RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #69 (Tracy McGrady)

[Dr Positivity]

I think Hagan is a great player (I like his efficiency and playmaking compared to some SF peers of his time) but he seems like a guy made to be 2nd team All NBA, 2nd best player on a contender, like a Hal Greer. With longer prime it would be enough for consideration but not sure about mid level prime.

[Dr Positivity]

Alcindor returned to dominate the second half, scoring 18 points in the third quarter and finishing with 31 in the 33 minutes he played. It was the only time in the series that Lew scored with consistent ease over Wes Unseld. Bullet Coach Gene Shue took the risk of assigning the 6'7½" Unseld to guard Alcindor unassisted. Only twice in the first game and not much more often subsequently, did Wes receive aid from his teammates. Since nobody, perhaps not even his mother, seems to know exactly how tall Lew is, the disparity between the two centers was guessed at anywhere from seven to 10 inches. When Unseld stood on his toes, he barely seemed able to peer over Alcindor's shoulder. But Unseld had an advantage of his own, since he outweighs Lew by 13 pounds, all of it muscle. Wes danced around Alcindor, overplaying him first on one side, then the other, frequently batting away passes into the post and generally laying a load of weight on Lew's spine. He forced Alcindor to attempt all the shots in his repertoire, from dunks to that majestic hook fired from an absurd yard above the basket, to jump shots outside Lew's best range. Alcindor occasionally responded by backing strongly into Unseld and jostling him slightly, which is equivalent to making the Sphinx flinch, but after the opening game Unseld was able to hold Alcindor six points under his league-leading regular season average of 31.7.

Kareem's finals stats (27ppg on .63 TS%) are pretty good because he scores 31 on 13-16 in the first game but after that I think Unseld's D is pretty decent despite the size difference.

[Owly]

How impressed are folks really with ‘62 Hagan?

To me we’re looking at a guy who was only playing at an all-star/all-nba level for 4 years. I’m not an era guy, but his longevity just looks really bad for a top 100 guy (assuming no MVP level peak).

I think Hagan's position probably tilts heavily on how one weights the playoffs.

If you tilt playoff-oriented then it's easy enough to look at a 6 playoff, 7 year spell in which he averages a 22.1 PER and .195 WS/48 (with a heavy tilt towards OWS, which is the end the box captures better/more accurately) over 2250 minutes, with a high end peak, whilst playing Boston 4 times (though from the weaker conference) ... those averages are better than all but two of Isiah Thomas's playoff runs by PER, and all his runs (just) by WS/48 and Thomas is another guy pretty highly leveraged on playoffs (Thomas is playing in the tougher conference, BPM likes him more than other box aggregates but couldn't be included as it doesn't exist for Hagan). Tilting longevity for era would help him. Tilting things in those directions one can see being bullish.

Conversely a more RS oriented approach, cyncism about era, focus on longevity (and longevity of quality), buying significantly into the (noisy) impact concern raised, regarding longevity as absolute rather than era- adjusted could move him down substantially. And with the more crowded pack out here, such an absolute terms range could mean a very big range/swing in ranking.


On '62 I suppose it depends on what one makes of his D, in general and in that season. His OWS was always much higher than DWS but more so in '62 (when the Hawks are a particularly weak defense) and that may be a big driver of why one of his (rate) box aggregates looks significantly worst than the years before and the year after.

[Samurai]

Vote for #69: Bobby Jones. Yes I have reservations about his lack of longevity and durability. But I'm pretty sure that I would take Jones and his reduced minutes over Draymond if I were drafting a team, so seeing Green get selected convinced me to consider him. Gotta admit that there is bias here since Jones is one of my favorite players of all time. Despite averaging less than 30 minutes/game during his NBA career, he still has ten All Defensive First Team awards and one Second Team selection (in his second to last season averaging only 20 minutes/game). He was nicknamed The Secretary of Defense for good reason. He didn't shoot much but he was highly efficient, leading the league in FG% three times and finishing in the top 20 in TS% nine times. But as good as he was at playing basketball, how he conducted himself may have been even more admirable. He was always a gentleman with honor; he didn't drink, smoke or use profanity, always raised his hand when called for a foul - even telling a ref who mistakenly called a foul on a teammate that he was the one who actually committed the foul, even though that was his fifth foul! When teammates tried to show him ways to "cheat" by grabbing an opponent's jersey or committing a foul when the ref wasn't looking, he adamantly refused to do so. He would reply "if I have to play defense by holding on, that's when I quit." Teammate Dr J described Jones as "a player who's totally selfless, who runs like a deer, jumps like a gazelle, plays with his head and heart each night, and then walks away from the court as if nothing happened." And former teammate Charles Barkley said "if everyone in the world was like Bobby Jones, the world wouldn't have any problems."

Alternate vote: Wes Unseld. A favorite of mine from my childhood days (yup, I couldn't shoot either!). GOAT-level at grabbing the defensive rebound and immediately starting the break with a two-hand overhead outlet pass. Led the league in rebounds in 75 and finished in the top ten 7 times. Named both MVP and Rookie of the Year in 69. Finals MVP in 78. He wasn't a great shooter and thus didn't shoot a lot, but he was efficient with the shots he took (led the league in EFG% once and was in the top 20 in TS% 4 times). Was also an excellent screen setter.

Nomination: Paul George. 8 time all star and 6-time All NBA team (one first team and five third team honors). Four-time All Defensive Team (two first team and two second team). Averaged over 20 ppg ten times.

Alternate nomination: Adrian Dantley. I acknowledge that the 6-time all star can be a polarizing player. But in his prime he was an elite scorer, leading the league twice and finished in the top ten in ppg 5 times. Preferred higher percentage shots closer to the rim rather than hoisting 30-footers, finishing in the top 15 in TS% for a dozen consecutive years. He was also a magnet at drawing fouls, finishing in the top ten in FT attempts 10 times, leading the league twice.

[iggymcfrack]

Vote: Vince Carter
Top 30 all-time in VORP, put up fantastic all-time level playoff numbers in his prime years. Solid on/off numbers throughout the course of his career.

Alternate: Tracy McGrady
33rd all-time in VORP, put up even better playoff numbers during his prime years. From age 21-25, he didn't get out of the first round once, but in 4 first round losses, he had a combined BPM of 9.4.

Nominate: Paul George
Ranks 7th overall in the 27 year combined RAPM dataset for regular season and playoffs with tremendous impact on both sides of the ball. Biggest knock on him seems to be durability, but in the playoffs he's generally been healthy. He actually played in the first 108 games of his playoff career before finally missing the series against the Suns last year.

[trelos6]

I have Cliff Hagan just outside my top 100. Around where I have Worthy, Chet Walker, Hal Greer etc.

As for Paul George, I like him as a player but I’ve only got him around 75. Just behind Iverson. That said, PG is still playing at a high level, and I can see him overtaking T-Mac in future projects.

[LA Bird]

Alcindor returned to dominate the second half, scoring 18 points in the third quarter and finishing with 31 in the 33 minutes he played. It was the only time in the series that Lew scored with consistent ease over Wes Unseld. Bullet Coach Gene Shue took the risk of assigning the 6'7½" Unseld to guard Alcindor unassisted. Only twice in the first game and not much more often subsequently, did Wes receive aid from his teammates. Since nobody, perhaps not even his mother, seems to know exactly how tall Lew is, the disparity between the two centers was guessed at anywhere from seven to 10 inches. When Unseld stood on his toes, he barely seemed able to peer over Alcindor's shoulder. But Unseld had an advantage of his own, since he outweighs Lew by 13 pounds, all of it muscle. Wes danced around Alcindor, overplaying him first on one side, then the other, frequently batting away passes into the post and generally laying a load of weight on Lew's spine. He forced Alcindor to attempt all the shots in his repertoire, from dunks to that majestic hook fired from an absurd yard above the basket, to jump shots outside Lew's best range. Alcindor occasionally responded by backing strongly into Unseld and jostling him slightly, which is equivalent to making the Sphinx flinch, but after the opening game Unseld was able to hold Alcindor six points under his league-leading regular season average of 31.7.

Kareem's finals stats (27ppg on .63 TS%) are pretty good because he scores 31 on 13-16 in the first game but after that I think Unseld's D is pretty decent

Considering it was a 4 game sweep, excluding Kareem's best game is equal to excluding 25% of the series. Obviously his averages would look less impressive if you took the best game away. If we break it down game by game,

G1: 31 points on 85.2% TS
G2: 27 points on 60.2% TS
G3: 23 points on 48.4% TS
G4: 27 points on 64.8% TS

It's literally only one bad scoring game from Kareem. If you are going to specifically exclude G1, one could just as easily exclude G3 and focus on his 28.3 ppg on +19.6% rTS average in the rest of the series instead. If you want a larger sample size, Kareem also averaged 31.8 ppg on +14.2% rTS over 5 games in the regular season against the Bullets that year. Granted Kareem is a particularly bad matchup, I wouldn't say that is pretty decent man defense.

despite the size difference

This is essentially the same P4P argument that Iverson supporters use. I don't think being short should count for extra credit.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

As far as sample size......
Not even counting the ABA, the cumulative missed NBA games combines to make a larger sample than the couple years of fantastic playoff stats that he's getting so much mileage from.
There's one season in my sample above where the total missed games were 6 [and the team did better in those six]........that's the SAME as the number of playoff games played in one of his two seemingly awesome [by the boxscore] playoff runs (and the other one is only 11 games).

If we're saying samples of 6 games and multiple 3-game samples are not relevant at all, how can we in the same breath say that samples of 6 and 11 are?

Is this allowed to trash others choices like that without any substantial criticism?

I was quoting trex's post because it came at the very end of the last thread where I thought people might have missed it. I feel like the numbers he has explain everything perfectly. The team was better without Hagan than with him in 7 out of 8 NBA seasons where he missed games, often by a large amount. I mean I know there are sample size issues, but the negative impact signal is still very alarming.

You didn't just quote trex, you also added this:

"This is absolutely disgusting. There’s no way this dude belongs in the top 100."

The quote above suggest that people voting for Hagan are dumb and can't understand that Hagan doesn't really belong in top 100. Do you maintain this opinion?

About trex's post (thanks for the new data provided by the way), it is an alarming signal indeed but we have to take into account a few things:

1. NBA sample has 25 games across 10 years span. "Small sample issues" is an understatement, Hagan missed 2.5 games per year on average.

2. Two biggest samples comes from his first and last year in the league, being unrepresentative for his prime years.

3. The biggest outlier we see is his rookie season, when Hagan famously played out of position during the RS and was a bench player until the playoffs. This 4-1 and +9 SRS swing using against Hagan would be comparable to judging Nash prime by his 1997 season. Hagan was misused and didn't play much in 1957 RS, so I doubt his pressence had a huge factor on the record.

4. For the rest of his NBA career, Hawks went 13-7 without him (in 9 years) and I don't find this sample useful at all. Thanks to trex work we know that St Louis won only 4 games with positive SRS in that span. Do you seriously want to conclude anything from such a tiny sample?

So first off, I think 70sFan makes good points, and I am in agreement with him.

To respond to the specific point of trex's that I quoted:

The answer is because those 6 and 11 game samples are in the playoffs. Playoff samples are always smaller than regular season samples, especially back then. The most playoff games Hagan possibly could've played in 1958 was 14, and he played 11. I can see the point that these specific playoff samples are too small to take anything from, especially the 6-game one, but it seems to me the alternative is to not consider playoff numbers at all, and that seems unappealing to me.

Look, despite the fact that I don't find these small 'without' samples compelling, I'm honestly not that high on Hagan. I would absolutely take both Sharman and Cousy over him of the 50s guys left. But I'm also not that excited about the others on the current ballot.

Carter and McGrady have serious issues with their career-wide efficiency/TS Add, and while they absolutely did things other than score, they won a combined total of 9 playoff series between them. Of those 9, 6 were Carter. Of Carter's six playoff series wins, three of them came after his prime - two with the 2010 Magic and one with the 2015 Grizzlies. McGrady's three playoff series wins were the three series the 2013 Spurs won when McGrady was playing 5mpg in garbage time at the very end of his career. There is a serious dearth of team success with these guys.

If we're talking about guys who scored a lot on mid efficiency and never won a title, I think you can make a serious case for Chris Webber over both of them given his playmaking, defense, and rebounding, and the fact that he got one game away from the Finals.

You might even be able to make a case for Iverson over both of them, seeing as the knock on Iverson is his inefficiency, and Carter and McGrady don't look that much better in terms of career TS Add(Carter is at 154.8, McGrady -278.6, and Iverson -425.9). And while his team success is not much outside of that one Finals run, he does have that one Finals run, and he won six total playoff series in his career, the same number as Carter.

Moving on...

Bobby Jones' numbers look impeccable, but - and this might be wrong or irrational or whatever - I have a hard time getting past the issue of primacy. He's consistently at or near the top of his teams in box composites(WS/48, BPM) and TS Add, and his +/- from Pollack's set looks good too, but he seems to be known as a role player - albeit a historically elite one.

Unseld is the guy I'd be most likely to vote for over Hagen this round if I were to change my vote. The evidence suggests he was an efficient(low-volume) scorer, great rebounder, good defender, good playmaker, great leader, and what looks like the best combination of primacy and team success on the current ballot other than Hagan.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Alcindor returned to dominate the second half, scoring 18 points in the third quarter and finishing with 31 in the 33 minutes he played. It was the only time in the series that Lew scored with consistent ease over Wes Unseld. Bullet Coach Gene Shue took the risk of assigning the 6'7½" Unseld to guard Alcindor unassisted. Only twice in the first game and not much more often subsequently, did Wes receive aid from his teammates. Since nobody, perhaps not even his mother, seems to know exactly how tall Lew is, the disparity between the two centers was guessed at anywhere from seven to 10 inches. When Unseld stood on his toes, he barely seemed able to peer over Alcindor's shoulder. But Unseld had an advantage of his own, since he outweighs Lew by 13 pounds, all of it muscle. Wes danced around Alcindor, overplaying him first on one side, then the other, frequently batting away passes into the post and generally laying a load of weight on Lew's spine. He forced Alcindor to attempt all the shots in his repertoire, from dunks to that majestic hook fired from an absurd yard above the basket, to jump shots outside Lew's best range. Alcindor occasionally responded by backing strongly into Unseld and jostling him slightly, which is equivalent to making the Sphinx flinch, but after the opening game Unseld was able to hold Alcindor six points under his league-leading regular season average of 31.7.

Kareem's finals stats (27ppg on .63 TS%) are pretty good because he scores 31 on 13-16 in the first game but after that I think Unseld's D is pretty decent

Considering it was a 4 game sweep, excluding Kareem's best game is equal to excluding 25% of the series. Obviously his averages would look less impressive if you took the best game away. If we break it down game by game,

G1: 31 points on 85.2% TS
G2: 27 points on 60.2% TS
G3: 23 points on 48.4% TS
G4: 27 points on 64.8% TS

It's literally only one bad scoring game from Kareem. If you are going to specifically exclude G1, one could just as easily exclude G3 and focus on his 28.3 ppg on +19.6% rTS average in the rest of the series instead. If you want a larger sample size, Kareem also averaged 31.8 ppg on +14.2% rTS over 5 games in the regular season against the Bullets that year. Granted Kareem is a particularly bad matchup, I wouldn't say that is pretty decent man defense.

despite the size difference

This is essentially the same P4P argument that Iverson supporters use. I don't think being short should count for extra credit.

I'm not disputing the numbers given, but I wouldn't really hold it against Unseld that he was unable to slow down a guy who A)is in the conversation for 'greatest offensive center of all time' and who was inducted at #3 in this project, and B)had 7-8 inches on him.

[HeartBreakKid]

I think Hagan is a great player (I like his efficiency and playmaking compared to some SF peers of his time) but he seems like a guy made to be 2nd team All NBA, 2nd best player on a contender, like a Hal Greer. With longer prime it would be enough for consideration but not sure about mid level prime.

Isn't 2nd best player on a contending team in the territory we're in? I think some of the guys around here are probably more like "third guys" at this point.

[AEnigma]

I think Hagan is a great player (I like his efficiency and playmaking compared to some SF peers of his time) but he seems like a guy made to be 2nd team All NBA, 2nd best player on a contender, like a Hal Greer. With longer prime it would be enough for consideration but not sure about mid level prime.

Isn't 2nd best player on a contending team in the territory we're in? I think some of the guys around here are probably more like "third guys" at this point.

Literally, yes. McGrady is the only realistic title-level first option among this group, and he was hardly a successful one.

But would you rather have a second option with a long prime, or a second option with a short prime. I know you specifically are not worried about career length, but we are not talking about notable peaks here (McGrady aside). Did Hagan probably peak higher than a longer prime second option like Sam Jones, sure. However, among these candidates, it feels like 1969-71 Unseld and 2001 Carter have reasonably easy peak cases over Hagan anyway, with both doing so in more developed leagues.

[penbeast0]

Sam Jones had a big peak year too in 1965, scoring 25.9 ppg on plus .025 ts% then upping that to 28.6 ppg with an ever better ts% in Boston's title run. And, he is even more famously clutch than Hagan. So, I wouldn't be sure Hagan can top that even for peak (and yes, I have Sam Jones over Hagan for career).

[70sFan]

Sam Jones had a big peak year too in 1965, scoring 25.9 ppg on plus .025 ts% then upping that to 28.6 ppg with an ever better ts% in Boston's title run. And, he is even more famously clutch than Hagan. So, I wouldn't be sure Hagan can top that even for peak (and yes, I have Sam Jones over Hagan for career).

I will mention that I have Jones ahead of Hagan career-wise. Their peaks are not that far apart (though I do prefer Hagan slightly) but Jones had a bit longer prime and more functional longevity.

[Dr Positivity]

I think Hagan's offensive peak might be higher for his time period since scoring and efficiency was lower (albeit late 50s is worse competition than late 60s), however Sam Jones sounds like easily the better defender, not sure if his D peaks at the same time as his offense though or if it was more when he was the backup with KC. I'm a little higher on his and Sharman's defense than I used to be, or at least for his time period for the latter.

I found this quote from the Hawks owner in mid 62 season

[Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan and Clyde Lovellette] ... are good players. They won me five division championships. Can I knock that? But these days you must have superstars in basketball. These players aren't superstars and they never were, no matter what people thought. ... So now people come to me and they say, 'What's wrong? Hagan can't play defense. Lovellette can't run. Pettit can't handle the ball. What's happened?' Nothing has happened. You think Hagan could ever play defense? You think Lovellette was ever a Carry Back? Last year we were fining him $25 every time he didn't get back to mid court. Those three are playing as well today as they did when we won. Maybe better. Other things have happened.

Maybe was going too far eg. calling Pettit a non superstar, still using Hagan's D as the low hanging fruit to criticize him may mean something.

[Owly]

I think Hagan's offensive peak might be higher for his time period since scoring and efficiency was lower (albeit late 50s is worse competition than late 60s), however Sam Jones sounds like easily the better defender, not sure if his D peaks at the same time as his offense though or if it was more when he was the backup with KC. I'm a little higher on his and Sharman's defense than I used to be, or at least for his time period for the latter.

I found this quote from the Hawks owner in mid 62 season

[Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan and Clyde Lovellette] ... are good players. They won me five division championships. Can I knock that? But these days you must have superstars in basketball. These players aren't superstars and they never were, no matter what people thought. ... So now people come to me and they say, 'What's wrong? Hagan can't play defense. Lovellette can't run. Pettit can't handle the ball. What's happened?' Nothing has happened. You think Hagan could ever play defense? You think Lovellette was ever a Carry Back? Last year we were fining him $25 every time he didn't get back to mid court. Those three are playing as well today as they did when we won. Maybe better. Other things have happened.

Maybe was going too far eg. calling Pettit a non superstar, still using Hagan's D as the low hanging fruit to criticize him may mean something.

As you say though ... Pettit "never [was]" a superstar ... if you're taking anything much from a quote with that in ... saying that of the 2 time MVP (twice second; once third; once fourth to that point - not saying that's a perfect measure of players but for "superstar", as far as something an owner should be aware of)...

[trex_8063]

So first off, I think 70sFan makes good points, and I am in agreement with him.

To respond to the specific point of trex's that I quoted:

The answer is because those 6 and 11 game samples are in the playoffs. Playoff samples are always smaller than regular season samples, especially back then. The most playoff games Hagan possibly could've played in 1958 was 14, and he played 11. I can see the point that these specific playoff samples are too small to take anything from, especially the 6-game one, but it seems to me the alternative is to not consider playoff numbers at all, and that seems unappealing to me.

fwiw, this ties exactly to what I was saying.

The impact signals for which I did the deeper dive and presented for consideration are far from perfect and suffer from sample-size issues. But it's all we have.
The only alternative (as you say) is to disregard the signals altogether; which is unappealing [to me].

That is precisely what some posters (you?) are doing, however. Yet when a similar sample size reflects positively upon him, it's fine to consider. THAT is the double-standard I'm speaking toward: where people look at a 6-game playoff sample of terrific box aggregates and say "I know it's small, but it's all we have, so we need to use it (and by the way: wow!)." Then look at another 6-game sample [that reflects poorly] and say, "It's only six games, it's not relevant."

It's a degree of giving the benefit of the doubt which would not be afforded most players.

Look, despite the fact that I don't find these small 'without' samples compelling, I'm honestly not that high on Hagan. I would absolutely take both Sharman and Cousy over him of the 50s guys left.

I agree. Sam Jones as well, and Hal Greer, and Chet Walker (entirely out of the 50s now).

Someone (can't remember if it was you) had said something to the effect of, "what I see is some teams winning games for a few seasons and winning one title while Hagan was playing star minutes and putting up big numbers......that's all the impact signal I need."

If we're going by that standard, then absolutely all of Jones, Sharman and Cousy belong ahead of him (all of them have stronger other impact signals too).

Carter and McGrady have serious issues with their career-wide efficiency/TS Add, and while they absolutely did things other than score, they won a combined total of 9 playoff series between them. Of those 9, 6 were Carter. Of Carter's six playoff series wins, three of them came after his prime - two with the 2010 Magic and one with the 2015 Grizzlies. McGrady's three playoff series wins were the three series the 2013 Spurs won when McGrady was playing 5mpg in garbage time at the very end of his career. There is a serious dearth of team success with these guys.

fwiw, TMac and Carter were called upon for larger offensive loads. Both peaked at HIGHER scoring volume than Hagan, even relative to era (they have "better" placement in terms of top-10 ppg finishes, even though the league was nearly 4x larger by then).

Carter, at least, seems to have been a notably better defensive player (see quote Dr Positivity posted), and has far more impressive impact signals. Incidentally, could Hagan's defense be a major factor in why his impact signals do not impress? Could be.

We don't have turnover information on Hagan, but it's a safe bet that it was substantially lesser than TMac's (because all wings except a handful in NBA history are worse than him in this regard).

TMac, at the very least, was a substantially better playmaker.

Both TMac and Carter were superstars in a far better/more competitive league.

Both TMac and Carter have better longevity of quality/effectiveness.

If we don't trust what the owner of Hagan's team said, we could look at the players opinion (as they did the voting for MVP at that time): Hagan is tied [with Bob Love] for 121st all-time in MVP Award Shares with 0.099.......and most of that came in his first ABA season; he never finished higher than 9th in the NBA vote [his ONLY top-10 finish]. (TMac is 52nd all-time, fwiw).

How about the media?
Hagan is a 5-time All-Star and 2-time All-NBA 2nd Team.

Carter is an 8-time All-Star [much larger league] and 2-time All-NBA (2nd, 3rd).

McGrady is an 7-time All-Star [again: much larger league] and 7-time All-NBA (2x 1st, 3x 2nd, 2x 3rd)


Perhaps not all of these things are relevant to you; but there are a veritable ton of reasons to favour them over Hagan.

Regarding team success.....I'm pretty sure if you give Tracy McGrady [or Vince Carter] something like prime Karl Malone [Pettit analogy], along with whatever the proper analogies for Lovellette and aging Slater Martin might be, I'm willing to bet they have more playoff series wins to show for their careers.

If we're talking about guys who scored a lot on mid efficiency and never won a title, I think you can make a serious case for Chris Webber over both of them given his playmaking, defense, and rebounding, and the fact that he got one game away from the Finals.

I'd rank Chris Webber ahead of Hagan, too.
Webber's case is weaker than McGrady's or Carter's, though, imo.

His defense is a mixed bag. His DRAPM is never all that bad (and is actually kinda good a few years), even though he's a rather poor man defender who was sometimes "hidden" on the weakest threat. I remember watching some of the Dallas series from '02, and they were totally hiding him on one of Najera/Buckner/Griffin most of the time.
He makes up some of that with rebounding and some rim protection, but he's far from a stellar defensive player.

Where shooting efficiency is concerned (you showed the TS Add for Carter/TMac)......Webber is a career -450.6.

Team success......again there's context. A supporting cast of Divac/Peja/Bibby/Christie is pretty frickin' awesome, and beats anything TMac or Carter ever had in their primes.
TMac and/or Yao's health invariably became an issue most years, and that's a knock. Those teams sometimes didn't function well without TMac (or Yao). Take '06: they were 27-20 when TMac played; and then went 7-28 in the games he missed.......I think we can agree these are not insignificant samples, and it's the difference between a worst in the league 16-17 wins, and a 47+ win playoff team. That's >30 wins added to a bad squad.
Yao missed several of those as well, to be fair, but it just goes to show how reliant they were on those stars (and how far McGrady could raise the floor).

You might even be able to make a case for Iverson over both of them, seeing as the knock on Iverson is his inefficiency, and Carter and McGrady don't look that much better in terms of career TS Add(Carter is at 154.8, McGrady -278.6, and Iverson -425.9). And while his team success is not much outside of that one Finals run, he does have that one Finals run, and he won six total playoff series in his career, the same number as Carter.

I'd agree. I'm souring on Iverson a little, but yes: I see the case for him.
Agree on Unseld as well.


Hagan is simply a pick that I don't think will age well at all, even on this forum where we don't exactly shy away from unconventional opinions. This forum has been more analytical, and more willing to think outside the box than any other site for pretty much as long as I've been here.
Yet here is how Hagan showed on previous projects:

2006: Didn't make the list.
2008: #92
2011: Didn't make the list.
2014: Didn't make the list.
2017: Didn't make the list (nor did he rank super-high in the extra "Honourable Mentions" thread I did that year).
2020: #94

Now in 2023 (after so many newer players have ascended), he's suddenly shooting up to maybe #69 or 70??

The sudden campaign that has sprung up around him this time is just sort of bizarre to me. I don't think this nerdy/heady forum was just utterly ignorant (apparently to such a degree that he should have been top 50 [or even top 40??] around 2006), and we instead just "missed" him and left him off COMPLETELY. I think we were closer to right in those past projects.

[Owly]

Hagan is simply a pick that I don't think will age well at all, even on this forum where we don't exactly shy away from unconventional opinions. This forum has been more analytical, and more willing to think outside the box than any other site for pretty much as long as I've been here.
Yet here is how Hagan showed on previous projects:

2006: Didn't make the list.
2008: #92
2011: Didn't make the list.
2014: Didn't make the list.
2017: Didn't make the list.
2020: Didn't make the list (nor did he rank super-high in the extra "Honourable Mentions" thread I did that year).

Now in 2023 (after so many newer players have ascended), he's suddenly shooting up to maybe #69 or 70??

The sudden campaign that has sprung up around him this time is just sort of bizarre to me. I don't think this nerdy/heady forum was just utterly ignorant (apparently to such a degree that he should have been top 50 [or even top 40??] around 2006 or 2008), and we instead just "missed" him and left him off COMPLETELY. I think we were closer to right in those past projects.

As ever not really on Hagan versus the field where I haven't thought it through (otoh not that unsympathetic to your general position) ...

Potential counterpoints

- Hagan did make the list in 2020. He came in at 94. viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2078522
- Hagan is a high playoff leverage guy giving him a wider viable range
- He's arguably the best playoff player on a champ.
- You yourself argue that narrative matters to everyone (I think that's what's been said, correct me if I've messed up or misremembered here).
- Hagan wasn't, per this very post "COMPLETELY" off in 2008.
- I'm not sure about the authority of those earlier projects (or really appealing to the rank itself for any of them in and of themselves)
- I think at first glance around 50 would be real terms stationary, adding 40 seems, I think and granting the question marks used, like an exaggeration
Back of the envelope calculations. Of those voted in already 16 weren't on the 2006 list

Spoiler:

Steph Curry
Chris Paul
Kevin Durant
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Nikola Jokic
James Harden
Kawhi Leonard
Manu Ginobili
Anthony Davis
Russell Westbrook
Dwight Howard
Draymond Green
Jimmy Butler
Joel Embiid
Pau Gasol
Chauncey Billups

and 15 weren't on the 2008 list (same as above minus Billups). Then there's those that were in but climbing past where our guy might have been expected to have been, LeBron, Wade, Pierce, Allen - maybe Nowitzki for '06 (then 49th). Ben Wallace surpasses him too but arguably more through his own real terms climb than additional value in latter years.

haven't time to edit - so apologies for any errors
They aren't all arguments I myself would advocate for in my own process (I'm substantially more RS orientated than most, I think)

[penbeast0]

It also could be that we are getting nominations with very few votes then we are limited in our voting. I don't think any of the guys we have here other than Bobby Jones makes my top 75 and I understand that Jones would not make a number of other posters' lists. But, if we are voting Hagan v. Tmac or Hagan v. Carter, I can write an argument for Hagan. Same for Ben Wallace, another guy that would be very controversial, or even Unseld. So, I can see why people are voting for Hagan.

[penbeast0]

Just figured out I hadn't voted this thread.

Vote: Bobby Jones. More than a decade of straight 1st team All-Defense votes combined with high efficiency, though not high volume scoring, and good playmaking. Not a great rebounder for his position but could play 2-5 at either end. Probably the greatest glue guy in NBA history and in his time where he was the best player on his team (75 and 76 for example), his team was the best in the league both years though they came up short in the playoffs. The most 1st team All-Defense awards, best player on two Nugget teams that had the best record in the NBA (though both came up short in the playoffs), great efficiency without being just an inside scorer, excellent passer, decent offensive rebounder, defensively good at blocking out rather than getting the board, good shot blocker for a forward, good steals, could play up to the 5 or down to the 2, limited minutes because of a physical condition but probably the greatest glue guy in the history of the NBA.

Stronger defensive impact than any of the nominated players, most efficient scorer along with Billups, one of the better playmakers for his position above everyone here except maybe Billups, he was the best player on the 75 Nuggets who had the best record in the league and made a big impact everywhere he went. The only real issue is his limited minutes and I think his impact is strong enough to overcome that.

Alt vote: Wes Unseld

Far from sold on this but he's a homer choice as the leader of the team I grew up with, the 60s/70s Bullets.

I just don't see either Vince or Tmac as that impactful to winning. Big stats guys and I loved VInce being one of the rare nerds to play in the NBA at his time but someone has to convince me they have great impact on top end winning like Jones has. Tmac was such a strange duck, he was incredibly talented but his coaches have called him out for poor practice habits and he never seemed to mesh well with Yao. In Orlando when Grant Hill went down and in Houston whenever Yao would go down though, it seemed like he would slip into a nearby phone booth and play like Superman for a stretch. Really not sure what to make of him.

Nomination: Adrian Dantley Easily the greatest scorer left. Amazing combination of volume and efficiency.

One of only 5 players in NBA history to have a season over .400 TS Add, something neither LeBron James or Micheal Jordan ever accomplished! Of the top 11 guys in this stat, everyone else is in except for Alex Groza whose career was ended quickly over college point shaving scandals in the 50s. And it wasn't isolated, he was consistently among the league leaders in both scoring and efficiency for his whole career.

His history with coaches is mixed. Frank Layton in Utah ripped him publicly as a selfish player though he later tried to walk it back a few times. On the other hand, Chuck Daly praised his professionalism, work ethic, and even his defense. But basically he is a serious candidate as one of the greatest wing scorers to ever play and everyone close to him in volume and efficiency is in.

Code: Select all

TS ADD LEADERS (single season) -- thanks to Owly for posting this

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 460.4
Steph Curry 454.7
Charles Barkley 433.5
Wilt Chamberlain 430.3
Adrian Dantley 404.8

Kevin Durant 394.9
Oscar Robertson 392.5
Jerry West 374.3
George Mikan 365.5
Karl Malone 362.8

+ Alex Groza '50. 377.4

Alternative nomination: Damon Lillard -- no defense, no rings, but a strong offensive player for a long time. Sort of like Adrian Dantley but not as big a standout though in a presumably stronger era.

[HeartBreakKid]

My vote is for Tracy McGrady - I think he is just a higher level than all of these guys. He's the only guy who I can see being a championship centerpiece, albeit not the best one. Not a long playoff resume but nothing daming in the small sample size we have to judge him from.

My alternate vote is for Vince Carter - All around very good player. Scoring was never at the levels of McGrady so I'd put him a bit below, though he is a slightly better utility player. Very ideal 2nd option type of guy.


The others

Unseld - I'm very high on him, but it is hard to find tangible data to justify it.

Hagan - I've changed my mind on Hagan. There isn't enough of a sample size to justify his playoff dominance I think.

Jones - I'm taking a roleplayer here unless he's a high level DPOY type of guy, which I'm not sure if Jones was.



My nomination is for Rasheed Wallace - I would take him over Scottie Pippen. His impact is felt very highly whereever he goes it seems, even when he was past his prime. Maybe not a legitimate 3 point range guy, but a guy who can take bigs out the paint. Has good go-to moves and can isolate. Will move the ball around. Just an ideal "jack of all trades" type of player for his position with an emphasis on great defense.

My alternate nomination is for Elton Brand - I doubt this will get any traction or he'll make the top 100, but he's pretty damn good. I went back and watched a few of his games and his shot making was much better than I remember. He is seen as a peak guy but like T-Mac he has like 8 seasons of being good. I think he was overlooked by the media and it hurt him a lot in the long run.