trelos6 wrote:capfan33 wrote:Same as last time.
2. 1990 Patrick Ewing
I'm not very familiar with Ewing overall, but I do know he was a historically great defensive anchor who anchored some of the greatest defenses ever. AEngima's posts in the previous thread are largely the reason for this vote, as he showed how 1990 for Ewing was actually a legitimate outlier for him due to an improved offensive skillset while still maintaining his athleticism, and I suspect that the better defensive results in 93 and 94 are more due to roster construction and coaching than Ewing himself. In a general sense, I like his skillset quite a bit, a legitimate top-10 defensive anchor ever who also had outside shooting touch and athleticism to play in the pick and roll. It plays well in many teams in any era, and as such I'm unexpectedly voting for Ewing here.
How do you justify Patrick Ewing over Dwight Howard.
Defensively, Ewing had 5.3 DWS vs Dwight 2009's 7.6 DWS.
103 DRtg vs 95 DRtg
Offensively, Ewing had 8.3 OWS vs Dwight 6.2 OWS.
Ewing had 25.8 pp75 on +4.3% rTS% vs 22.4 pp75 on +5.6 rTS%
I don't see how you wouldn't have Dwight higher.
These are some odd framings.
Based on what you are giving right there, Dwight’s winshares were 0.2 higher. He scored 3.4 points per 75 fewer on 1.3 better relative efficiency. These are not meaningful gaps.
The DRtg you cited off basketball reference is mostly a boxscore metric, but there at least we can engage with differences a little more.
I did wrestle with this question. I wrestled with whether to pick Dwight independently of my Ewing vote too (currently leaning toward making him my next vote). Dwight is not an easy player to assess.
Yes, Dwight is better on defence than Ewing. Or at least better than 1990 Ewing, who was in a moderately similar team situation as peak Dwight if not quite the same coaching situation. I think better than any version of Ewing outright, but to keep it less complicated, we can say definitely above 1990 Ewing not coached by Pat Riley (as I have argued, I think 1990 was the height of his defensive
potential under a proper defensive scheme, if not the height of his defensive experience or awareness). I could mention that Ewing at one point anchored much better defensive teams than Dwight ever did, but that would unfairly ignore their respective casts. Rambling a bit here: Dwight was better, but Basketball Reference is not why we should conclude that.
What about the offensive gap? Well, as you pointed out, the scoring is to some degree comparable in raw volume relative to efficiency. However, Ewing has several additional advantages past that. First, he is not restricted to shooting near the rim. Ewing had impressive range for a centre and offered more spacing that Dwight possibly could. Dwight has an advantage in interior gravity, but his poor free throw percentage makes him a potential liability at the foul line, and his total reliance on that area makes it possible to scheme him out of his scoring spots: his volume is comparatively much more liable than to drop, and his efficiency can also be more easily mitigated by strong frontcourts (as seen in the 2009 Finals). Ewing’s scoring is more resilient and can accommodate a wider array of teammates, and his frontcourt opposition was a step beyond peak Dwight’s frontcourt competition. Ewing also has a notably better passing game than Dwight, who might be even below Moses on that front. Dwight is there almost purely as a finisher, yet he has some questionable off-ball habits and famously struggled to adjust to
Steve Nash; Ewing may have his own limitations acting as an off-ball target, but by virtue of having a more diverse offensive skillset I struggle to see him causing as many issues with chemistry. All of these traits better suit the postseason than Howard’s do, and in tandem with some superior WOWY(R) measures for Ewing, and some postseason impact dips for Howard, I would say we have enough to justifiably dispute which of the two was better overall.
I said Howard is not an easy player to assess. He had a system built around him pretty much to an ideal to maximise on-court impact. The defence relied on him entirely, and the offence was structured off his interior gravity. However, he lacked the selfless team play of someone like Gobert, without the Ewing-esque resilience you would hope accompanied that superstar mentality. Most of his game was predicated on raw athleticism rather than skillset evolution. He was by far the league’s best centre, but in an era devoid of most competition for that title. In the postseason, I feel more comfortable trusting Ewing on more teams against more opponents, even though defence does scale well and I would prefer to use Dwight as the base of my defence specifically.
