RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #34 (John Havlicek)

[Baski]

BTW, I know that he's not the most highly regarded player in here but I think Russell Westbrook should be getting some mentions at this point. I find it interesting that if 2016-17 season never happened, his career and him as a player would be regarded better.
I mean he was the best player on 2015-16 Thunder, he was the best player on the team that went 3-1 up against the 73W team. Sure, blowing such a lead is still an issue but;
Durant was slightly better on offense than Westbrook in regular season. Their impact in their given roles were almost tied up.
http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm?id=-1861361865
And Westbrook was the better player in the playoffs.

Another thing is;
I always look at impact numbers with on court production and roles in mind. Playing more minutes, or carrying bigger scoring load, etc, these things matter so much. Westbrook was still a positive impact player in 2016-17 season with that massive on court production.
I just don't see the point of penalizing the player for having a **** team around him.
Could Westbrook take less shots / handle the ball less on 2017 Thunder? Sure.
Would that be beneficial to the team and would they do better? Very doubtful.

The usual argument against him is that him not being on the same level as Curry, Durant and Paul but this list is already way past those names.

I'm not saying Westbrook is the right man to have on the lists right now. I'd have Gervin, Gilmore, Drexler, Reggie ahead of him. But I think his time's closing in.

You're saying 2017 didn't boost his career standing? I know you've tried to expound on why you think so, but there's gotta be more. Given how his post 2017 career has gone, I'd argue that that season is the only thing keeping him from being relegated to Maravich status or lower.

[Odinn21]

BTW, I know that he's not the most highly regarded player in here but I think Russell Westbrook should be getting some mentions at this point. I find it interesting that if 2016-17 season never happened, his career and him as a player would be regarded better.
I mean he was the best player on 2015-16 Thunder, he was the best player on the team that went 3-1 up against the 73W team. Sure, blowing such a lead is still an issue but;
Durant was slightly better on offense than Westbrook in regular season. Their impact in their given roles were almost tied up.
http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm?id=-1861361865
And Westbrook was the better player in the playoffs.

Another thing is;
I always look at impact numbers with on court production and roles in mind. Playing more minutes, or carrying bigger scoring load, etc, these things matter so much. Westbrook was still a positive impact player in 2016-17 season with that massive on court production.
I just don't see the point of penalizing the player for having a **** team around him.
Could Westbrook take less shots / handle the ball less on 2017 Thunder? Sure.
Would that be beneficial to the team and would they do better? Very doubtful.

The usual argument against him is that him not being on the same level as Curry, Durant and Paul but this list is already way past those names.

I'm not saying Westbrook is the right man to have on the lists right now. I'd have Gervin, Gilmore, Drexler, Reggie ahead of him. But I think his time's closing in.

You're saying 2017 didn't boost his career standing? I know you've tried to expound on why you think so, but there's gotta be more. Given how his post 2017 career has gone, I'd argue that that season is the only thing keeping him from being relegated to Maravich status or lower.

2017 boosted his career standing but many evaluation types in here tend to penalize Westbrook for it instead of acknowledging the situation.

This is the bias I was talking about. Why would I put him at fault by looking what happened after? Doesn't make sense. Players eventually get worse. Some of them start to get worse before their 32. And we voted in such players already (Moses and Chuck would be poster boys for this).

Here;
http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm3?id=272409209
http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm5?id=-874442238

Putting Westbrook in Maravich tier... I'm just going to say that's bias talking and nothing else.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:
1. Reggie Miller
2. John Havlicek
3. George Gervin
Next: Rick Barry

I've been voting Reggie & Hondo for a while now, so I honestly struggle to think of what I should say.

I'm a bit in love with Miller's game so I fully expect to be in higher on him than most. And I phrase it as I do to make clear that I know I need to look out for bias. It's possible I think in retrospect that I championed Miller too early.

But the scalability of Miller's way of playing basketball is a bit breathtaking to me. As in, I think we're going to see more and more players of Miller's type in the future because it helps so many teams so much.

I do understand if you point to Steph Curry's numbers and say "This is not that. Don't judge him more on potential than what he actually did.", but of course I'm not saying he was Curry, who I'm also clearly high on.

But I do think it's important to remember stats are not the thing in the end, team success is. And so I tend to ask myself "If one guy has more team success, and I really don't feel comfortable judging by the box score stats, on what basis am I saying that he accomplished less than the guy with less team success?"

(The obvious answers here are "better teammates" or "better coaching", and certainly if you feel strongly about that, I don't expect to sway you.)

I've mentioned before that Miller went to the Conference Finals 6 times. Let's just consider the '90s. Who made the Conference Finals the most times in the '90s?

1. Chicago 7
2. Utah 5
3. Indiana 4
(tie) Portland 4
5. Houston 3
(tie) New York 3

Keep in mind that Portland's 4th WCF came with a new core.

So basically in terms of star-player-led cores, only Jordan's Bulls & Malone's Jazz top Miller's Pacers in this era...and then he gets to two more ECF's before he's done.

Not something I brush aside lightly.

Okay, Gervin over Barry. Basically I've run out of arguments for Barry over Gervin at this time due to the riposte's of others in this project. There's no doubt that Gervin was the superior scorer, I'll give him the nod for now.

[Dr Positivity]

1. John Havlicek
2. Clyde Drexler
3. Paul Pierce

While Havlicek's best scoring years are inflated by pace, he's still a solid scoring option and helped lead the 70s teams with Cowens, in addition to excellent defense and intangibles. For the Celtics to have a lot of success including in the late 60s they needed Havlicek to making a high impact.

Drexler and Pierce are two of the best offensive players left. I'm surprised at the lack of support for Pierce so far personally, he has among the best longevity left, his prime lasts a solid 12-13 years, and he is still somewhat useful his first two years and with Nets and Wizards. I personally prefer his skillset to Allen and Miller types, I know on Celtics it felt like Pierce being more of the iso creator felt more meaningful than Allen.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #24:

John Havlicek - 4 (Cavsfansince84, DQuinn1575, Dr Positivity, Hal14)
Jason Kidd - 2 (Magic Is Magic, trex_8063)
Rick Barry - 2 (Clyde Frazier, Odinn21)
Kawhi Leonard - 1 (Dutchball97)
Reggie Miller - 1 (Doctor MJ)
George Gervin - 1 (penbeast0)


11 votes, so six required for a majority. Those bottom three are eliminated first, which transfers two to Hondo and ghosts one.....

Havlicek - 6
Kidd - 2
Barry - 2
(ghost) - 1

Havlicek is #34; I'll get the next up in a moment.

Spoiler:

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