RealGM Top 100 List #17

[An Unbiased Fan]

Vote: Dirk

Nomination: Stockton

The last vote was between Moses & Dirk for me, so this is a fairly easy vote.

[mysticbb]

It is really interesting that some people honestly think it is better to have James for 7 years than Nowitzki for 11. Why? Because James made a bit more impact during his two peak seasons? Because of the slightly higher chance to win a championship in two of those years we are ignoring the rest? Nowitzki showed that he can be the best player on a potential championship team in three different occasions, with three different teams, with three different coaches, the one consistent element during a stretch of 11 years in which the Mavericks won 50+ games is Dirk Nowitzki. Yes, his peak doesn't reach those of others, but the others don't reach Nowitzki's consistency either.



Vote: Dirk Nowitzki

Nomination: Steve Nash

[Sedale Threatt]

@Sedale - It was one year, and they played 3 on 5 most of the year and were a shade from the title. Give it some time, give it some perspective...

What difference does the rest of the year make? They got into the Finals with home court advantage, which history tells us is a massive edge. Then LeBron proceeded to pee on himself as the Heat blew a 1.75-0 advantage.

You are fair to criticize the FInals, whether it was mental or physical or both (I allege a combination, since LeBron insinuated so much after the series.)

Barring a significant injury, which he didn't have, the reason doesn't matter at all. The result matters. And the result was, he played poorly, and his team lost a series it probably should have won.

The Boston thing, I've said in the 2010 POY thread, is so overblown at this point it reads as comical to me. They probably weren't beating the Celtics anyway

Why not? They were up 2-1 with home court. The series was there to be won.

...and the *single* game in question (G5) they lost by...30 points?

I'm sure LeBron turning in his worst game of the year had nothing to do with that, right? Besides, they were only down by 15 going into the fourth. A tough situation, to be sure, but it's not unheard of to come back from such deficits.

That wasn't his only poor game, either. He was almost as bad the previous game, judging by game scores, and his triple double in G6 was offset by nine TOs and 8-for-21 shooting.

[cpower]

Vote: Pettit
Nomination: John Havlicek

Difficult choice here, but Pettit had the numbers and domination, 10X first team selections and 2 MVPs. I am going with him, then maybe Baylor, Barkley.

[lorak]

It comes down to Barkley vs Dirk for me, because there is a 4 year difference in terms of prime years between Dirk/Barkley and LeBron, and that's a pretty big difference. His peak doesn't make up for that imo, especially when you consider that Dirk and Barkley had pretty high peaks themselves.

I think it's almost a matter of preference between Dirk and Barkley, but I Barkley has superior longevity as of now, and he's a more dynamic offensive player imo. And unlike someone like David Robinson, Barkley's play really didn't suffer that much between regular season and playoffs. His career playoff numbers are very comparable to Dirk's actually.

The problem with Barkley is his impact wasn't as big as his box score numbers suggest. And his flaws on defense are really serious, so serious that I doubt his overall value was bigger than Robinson's.

vote: Dirk
nomination: Nash (Pippen will be next)

[mysticbb]

@Sedale - It was one year, and they played 3 on 5 most of the year and were a shade from the title. Give it some time, give it some perspective...

What difference does the rest of the year make? They got into the Finals with home court advantage, which history tells us is a massive edge. Then LeBron proceeded to pee on himself as the Heat blew a 1.75-0 advantage.

It is interesting, that ElGee seems as if he is trying to find excuses for James. The Heat in 2010/11 actually outscored the opponents when James wasn't on the court (regular season and playoffs), it is not like the Heat without James were indeed not a good team like the Cavaliers in previous seasons. Somehow James couldn't lift that Heat team further to be more elite than for example Nowitzki was able to do with the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks with Nowitzki played BETTER than the Heat with James, while Mavericks without Nowitzki played WORSE than the Heat without James. The explanation for that was made a couple of times in other threads.

It is also quite interesting that the Heat had their highest win probability after the 3rd quarter in game 4 with 78.3%. The Heat were even up by 9 points in game 4 with 10:30 to go. They lost also, because James didn't do anything good anymore. He was standing around on the perimeter watching Wade trying to do something.

[Dr Positivity]

My take on the Lebron thing is, can we not have "mental fortitude" as a player trait? I mean that's what this project really comes down to, isn't it? Judging traits. Offense, defense, effect on teammates, longevity... all value traits

I would say not having sound mental fortitude is an issue when judging players

[Black Feet]

Vote: Dirk
Nominate: Nash

[ThaRegul8r]

My take on the Lebron thing is, can we not have "mental fortitude" as a player trait? I mean that's what this project really comes down to, isn't it? Judging traits. Offense, defense, effect on teammates, longevity... all value traits

I would say not having sound mental fortitude is an issue when judging players

Mental fortitude is in fact a trait. But of course, "most people" aren't going to take that into consideration, because "most people" don't think too deeply about it. But it's part and parcel of the entire package that is a player.

[ElGee]

@Sedale - It was one year, and they played 3 on 5 most of the year and were a shade from the title. Give it some time, give it some perspective...

What difference does the rest of the year make?

You know the answer to that. If you are only judging players based on the Finals, so be it. Get ready to pay Austin Croshere. :shrug:

They got into the Finals with home court advantage, which history tells us is a massive edge. Then LeBron proceeded to pee on himself as the Heat blew a 1.75-0 advantage.

You are fair to criticize the FInals, whether it was mental or physical or both (I allege a combination, since LeBron insinuated so much after the series.)

Barring a significant injury, which he didn't have, the reason doesn't matter at all. The result matters.

I couldn't disagree with this more than anything I've ever seen you type. (1) Being results oriented in a small sample is problematic for obvious reasons. (2) The reasons for the results matter heavily -- if some guy plays 58 minutes in a game and then is tired the next afternoon, that reason matters. It's no different than an injury.

The Boston thing, I've said in the 2010 POY thread, is so overblown at this point it reads as comical to me. They probably weren't beating the Celtics anyway

Why not? They were up 2-1 with home court. The series was there to be won.

Because the Celtics were playing historically good defense, were a better, more experienced, better coached team and matched up well with Cleveland? Out of the gate, The Cavs were a 6.2 SRS team and Boston, with it's starting 5, was +5.7 differential. Simply observing a 2-1 edge and calling it a "series to be won" is like saying the Hornets series was "there to be won" this year with the Lakers.

...and the *single* game in question (G5) they lost by...30 points?

I'm sure LeBron turning in his worst game of the year had nothing to do with that, right? Besides, they were only down by 15 going into the fourth. A tough situation, to be sure, but it's not unheard of to come back from such deficits.

That wasn't his only poor game, either. He was almost as bad the previous game, judging by game scores, and his triple double in G6 was offset by nine TOs and 8-for-21 shooting.

This is my whole point with this series. His G6 wasn't a choke or weird. His game 4 wasn't great. His whole series was still pretty good, his playoffs still very good, his whole season excellent. If you are lambasting someone for 3 mediocre games, you seriously need to re-evaluate where you have the bar set.

As for G5, they were down by 17 entering the 4th. Do you know how often a team comes back from that deficit? Furthermore, mister results, they actually lost by 32. (Down by 27 when LBJ checked out in the 4th) LeBron would have had to have made Cleveland 33 points better that day, all things being equal.

@Mystic - I don't want you to be kicked out of the project, so for the love of god drop this weird vendetta against me you've conjured out of nowhere and get on with talking about basketball. It's really tiresome.

[therealbig3]

I think it's a legitimate criticism to question LeBron's ability during crucial situations. His numbers during elimination games:

29.8 ppg, 9.4 rpg, 7.4 apg, 1.3 spg, 0.6 bpg, 5.1 TOpg, 52.3% TS

His TO go way up, and his efficiency goes way down. His last elimination game (game 6 against the Mavs) actually helped his efficiency, but we all know he was pretty non-existant throughout that series, especially in the 4th quarter.

[therealbig3]

ElGee, he finished that Boston game with 3 mediocre games, and in terms of sample size, it's pretty much nothing, but isn't it a little (for lack of a better word) "weird" how he happened to have 3 mediocre games at the most crucial point of his team's season? Hornets vs Lakers is different, because the Hornets were clear underdogs, and they finished well behind the Lakers during the regular season. The Cavs finished 11 games better than the Celtics in 2010, and were the 1 seed to the Celtics 4 seed. Many people picked the Cavs to win. So yeah, I don't think it's too much to expect the Cavs to win the series after going up 2-1.

And that's when LeBron's 3 mediocre games happened, including a WTF game 5. IMO, it's definitely something he should be called out on, as is his recent Finals. And his 07 Finals is a similar WTF series...it's okay to struggle against an elite defensive team when you're the only real offensive threat, fine...but he had one of the worst Finals series of all time by a star player. For someone of LeBron James's caliber, that's inexcusable to me.

His 2007 Finals, his 2010 series against Boston, and his 2011 Finals are black marks against LeBron to me. How big those black marks are depends on the rest of his career. If LeBron turns in "normal performances" in those series, we might be looking at 2-3 championships for LeBron's teams.

We're definitely looking at at least one championship in 2011 with a "normal" LeBron performance, and the last two losses to San Antonio were 3 and 1 point losses respectively. Also, the Cavs were only down by 5 points at the half against the Spurs in Game 1. LeBron had terrible shooting nights in all 3 of those games...his only decent game of the series came in a Spurs blowout Game 2 win. And after Boston in 2010, who knows what would have happened if the Cavs advanced?

[Fencer reregistered]

There's a bit of a selection bias in that your worst playoff series is also likely to wind up having been your last one of the season, hence the most important, and also the most memorable.

So the question is -- how does Lebron compare again other all-star level players of his day (say), in series from (say) the 2nd round on?

In 2008 he probably played better than Pierce; the series wound up being close, after all. And Pierce went on to be Finals MVP. Pierce just held LeBron close enough for the Celtics to win, and perhaps outright outplayed him or played him even at critical times.

In 2010 LeBron seemed solidly better than still all-star Pierce.

In 2011 LeBron played pretty well opposite and sometimes against MVP Rose.

In 2011 LeBron was inferior to Nowitski.

Anybody want to do this kind of analysis more carefully?

[mysticbb]

@Mystic - I don't want you to be kicked out of the project, so for the love of god drop this weird vendetta against me you've conjured out of nowhere and get on with talking about basketball. It's really tiresome.

Tiresome is rather your ignorance regarding the points I made. You don't even have the manners to answer to a post I made after YOU asked a question, instead you are going on as if nothing happened. The same excuses overall.

James PLAYED WORSE LAST SEASON than in 2010 or 2009, EVERY single evidence we have says the same thing, but you are ignoring it or keep saying that everyone should just ignore the parts in which James didn't perform well. James' level of play during the playoffs dropped by a good margin. His usage went down, his efficiency went down, his impact numbers went down. And no, that is not just a a series here, we are talking about 23% of his time playing basketball last season. And that is not an outlier either. Except for one season, 2009, when James shows improved numbers in the playoffs, James always got worse. In average the performance level went down to 90% of his regular season level (using PER and WS/48 here and while looking at the level for each season, meaning 2006 rs compared with 2006 ps). Compare that to Nowitzki's 99%. That's why the differences in the playoffs are smaller than in the regular season. Should we just ignore that? Or is that maybe something we have in all years? Maybe James is beating up on bad teams too while not be as good against good teams? Well, that would be just common sense, but we can look that up.

Unfortunately the easiest access are NBA Eff numbers per 48 minutes and since 2001 Nowitzki has 33.8 against sub-0.500 teams while he has 32.5 against 0.500+ teams. A drop to 96.2%, Nowitzki improves his league-wide ranking from #11.3 against the bad teams to #6.4 against the good teams. IN comparison to the league Nowitzki actually improves here. For James since 2004/05 we are getting 37.0 vs. the bad teams and ranked in average #7.3, while we are getting 32.9 against the good teams with in average #8.3. So, James performance level went down to 89%, he slipped by 1 place in average. Those results are perfectly fine in agreement with differences between regular season and playoffs. We have to assume that a player has to play tougher teams in the playoffs and James gets clearly more worse against those teams than Nowitzki. That explains also the rather close results in terms of APM, if we adjust the boxscore numbers for competition we see the same as we see in the PM numbers being adjusted.

Well, does that make sense to you? Or is that also just small sample size? Is it always small sample size when James doesn't look awesomely better than other players? Or is it quite possible that James indeed has a much bigger problem performing against better teams than Nowitzki?

Btw, for those Kobe fanboys, Bryant has in average 33.8 against sub-0.500 teams while 28.3 against 0.500+ teams, his playing level gets down to 83.6%, Kobe Bryant does also not keep his level against better team, he gets even more worse than James. If we look at the playoff numbers, we get a drop to 81.6%. We see a drop in a similar fashion for Bryant. Surprised?

So, ElGee, based on all those informations do you honestyl want James for 7 years rather Nowitzki for 11, because he beats up more on bad teams than Nowitzki is doing it?

[Black Feet]

@Mystic - I don't want you to be kicked out of the project, so for the love of god drop this weird vendetta against me you've conjured out of nowhere and get on with talking about basketball. It's really tiresome.

Tiresome is rather your ignorance regarding the points I made. You don't even have the manners to answer to a post I made after YOU asked a question, instead you are going on as if nothing happened. The same excuses overall.

James PLAYED WORSE LAST SEASON than in 2010 or 2009, EVERY single evidence we have says the same thing, but you are ignoring it or keep saying that everyone should just ignore the parts in which James didn't perform well. James' level of play during the playoffs dropped by a good margin. His usage went down, his efficiency went down, his impact numbers went down. And no, that is not just a a series here, we are talking about 23% of his time playing basketball last season. And that is not an outlier easier. Except for one season, 2009, when James shows improved numbers in the playoffs, James always got worse. In average the performance level went down to 90% of his regular season level (using PER and WS/48 here and while looking at the level for each season, meaning 2006 rs compared with 2006 ps). Compare that to Nowitzki's 99%. That's why the differences in the playoffs are smaller than in the regular season. Should we just ignore that? Or is that maybe something we have in all years? Maybe James is beating up on bad teams too while not be as good against good teams? Well, that would be just common sense, but we can look that up.

Unfortunately the easiest access are NBA Eff numbers per 48 minutes and since 2001 Nowitzki has 33.8 against sub-0.500 teams while he has 32.5 against 0.500+ teams. A drop to 96.2%, Nowitzki improves his league-wide ranking from #11.3 against the bad teams to #6.4 against the good teams. IN comparison to the league Nowitzki actually improves here. For James since 2004/05 we are getting 37.0 vs. the bad teams and ranked in average #7.3, while we are getting 32.9 against the good teams with in average #8.3. So, James performance level went down to 89%, he slipped by 1 place in average. Those results are perfectly fine in agreement with differences between regular season and playoffs. We have to assume that a player has to play tougher teams in the playoffs and James gets clearly more worse against those teams than Nowitzki. That explains also the rather close results in terms of APM, if we adjust the boxscore numbers for competition we see the same as we see in the PM numbers being adjusted.

Well, does that make sense to you? Or is that also just small sample size? Is it always small sample size when James doesn't look awesomely better than other players? Or is it quite possible that James indeed has a much bigger problem performing against better teams than Nowitzki?

Btw, for those Kobe fanboys, Bryant has in average 33.8 against sub-0.500 teams while 28.3 against 0.500+ teams, his playing level gets down to 83.6%, Kobe Bryant does also not keep his level against better team, he gets even more worse than James. If we look at the playoff numbers, we get a drop to 81.6%. We see a drop in a similar fashion for Bryant. Surprised?

So, ElGee, based on all those informations do you honestyl want James for 7 years rather Nowitzki for 11, because he beats up more on bad teams than Nowitzki is doing it?

Where did you get these numbers from? I would like to see a year by year breakdown. I like how you managed to somehow still talk about Kobe 7 picks later with some obscure stat, and the irony of you calling people fanboys of a certain player is pretty funny.

[mysticbb]

Where did you get these numbers from? I would like to see a year by year breakdown. I like how you managed to somehow still talk about Kobe 7 picks later with some obscure stat, and the irony of you calling people fanboys of a certain player is pretty funny.

http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fa ... s/11/1/eff

I brought up Bryant, because in most cases we see Bryant fans talking down James to prop up Bryant. I wanted to take that away right away.

And for sure those numbers are obscure, somehow everytime a certain player is not doing well in a stat the numbers are obscure. :roll:
That is a sample for Bryant and Nowitzki over 11 years with the playoffs looked into in all years. For James it is 7 years. That is not a small sample, and it fits well with my personal "eye-test".

[34Dayz]

He makes a good point, people criticize Lebron for playing poorly in a Finals series and against better defenses when Kobe suffers from the exact same deficiency's if not worse ones.

I think Lebron and Kobe have much in common.

Wade in my opinion is the outlier, of the 3 he performs very well consistently in the Finals and against the best defenses.

Wade>Kobe/Lebron

[mysticbb]

Wade in my opinion is the outlier, of the 3 he performs very well consistently in the Finals and against the best defenses.

Why didn't you check the numbers, before you claim this?

Against bad teams: 34.4; against good teams: 30.1, down to 87.7%, playoffs down to 86.5% in average. Nope, Wade doesn't look better than James here. Wade had better finals performances, but it seems like that can be just the result of coincendence.

Wade>Kobe/Lebron

Going by this we have to say:

James>Wade>Bryant

[Fencer reregistered]

He makes a good point, people criticize Lebron for playing poorly in a Finals series and against better defenses when Kobe suffers from the exact same deficiency's if not worse ones.

I think Lebron and Kobe have much in common.

Wade in my opinion is the outlier, of the 3 he performs very well consistently in the Finals and against the best defenses.

Wade>Kobe/Lebron

We SHOULD have that. Only a really good modern defense can key on an elite, ball-dominating scorer without falling apart. Meanwhile, a really good offense can contribute to tiring out somebody who's trying to be an elite two-way player.

That's one reason elite, ball-dominating scorers aren't quite as good as the numbers would seem to show -- they can be beaten by good teams. True, the Lakers have won a bunch of rings recently anyway, and the Wade/Shaq combo won one as well, and Jordan won a bunch before that. But the point still stands, and perhaps Phil Jackson's offense is uniquely good at addressing this challenge.

[Sedale Threatt]

You know the answer to that. If you are only judging players based on the Finals, so be it. Get ready to pay Austin Croshere. :shrug:

I interpreted you as downplaying the Finals meltdown by bringing up all the problems they'd had earlier in the year.

Which didn't matter at all, at that point. For all the ups and downs, they were in the best situation they could have possibly asked for, and they couldn't take advantage in very large part because their best player had one of the worst star Finals series in recent memories.

That matters to me. In a huge, huge way.

I couldn't disagree with this more than anything I've ever seen you type. (1) Being results oriented in a small sample is problematic for obvious reasons. (2) The reasons for the results matter heavily -- if some guy plays 58 minutes in a game and then is tired the next afternoon, that reason matters. It's no different than an injury.

I guess I feel the same way.

I'm in the same camp as mystic here in that the lengths you seem to be going to either excuse or downplay what happened against Dallas verge on the bizarre. To the point that I have to wonder -- with respect -- if you were ever an athlete if you honestly think mental and/or physical fatigue are excusable reasons for failure.

Legitimate? I guess.

But that should be the last reason and athlete fails to perform. It's your freaking job to stay in peak shape and compete. And to say in this case, oh well, LeBron completely disappeared in the Finals, with an opportunity to cement his legacy and silence his myriad critics, but he just got tired...I don't think there's any possible way to sugar coat that one.

Hell, if that was indeed the case, it actually makes it worse, to me. Maybe for one game, it's understandable. But not an entire series.

Because the Celtics were playing historically good defense, were a better, more experienced, better coached team and matched up well with Cleveland?

All true. But the fact remains, the Cavs were up 2-1, with two of the next four games at home. As I said before, the series was there to be won.

I would accept this argument with the 07 Finals, which is why I'm not even bringing that up. Which I think is pretty generous, as it's yet another important series where he didn't perform. But he was young, his team sucked, the Spurs were head-and-entire-torso better, so I'll give him a mulligan.

No chance with these last two, though.

Out of the gate, The Cavs were a 6.2 SRS team and Boston, with it's starting 5, was +5.7 differential. Simply observing a 2-1 edge and calling it a "series to be won" is like saying the Hornets series was "there to be won" this year with the Lakers.

This year's Hornets and the 09 Cavaliers are a horrible comparison. I'm not even going to dignify that by explaining why.

This is my whole point with this series. His G6 wasn't a choke or weird. His game 4 wasn't great. His whole series was still pretty good, his playoffs still very good, his whole season excellent. If you are lambasting someone for 3 mediocre games, you seriously need to re-evaluate where you have the bar set.

More downplaying.

"Wasn't great" actually equates to one of his fifth or sixth worst games of the season, according to B-R game scores. Followed by the worst, one of the great WTF? games in NBA history, one that left pretty much everybody who watched it baffled by what they'd just seen.

Those two games weren't just "mediocre." You have to get through poor and atrocious (I wonder, considering the stakes, if he'll ever have a game that bad the of his career), before we finally get to mediocre in Game 6.

Taken as a whole, it was a miserable stretch of basketball that, just like this year's Finals, sabotaged a very winnable series.

As for G5, they were down by 17 entering the 4th. Do you know how often a team comes back from that deficit? Furthermore, mister results, they actually lost by 32. (Down by 27 when LBJ checked out in the 4th) LeBron would have had to have made Cleveland 33 points better that day, all things being equal.

I'm pretty sure if he'd bothered to show up, they wouldn't have been in that position in the first place. Again, I can't help but take this as more downplaying and minimization. It's like you don't want to acknowledge that their best player evaporating like we've seen few players evaporate had anything to do with the outcome.

"Yeah, he wasn't good, but because the margin of defeat was so large, they weren't going to win anyways, so what's the big deal?" That's about the only way I can interpret your angle here, and I just can't accept that.