RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #12 (Larry Bird)

[lessthanjake]

I don’t really think it makes a whole lot of sense to judge someone’s passing based on the perceived quality of looks in a *highlight* video (and *certainly* not just the first several passes in a highlight video). But, to the extent we are going to do that (and, to be fair, I understand why we might do so, since the alternative is huge amounts of film study), I’ll just say this:

Watch on YouTube

I don’t really see much of any distinction between the quality of looks created in that video and similar videos of Magic’s passing—and certainly not a general deficiency in the quality of the shots Bird created. Tons of dunks, uncontested layups, open jump shots, and layups that may be contested but by a defender at a major disadvantage. And we should remember that Bird spent the vast majority of his career on a pretty-low-pace team that prioritized size over having the horses to run with on the break (exemplified, for instance, by McHale instead of Worthy at PF), so there were fewer fast break opportunities than for someone like Magic (the flip side, of course, being that more size typically meant better defense for the Celtics). So the degree of difficulty on creating high-quality looks was, on average, a bit higher for Bird.

[OhayoKD]

I don’t really think it makes a whole lot of sense to judge someone’s passing based on the perceived quality of looks in a *highlight* video. But, to the extent we are going to do that (and, to be fair, I understand why we might do so, since the alternative is huge amounts of film study), I’ll just say this:

Watch on YouTube

I don’t really see much of any distinction between the quality of looks created in that video and similar videos of Magic’s passing—and certainly not a general deficiency in the quality of the shots Bird created. Tons of dunks, uncontested layups, open jump shots, and layups that may be contested but by a defender at a major disadvantage. And we should remember that Bird spent the vast majority of his career on a low-pace team that prioritized size over having the horses to run with on the break (exemplified, for instance, by McHale instead of Worthy), so there were fewer fast break opportunities than for someone like Magic (the flip side, of course, being that more size typically meant better defense for the Celtics). So the degree of difficulty on creating high-quality looks was, on average, a bit higher for Bird.

I mean, that is sort of a problem that arises when you aren't a strong ball-handler or slasher. If Bird had that, the team is probably using transition more.

That is one of various ways on-ball ball-handling benefits playnaking. That was one of the points. The rest is whatever. Ultimately whatever type of film you're using. It's the number/frequency of something that matters.

[Moonbeam]

I realize I've missed a few votes. Sorry about that!

What a tough group of candidates to separate. Oscar and West make for contemporary rivals with some striking similarities and a few differences. Bird and Kobe are there as primarily offensive phenoms who impacted the game differently, and Mikan is the early titan of the league.

These guys have traditionally all packed in the 10-15 range for me, so there are no obvious players to exclude. I'll briefly go over what I view as the main arguments for (and against) each, going chronologically:

Mikan: Simply put, he has a case for the most dominant stretch of play in the history of the league. Maybe not the best case, but it's hard to ignore his huge individual signal and the sustained team success that followed. That the league had to change the rules in an attempt to limit him is another sign of that dominance. Obviously, the downside is the the league was clearly at is weakest, so there could be a bit of Wyatt Earp syndrome happening. That said, Mikan seemed to outpace all of the other early stars by a considerable distance, so I think it's right to consider him here.

Oscar: One of the most incredible offensive talents the league has ever seen, with a good defensive reputation as well. That he immediately impacted the game as a rookie makes me feel he would be disadvantaged from a traditional longevity perspective --- I have no doubt he could have been a high-impact player for perhaps a couple more early seasons. The downside is that Cincinnati only seemed to have a few years as a strong team, but WOWY metrics love him and he performed well in the playoffs, so I don't think it's fair to lay the blame at his feet. His addition to Milwaukee certainly helped to turbo-charge that team into GOAT-tier status.

West: On the shortlist of the greatest playoff performers in league history. He had a very well-rounded game, being the era's best scorer, IMO, a good creator, and a very good defender (ZeppelinPage's stuff is well worth the read/watch). As far as downsides, the Lakers routinely coming up short against the Celtics is there, but I can't fault West for that given the way he played in the playoffs and in the Finals. There's also a durability issue, though, as he essentially missed two postseasons and missed a decent amount of games during the regular season. From a longevity perspective, he might be disadvantaged in a similar way to Oscar given he was a high-profile contributor right away.

Bird: Yet another offensive wonder with immediate huge impact on his team and the lynchpin behind one of the league's best dynasties. He changed the template for forwards with his great outside shooting and his great playmaking and was the clear leader on 3 title teams and several others who made the Finals in a pretty tough Eastern Conference. The downsides are longevity and some notable playoff dropoffs.

Kobe: One of the most skilled offensive players ever and one who was nearly peerless in terms of scoring at well. He was a pretty good creator and had a few years of really good defense in my book as well. I'm most impressed by his ability to lead the late 00s Lakers into contention and a few titles. He has several huge playoff series as well against tough opponents. The downsides are mostly that he didn't always gel well with teammates and his shot selection could get his teams into trouble at times.

This is probably the toughest group of 5 players to separate that have been a set of nominees so far, but I'm going with Oscar Robertson as my vote, with Jerry West as my alternate. I feel that those guys have the team impact profile of Bird without the slight playoff dropoff, fewer era concerns than Mikan, and better meshed with teammates than Kobe.

The WS-based metrics I've looked at give a bit of credence to my choice of Oscar here:

Expected Series Wins:

Oscar: 18.991 unadjusted, 21.355 adjusted
Mikan: 16.601 unadjusted, 17.192 adjusted
West: 14.158 unadjusted, 15.040 adjusted
Bird: 12.036 unadjusted, 13.089 adjusted
Kobe: 10.589 unadjusted, 13.417 adjusted

For nominations, these are the guys on my radar at the moment:

Kevin Durant
Julius Erving
Karl Malone
Dirk Nowitzki
David Robinson

I'm going with David Robinson, followed by Dirk Nowitzki. Robinson has so much going for him as a two-way force (particularly on defense), culture setter, and impact titan. That he blended so well with Duncan and was ok deferring for the team's benefit helped maximize the end of his career. Throughout several changes of teammates, Dirk kept the Mavericks as a competitive team that was often a contender, and while he had some playoff struggles, his game held up very well in the postseason as a whole. He's another guy you could build your franchise around and know that he would blend well with whatever teammates were brought in and would generally make the most of them.

[OhayoKD]

Okay, I am going to try and be better about not crossing "tone-lines". Most of the contents of this have been discussed fairly exhausitively so I'll make things short and sweet(er).

I already acknowledged the cowens for mchale mishap and I think there's a reaosnable range of interpretation for that play. Some of said it's not notable due to how it was defended and typicality/commonality, others have said it's moderately valuable, and I myself called it secondary creation. Different people will vet it differently though I think "decent" OC is fine(we have given Bird that for a pick where technically no extra defender has been affected)

I also think regardless of where people fell, people tended to agree it was not really great evidence of Bird being able to create en masse with era-relative gravity and as multiple posters have noted, with a much better force of gravity in Steph, Ben's assessments are rather generous. All to say, I do not think Ben's stance on Bird as an offensive player should be equated with film-tracking. Nevertheless, we've all said our part here so I'll just zero in on this since it speaks to a larger issue I think that has been dragging at discourse here:

In the MJ Impact Metrics thread, you yourself argued that multi-season metrics are the most trustworthy WOWY samples we have. You used Kareem's rookie year to argue for Kareem's impact. You argued Ben preferred using multi-year large samples based on his Top 40 articles.

And Bird's rookie year sample is better than Kareem's rookie year, it's better than literally every rookie year ever. The only 2 years to surpass it are 2010 LeBron and 1998 Jordan. Both of which have far more contextual reasons to ding them (far more other roster changes at that time) than Bird does.

For someone who has argued for the penultimate importance of multi-season WOWY samples, this seems self-contradictory.

Unless this marks a change in your opinion since that last thread? If so, I would expect you to no longer use 2010 LeBron WOWY or 1970 Kareem WOWY as major datapoints for them in the future.

Emphasis mine.

I do not know what "multi" means here. I said "concentrated samples". I think Multi-year is a bit of a necessary evil for evaluating seasons granularly(more on that later) but whatever. Let's focus on the bolded.

You reference a thread where I brought up WOWY and I mentioned these signals. Cool. Here's something else I said(in that same thread...responding to you):

WOWY(and WOWYR) is indeed noisy, which is why it's good to look for replication across a variety of contexts:

You have also said it is wierd for me to rate certain players because I am extremely reliant on WOWY...
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107462472#p107462472
You specifically brought up Kareem as an example of my extreme WOWY reliance and I linked this post about Kareem which covered alot of things...besides WOWY.

There is
-> coaching context
-> off-court context
-> replication
-> different sorts of signals(yes wowy)
-> internal box scaling
-> playoff vs rs analysis
-> skillset-mapping
-> historical trends

Actually there have been plenty of posters who've voted differently than your WOWY or RWOWY has told them they should. They offered explanations for this, xplanations which actually are similar to what they've applied to other players(aka consistency).

In fact, you yourself have quoted them in order to prove they're not being honest with their standards but those quotations demonstrated there were other factors besides WOWY.

Furthermore, just because someone does not mention other factors does not mean what you read in their explanations is the only factor(/b). I certainly have not been trying to rely only on WOWY to rank players or evaluate "impact".

Lebron and Kareem's signals are far less dubious to me because there is [b]replication and it also tracks with other factors.

Bird's teams were...fine or good outside of 1980 without him(this includes years they didn't win), and then you look at the roster and, to me and many others they actually look both talented and the fit is pretty unique.

Bird is also not winning nearly as much as determining championships with srs would say he would(and that srs a big part in someone's overall "impact signals").


You seem to think everyone sees things as wowy or wowy regressions but I think the logic among kobe voters is generally not that hard to follow:

-> based on the data outside of that one-year, based on all the things that team had, based on all the things Bird didn't do which teammates did and the various other factors that have been discussed ad nauseum, people think Bird had good help when he was winning(and not winning).

-> Kobe had great help when he was winning more, than had good help like bird when he still looked comparably as winner

-> Kobe has a bunch of advantages that correlate well with winning

People are using "impact", but they are not relying on wowy exclusively to tell them what the impact probably is. Just like I didn't rely exclusively(or even close) in the above Kareem post.

That is not an inconsistency, that is nuance. You can of course challenge an assumption this sort of "nuance" is based on(alot of that was happening in the #1 thread if you missed it). You can say the explanation is given too much weight. You can argue signal x and extrapolation y are poorly interpreted. All of that is fair game. But saying "wowy=impact and you like impact so you're not being consistent" is just being reductive.

[One_and_Done]

I could be wrong but I have Dirk and D.Rob tied at 9 each for noms. I kind of want both to get up, so hoping they stay tied.

[lessthanjake]

I don’t really think it makes a whole lot of sense to judge someone’s passing based on the perceived quality of looks in a *highlight* video. But, to the extent we are going to do that (and, to be fair, I understand why we might do so, since the alternative is huge amounts of film study), I’ll just say this:

Watch on YouTube

I don’t really see much of any distinction between the quality of looks created in that video and similar videos of Magic’s passing—and certainly not a general deficiency in the quality of the shots Bird created. Tons of dunks, uncontested layups, open jump shots, and layups that may be contested but by a defender at a major disadvantage. And we should remember that Bird spent the vast majority of his career on a low-pace team that prioritized size over having the horses to run with on the break (exemplified, for instance, by McHale instead of Worthy), so there were fewer fast break opportunities than for someone like Magic (the flip side, of course, being that more size typically meant better defense for the Celtics). So the degree of difficulty on creating high-quality looks was, on average, a bit higher for Bird.

I mean, that is sort of a problem that arises when you aren't a strong ball-handler or slasher. If Bird had that, the team is probably using transition more.

That is one of various ways on-ball ball-handling benefits playnaking. That was one of the points. The rest is whatever. Ultimately whatever type of film you're using. It's the number/frequency of something that matters.

Bird was quite good in transition, actually (not Magic-level of course, since that’s a level no one else has been at, but quite good, in large part due to his passing). We saw it plenty, because every team ran a good bit in the 1980s. It’s just that your team isn’t going to be running *as much* as other teams when they’re constructed to emphasize size and defense. Parish and McHale are not a front court that’s great for getting out on the break—and certainly not as compared to a front court with James Worthy. Dennis Johnson was big and strong for a PG, which helped make him a good defender but was not necessarily great for getting out on the break. Those were their best players besides Bird, and you have to play how that (really good) personnel dictates. And, of course, you also get role players accordingly—which resulted in guys like Ainge, Wedman, Sichting, etc. that were solid players but not highly athletic finishers on the break. They weren’t built to run, so they didn’t do it as much as the Lakers (though, again, every team ran a fair bit in the 1980s). This wasn’t a bad thing overall, because building for more defensive solidity has its own benefits. But we should just keep it in mind when thinking specifically about comparing the creation of completely uncontested shots, which is obviously easier in transition.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Fair enough. Do you think Bird could’ve played next to peak Shaq and looked arguably more impactful? Arbitrary criterion, but that’s tough for me RE:Bird.

I mean, you can certainly argue that Kobe was a better fit with Shaq than Bird would've been, but if we're talking about peak Bird, I could certainly see him working on that team. He was a more efficient shooter than Kobe at that point in Kobe's career(peak Bird had 4 straight 40%+ 3P years), so I could see him draining all kinds of open shots from all ranges when Shaq draws the defense in. As a playmaker, one look at a couple of highlight clips is all I need to imagine him finding Horry/Fisher/Fox/Grant/etc for assists all over the place.

I mean if highlights suffice...

Spoiler:

I didn't start watching basketball until 1994 so I didn't see Bird play live, but I really, really don't understand what's special about his passing at all. I don't get it. He averaged just over 6 assists a game in a very high pace league and from watching his highlight reels it seems like he never made a difficult pass in his life. Every single "highlight" is just a basic obvious pass to a guy 3 feet away that it seems like any high schooler would find. What makes him any better of a passer than say Jimmy Butler? I really don't understand.

Watch on YouTube

Start with that.

Timing, accuracy. His touch passing, when he only has the ball for a fraction of a second and one-hands it to someone. No-lookers, the whole range of things which might impress someone with his positional awareness and technical passing acumen. Watch more Bird and pay specific attention to his passing. I don't want to be rude, your question is fair, especially for someone who never saw him live. But there are plenty of highlights which illustrate why the fanfare exists.

In this highlight reel, none of his first four passes create wide open looks. There are still defenders the recipients have to deal with up until pass #5. You have to wait till pass #8 to see another uncontested look. Pass #10 for the 3rd.

For comparison...
[url]

Watch on YouTube

[/url]

Magic's first 7 passes here create wide open looks. 9 of his first 12. You might also notice that alot of these passes come with Magic handling the ball in traffic, allowing Johnson to filter out defenders, before he makes the pass. In some of these Magic is also leveraging rim-pressure as defenders take themselves out of the play in anticipation of what he's going to at the basket.

[url]

Watch on YouTube

;start=25[/url]
Kobe creates 5 wide-open looks in his first 10 possessions(for clarity, i am not[b] counting something like the Walton pass). As you might expect he is not anticipating or making reads as early as the other two are but he is able to leverage both his pressure at the rim and penetration to compensate for his disadvantage in raw-skill. Bryant is also, like Magic, taking defenders out of the play pre-pass

Here is the result:




Whatever you think of their raw-passing, Magic creates [b]more and creates more efficiently, while leading better offenses.

So does Lebron:


And if you think this is a matter of off-ball creation being undervalued...so does Steph:


So does Jordan:


You know who Bird looks comparable to? This guy:



For all the basketball discourse that presents ball-handling as a minor consideration(or an outright negative), the above charts(and the team-lvl offensive results and impact signals) track pretty closely to the degree of ball-handling primacy the players in question had.

Kevin Durant is a good passer. But he does not leverage that into good(for a superstar) creation.

Larry Bird is one of the greatest passers, but he only really leverages that towards good creation.
Something else to consider: as the "eye test" bit here comes from a highlight reel, we are theoretically getting Bird's most valuable assists. Take a look at a year some consider his offensive peak like 1987, and I think you'll notice a bug chunk of those assists, are not taking extra defenders out of the play. In other words, he is barely creating anything.

I think assuming bird is outplaymaking kobe is dubious honestly, but i've said that before

The guy asked me if I thought Bird could be similarly impactful next to Shaq as Kobe was, and I said yes because I think his shooting and passing ability would fit well. In that particular post, I wasn't actually comparing Bird and Kobe.

But TBF, in your own post that you quoted there, you pointed out that Bird/Kobe's Adjusted Creation and Adjusted Passer Ratings were very similar, and you described Bird as "a great passer". I was asked if I thought Bird could have a similar level of impact with Shaq, and I said yes, and this seems like a fair argument for that(along with peak Bird's more efficient shooting).

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I could be wrong but I have Dirk and D.Rob tied at 9 each for noms. I kind of want both to get up, so hoping they stay tied.

I've got 10-9 Dirk.

[AEnigma]

Keeping my nomination locked to Dirk, but fully support the idea of a tie admitting both.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Actually switched my nomination to Dirk upon consideration

Sorry robinson

Awww man. I just see similar offensive impact for both with significantly more defensive impact for DRob. And I know Dirk won as a #1, but as I stated earlier in this thread, I think DRob's role on the 99 team is undervalued a lot.

Yeah, I'd say it's massively overvalued if anything. People tossing one-year apm and on/off while ignoring larger samples, the far weaker teams a better drob led, the minutes disparity(and how that would affect plus-minus stuff)...has made Drob out to be a Pippen or Wade(or for some actually Duncan+) when he was probably more of a kyrie.

I'm just talking about that one season - 1999 - I'm not making any conclusion about any other part of his career based on the data from that season, I'm only talking about that season. And as I said in a previous post, there's like six different metrics where DRob grades out better than or on par with Duncan in 1999, in the RS and PO.

My point was that people tend to conflate 99 and 03, as though 99 DRob is the same as the in-his-last-year, little-more-than-a-high-end-role-player 03 DRob, and I think that's way wrong. Duncan and DRob weren't 1 and 2 in 1999 imo, they were 1A and 1B.

[Narigo]

Vote: Oscar Robertson
Alt: Larry Bird
Nominate: Karl Malone

Oscar led the best offensive squads back in the 60s. The founding father of running the pick and roll very effectively. Probably the most polished point guard in NBA history out of the gate. He was the best perimeter scorer with the exception of West, was probably the best mid range and post up player from his time period. Unfortunately he didn't have a good supporting cast until he went to Milwaukee.

For nomination, I'm going with Karl Malone, outside of LeBron and Kareem, he has the best longevity. He is the most consistent player outside Jordan and Hakeem in the 90s. His bad postseasons are little exaggerated as those 97-01 Jazz team on offense fall apart once he goes to the bench. The Jazz was over reliant on Malones scoring as they didn't have a second shot creator

[Owly]

And I counter that you're downplaying for no reason. He creates good, high-percentage looks. That they aren't "wide open" is irrelevant. Particularly given your follow-on remarks about Magic.

I don't really understand your active crapping on Bird's passing in that highlight reel, to be honest. Not one bit.

Except is is very relevant because wide-open chances are higher quality than not wide-open chances. That is partially the point of being a better passer. To generate higher quality looks.

That is now "downplaying", that is holding three players to the same standard and comparing them. Player-ranking is a comparative exercise. You posted a highlight reel as proof of bird's excellent passing. I made it comparative and picked the same type of data for all three and then posted stats below as well as the team results.

If holding Bird to the same standard as everyone is downplaying than maybe Bird should be discussed in later threads.

Also so there is no confusion. I took the first 10 passes from each highlight and counted the number of wide-open looks. Same number, same type of data, same bar I am not understanding how that is bs or inaccurate.

Then I went into a bunch of other stuff with that as a launching point

Relying on what's posted here as accurate ... (including that you didn't introduce the highlights to the conversation)

I wouldn't use the language used but I would say both the source (a highlight reel - absence of failed passes, resources available to mixers at time of creation and mizers skill in noting quality passes [if indeed that is their intent - often more inclined to flash] will differ, length of video and selectivity may differ, effort may differ ...) and the sample size (10 plays) and to an extent the criteria (binary rather than gradations, with a focus on the extreme end -"wide open" - meaning such instances are rarer and thus would need a larger sample than a more central bar even just to find out if a passer was better at creating specifically this level of openness) I would have validity concerns depending on what was claimed from it (basically anything beyond "in these videos ...").

[One_and_Done]

Vote count for those curious:
Bird 8, Kobe 10, West 3, Oscar 4, Mikan 3. Bird has 5 preferences from the non-Kobe voters, Kobe has zero from the non-Bird voters, so Bird leads by 3 with 13-10. If Bird gets up this round the next round is likely to be a 4 way race between West, Kobe & Dirk/D.Rob. i count maybe 10-12 votes for Kobe next round, and at least 8 for West.

Nominations: I have D.Rob/Dirk tied at 9. Possibly I missed a Dirk vote, or someone changed their vote. The Malones, Dr J and Jokic have 2 each.

[OhayoKD]

Except is is very relevant because wide-open chances are higher quality than not wide-open chances. That is partially the point of being a better passer. To generate higher quality looks.

That is now "downplaying", that is holding three players to the same standard and comparing them. Player-ranking is a comparative exercise. You posted a highlight reel as proof of bird's excellent passing. I made it comparative and picked the same type of data for all three and then posted stats below as well as the team results.

If holding Bird to the same standard as everyone is downplaying than maybe Bird should be discussed in later threads.

Also so there is no confusion. I took the first 10 passes from each highlight and counted the number of wide-open looks. Same number, same type of data, same bar I am not understanding how that is bs or inaccurate.

Then I went into a bunch of other stuff with that as a launching point

Relying on what's posted here as accurate ... (including that you didn't introduce the highlights to the conversation)

I wouldn't use the language used but I would say both the source (a highlight reel - absence of failed passes, resources available to mixers at time of creation and mizers skill in noting quality passes [if indeed that is their intent - often more inclined to flash] will differ, length of video and selectivity may differ, effort may differ ...) and the sample size (10 plays) and to an extent the criteria (binary rather than gradations, with a focus on the extreme end -"wide open" - meaning such instances are rarer and thus would need a larger sample than a more central bar even just to find out if a passer was better at creating specifically this level of openness) I would have validity concerns depending on what was claimed from it (basically anything beyond "in these videos ...").

There's been time-stamped and more exhaustive film-tracking from games posted fwiw. But someone said "i just need to see a highlight reel" after another poster used highlights to establish bird as an excellent playmaker so eh...

changing terms to call something inaccurate is always "bs" though. Tsherkin posted passing highlights as evidence, so I don't understand the issue they have with what I did if they consider that valid

[OhayoKD]

I mean, you can certainly argue that Kobe was a better fit with Shaq than Bird would've been, but if we're talking about peak Bird, I could certainly see him working on that team. He was a more efficient shooter than Kobe at that point in Kobe's career(peak Bird had 4 straight 40%+ 3P years), so I could see him draining all kinds of open shots from all ranges when Shaq draws the defense in. As a playmaker, one look at a couple of highlight clips is all I need to imagine him finding Horry/Fisher/Fox/Grant/etc for assists all over the place.

I mean if highlights suffice...

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Start with that.

Timing, accuracy. His touch passing, when he only has the ball for a fraction of a second and one-hands it to someone. No-lookers, the whole range of things which might impress someone with his positional awareness and technical passing acumen. Watch more Bird and pay specific attention to his passing. I don't want to be rude, your question is fair, especially for someone who never saw him live. But there are plenty of highlights which illustrate why the fanfare exists.

In this highlight reel, none of his first four passes create wide open looks. There are still defenders the recipients have to deal with up until pass #5. You have to wait till pass #8 to see another uncontested look. Pass #10 for the 3rd.

For comparison...
[url]

Watch on YouTube

[/url]

Magic's first 7 passes here create wide open looks. 9 of his first 12. You might also notice that alot of these passes come with Magic handling the ball in traffic, allowing Johnson to filter out defenders, before he makes the pass. In some of these Magic is also leveraging rim-pressure as defenders take themselves out of the play in anticipation of what he's going to at the basket.

[url]

Watch on YouTube

;start=25[/url]
Kobe creates 5 wide-open looks in his first 10 possessions(for clarity, i am not[b] counting something like the Walton pass). As you might expect he is not anticipating or making reads as early as the other two are but he is able to leverage both his pressure at the rim and penetration to compensate for his disadvantage in raw-skill. Bryant is also, like Magic, taking defenders out of the play pre-pass

Here is the result:




Whatever you think of their raw-passing, Magic creates [b]more and creates more efficiently, while leading better offenses.

So does Lebron:


And if you think this is a matter of off-ball creation being undervalued...so does Steph:


So does Jordan:


You know who Bird looks comparable to? This guy:



For all the basketball discourse that presents ball-handling as a minor consideration(or an outright negative), the above charts(and the team-lvl offensive results and impact signals) track pretty closely to the degree of ball-handling primacy the players in question had.

Kevin Durant is a good passer. But he does not leverage that into good(for a superstar) creation.

Larry Bird is one of the greatest passers, but he only really leverages that towards good creation.
Something else to consider: as the "eye test" bit here comes from a highlight reel, we are theoretically getting Bird's most valuable assists. Take a look at a year some consider his offensive peak like 1987, and I think you'll notice a bug chunk of those assists, are not taking extra defenders out of the play. In other words, he is barely creating anything.

I think assuming bird is outplaymaking kobe is dubious honestly, but i've said that before

The guy asked me if I thought Bird could be similarly impactful next to Shaq as Kobe was, and I said yes because I think his shooting and passing ability would fit well. In that particular post, I wasn't actually comparing Bird and Kobe.

But TBF, in your own post that you quoted there, you pointed out that Bird/Kobe's Adjusted Creation and Adjusted Passer Ratings were very similar, and you described Bird as "a great passer". I was asked if I thought Bird could have a similar level of impact with Shaq, and I said yes, and this seems like a fair argument for that(along with peak Bird's more efficient shooting).

well setting aside i do not see them creating on the same level as great for bird given the rest...

Particularly with Shaq, strong ball-handling would be helpful. That said, Kobe wasn't at peak and outside of 2001 wasn't playing all-time basketball so...sure

[OhayoKD]

I don’t really think it makes a whole lot of sense to judge someone’s passing based on the perceived quality of looks in a *highlight* video. But, to the extent we are going to do that (and, to be fair, I understand why we might do so, since the alternative is huge amounts of film study), I’ll just say this:

Watch on YouTube

I don’t really see much of any distinction between the quality of looks created in that video and similar videos of Magic’s passing—and certainly not a general deficiency in the quality of the shots Bird created. Tons of dunks, uncontested layups, open jump shots, and layups that may be contested but by a defender at a major disadvantage. And we should remember that Bird spent the vast majority of his career on a low-pace team that prioritized size over having the horses to run with on the break (exemplified, for instance, by McHale instead of Worthy), so there were fewer fast break opportunities than for someone like Magic (the flip side, of course, being that more size typically meant better defense for the Celtics). So the degree of difficulty on creating high-quality looks was, on average, a bit higher for Bird.

I mean, that is sort of a problem that arises when you aren't a strong ball-handler or slasher. If Bird had that, the team is probably using transition more.

That is one of various ways on-ball ball-handling benefits playnaking. That was one of the points. The rest is whatever. Ultimately whatever type of film you're using. It's the number/frequency of something that matters.

Bird was quite good in transition, actually (not Magic-level of course, since that’s a level no one else has been at, but quite good, in large part due to his passing). We saw it plenty, because every team ran a good bit in the 1980s. It’s just that your team isn’t going to be running *as much* as other teams when they’re constructed to emphasize size and defense. Parish and McHale are not a front court that’s great for getting out on the break—and certainly not as compared to a front court with James Worthy. Dennis Johnson was big and strong for a PG, which helped make him a good defender but was not necessarily great for getting out on the break. Those were their best players besides Bird, and you have to play how that (really good) personnel dictates. And, of course, you also get role players accordingly—which resulted in guys like Ainge, Wedman, Sichting, etc. that were solid players but not highly athletic finishers on the break. They weren’t built to run, so they didn’t do it as much as the Lakers (though, again, every team ran a fair bit in the 1980s). This wasn’t a bad thing overall, because building for more defensive solidity has its own benefits. But we should just keep it in mind when thinking specifically about comparing the creation of completely uncontested shots, which is obviously easier in transition.

I mean that's not unfair, but there are trade-offs here. If I replace mchale with a small-foward who can get out in transition(and I guess maximize Bird's outlet passing), then we have Bird the not very strong rim-protector now having to play PF defensively.

I guess passing highlights could be biased towards transition but there is an advantage in being able to directly manipulate the ball on the move. You'll notice in a few of the plays for bryant and magic they use manipulation to take an extra defender or two out. But yeah, highlights are not great, but I felt there were things that could be observed there which I could expound on with the larger sample granular and results. If highlights are going to be shared and used as a basis for assessment, then we may as well try and make them semi-useful comparatively.

I'm pretty satisfied with our film-tracking process though. Hopefully we can get more of that out.

[One_and_Done]

New deadline has now passed. Bird wins 13-10 on preferences by my count. I had D.Rob & Dirk tied 9-9 for the nominees.

[AEnigma]

Once again, the “deadline” is just a marker for when Doc (or an official substitute) can close voting.

[cupcakesnake]

Vote: Bird
Alternate: Mikan

- People bring his defense down. There are things I don't like about Bird's defense (mostly guarding the ball) but the tape shows that Bird was able to add defensive value in a ton of ways.

I think once you realize Bird isn't an on-ball mega creator, maybe that's disappointing to some people that imagined he was that? What I see in Bird as a 6'9" Kyle Lowry/Jimmy Butler type. A hustling maniac with a giant brain that creates value in the margins whenever he can't dominate his matchup. He may of lacked a bit in terms of force with the ball in his hands, but he more than made up for that with his unparalleled combination of size, skill, motor, and smarts. Bird could really scramble defenses and create a lot of chaos on both ends.

I'm very high on Bird's defense. He was a total tweener in terms of matchups, but lordy did he ever have great hands, anticipation, motor, and toughness. While lots of star scorers get put in the "free safety" position to conserve them for offense, Bird was one of the best at it. Especially playing with a large frontline, his timing on digs and doubles was tremendous.

I also think his on-ball scoring is getting knocked down a bit too far. The handles aren't special (but relative to era, what other guys his size were doing what he did with the ball in his hands), but his footwork and scoring touch let him create plenty for himself against 95% of defenses. I don't have him in the 1% of on-ball creators, but I don't have him that much lower.

So I think the main contention is that Bird is not a mega-creator period(or at least on a level of a jordan, steph, lebron, or magic(ordered in terms of how their advanced creation stacks up)), not "mega-on ball"(partially because as you say, no one was generating massive value with the 3-point shot). But I'll set that aside since it's been discussed to death.

I guess what I'm more curious is how you say "on-ball d" as the biggest factor and then note the "with a large frontline". Take peak Bird where the motor has dropped significantly even according to those who view him as a dpoy as a rookie. Are you confident you would think of him as a positive if I replace mchale with an equally talented small-forward and asked Bird to defend opposing bigs?

I think the limited paint-protection is a much bigger concern, How sure are you he'd look better than say Jokic for example?

Don't we have plenty of footage of that though? Cedric Maxwell started at SF with Bird at PF until 1985. The defensive results were very good, but not elite. McHale becomes the full-time starter in '86 and instantly produces the best defensive season (by rDrtg) of that era of Celtic basketball. But there's too many other factors there to get a really clean read. Bill Walton replacing McHale as the backup big.

They don't sustain this defensive dominance, and for the rest of the Bird era they're an offensive team that treads water defensively. Bird's health cleanly lines up with the team's defensive decline but there are plenty of other factors. Walton doesn't stay healthy in year 2, and the team keeps getting older.

Young Bird could take a lot more defensive responsibility. There's plenty of early 80s footage of Bird ably battling in the paint with Moses, Kareem, and mid 80s footage against rookie Hakeem. We think of Bird's injury problems really becoming obvious in 1988, but on defense you see some of his defensive tools start to degrade after 1985. He looked uncomfortable guarding post-ups against bigger players (this is around when the Laimbeer thing becomes a big deal). I think Bird moving to small forward was partially motivated by his decreasing ability to handle physicality.

Obviously Bird isn't a primary rim protector, and his later struggles guarding the ball mean he's only providing value as a roamer. That version of Bird you probably don't want at power forward where he's stuck either guarding a post up or protecting the rim while Parish guards the post up. That's not ideal. But I'm curious what you're including in "paint-protection" because I think Bird's disruptiveness always helped with protecting the paint. I think of 2020 Lebron a bit. Bron had really lost his 2-foot jump so struggled with any kind of vertical contest in the half-court (not just rim protection but contesting pull ups), but Bron was able to use his focus, strength, remaining mobility, and smarts to be pretty impactful as a secondary paint protector who did most of his damage on the horizontal. Bird didn't have Lebron's strength in these playtypes, but he did have way better hands and an ability to make life hell in the paint for passers and scorers.

[Colbinii]

Once again, the “deadline” is just a marker for when Doc (or an official substitute) can close voting.

We should sticky this comment for every thread here--although we all know One_and_Done won't be this exact when his player isn't leading