RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Dikembe Mutombo)

[penbeast0]

Ok, this might be easier than I thought eliminating people. Compared Mutombo and Billups in 26 year RAPM since they both played in the play-by-play era.

Mutombo: +5.7 (18th)
Billups: +1.1 (272nd)

That seems pretty definitive. Especially when you consider that Mutombo played more games and minutes and the sample misses some of his best box seasons at the beginning of his career while getting the role player seasons in his 40s.

So I’m between Mutombo and Parish.

This is another situation where I think it important to have a clear sense of prime vs prime different from cumes. I'm pretty sure that much of what's causing the difference here are the years outside of Billups' prime where he struggled to find his niche. Find to side with Mutombo based on longevity of course, but Billups has a pretty good case for being the more valuable piece when looking to build a core for sustained contention.

I mean, even if Billups would look better without his non-prime years, there’s no way he could match up to Mutombo. Deke’s impact numbers are astronomical. Here are the top players in 26 year RAPM if we exclude active players under 35 who haven’t had their decline phase yet:

1. LeBron 9.1
2. Garnett 8.4
3. Chris Paul 8.1
4. Stockton 7.2
5. Jordan 6.9
6. Duncan 6.7
7. Curry 6.5
8. Manu 6.0
9. Dirk 6.0
10. Shaq 5.8
11. Dikembe 5.7
12. D-Rob 5.6

That’s insanely elite company. And you can’t really have flukes with that large of a sample size. Dikembe’s closer to being the #1 RAPM player of the millennium than he is to Billups even though he played more minutes, more games, more years, and had structural disadvantages in when the data was gathered.

Curious, if you included Gobert, is he in the Mutombo area of impact?

[iggymcfrack]

FWIW the 95% confidence interval on Mutombo is 4.1 to 7.4. The 95% confidence interval on Billups is -0.3 to 2.5.

The 95% confidence interval on Dwyane Wade is 0.6 to 3.4 and he is 19th on your personal all time list.

22nd actually. Still he at least had a season where he led the NBA in PI RAPM and was consensus POY and 2 more seasons where he was top 2. How good was Billups really at his peak? He was a bit of a late bloomer, but if you look at his career as a whole, I don’t think it’s that odd of a distribution. He was a playoff riser and I think he’s certainly a much stronger candidate than Hayes or Hagan, but I still don’t see him on the level of Mutombo or Parish.

[iggymcfrack]

This is another situation where I think it important to have a clear sense of prime vs prime different from cumes. I'm pretty sure that much of what's causing the difference here are the years outside of Billups' prime where he struggled to find his niche. Find to side with Mutombo based on longevity of course, but Billups has a pretty good case for being the more valuable piece when looking to build a core for sustained contention.

I mean, even if Billups would look better without his non-prime years, there’s no way he could match up to Mutombo. Deke’s impact numbers are astronomical. Here are the top players in 26 year RAPM if we exclude active players under 35 who haven’t had their decline phase yet:

1. LeBron 9.1
2. Garnett 8.4
3. Chris Paul 8.1
4. Stockton 7.2
5. Jordan 6.9
6. Duncan 6.7
7. Curry 6.5
8. Manu 6.0
9. Dirk 6.0
10. Shaq 5.8
11. Dikembe 5.7
12. D-Rob 5.6

That’s insanely elite company. And you can’t really have flukes with that large of a sample size. Dikembe’s closer to being the #1 RAPM player of the millennium than he is to Billups even though he played more minutes, more games, more years, and had structural disadvantages in when the data was gathered.

Curious, if you included Gobert, is he in the Mutombo area of impact?

Yes, Gobert’s RAPM from age 21-29 is pretty much identical to Mutombo’s from age 30-42.

[70sFan]

This is one where I really have no idea who I’m gonna vote for. I’m really gonna be relying on peoples posts to guide me. My first thought was that I’d write off Parish first since I saw it mentioned that Hayes played more minutes and I thought it was “obvious” that Hayes was better on a per minute basis since he was such a big scorer. After looking over their numbers though, I feel quite confident the opposite is true. Parish outperforms him significantly in every box composite in a tougher era on average and is probably likely to have better non-box impact too. So the first player I’m eliminating from consideration is Elvin Hayes.

Fun tidbit on Parish: We only have play-by-play data for his final season in Charlotte. At age 43, he only played 406 minutes but in that sample the Hornets had a NetRtg of +16.3.

So, a few things:

1. "Tougher era on average" may be true, but keep in mind that Hayes is only 8 years older and Big E won the title as probably the best player on his team only 3 years before Parish won his first (and the best) ring. At best, we are looking at 10 years difference between them and the difference between their primes (1973-79 vs 1981-87) is even smaller. Hayes had his most successful years after the merger as well.

2. Parish has a better boxscore composites mainly because he's a more efficient scorer, but the problem with this comparison is that their scoring roles were completely different. For all good or bad, Hayes was the main scoring option of his team and he was forced to create his own shots, while Parish was usually 3rd scorer and worst playmaker on the Celtics and he played strictly finishing role. Parish also played with significantly better playmakers in Bird, Nate and DJ - while Hayes best teammate in that regard was Porter and probably Unseld.

3. We have seen early prime Parish on a weaker team and his scoring efficiency wasn't anything to rave about. On top of that, Robert was very turnover prone for a player of his role. Hayes wasn't spectacular in that regard, but he looks better to me at first look and he handled a heavier burden on offense.

4. I think you can make a case that Hayes boxscore production marginally improved in the playoffs, while Parish was a playoff dropper.

5. Of course, minutes are very important and Parish is way behind Hayes here as well.

6. I am not sure what you mean by "is probably likely to have better non-box impact too". What do you mean by that?

[70sFan]

Hagan seems like someone we don’t need to induct for another 30 spots or so in this project if at all. If his whole case is built off of 17 good playoff games over a 2 year stretch, then why should he merit consideration over Luka who’s had 28 much better playoff games over a 3 year stretch against opponents from a completely different galaxy? The ratio of minutes played from Luka to Hagan is almost exactly the same as from Hagan to Parish too.

But it's not, that's the problem. Hagan played 4 NBA finals series alone (25 games in total) and here are his numbers for these series:

25 games, 37.0 mpg, 23.0 ppg, 10.8 rpg, 3.2 apg on 45 FG% and 53 TS%

All of these games were against the Celtics - probably the best defensive team ever.

That's not the end though, Hagan also faced the Lakers with Elgin Baylor (his positional matchup) 6 times in his career and he posted against them:

39 games, 34.0 mpg, 20.6 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 3.2 apg on 45 FG% and 51 TS%

Keep in mind that two of these series were past his statistical prime (1964 and 1966).

Overall, 1957-61 Hagan averaged:

37.6 mpg, 23.6 ppg, 10.5 rpg, 3.6 apg on 46 FG% and 52 TS%, with 22 PER in 53 games. These numbers are way beyond anything Parish ever achieved in the playoffs and I don't think you can argue that Parish faced tougher defensive environment, at least relative to era.

I personally wouldn't have Hagan higher than Parish for longevity reasons and because of defensive advantage, but Hagan is very similar to Manu in that he posted sneaky superstar numbers as the second option and improved his production in the playoffs. He was also quite versatile offensive player, which you can't say about Parish at all.

[lessthanjake]

Vote for #64: Dikembe Mutombo
Alternate Vote: Chauncey Billups
Nomination: Adrian Dantley

The big thing for me here is the impact signals on Mutombo really are quite good. I see him as the best defender of his generation (better than Hakeem and Robinson even), and I think impact signals are consistent with that. No title, but his teams did have some surprising playoff success. Billups is my alternate vote, in recognition of the fact that he was the leader of a genuinely great team. It was a team without a big star, but Billups was a huge piece and had really good playoff performances.

[Owly]

This is one where I really have no idea who I’m gonna vote for. I’m really gonna be relying on peoples posts to guide me. My first thought was that I’d write off Parish first since I saw it mentioned that Hayes played more minutes and I thought it was “obvious” that Hayes was better on a per minute basis since he was such a big scorer. After looking over their numbers though, I feel quite confident the opposite is true. Parish outperforms him significantly in every box composite in a tougher era on average and is probably likely to have better non-box impact too. So the first player I’m eliminating from consideration is Elvin Hayes.

Fun tidbit on Parish: We only have play-by-play data for his final season in Charlotte. At age 43, he only played 406 minutes but in that sample the Hornets had a NetRtg of +16.3.

So, a few things:

1. "Tougher era on average" may be true, but keep in mind that Hayes is only 8 years older and Big E won the title as probably the best player on his team only 3 years before Parish won his first (and the best) ring. At best, we are looking at 10 years difference between them and the difference between their primes (1973-79 vs 1981-87) is even smaller. Hayes had his most successful years after the merger as well.

2. Parish has a better boxscore composites mainly because he's a more efficient scorer, but the problem with this comparison is that their scoring roles were completely different. For all good or bad, Hayes was the main scoring option of his team and he was forced to create his own shots, while Parish was usually 3rd scorer and worst playmaker on the Celtics and he played strictly finishing role. Parish also played with significantly better playmakers in Bird, Nate and DJ - while Hayes best teammate in that regard was Porter and probably Unseld.

3. We have seen early prime Parish on a weaker team and his scoring efficiency wasn't anything to rave about. On top of that, Robert was very turnover prone for a player of his role. Hayes wasn't spectacular in that regard, but he looks better to me at first look and he handled a heavier burden on offense.

4. I think you can make a case that Hayes boxscore production marginally improved in the playoffs, while Parish was a playoff dropper.

5. Of course, minutes are very important and Parish is way behind Hayes here as well.

6. I am not sure what you mean by "is probably likely to have better non-box impact too". What do you mean by that?

Small niggles ...

"At best, we are looking at 10 years difference between them..." don't know, depends what you are willing to allow. Parish's last relevant year is, to me, more than 10 years beyond Hayes's. But that's an opinion and center of gravity of the career is probably more important.

"while Parish was usually 3rd scorer and worst playmaker on the Celtics" so this depends on when "usually" range extends to. how much his lower early minutes hurt him or if we're talking in principle about rate of scoring and that cost is factored after. 81 and 82 he's the highest rate scorer and he's a close (to Bird) and comfortable (from the pack) second in '83. This is RS wise. A playoff tilted view would see him lower.

"worst playmaker on the Celtics ... and he played strictly finishing role" [and implication he's reliant on others ... injuries etc and potentially being wrong earlier isn't a case to do it again and injury context etc ... McHale's not much better for assists (perhaps with more time on the ball?) and fared substantially worse overall and in scoring than Parish in '89 (simplified version Parish jumped, McHale's efficiency took a big hit from a very high peak) in Bird's absence. How much one wants to index on that one year I don't know.


4 and 5 are true. And how one weights that will vary. And absolute terms matter in a way the drop/climb doesn't. But as far as these things go it's quite a gap.

6 I don't know if you just want meaning or are trying to tease out the why. I'd guess perhaps the latter but in terms of pure meaning I think they're saying Parish's Impact minus his Box production leaves more positive stuff than that calculation for Hayes. Certainly off court stuff both are good professionals in terms of looking after their bodies, staying in shape but Hayes has something of a rap for selfishness - how much one buys this and how important, influential this was is going to be a personal choice and somewhat subjective. That's the first area that came to mind if I were to guess on what is alluded to, but obviously I can't be sure.

[iggymcfrack]

Vote: Dikembe Mutombo
Incredible impact signals for a top 5 defender of all-time. Ranks 18th all-time in 26 year RAPM even though it only gets his age 30-43 years and misses a bunch of peak years early in his career.

Alternate: Robert Parish
Everyone knows about the longevity, but the peak numbers are a lot better than you might think. Had a 25.2 PER and a 5.4 BPM in the 80/81 season. Cumulatively, he ranks 28th all-time in WS although only 64th in VORP.

Nominate: Vince Carter
VC’s still getting no traction from anyone else but me, but his advanced box numbers are incredible. 45th all-time in WS and 29th all-time in VORP. While he spent a lot of his late career years as a role player, he did average a 7.2 playoff VORP through age 29 and led the postseason in VORP in 2006 with 11 games played. The Nets lost to the ultimate champion Miami Heat in Round 2 and Carter had a heck of a duel with Dwyane Wade, averaging 30/6/5 on above average efficiency.

[Owly]

Vote: Dikembe Mutombo
Incredible impact signals for a top 5 defender of all-time. Ranks 18th all-time in 26 year RAPM even though it only gets his age 30-43 years and misses a bunch of peak years early in his career.

Alternate: Robert Parish
Everyone knows about the longevity, but the peak numbers are a lot better than you might think. Had a 25.2 PER and a 5.4 BPM in the 80/81 season. Cumulatively, he ranks 28th all-time in WS although only 64th in VORP.

Nominate: Vince Carter
VC’s still getting no traction from anyone else but me, but his advanced box numbers are incredible. 45th all-time in WS and 29th all-time in VORP. While he spent a lot of his late career years as a role player, he did average a 7.2 playoff VORP through age 29 and led the postseason in VORP in 2006 with 11 games played. The Nets lost to the ultimate champion Miami Heat in Round 2 and Carter had a heck of a duel with Dwyane Wade, averaging 30/6/5 on above average efficiency.

On Mutombo I'm not against him but ... age 30-43 ... true but could mislead, his first season is age 25. Of the five seasons missing we have data for 3. It's perfectly solid, very strong for one but ... if touted as "peak years" ... on-offs of 14.3, 1.6, 4.5 for an unweighted average of 6.8 (others in that 8 to 6 range [descending] include Divac, Muresan, Thorpe ['94, '96 only], McMillan, Smits, McKey, [Mutombo here], G Long, Augmon).

On-off from raw plus minus isn't quite perfect (for deriving on-off) and it's a noisy tool anyhow. I haven't weighted for minutes (though '95, his weakest season is the fairly clear leader for minutes on) ... 6.8 would be less than his career average and so whilst valuable may not - from this perspective - be in line with what "peak years" might suggest.

[trex_8063]

Replying or augmenting a few points below (Owly may have touched on some of these).....

This is one where I really have no idea who I’m gonna vote for. I’m really gonna be relying on peoples posts to guide me. My first thought was that I’d write off Parish first since I saw it mentioned that Hayes played more minutes and I thought it was “obvious” that Hayes was better on a per minute basis since he was such a big scorer. After looking over their numbers though, I feel quite confident the opposite is true. Parish outperforms him significantly in every box composite in a tougher era on average and is probably likely to have better non-box impact too. So the first player I’m eliminating from consideration is Elvin Hayes.

Fun tidbit on Parish: We only have play-by-play data for his final season in Charlotte. At age 43, he only played 406 minutes but in that sample the Hornets had a NetRtg of +16.3.

So, a few things:

2. Parish has a better boxscore composites mainly because he's a more efficient scorer, but the problem with this comparison is that their scoring roles were completely different. For all good or bad, Hayes was the main scoring option of his team and he was forced to create his own shots, while Parish was usually 3rd scorer and worst playmaker on the Celtics and he played strictly finishing role. Parish also played with significantly better playmakers in Bird, Nate and DJ - while Hayes best teammate in that regard was Porter and probably Unseld.

Some of the criticism of Hayes [NOTE: not sure if fully justified, but jsia] is that he essentially demanded the main scoring option role through uncompromising style of play. I don't know how true that criticism is. He certainly did take a startlingly high number of shots on most teams, fwiw.

Further, he actually didn't score more on a per-possession basis than Parish: Hayes' career pts/100 average is just a sliver under 24 (peaking at 27.3 [one of only four seasons (among 16) >25]). Parish had a career average of 24.6 pts/100, peaking at 32.2 pts/100. Admittedly that occurred in a limited-minute season, but he has FOUR seasons higher than Hayes' peak socring season.
I submit that it's merely Hayes' insane mpg average that result in his striking ppg averages.
NOTE: There are differences in shooting efficiency affecting this, but not to a degree that profoundly changes the point (as you yourself said: only 8 years separate their respective entry dates into the league).

wrt impact of playmakers, it's worth noting that in '89 [Bird injured (yes, still had DJ)], Parish increased his scoring volume (+4.3 ppg over previous year) at almost no relevant drop to TS% [the tiny decline seen is almost entirely from lesser FT shooting].

A 35-year-old Parish averaged nearly 19 ppg at ELITE efficiency [like +7% rTS] for a 42-win [+1.26 SRS] playoff team.

3. We have seen early prime Parish on a weaker team and his scoring efficiency wasn't anything to rave about. On top of that, Robert was very turnover prone for a player of his role. Hayes wasn't spectacular in that regard, but he looks better to me at first look and he handled a heavier burden on offense.

I'm not sure if this based upon the mTOV% I sent you. fwiw, that formula sort of accounts for "role".
Parish's career [rs] mTOV% is 11.12%. That's not good, but it's not terrible for a big (average for a center appears to be around 10-10.5%).
fwiw, Hayes ['78-'84] had an mTOV% of 10.35%. So it's better, but not by a large margin.

4. I think you can make a case that Hayes boxscore production marginally improved in the playoffs, while Parish was a playoff dropper.

This is probably true.

5. Of course, minutes are very important and Parish is way behind Hayes here as well.

I don't know about "way" behind, but yes he's behind.

6. I am not sure what you mean by "is probably likely to have better non-box impact too". What do you mean by that?

I was wondering about this as well. If anything, I suspect Hayes has the better non-box impact, because I think he's a pretty substantial defensive presence.
That said, Parish's efficiency and box-based "impact" is trouncing Hayes on a per-minute basis. This also cannot be overlooked.

[trex_8063]

Induction vote: Robert Parish

More than solid as a scoring center: excellent in transition, with a keen short/mid-range shot (tremendously high arc, making it a pinch hard to block). Not just a product of Bird's playmaking: in '89 [Bird injured] at the age of 35, he increased his ppg by +4.3 ppg with only a slight dip in TS% [partly just from lesser FT-shooting]. In that year he averaged 18.9 ppg @ +7.0% rTS (again: 35 years old, no Bird), for a 42-win [+1.26 SRS] playoff team.

.....And many claim DEFENSE is actually where Parish was the most valuable.
In '79, for example, he anchored the 5th-best defense [of 22 teams] as starting C, averaring a career-high 2.9 bpg [in just 31.7 mpg]; and---although it's a highly flawed stat---was the league's best individual DRtg at 94.37 [more than -2 better than 2nd place]; fwiw he was 7th in the league in '78, 2nd in '81, and 3rd in '82.

Robert Parish - I don't think he's a top 100 guy. If I can hear an argument for him that isn't based on longevity that could be interesting, but it doesn't seem like he is "good enough" for my criteria.

Although it was in just 28.0 mpg [though missing no games], in '81 he was 2nd in the league in PER [behind only Kareem], 3rd in WS/48 [behind only Kareem and MVP Julius Erving], and 4th in BPM [behind only Kareem, Erving, and Magic Johnson].

^^This is seeming Manu Ginobili(ish).

The following year, while playing a more robust 31.7 mpg, he was 9th in the league in PER at 22.59 [just 0.03 behind Larry Bird], tied for 9th in WS/48, tied for 14th in BPM.

In '83, while playing 31.5 mpg, he 7th in the league in PER [just 0.01 behind Magic Johnson], 3rd in the league in WS/48, and 9th in BPM.

Again, these are largely offensive metrics, where some would claim he was even better on the defensive end (particularly early in his career).

As to "impact"......though I've voiced concerns about the methodology, I'll nonetheless point out that Parish's prime WOWYR (over a massive 15-year period, 1399 games) is +4.3.

This is comparable to that of:
Larry Bird (#12 [is +4.1])
Scottie Pippen (#32)
Artis Gilmore (#41)
Dwight Howard (#49)
Alonzo Mourning (#60)
Dennis Johnson
Tracy McGrady
Chris Bosh
Bob Cousy
Adrian Dantley
Al Horford
Chris Webber
Zelmo Beaty

.....except the listed prime for Parish is longer than ANY of them.

His full-career (again: 21 years, and more games than anyone) WOWYR is still a very respectable +2.6.
So he hardly seems like empty calories based on this.

He was [perhaps obviously] a top-10 player in the league (maybe even top 6-8) for at least 2-3 seasons, in the post-merger era. Even without giving what you might call undue extra credit based upon longevity, it's a REALLY hard sell to me that what I've just described isn't a top 100 player.

And again, even at age 35, he was STILL good enough to be averaging 18.9 ppg @ +7.0% rTS [without Bird], 12.5 pg, and 1.5 bpg for a playoff team.


Hagan, fwiw, is a +1.4 and +1.3 prime/career WOWYR.


Alternate Induction Vote: Chauncey Billups
Efficient scorer, effective playmaker, capital pace-controlling floor general, decent on defense, solid longevity, was at least the 1b on a title team (multi-year contender), nearly pulled the Denver Nuggets up to a solid contender at the tail-end of his prime, too.



Nomination vote: Tracy McGrady
Alternate induction vote: Vince Carter

Will discuss later....

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Induction Vote #1: Cliff Hagan

Induction Vote #2: Dikembe Mutombo

As I've said before, I think Hagan has the highest era-relative peak on the current ballot, including a couple of playoff runs with some eye-popping box composites.

Nomination Vote #1: Wes Unseld

Nomination Vote #2: Adrian Dantley

Had a hard time deciding here, and my feelings aren't too strong, but as a Hayes-skeptic, I'm giving Unseld credit for a number of things that don't show up in the box(defense, outlet passes that aren't assists, leadership, etc), and I feel like he was the real leader of the 70s Bullets that went to the Finals four times and won a title.

Also, it's getting harder to ignore Dantley's ridiculous TS Add numbers, particularly when being compared to Vince and T-Mac who aren't close in that respect. His relative lack of playoff success does give me pause.

I respect Bobby Jones and I can see the argument(hyper-efficient + elite defense that doesn't show up in the box + ranked high in box composites on a of a bunch of very good teams), but I can't shake the feeling - perhaps wrong/irrational, feel free to tell me I'm wrong - that he was a GOAT-tier role player rather than a foundational piece. There can be a place in the Top 100 for such players, but I'm not sure about it being quite this high. But I could also be just unfairly punishing him for not scoring on higher volume.

[AEnigma]

Nomination vote: Allen Iverson
Alternate induction vote: Bob Cousy

Need to start mounting arguments for these guys. Later though....

Surprised to see you, by far the most longevity driven poster here, go with these two over someone like Vince.

[trex_8063]

Just a heads up, Doc, in case you'd started tallying. I changed my nominations.

[trex_8063]

Nomination vote: Allen Iverson
Alternate induction vote: Bob Cousy

Need to start mounting arguments for these guys. Later though....

Surprised to see you, by far the most longevity driven poster here, go with these two over someone like Vince.

It's a fair question to ask. And fwiw, I've gone ahead and changed my nominations (so as to not "throw away" my vote), making Vince my alternate. All these guys are in the 60s on my ATL, so it's all close (I'm not married to any nominee moving forward, at least until we hit a point where I feel someone is WAY overdue).

The guys who seem to have traction right now are Vince, TMac, Bobby Jones, and Dantley. Among them, I'd prefer TMac or Vince to be added; so I switched my noms to them. Will wait for Cousy or Iverson to have more traction, I guess.


As to your statement, I do think Carter's longevity is somewhat overstated by the number of seasons. It's not just longevity to me, but longevity of quality. Despite a career that lasted 22 seasons, his prime was really only about 8 years (which is completely ordinary).......and he missed about half of one of those seasons, and about a quarter of another.

That said, he does have probably 3 additional "peri-prime" seasons where he's still quite good (not quite "All-Star" level, but still top 50 at least).
After that he's got another 3 seasons where he's "above average", though we can't really be any more generous than that.

....And then he's got literally like EIGHT seasons where he's merely an average player or worse: there are probably FIVE seasons where he's basically a replacement level guy. Those replacement-level years add NOTHING to his career value by my criteria, and the years of "average" play are of near-negligible significance.

So, in essence, he's got only 17 seasons that have ANY relevance AT ALL to my criteria; only 14 seasons that have "notable" significance to my criteria; and only 11 [at most] that leave a MAJOR imprint toward my ranking of him.

Yes, his longevity is still good; just not near as good as the 22 seasons implies.

[Doctor MJ]

My votes:

Induction Vote 1: Cliff Hagan
Induction Vote 2: Chauncey Billups

As I said last time, almost voted for Hagan then. I see Hagan as having the most impressive peak of any of these players. I have him, for example, as my OPOY in two years. Was it a weaker era in general? Sure, but there are certain guys who really stand out to me as someone showing the capacity to rise above that with performances that seem like they were from the future, and Hagan was one of them.

Siding with Billups here with the 2nd vote - he's the highest on my pre-project list of the candidates - but I'll say that I'm finding the Parish arguments to be pretty persuasive in general and will certainly consider elevating him above Billups in future threads.

Mutombo is not someone I wish to knock and I'll acknowledge that there are impact signals that make him look quite impressive. But I'm really stuck with these two points:

a) His teams never treated Mutombo like he was a franchise cornerstone.
b) On his best team run - Atlanta - he wasn't the MVP of that team from what I see, Mookie Blaylock was.

Teams can be flat out wrong about (a), and impact signals would lead us to consider this, but I do believe we have to look at impact signals within a given team and really ponder them before we use them too boldly, and the contexts I examine him in don't really lead me to believe that he was someone I'd be desperate to build my team around.

Of course longevity helps him and I'm not saying he's a crazy pick here at all, but I look at him next to a guy like Parish and find myself more convinced of Parish.

Nomination Vote 1: Bobby Jones
Nomination Vote 2: Ben Wallace

Moving Bobby up, adding Ben to my list, will explain a bit more later.

[Doctor MJ]

Tallying:

Induction Vote 1:

Hayes - 1 (AEnigma)
Billups - 2 (beast, LA Bird)
Mutombo - 4 (HBK, trelos, ltj, iggy)
Parish - 2 (Samurai, trex)
Hagan - 2 (OSNB, Doc)

Only the Hayes vote can be eliminated, and AEnigma's 2nd was for Mutombo so:

Dikembe Mutombo is Inducted at #64.



Nomination Vote 1:

Unseld - 2 (AEnigma, OSNB)
Bobby - 3 (beast, Samurai, Doc)
McGrady - 2 (HBK, trex)
Carter - 2 (LA Bird, iggy)
Ben - 1 (trelos)
Dantley - 1 (ltj)

So, eliminating the Dantley vote doesn't change anything because the Dantley voter didn't pick a second choice. This leaves Bobby with the lead with a scant 3 votes, but it's enough to give him the win.

Bobby Jones is added to Nominee list.

[Doctor MJ]

Full disclosure here:

I was going to vote Ben over Bobby, but that would have resulted in a 5-way tie that made us have 10 players in the next thread, and no Nomination votes for another 5 threads.

Folks may feel a way about me doing this and we can discuss further, but I'm going to specifically ask for people going forward give us 1st and 2nd votes every time to help avoid these circumstances.

Beyond this, I welcome people's thoughts as to what I should do in this situation going forward. I don't want the Nomination vote to delay our progress, but I also don't want to let a 5-way tie in the Nomination lead to a possible 10-way tie in the Induction.

[penbeast0]

5 way tie, can just say no consensus was reached and have no new nominees.

[AEnigma]

Full disclosure here:

I was going to vote Ben over Bobby, but that would have resulted in a 5-way tie that made us have 10 players in the next thread, and no Nomination votes for another 5 threads.

Folks may feel a way about me doing this and we can discuss further, but I'm going to specifically ask for people going forward give us 1st and 2nd votes every time to help avoid these circumstances.

Beyond this, I welcome people's thoughts as to what I should do in this situation going forward. I don't want the Nomination vote to delay our progress, but I also don't want to let a 5-way tie in the Nomination lead to a possible 10-way tie in the Induction.

I am a little annoyed by the result but not by you specifically; I myself could have flipped Unseld and Carter to avoid the tie, and I have done so in the past.

I am okay with Pen’s suggestion but then that leaves the possibility it keeps happening in succession, and that it occurs with the actual vote (I guess then you go into a revote period?). I think in these circumstances — and I believe I have mentioned as much before — it might make sense to count up the alternates to decide ties and progress from there. In this case, Trex and I both had Vince as our alternates, so I feel that alone is a sign of broader support than some of the others. Like if you have 3-2-2-2, one of those 2s either has less or more alternate support, which should let you progress. And it would prevent scenarios where it is literally just three out of eleven people pushing a candidate through, which is exactly what happened here. Again, does not really matter, and if it did matter, any of us could have taken the time to adjust our votes the way you did. Certainly not something we should want to happen though, especially not for an actual vote rather than a mere nomination.