RealGM Top 100 List #21

[ElGee]

...
1977 – If we are working under the assumption that this is still a good year for Gilmore (and 78 too), we need to be fair and note he didn't make an all-nba team because of Walton and Jabbar. But at 27 years old, he also didn't make the All-Star team. That isn't simply a function of team play or ABA bias, that's just a reflection of how people thought of him. And as has been discussed, the Bulls defense only improved slightly. The offense does improve considerably, so one has to gauge whether they think that is because of the presence of Gilmore. His shooting does drop 3% and I assume his turnovers spike if we look at 1978 data.

Actually the Bulls defense improved considerably dead average (9th/18) to outstanding (2nd/22) in 1977 while at the same time the offense went from worst in the league(18/18) to crummy (15/22) as they didn't use Gilmore as the main man the way Kentucky did. If fact, Chicago never used Gilmore as more than a 3rd option -- makes no sense to me as he was setting all time efficiency marks later on but they just didn't think that way. (and not just Ed Badger but Jerry Sloan so it may have been Gilmore's personality or practice habits)

The comments you are thinking of refer to 78 when the Bulls fell apart defensively (20/22) though the offense improved (7/22).

I'm not actually. Chicago was -0.3 in 1976 and -2.1 in 1977, for a small shift of 1.8 points relative to league average. Certainly a negligible shift. I'd suggest to you that those people knew that were doing and that Gilmore didn't have the skill curve to be used more. Or, in more basketball terms, running more stuff through him wasn't a good pathway to score in the offensive team setting.

And the defense stayed crummy (though not THAT crummy) whle the offense continued to be up and down throughout Gilmore's tenure. Though, again, in Gilmore's ABA days, Kentucky had a very good defense despite the other big minutes guys next to Gilmore being Dan Issel and Louie Dampier who were both known as weak defenders.

And it isn't it possible that's because the ABA was a considerably smaller league and Gilmore was the tallest player in the league?

Oh, and the 3rd center on the West All-Star team was Bob Lanier in his peak season (25/12/3) although Detroit was never a good defensive team -- still the numbers are there and Gilmore was expected to be Kareem level coming to Chicago (and only took 13 shots a game to Lanier's 20) so they were doomed to disappointment. Does make me wonder if Gilmore just quit on Chicago defensively after 77 because they didn't make him feel wanted -- if so that's a definite knock against him -- or if he really couldn't get the ball in the post or challenge defensively as much because of his much more limited mobility after the knee surgery -- although then how do you explain 77 -- but yes, his time in Chicago was a definite disappointment considering his talent level. Was he as good as he could have been? No. Was he still an all-time great who belongs in the top 30? Yeah, probably, there just aren't that many superathletic 7 footers to choose from and he's still a top 10 center all-time.

The knee surgery, unfortunately, counts. The issue with Artis is two-fold for me: (1) longevity of good years is limited and (2) I'm not sure how good they were. I'm taking McHale (if he's a center) over him, Mourning, Howard, Lanier, Ewing, Robinson, Moses, Wilt, Duncan, Shaq, Hakeem, Kareem, Russell. That's 13 guys, with 9 light-years ahead.

[ElGee]

-I tentatively have Artis Gilmore 51st. So I believe that's about the largest disconnect for myself and other members of this group. I say disconnect because it seems to be governed by no bias whatsoever. And with the exception of a few posters who watched him live (Penbeast, and who else?), we've all presumably seen the same Gilmore tape available and know the same information about him/his teams. Maybe some people haven't read the RPOY threads with reports about him or scoured archives as much, but I presume those aren't the people backing him as a top-30 player of all-time.

I'm open to hearing more of your thoughts. Typing out loud here, I'll put him next to other big men still out there. First, here are the RPOY shares for guys in the top 50:

23. Schayes 2.176
27. McAdoo 1.472
28. Walton 1.373
34. Howard 1.077
36. Mourning 0.843
39. Reed 0.684
40. Gilmore 0.681
42. Cowens 0.645
47. Lanier 0.519

Gilmore placing 7th certainly helps you with your point, but of course basically all of other guys have some longevity issues ('cept Schayes).

Let's look at career WS leaders among this bunch:

6. Gilmore 190
26. Schayes 142
46. Lanier 117
95. Mourning 90
99. McAdoo 89
107. Cowens 86
131. Howard 80
158. Reed 75
xxx. Walton 39

See the issue here for me? I'm not going to say there's a right way to factor in longevity, and WS aren't a perfect stat, but Gilmore's number literally dwarf every other big man on the horizon.

I look at that, and the fact that I really do think that Gilmore peaked early at a level pretty comparable to most the guys on that list, and I just don't see putting him below them.

Obviously then, I'm not going to wait another 20 spots before putting another big man on the list, so Gilmore's time if not now would be soon.

But there's a lot of Moses Maloneness to that WS list. As in, his ABA seasons are inflated because of (a) split leagues, (b) smaller league (height) and (c) pace. I don't think he was as good as his box suggests anyway.

Then he has a bunch of years on the back end which slowly accumulate more WS's, but the individual seasons for much of the 80s don't really do much to help a basketball team. I'd rather have a 14 WS season in a vacuum than 7 4 WS seasons.

And since no one seems to have done it, I ran the numbers for the 33 games Artis missed with the knee in 1980 (1 remaining from the year unaccounted for).

With: 108.8 ppg 110.6 opp
W/Out: 105.6 ppg 109.6 opp

For a total impact of +2.3, from a -4.1 MOV to -1.8, with less than a ppg difference on defense in points allowed. He was 30 at the time of the injury, coming off back-to-back AS appearances and a season of 21-12-3 62% TS and averaged 18-9-3 on 64% TS after the injury (roughly).

[Doctor MJ]

Hmm. I'm not trying to knock Gilmore's numbers, per se. I'm trying to knock Gilmore. The right guy in the right setting can be 20-10 and be an elite player. Another guy can merely be top-20 or worse. I was knocking the numbers specifically there to try and gain perspective on an inflated era for people who are easily swayed by those things. I mean, does no one find it weird that Artis Gilmore was never really considered a top player in the NBA?

I see him getting about as much MVP love as Stockton in the NBA. Stock had to deal with Malone over course, but Gilmore had to deal with bad teams.

I also see Gilmore like Stock as someone who found a way to be helpful to teams for a very long time by being a very efficient player. Not as good as the top tier stars, but still quite good.

So I see Gilmore as someone to be consider about where Stock is, but with the caveat that I think he had a really great early peak when he had extreme athleticism.

re: Tyson Chandler. I'm not comparing Gilmore to Chandler as offensive equals. I'm suggesting that if Chandler's scores something like 13 pts/75 at 70% TS, it's because he gets a lot of his offense off of creation from teammates and offensive rebounds. That's not a bad thing, but it is one type of offense. It's basically secondary offense. It's the polar opposite of what Iverson did. Which means their efficiency (and skill curves) are on opposite ends of the spectrum. That's what I was equating to Gilmore -- he can be 20 and 70%, but there's nothing I see suggesting it's as good as someone like Paul Pierce's 20 and 55%, especially when factoring in the difference in pressure/creation in puts on a defense and what it does to help teammates.

See, you say "creation from teammates", I say "scoring in the flow". Chandler's issue is that he can't scale up much past 10 PPG. If a player can rack up 20 PPG at hyper-efficiency, to me this of pretty great positive impact. Yes, it's not as great as being able do 30 PPG efficiently, but it's still quite good.

What about those best early years from Gilmore?

1972 - Artis's rookie year. In generally, it's hard for me to believe rookies have the same impact they will have by even their second year. There's a learning curve in 99% of star players. That this is considered Gilmore's "peak" ITO of stats and accolades is concerning to me, particularly since the 1972 ABA is weak. (I don't think it's his peak as a player.) He finished 8th in RPOY voting, and his postseason was considered a bit of a flameout.

1973 - This season seemed less regarded than his 1972 season...which again, is a weird sign to me. He was the most discussed Colonel in the 3 FInals wins over Indiana, but what happened in the 4 losses? I recall reading UPI reports like Kentucky couldn't keep Indiana off the glass in G5 (21 Oreb to 9). I always felt there was waxing and waning in Gilmore's key series. Or in G1 (another loss) that Gilmore had 15 points and it was Issel who went for 33 and 20. Or in G7, 19 points (to lead the team at least) but no mention of him at all in a postgame wrap I've seen...

I'd want to emphasize again that the big drop off for Gilmore is really just his shotblocking. To me if nothing else in your game drops but shot blocking for years on end, and when you came out of college you had INSANE hops, it stands to reason that that what changed was a drop in athleticism replaced by additional skill.

That said, the playoff disappoints are valid to bring up.

1974 – Gilmore finishes second in MVP voting to Dr. J (49 to 9), which makes sense to me as players should be getting better in their early years. The 1974 ABA is tougher, Dr. J is no slouch, and I think that's a nice recognition. However, we then get this, from the 4.29 issue of SI (pg 24):

Throughout the series the 6-11 Paultz engulfed his Colonel counterpart, Artis Gilmore, like a 240-pound sack of Silly Putty, holding to a 15-point scoring average and outplaying him overall

.

I like Bill Paultz, but that says way more about Gilmore than the Whopper to me. Reading the article, it seemed Paultz simply used position and strength to prevent Artis from getting easy baskets near the hoop. And this was coming off the best stretch of Artis's career, averaging 20-20+ since the AS break and going for 30-19 on 67% shooting in the first round. SI described the offense vs. New York as “inert and inept.” Gilmore finished 9th in RPOY, with a single vote.

Great find, and a strong point. I would point out though that taking a guy averaging less than 19 PPG for the season and reducing him to 15 PPG is not necessarily THAT dramatic. And his scoring average was much higher the next year, and went up further still to 24 PPG leading his team to the title.

1975 – One might think this is Artis' peak season, because his team won the title and he had 3 high profile games in the Finals, including a huge 4th quarter and a record 31 rebounds in the clinching G5. And it may have been a case of Artis maturing. But he didn't earn an MVP vote in the league (McGinnis, Erving, Calvin and Bobby Jones did). As for his playoffs and Finals v George McGinnis:

Gilmore's NBA FInals
G1: 26/13 -- McGinnis 35/12/9 (25 in 2nd half). Gilmore DQed with 8 min left and Colonels dominated.
G2: 12/15 -- Gilmore GW shot with 2 seconds left only score of 2nd half.
G3: 41/28 -- 11 OReb. McGinnis mildly sprains ankle.
G4: 18/18 -- Gilmore "wasn't much of a factor in 4th" (AP). McGinnis 22 pts 21 reb.
G5: 28/31 -- Gilmore's rebounds an ABA playoff record. McGinnis 31.

Gilmore's Finals avg: 25.0 ppg 21.0 rpg
McGinnis Finals avg: 27.6 ppg 14.0 rpg 6.4 apg

Gilmore through first 2 rounds: 23.7 ppg 15.9 rpg
McGinnis through first 2 rounds: 34.1 ppg 16.6 rpg 8.9 apg

Well, I think the bigger thing here is judging McGinnis than Gilmore. McGinnis was arguably the closest thing we've ever seen to LeBron before LeBron. I've come to knock him quite a bit for being unable to make use of teammates even when he himself was forcing inefficient shots, as well as his tremendous immaturity and unwillingness to play defense.

Interesting anecdote: McGinnis was actually the reason Larry Brown quit his first NBA gig mid-season and took a job at UCLA. Brown is obviously temperamental, but you can imagine that he knew what he was talking about and McGinnis simply refused to do a lot of the little things that would help his team.

1976 – Gilmore again without an MVP vote. In an SI piece by Curry Fitzpatrick, Issel is described as outplaying Gilmore in G7 of the series (and of course, David Thompson's 40-10-5). Gilmore isn't really spoken of in the Nuggets series recaps that I can find, but Thompson comes across as the best player in the series (and someone I think highly of anyway). Gilmore does have a notable G3, as he “added 36 points,” (15-20, 16 reb) but Bird Averitt was the headliner with 18 of his 40 in the 4th. (Bird also had 34 to avoid elimination in G6.) In G4 Artis had 22. In G6 he had 21 in 2 OT (Issel had 22).

Not a lot to respond to here, but I will say the lack of MVP votes don't really bother me. The voting was simply first place votes, which basically means the vote was split between the contenders and the homer picks. Erving won all 3 MVPs, with McGinnis tying him once. Erving is an all-time great, and McGinnis is an all-time talent, and people of the era typically insist that Gilmore was the #2 player in ABA history.

1977 – If we are working under the assumption that this is still a good year for Gilmore (and 78 too), we need to be fair and note he didn't make an all-nba team because of Walton and Jabbar. But at 27 years old, he also didn't make the All-Star team. That isn't simply a function of team play or ABA bias, that's just a reflection of how people thought of him. And as has been discussed, the Bulls defense only improved slightly. The offense does improve considerably, so one has to gauge whether they think that is because of the presence of Gilmore. His shooting does drop 3% and I assume his turnovers spike if we look at 1978 data.

Typically you won't see more than 3 centers to an all-star side. In the West that meant that after Walton & Kareem, there was only one spot left. Denver began the year on a hot streak and we're playing at a 58-win pace at mid-season, which helped Dan Issel get the all-star nod.

Gilmore's Bulls started 2-14, but finished the year at 44-38. Hence, Gilmore was a weaker all-star candidate, but by season's end was a much stronger MVP candidate than Issel.

Also of note that Gilmore made all-star 5 of the next 6 seasons, and one more in 1986 literally a decade after he came to the NBA. That puts him at 11 all-star seasons in his career, one more than John Stockton.

[lorak]

Gilmore v Walton
.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaVxEyEzs-w

[Fencer reregistered]

Returning for a moment to Pierce, we all know that the 2007 roster changes transformed his career. The question is whether his resulting play should shoot him up in the rankings, or whether he should just be congratulated for his good luck.

I lean to the former camp. What he had to do as part of a stacked team was quite different from what he had to do as The Man, and he did it well. He defended consistently and poured in points when he could, rather than the other way around. He excelled at spot up 3-pt shooting, and swing passes to other such shooters (Ray Allen!). On the intangibles side, he fit into a whole other team dynamic.

Perhaps a similar case can be made for Drexler (Rockets). But the period from 2007 on does set Pierce aside from Iverson, Carter, TMac, Nique, and other volume scoring wing players people might be inclined to lump him in with.

[ElGee]

Doc, some good points. I also responded to your other post, not to confuse you, but we now have two running conversations. It's kind of like Back to the Future II right now.

re: MVP love - I think that's a fair equation. Although I'd suggest the difference is Stockton did it longer at a consistent level. You say, well wait, Stock only made 10 AS games. I say he brought a very consistent level of play for 10 consecutive years. I see that for the first 5-8 years for Artis. Perhaps I need to re-evaulte his 1980 and beyond play (I will now), and he certainly may have some merit up to 1983. But 1986? C'mon, don't you think a lot of that has to do with lack of choices?

WC Big Men:

38 year old Kareem (AS)
Ralph Sampson (AS)
Hakeem (AS)
*Sampson and Kareem started, so they needed another big. Who else? Kiki Vandeweghe? Larry Nance? Jack Sikma?

re: Chandler. True, but that's how I see Gilmore, just on a higher scale. I believe this is his career NBA game: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Bb ... %2C2992882

That's obviously way better than Chandler, but what I'm saying is you look at gaudy raw numbers and they are deceptive because he's not an offensive hub. Not an offensive anchor. He can't scale it up for big 30-point games against key defenses. *That's* why I cited scoring rates -- his is ~20/75 whereas Chandler's was 14.3 this year. It's a clear step up, but it's not some massive difference where Gilmore's scoring relative to Tyson's is awesome self-initiated offense next to Ben Wallace scraps.

re: His early peak - you are right about most numbers staying steady, but I was generally observing that the MVP recognition decreases as well as the WS too.

re: 1975. I find it a bit telling that Gilmore fouled out with 8 min left in G1 and then Kentucky blew out Indiana, and that he scored one bucket in the second half of G2 and they won. Don't those suggest a player who isn't of the utmost, superstar level importance to you? Not saying that doesn't happen with a good team around someone, but I don't see this as much as I see it with Artis for guys who have high peaks...and it seems as if the crux of the issue here is how one thinks Artis peaked. I don't think it was very high...

Good points about 1977, but it doesn't change that Issel, Luke (kind of) and Lanier beat him out for the AS game when he was supposed to be in his prime. That's not good for the high-peak argument.

[ElGee]

For Doc and those informed: Do you think Artis Gilmore was better than Robert Parish in 1983 and why/why not?

[therealbig3]

But again, I think some of what you wrote has to do with how generally underrated Pierce is. I think there were several years when Pierce should have made the All-NBA team, but he was snubbed in favor of McGrady and Iverson. Carter is a guy who I think has been snubbed by the media due to them not liking him, because his production warranted selections after 01.

And I'm more impressed with what Pierce was able to do with his Celtics teams pre-08 than what Carter was able to do with his Raptors/Nets, McGrady with the Magic/Rockets, and Iverson with the Sixers. Those guys had better teams to work with imo, especially McGrady in Houston, and they didn't do much outside of 01, when Carter and Iverson advanced pretty far. Pierce got to the Conference Finals in 02, and he led his team to the 2nd round over the favored Pacers in 03. And all the while, he's putting up big numbers. The only playoff run he struggled in was 04, in which his Celtics, who won 36 games and somehow made the playoffs, were just horribly overmatched against the Pacers, who won 61 games and had the best record in the league that year.

And I do put stock into APM numbers, but they're not 100% reliable either, and we don't even have APM numbers for all of the guys you mentioned (outside of Kidd), so for all we know, they could be in the same boat as Pierce.

In Engelmann's 10-year study, Pierce ranks 11th, ahead of Kidd. But Baron Davis, Chris Paul, and Manu Ginobili are 3 of the guys ahead of him, none of whom are a threat to him in this voting, except for maybe Paul, but for argument's sake, let's ignore him for now. So the 10-year study says Pierce is a top 8 player in his generation, and 5 of the guys ahead of him are already voted in, and the other two guys are Wade and Nash, who are already nominated and will likely be voted into the next 2-3 spots.

Pierce ranks 19th in Engelmann's 6-year study, but again, look at some of the names ahead of him: Bosh, Bogut, Davis, Aldridge, Nene, Amir Johnson, Deng, Collison, and Ginobili. Common sense and just watching them play should tell us that Pierce should rank over all of them over this time period. Pierce is now in top 10 territory from 06-11, and focusing on all-time ranking, again, two of the names are Paul and Howard, who I personally don't think have been around long enough to rank over Pierce all-time. So that's top 8 territory, with the same 7 guys ahead of him as in the last study.

The APM studies are useful, but like I said, they're not perfect, since you have a lot of guys being ranked very high that don't deserve to be there, so how do we know how accurately it's measuring Pierce's impact?

I understand we're talking about the top 30 players of all time, and it's exclusive company, but I definitely think Pierce belongs there. I mean, ignoring all accolades, and just breaking down Pierce's game: how many scorers not yet nominated or voted are better than Pierce? How many are better at rebounding for their position? How many are better defensively? How many are better at creating their own shot? How many are better at creating for others? And how many are as reliable in the playoffs? I don't think there are too many players left, if any, that have the all-around package that Pierce brings to the table. I don't think there's really a weakness to his game.

EDIT: And technically, I don't even have Pierce as a top 30 player all time. I have him 31 right now, but I don't know where to rank guys like Cowens, McAdoo, or Hayes, so Pierce might drop to 34 for all I know.

There are a few things in here that I want to reply to, but I don't want to make this into some type of anti-Pierce tangent, so I'm going to reply here then try not address this anymore.

My point in the last thread was that in general, no matter HOW you choose to quantify players, Pierce comes out in around the same range. I don't think it's a case of him being so underrated by the accolades. He only has the one 2nd team and three 3rd team All NBA nods...but even if you give him a few more, he'd still end up no better than the 10th - 15th range among his contemporaries on that front. He's 24th among active players in MVP shares. If you ignore accolades and move to the box scores, Pierce is 18th among active players in career PER. He's 16th among active players in career WS/48. If you move to the +/- realm, as I mentioned last post, let's say he even rounds up to around 10th among active players (though I don't necessarily agree with how you parsed it before...Kidd, for example, is several years older and was consistently ahead of Pierce until he got to his late 30s and Pierce surpassed him. And you can't just ignore Manu, either), again, he still hasn't separated himself from the secondary (perhaps even tertiary) level of his own generation.

My point is, whatever your cup of tea for quantifying players, Pierce just doesn't in any way separate himself from his peers in a way that makes me think he should be getting serious discussion yet. You say you'd take Pierce over the Iversons, TMacs, Carters, even Manus of his generation. and I don't even necessarily disagree with you. But I think Pierce vs those players is a legit, in-depth conversation to be had. And none of those guys are going to be nominated for awhile, most likely, when they are IMO Pierce's peers.

You mention Pierce's pre-07 team success, but I'd say even that is a dubious distinction. Pierce's Celtics, in 9 years, only 3 times had a record over .500, peaking at 49 wins. The Celtics' record over his career was well under .500 at 321 - 385. Yes, the 49-win team made the ECF, but you can't just ignore that the East was horrific for the early 2000s...the same way that Kidd's Nets or Iverson's Sixers making the Finals have to be viewed through the "East sucks and SOMEBODY had to make it" prism, the Celtics beating other average/below-average teams then getting beaten by another slightly above average team in the ECF isn't that impressive to me on a career front. Yes, Pierce's teams tended to be poor and he had reasonable success considering that...this is why I think his APM tends to be a bit higher than his box score stats would indicate. He had a good team impact, regardless of how bad his team results were. But again, neither those results nor, in fact, the APM measurements themselves do anything to separate Pierce from his peers in an All-time sense.

Finally, you ask what other scorers in NBA history like Pierce aren't nominated yet, then add to your criteria from there. I think that's the wrong approach. I'd ask, instead, what other players in NBA history that were better than him haven't been nominated yet. And as I mentioned in the first post of mine that you replied to, there are still several that I think warrant discussion before we get to Pierce. Reed and Cowens. Moncrief and Gervin. Kidd and Gilmore seem to be getting the most discussion now. Payton and Stockton have already gotten a lot of discussion as well. I actually agree with Pancake here...there are others here as well. You seem to be coming from the direction that Pierce is something of a given at this level and that the others need to have their cases proven over him. To me, it's the reverse...Pierce hasn't even really separated himself from his own peers, so to me he's the one that has to be proven that he's on this level. I haven't really seen that.

Well, there's our disagreement, I think Pierce has separated himself from Carter, Iverson, and McGrady, the only reason most people don't think so is because the media has told us his entire career that he wasn't on their level...and you can throw in Gervin and Nique into the mix.

You're bringing up evaluation methods that I personally don't care about much. PER, WS/48, MVP shares...to me, they're just whatever...they seem like made up, obscure formulas that don't really point to anything, because there's so many inconsistencies with them. I base most of my evaluation in comparing the box score stats and the advanced stats like TRB% and TS%. I try and adjust for era and pace, and I look to see how long these players maintained their production. I check their playoff numbers to see if there's a significant drop off, and I use APM too, when it's available. I basically try and get an idea of how good they are on each side of the ball, and compare it to another player.

You keep pointing out that Pierce is only top 10 of his own generation, but what does that prove? And the fact that there are people that think Manu is comparable to Pierce proves just how underrated Pierce is. Ginobili has had a much shorter career, he's come off the bench most of the time, his peak doesn't touch Pierce's, and he's never had to be the #1 option.

I compared Pierce to Drexler before, and Pierce compares favorably. Drexler seems to be one of the candidates now, and I love Kidd, he's one of my favorite players ever...but I don't think he deserves to go over Pierce. I don't think enough attention has been paid to how bad his Celtics teams were pre-08. Speaking of which, T-Mac's Magic, Carter's Raptors/Nets, and Iverson's Sixers played in the same Eastern Conference, with better teams, and they didn't accomplish any more than Pierce did.

A lot of the players being mentioned simply don't strike me as that great to be honest, and I don't see why they've clearly separated themselves from someone like Pierce.

[therealbig3]

This is what I said about Pierce vs Drexler:

BTW, can't you make the case that Pierce>Drexler? Last time I ranked them, I had Drexler like 2-3 spots ahead, but come to think of it, is Drexler better on either side of the ball? He was a better playmaker for sure, but Pierce has a decent edge as a scorer imo. He was stuck on pathetic Celtics teams for a while, and he carried them to mediocrity...and actually advanced past the 1st round multiple times.

He had an underrated peak, he has impressive longevity, and he's one of the best big game performers around. His playoff numbers are great, and he always seems to bring his A-game when his team needs it. Honestly, if I needed a superstar performance in a do-or-die game and I could only pick one current player...and Dirk was already taken...I'd take Pierce, over guys like Kobe, Wade, and LeBron.

Check his numbers in elimination games (haven't accounted for 2011):

24.5 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 4.0 apg, 1.4 spg, .8 bpg, 3.2 TOpg, .566 TS%

Not saying he should be nominated right now, but I have him ahead of guys like Payton, Kidd, Isiah, and Stockton, and until someone can prove otherwise, I'm probably moving him ahead of Drexler and maybe McHale. I think Pierce is massively underrated.

For comparison's sake, here's Pierce's and Drexler's efficiency compared to league average (TS%):

Pierce
01: +4.5
02: +5.0
03: +1.3
04: +0.1
05: +5.4
06: +4.7
07: +3.0
08: +5.9
09: +3.8
10: +7.0
11: +7.9

He's averaged 21.9 ppg over this stretch (878 games). The league average for TS% over this time was 53.2%. Pierce's TS% over this time was 57.1%, or +3.9.

Drexler
87: +1.4
88: +2.6
89: +1.8
90: +1.4
91: +2.9
92: +2.9
93: -1.9
94: -1.4
95: +3.4
96: +0.9
97: +1.2
98: +0.7

He averaged 22.1 ppg over this stretch (849 games). The league average for TS% over this time was 53.5%. Drexler's TS% over this time was 55.1%, or +1.6.

So Pierce scored on pretty much identical volume, with a good advantage in terms of efficiency, while being a comparable rebounder and was more durable.

Lol, I'm kind of ranting about a comparison that isn't even relevant yet, but for the people voting for Drexler, or one of the PGs that have been discussed...why not Pierce?

EDIT: I know that it seems a little weird that I'm using their numbers during years where they're no longer in their prime...but Pierce's highest efficiency seasons have been in the last two years, and he's still an 18-19 ppg scorer, so it seemed to be unfair to exclude those. Similarly, Drexler in 96 and 97 had pretty efficient scoring seasons and was still dropping 18+ ppg. It wasn't until 98 when his efficiency fell, but if we exclude that, and include 86, which some people might feel was his prime...you get identical results.

If we simply exclude Drexler's 98 season altogether (in which he's still dropping 18 ppg, mind you), it just makes Pierce's durability advantage even clearer...he would have played in significantly more games through the same amount of seasons...and Drexler's overall numbers probably don't change much at all.

[therealbig3]

i'm really curious at the pierce talk. considering that the project is emphasizing "peak play" and the fact that there are a LOT of players remaining that i can rattle off without much thought that should be voted in before him. guys like rodman, gervin, unseld, elvin hayes, ben wallace, iverson, moncrief, mourning, dwight, gilmore, mcadoo, grant hill's 5.5 spectacular seasons...

i mean really pierce is on the fringes of top 50 battling it out with (imo) mchale, mark price, mark jackson, kevin johnson, vince, dumars, mutombo and players of that ilk.

i have no problem putting DRob here but i think Baylor is sinking like a stone. i'll make a case for raw numbers - you can say it was padded in an era where the pace was blistering but the fact that he was able to put up 30 pts 17 reb seasons says something in and of itself. kobe may have been gunning shots in '06 but it's still darn impressive he notched the first 35ppg since Jordan. rodman padded rebounds, dwight chases blocks, and lebron monopolizes the ball. all are stat-padders to an extent yet the raw numbers are impressive because they're just so freakishly high. aren't baylor's numbers "freakishly high" ? can't we give the guy the benefit of the doubt that he was silly good because he came in 2nd in scoring to wilt while shooting better than the league average and was in the top 5 in rpg during an era where russ and wilt were de facto 1 and 2?

vote: baylor
nominate: unseld

Don't see an argument for those guys over Pierce at all.

Actually I don't see an argument for most of the guys you listed, but definitely not those 3.

[penbeast0]

I've posted this before and if I find it I will repost it, but the ABA centers by 1974 were roughly equal to the NBA ones. There were more greats in the NBA than the ABA (5-6 to 2, Gilmore and Daniels) but the NBA also had twice as many teams. That said, there were more stiffs in the NBA playing center than the ABA by more than the 2/1 margin too . . . and those ABA centers had career arcs very similar to similar NBA centers after the merger with guys like Nater, Paultz, Caldwell Jones, Moses Malone, Mike Green, Tom Owens, Len Elmore etc. being very comparable to a similar sized grouping from the NBA.

So, if you dismiss Gilmore's ABA numbers for his competition, you have to dismiss Kareem's also . . . after the aging Wilt retires, who is left close to Kareem's height -- his main competition was Bob McAdoo and Dave Cowens, both smaller than Artis's main competition, Mel Daniels (same height, more bulk).

[Doctor MJ]

But there's a lot of Moses Maloneness to that WS list. As in, his ABA seasons are inflated because of (a) split leagues, (b) smaller league (height) and (c) pace. I don't think he was as good as his box suggests anyway.

Then he has a bunch of years on the back end which slowly accumulate more WS's, but the individual seasons for much of the 80s don't really do much to help a basketball team. I'd rather have a 14 WS season in a vacuum than 7 4 WS seasons.

And since no one seems to have done it, I ran the numbers for the 33 games Artis missed with the knee in 1980 (1 remaining from the year unaccounted for).

With: 108.8 ppg 110.6 opp
W/Out: 105.6 ppg 109.6 opp

For a total impact of +2.3, from a -4.1 MOV to -1.8, with less than a ppg difference on defense in points allowed. He was 30 at the time of the injury, coming off back-to-back AS appearances and a season of 21-12-3 62% TS and averaged 18-9-3 on 64% TS after the injury (roughly).

I'm not a big "career total" guy so I'm definitely there with you for some of that, but I posted it to show the serious scale difference. Picking a Ewing or Robinson over Gilmore is one thing, but the next set of bigs down had extremely fractured careers.

Re: Inflated ABA. Literally if you completely ignore his time in the ABA, he still kills most of these guys on the NBA list. Not saying he'd be my next big without the ABA play, just again trying hammer in the scale of things.

Re: In/Out. Cool to see, but it's not enough to really sway me.

[Doctor MJ]

For Doc and those informed: Do you think Artis Gilmore was better than Robert Parish in 1983 and why/why not?

Haven't really thought about it that much, but yes, my gut would be to take Artis. Bigger shotblocker, more rebounding despite being on a better rebounding team, near the same volume with far greater efficiency despite not getting to play next to Bird.

I will say though the fact that the Spurs defense didn't show any major improvement with Gilmore is a concern. Boston's clearly the better defensive team, and Parish is part of that.

Your thoughts?

[Fencer reregistered]

i'm really curious at the pierce talk. considering that the project is emphasizing "peak play" and the fact that there are a LOT of players remaining that i can rattle off without much thought that should be voted in before him. guys like rodman, gervin, unseld, elvin hayes, ben wallace, iverson, moncrief, mourning, dwight, gilmore, mcadoo, grant hill's 5.5 spectacular seasons...

Don't see an argument for those guys over Pierce at all.

Actually I don't see an argument for most of the guys you listed, but definitely not those 3.

Agreed, except maybe insofar as Wallace was a better Rodman.

Rodman was never better than #3 on a championship team, and never would have been.
Gervin -- pretty competitive with Pierce as a scorer, but Pierce did a lot more than score.
Iverson -- ditto
McAdoo -- ditto
Hill, Moncrief -- longevity
Hayes -- lousy intangibles, and not productive enough to overlook that
Unseld -- well, I'd consider granting him -- but take his dubious stats, and add in great man defense, great hockey-assist passing, and great intangibles, and how high does he get?

[therealbig3]

i'm really curious at the pierce talk. considering that the project is emphasizing "peak play" and the fact that there are a LOT of players remaining that i can rattle off without much thought that should be voted in before him. guys like rodman, gervin, unseld, elvin hayes, ben wallace, iverson, moncrief, mourning, dwight, gilmore, mcadoo, grant hill's 5.5 spectacular seasons...

How does Unseld get mentioned, btw? Couldn't get to the line worth a crap, and his efficiency was nothing special. His overall scoring was pretty mediocre. He was a good rebounder and passer, especially considering his position...but why should he clearly be ahead of Pierce?

It's just another case of overrating an older player, and ignoring a player that the media has told us isn't that great. People forget that at his peak, Pierce was a 27/7/5 player with 58% TS. His career low in scoring is 16.5 ppg, has averaged over 18 ppg in every other year of his career, has averaged over 20 ppg in 8 seasons, and has averaged over 25 ppg in 5 seasons. He's 35th all time in career scoring, and If he averages 18 ppg next year, while playing 75 games, he'll rank 31st all time in career scoring, passing Greer, Payton, Bird, and Drexler. He's in the same ballpark as Ray Allen, Tim Duncan, and Dirk Nowitzki.

Simply put, I think Pierce is one of the greatest scorers ever. And as far as rebounding for his position, he ranks 15th all time in TRB% among SFs...he's a very good defender and passer, albeit not elite. He's one of the few players who steps his game up in the playoffs.

In my mind, he's a slightly lesser Dwyane Wade, who was stuck on a bad team, which forces people to forget him.

[drza]

I've posted this before and if I find it I will repost it, but the ABA centers by 1974 were roughly equal to the NBA ones. There were more greats in the NBA than the ABA (5-6 to 2, Gilmore and Daniels) but the NBA also had twice as many teams. That said, there were more stiffs in the NBA playing center than the ABA by more than the 2/1 margin too . . . and those ABA centers had career arcs very similar to similar NBA centers after the merger with guys like Nater, Paultz, Caldwell Jones, Moses Malone, Mike Green, Tom Owens, Len Elmore etc. being very comparable to a similar sized grouping from the NBA.

So, if you dismiss Gilmore's ABA numbers for his competition, you have to dismiss Kareem's also . . . after the aging Wilt retires, who is left close to Kareem's height -- his main competition was Bob McAdoo and Dave Cowens, both smaller than Artis's main competition, Mel Daniels (same height, more bulk).

I actually agree with this to a point. Not the "dismiss" Kareem part, but if you go back to the #2 and #3 threads in this project, you'll see me say that the split leagues watered things down for BOTH leagues, and IMO gives me pause when evaluating those numbers. Especially in a case like Kareem, when he was putting up volumes in his first several years (the ABA period) that he never replicated once the leagues combined, despite that coming right when you would expect him to hit a peak.

In other words, I don't think it's as simple as trying to prove that the ABA was similar to the NBA of that generation...that worked in the RPoY project, because we were comparing players where both were under the same circumstances. But considering that outside of a specific time period, we don't have the talent split into 2 leagues, I do think it's fair to take that into consideration when looking at players whose stats look more dominant during that period and were never replicated afterwards. Sure, injuries or other things could also play a part. But I don't agree with an ABA = watered down 70s NBA therefore = all NBA formula that would make all stats and accomplishments necessarily rated equally.

[Fencer reregistered]

OK, I'll do it:

Nominate: Paul Pierce

[drza]

Vote: David Robinson
Nominate: Jason Kidd

[MarJJMar]

I really can't grasp how people can seriously vote here for Dwayne Wade or Walt Frazier over Steve Nash. These guys have nothing on Nash except one or 2 championships which also comes down to competition, teammates and some luck. Their playing primes were not as good as Nashs run of 2 MVPs almost 3, probably should have been 3.

[Fencer reregistered]

I really can't grasp how people can seriously vote here for Dwayne Wade or Walt Frazier over Steve Nash. These guys have nothing on Nash except one or 2 championships which also comes down to competition, teammates and some luck. Their playing primes were not as good as Nashs run of 2 MVPs almost 3, probably should have been 3.

Check out the link at the top of the RPOY thread, and you'll see that a lot of folks disagree with you.

I think the pendulum may be swinging a bit back toward Nash, however.