't lie about him being a different calibre of player. And no, he did not do something once he got to boston. He was one of the most avaluable playoff performers in history with the timberwolves despite consistnetly being facing teams that overmatched his.
KG had his moments, but he also had his "not so-moments". He could go from being an MVP or DPOY (candidate) one year, to not being anywhere close moments later.
He went from being far better than everyone left(bird excluded) to being comparalbe or better. KG's flcutuations may be an issue compared with a lebron or a duncan, they're a moot point when you're comparing him to malone, robinson, or kobe whose highs aren't signifcantly better than kg's lows or Bird whose even more inconsistent and has **** longetvity.


KG's clearly the best left.

[eminence]

Not in terms of playstyle but I feel like Oscar vs West comparison is similar to Nash vs Paul when it comes to the disconnect in two way play and overall ranking. If we consider West/Paul to be among the best offensive and defensive players at their position, they should logically be ranked a lot higher than Oscar/Nash even if the latter are slightly better on offense. However, when it comes to GOAT rankings, we usually find little separation between Oscar/West or Nash/Paul. The one way guys actually rank higher in ElGee's list and in WOWY scores. For that to make sense, either the defense of West/Paul is very overrated or Oscar/Nash are two tiers higher on offense than guys who are presumably top 10-15 all time on offense. I am not sure I agree with either statements but at the same time, wouldn't West/Paul have a case over someone like Magic if they really are among the best ever at their position on both offense and defense? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Main reason I have Oscar over West is significantly better longevity/health. West battled a lot of injuries over his career that sap a lot of value. I expect I'll take CP3 over Nash this time around. I'd say I find West/CP3 defense generally slightly overrated as well (I'm lower on all guard defense really).