Quotatious wrote:TrueLAfan wrote:47. Tony Parker
May I ask you a question? Why do you have Parker so high, and there's such a big difference between him and Billups (#70), Ginobili (#74) and Gasol (#81)? I have to admit that I don't hold him in particularly high regard, and consider Chauncey, Manu and Pau to be better players (and quite comfortably, at that).
All the players you mention are great. But let’s not pretend that Tony Parker has been sitting on his a$$. (Really, the gaps aren’t that great either … when you get below about the top 35 or 40, the differences between careers are going to be subjectively assessed.) We are talking about a guy with a terrific +/- differential that has been more or less at his peak for 10 years. His peak is top 5-10 level. He’s got several All-NBA second team nods. Four MVP top 10 finishes (three more top 15 finishes). He’s an absolute playoff stud; a Finals MVP. He’s just turned 32 and is midpeak, coming off his fourth title, fifth year in the top 15 of MVP voting, and third straight All-NBA team selection. There’s some juice there.
The contemporary player I have closest to Parker is Paul Pierce. Pierce is a terrific player—tough, durable. Multi-faceted player. But I’m not (at all) convinced that his impact was any higher at his peak than Parker’s was/is. Does anyone really think Pierce was ever a top 5 player in the league? I don’t. I think he may have been close to that level a couple of times, and had a bunch of years as a top 10-15 player. That’s great. But that’s true of Parker too.
I love Chauncey Billups. I think Chauncey peaked higher than Pierce—I actually think he peaked higher than Parker too. 2006 Chauncey is better—not by a lot, but by a little. But I also think Chauncey’s peak was shorter than Parker’s and his top 2 or 3 seasons stand out a little more … so that when you compare top 6 or 7 seasons, you’re at break even. After that, I go with Parker. Doesn’t say anything bad about Chauncey Billups, though.
Ginobili is better when he’s on the court than Parker. But he’s played over 2100 minutes in a season 5 times in his career—a long career. Manu’s a better role player. I thought that the one year he started—2011—he was just as good as Parker, and that they were both top 10-15 players. That was a career high in MP for Manu. Parker has exceeded the amount 7 times. That matters. Part of value is how good you are when you’re on the court—but you have to combine that with how
much you’re on the court. The NBA is not a PER/36 exercise. So I go with Parker there too.
I consider Pau Gasol to be overrated. (Sorry.) The triangle brought out the best in him. He was good at many things. I never considered him to be a top 10 player. Ever. I think Tony Parker has been a top 10 player in two or three of the last four years…probably was a top 10 guy before that for a year or two.
Essentially, in some forms of analysis, Parker falls into a gully. He doesn’t have outstanding scores using certain metrics, and he doesn’t have huge raw numbers. He’s on a great team with a great system, and there’s only so much that can go around, statistically. But Parker wins. All he does is win. And everyone knows it. When I say that Parker rates about even with Stockton in my book, people freak. Well, I think Parker’s peak is as good or better than Stockton’s ever was—and, frankly, Tony’s had more top 10 years than Stock did. Reluctantly, I rate Stockton ahead because of sentiment (I like him—and yeah, that means something) and insane longetivity. And the fact of the matter is that, like I said, when you get below about the top 35 or 40, the differences between careers are going to be subjective.
ElGee wrote:Cool. What's your criteria?
Well, I just said part of it. You should be winning. There are times when it’s not possible to win a lot—look, no player in NBA history was going to get the 1976 Lakers to 47 wins. No one. I can cut Kareem a little slack for that, given that every other team he was on won at least that many games. Except two. And Kareem missed 20 games one year, and 17 in the other year. The teams were .559 with Kareem--71-56. They were 12-25 without him--.324. That's the difference between a 26 win team and a 46 win team. (Braess's Paradox did not, apparently, apply to Kareem's teams.)
The bottom line of evaluating value is that the value has to mean something. I’ve said this before—people criticize the MVP voting because it almost always goes to a player on a team with a winning record (or, really, at least 45 wins). But that makes sense.
If your play doesn’t translate into wins, how valuable is what you’re doing? IMO, an MVP candidate is worth 15-20 wins over an average, replacement player. (The example with Kareem noted above gives an idea of this.) For a team to win less than 41 games with an MVP candidate, they would be a 20-25 win team with him. So, yeah, you gotta win. If someone is considered to be a top 3-4 player on a team that wins 30-35 games or less, one of two things must be true, IMO.
1) The team is historically, epically bad—they would struggle to win 15 games without the player.
2) Usually, though, a bad record means a player is not that valuable. This is what people are talking about when they discuss the value of Adrian Dantley or Pete Maravich.
Know how many times in the last ten full seasons a team has won 15 games or less? Five. The chances of a top 3-4 player being on a team like that are very, very small. It could happen. But it usually doesn’t.
I think statistics and, more specifically, statistical analysis is important. I have found considerable agreement in some statistical metrics, and I find that useful. But I’ve seen disagreement—so I don’t see any single metric or combination as anything like a be-all, end-all. I did some analysis for a team for a while, and there was more than one time when I had to tell a stat-obsessed scout “I don’t care how good his Per/36 numbers are—if he can’t stay on the court more than 8-10 minutes without picking up two fouls, he isn’t going to be an impact player in the league.” Numbers have to be tempered with visuals. Both are important.
And this counts for contemporary observations as well. There’s inherent bias in all systems—eyeball and/or statistical—toward a certain type of play. (People will say there isn’t. I believe they are incorrect.) Players who were effective at one time in one style of play will/would be less effective at a time in a different style of play. Contemporary observations give us an idea of what people at the time thought in terms of effectiveness and value. It was a different world 35 years ago. There was so little media, especially around the NBA, that the types of filters athletes need to have today, in a world dominated by social media, didn’t exist. They didn’t need to. Going over comments from players and observers at the time, I’m amazed at the bluntness and harshness of players assessment. And, look, these commentators …
they were there. This is what people thought and said
at the time. To say that we know better now or understand better is usually hubris. So I value those observations. This goes for All-NBA and All-D teams too.
And I think MVP voting is terrific. Always have. When people b!tch about not liking MVP voting, they’re usually talking about votes that are close. Want to know how many times in the last 50 years a player in the Top 3 of the RealGM voting in the Retro POY project was Number 9 or below in actual MVP voting?
Twice. You may not agree with who gets number one … but it's rare that a guy that's a true MVP candidate finishes out of the top 10 … or, really, the top 5 or 6. I hear a lot of people complain about how Shaq didn’t get enough MVPs. Well, maybe he didn’t get voted #1 as much as some would have liked. But he’s #7 overall in MVP award shares—ahead of, for instance, Tim Duncan. I think MVP award shares are important to look at too.
Does that sound like too much to consider? Maybe. The juggling and balancing is always going to be subjective. That’s why we have these projects. But to circle back to what’s been commented on—
Tony Parker.
#59 in MVP award shares
7 years in top 15 of MVP voting
Four All-NBA team selections (three second team, one third team)
Four rings
One finals MVP
Player A
#75 in MVP award shares
6 years in top 15 of MVP voting
Three All-NBA team selections (all second team)
Player B
#112 in MVP award shares
6 years in top 15 of MVP voting
Four All-NBA team selections (one second team, three third team
One ring
One finals MVP
Player C
No MVP award shares
Never received an MVP vote
Three All-NBA team selections (one second team, two third team)
Two rings
While I reserve the right to change things, I think Tony Parker’s a little underrated by some statistical analysis. The people that watched him and Alex English, Paul Pierce, and Pau Gasol don’t seem to disagree with that either. FWIW.
. I'm not satisfied with my list, either.
