RealGM Top 100 List #47

[Moonbeam]

I'll swap my vote to Willis Reed in order to secure a runoff. I think he had a fantastic peak and was a key contributor on some very successful Knick teams (though I feel Frazier was better). Decent scorer at his peak (with a Score+ north of 3 in 1968-69) and a revered defender.

[DQuinn1575]

I'll swap my vote to Willis Reed in order to secure a runoff. I think he had a fantastic peak and was a key contributor on some very successful Knick teams (though I feel Frazier was better). Decent scorer at his peak (with a Score+ north of 3 in 1968-69) and a revered defender.

I'll second this and also switch my vote to Willis Reed

[penbeast0]

Allright, we have a runoff. Willis Reed v. Tracy McGrady

[SactoKingsFan]

Probably would have voted for Deke, but I was busy and kind of lost track of time. Although Reed and McGrady had great peaks, their poor longevity/durability is a major issue that has prevented them from making the top 40. I'd have them in the top 30-35 if they had more high quality/prime seasons. I'm going with McGrady for his higher peak, all around game and more well rounded skillset.

Vote: Tracy McGrady

Sent from my LG-G2 using RealGM Forums

[trex_8063]

If I don't vote in run-off, it's not that I'm not paying attention. I'm simply very very uncertain which way I'd go in this one.

Statistically McGrady looks significantly better, although Reed was so smooth in his prime, I suspect he was certainly capable of some larger volumes (and thus higher PER's, etc) had he been playing on a lesser team. Those Knicks squads in the early 70's were so talented and balanced, though. Not saying he'd look statistically equal to McGrady, but I think it would close the gap a bit.
Reed I think wins out on intangibles, and without a doubt wins out in defense. In fact, the more video I watch of him (as well as maybe looking at some H2H's) makes me think his defense is a somewhat understated aspect of him.

McGrady, for all his injury troubles, still wins out by at least a small margin in longevity/durability.

I actually have these two guys adjacent to each other on my ATL presently. Kinda too close to call, unless someone can convince me.

[lukekarts]

Vote for #47 - Willis Reed

- 10 year career
- 5x all NBA (1 1st, 4 2nd)
- 1x all defensive 1st team
- 1x reg season MVP (2 other top 5 finishes)
- 2x finals MVP
- 2x NBA champion

RS prime (65-71)

20.1 PPG, 13.8 RPG, 1.8 APG, 47.7% FG, 74.8% FT, 52.5% TS, .158 WS/48

PS prime (67-73)

19.7 PPG, 11.6 RPG, 2.2 APG, 47.8% FG, 76.8% FT, 51.6% TS, .155 WS/48

On their way to the championship in 1970, willis helped the knicks knock off 2 of the most dominant centers of all time in wilt and kareem. Undersized for a center at 6’9”, his brute strength and good defensive instincts were still able to deter them. He also had a great outside shot for a big man, which was very effective against wilt in his later years. He would again get the best of wilt in 73 when the knicks took down the lakers in the finals.

I don’t have a problem with questioning his 2 finals MVPs relative to Clyde’s level of play in those series. However, I don’t doubt that reed was a player whose impact went beyond the box score, and I’d say that’s what voters were recognizing when selecting him as finals MVP in both seasons. This was best exemplified in the famous moment when reed came through the tunnel in game 7 of the 70 finals:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGNITggLFs[/youtube]

As the lakers were warming up, they froze as they saw willis coming onto the court (he had previously missed game 6 with a torn muscle in his thigh, and no one expected him to play). He hit his first 2 jumpers, and the rest was history. Dramatic narrative? Of course, but Clyde himself said they wouldn’t have had the confidence to go out there and perform like they did without their captain leading the way. When you have the talent to back it up as willis did, that makes a difference.

He was certainly deserving of winning reg season MVP in 1970, leading the knicks to a 60-22 record and the #1 ranked SRS in the league. He put together season averages of 21.7 PPG, 13.9 RPG, 2 APG, 50.7 FG, 75.6% FT, 55.2% TS (+4.1% above league avg) and .227 WS/48

From 69-73, reed would anchor a knicks defense that ranked in the top 3rd of the league for 4 seasons:

69 - 4th
70 - 1st
71 - 2nd
73 - 4th

The season after reed retired, the knicks dropped to 11th (of 18) in DRTG. His impact on that end of the floor was clear, as was ability to lead a group of players to what’s often considered one of the best stretches of “team play” in NBA history.

I have concerns about Reed, so I'll put these, and some possible counter-arguments out there.

1) Is he another of those guys whose historical status is given a huge boost as the percieved star on champ (as I'd suggest Thomas, Hayes and Barry are. From this era one might argue Cowens too).

2) Longevity: Not just the 10 year career, but that he doesn't have too many seasons close to his peak performance. By the boxscore he's got a fairly clear two year peak ('69, '70); two very good years ('71, '68); one that might be at or near that standard ('67, horrible year for DWS but that might be short changing him); a good solid role player year ('73); and injury crippled version of same ('74); a hard-to-gauge inefficient volume scorer rookie year ('65); another injury crippled year ('72) and year the metrics suggest he was below average ('66).

Now admittedly at this point the bar above which seasons need to be to be majorly relevant will be dropping (you'd need a lot of "good" years to match the value of an MJ year), but still Reed has short longevity in absolute terms (8 proper seasons) and then perhaps too few of those are great (perhaps only two, then another two or three very good, then three lower ones as a role player or inefficent volume scorer).

Obviously this is without fully factoring in D (DWS tries in WS, PER can't for that era) or intangiables, including floor spacing from a center (though he wasn't always playing C on the Knicks).

Okay on to responding to the post. Hard to know how much is claimed in saying he "detered" Wilt and KAJ. But Wilt was coming back from a major knee injury that year and was already remodelling his game around being a defender rebounder and offensive role player. Then it's hard to know without full boxscores but it doesn't look like Kareem was to "deterred", on O at least. Then too "getting the better of Wilt" in '73. Sure he easily outscored him in lot less minutes. But even per minute he was clearly worse on the boards. IDK, you'd have to watch the games, and I may look at what books I have on finals series before I'd want to go comparing their series. In any case as a 30mpg player it limits your ability to make an impact. The one thing I will say just from '70 is with Wilt less mobile, Reed is a bad matchup for him, because Wilt doesn't want to come out a guard him.

I can buy serious positive intangiables (and things that weren't measured like D and spacing), but I'm not huge on weighing his 4 points as a really important thing in measuring a players greatness (maybe his D on Wilt would be more important, would have to look at that game and focus on that, it seems like he did a good job though as noted it wasn't full strength Wilt). I get that others will weight things differently though.

Regarding deserving of '70 MVP, he's a plausible candidate, but hardly a given. It's very possible that he wasn't the best player on the team. '69 might be better year for him.

Then regarding the defensive drop off, the season after Reed retired is also the season after DeBusschere retired. '74 (or '72) might be fairer bar for the drop off without him. Not least because the drop is not only in the standard of play at PF and C (DeBusschere and Reed replaced by John Gianelli, Phil Jackson and Harthorne Wingo) and in continuity but also in motivation (going from a recent champ to a .500 team).

A little counter-argument to your counter-argument. In the 1970 Finals, the game Reed missed, Wilt went off for 45 points. Whilst I appreciate Wilt was adapting, when he didn't have Reed on him, he was much more like his old self. Of course, the front court of Reed and Debusschere was no easy front court to score against.

[penbeast0]

It's a tough one. TMac was the more talented and the player I feared more but he could be lazy and tended to play his best when he wasn't part of a team effort but was dominating the play and the ball. Reed was the leader type and was the captain of one of the most unselfish and well coordinated team efforts in NBA history. I lean a bit to TMac but willing to change mind.

[Texas Chuck]

Run-Off Vote: Willis Reed

Good offensive player, terrific defender, great leader.

Obviously big moments on big stages.


Admittedly part of my vote for Reed here is a vote against T-MAC who I think gets too much of a pass for his lack of team success especially considering the amount of games he was missing starting at a very young age. He has massive stats, but I'm not convinced how much team lifting he was really doing. It's a shame he and Hill never really got a chance and then he and Yao never really did either, but he still had some really good teams in Houston and didn't elevate them.

[RayBan-Sematra]

VOTE : Reed

Great leader. Great defender. Voted MVP in a year with other strong candidates.
Proven on Championship runs. Punked Wilt at times.

[Clyde Frazier]

I have concerns about Reed, so I'll put these, and some possible counter-arguments out there.

1) Is he another of those guys whose historical status is given a huge boost as the percieved star on champ (as I'd suggest Thomas, Hayes and Barry are. From this era one might argue Cowens too).

2) Longevity: Not just the 10 year career, but that he doesn't have too many seasons close to his peak performance. By the boxscore he's got a fairly clear two year peak ('69, '70); two very good years ('71, '68); one that might be at or near that standard ('67, horrible year for DWS but that might be short changing him); a good solid role player year ('73); and injury crippled version of same ('74); a hard-to-gauge inefficient volume scorer rookie year ('65); another injury crippled year ('72) and year the metrics suggest he was below average ('66).

Now admittedly at this point the bar above which seasons need to be to be majorly relevant will be dropping (you'd need a lot of "good" years to match the value of an MJ year), but still Reed has short longevity in absolute terms (8 proper seasons) and then perhaps too few of those are great (perhaps only two, then another two or three very good, then three lower ones as a role player or inefficent volume scorer).

Obviously this is without fully factoring in D (DWS tries in WS, PER can't for that era) or intangiables, including floor spacing from a center (though he wasn't always playing C on the Knicks).

Okay on to responding to the post. Hard to know how much is claimed in saying he "detered" Wilt and KAJ. But Wilt was coming back from a major knee injury that year and was already remodelling his game around being a defender rebounder and offensive role player. Then it's hard to know without full boxscores but it doesn't look like Kareem was to "deterred", on O at least. Then too "getting the better of Wilt" in '73. Sure he easily outscored him in lot less minutes. But even per minute he was clearly worse on the boards. IDK, you'd have to watch the games, and I may look at what books I have on finals series before I'd want to go comparing their series. In any case as a 30mpg player it limits your ability to make an impact. The one thing I will say just from '70 is with Wilt less mobile, Reed is a bad matchup for him, because Wilt doesn't want to come out a guard him.

I can buy serious positive intangiables (and things that weren't measured like D and spacing), but I'm not huge on weighing his 4 points as a really important thing in measuring a players greatness (maybe his D on Wilt would be more important, would have to look at that game and focus on that, it seems like he did a good job though as noted it wasn't full strength Wilt). I get that others will weight things differently though.

Regarding deserving of '70 MVP, he's a plausible candidate, but hardly a given. It's very possible that he wasn't the best player on the team. '69 might be better year for him.

Then regarding the defensive drop off, the season after Reed retired is also the season after DeBusschere retired. '74 (or '72) might be fairer bar for the drop off without him. Not least because the drop is not only in the standard of play at PF and C (DeBusschere and Reed replaced by John Gianelli, Phil Jackson and Harthorne Wingo) and in continuity but also in motivation (going from a recent champ to a .500 team).

I look at his career and see so so longevity, with a short peak but 8 solid years of production. It’s what he accomplished in those 8 seasons and his overall contribution to those teams that makes me feel he’s a valid selection here. I wasn’t saying his 70 campaign was unrivaled by anyone else that year, but simply that he was deserving. I think only Jerry West was right there with him, though.

Regarding his historic game 7 appearance, note that i fully acknowledged it as a dramatic narrative. I’m not trying to make too much of it. It just culminates the type of player he was, and I wouldn’t consider it significant if he wasn’t very skilled in his own right. I don’t know how many players would’ve attempted to play with the severity of his injury.

As for his defense against wilt and kareem, I’m not saying they weren’t going to “get theirs” in volume, and I know wilt was older, but he was still wilt. I guess better said, reed did as good of a job on them as anyone, and played them well enough to get the knicks over the hump against both. I think his floor spacing as you mentioned is also important. A similar big like unseld really pales in comparison, whose best stretch of scoring came in his first 5 seasons at only 14 PPG.

With regards to McGrady, as a fan, he was one of the most skilled and entertaining players i’ve ever watched. I also give him more benefit of the doubt than some on his playoff shortcomings. All that said, it was pretty telling to hear him say that he actually wishes he put forth more effort in his rehab over the years. When you compare him directly to reed, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would’ve used all the medical advances available to him to rehab to his fullest abilities. It’s a bit of a slap in the face to him when looking at the 2 players and how they approached the game.

[Owly]

Larger conversational context

Spoiler:

Vote for #47 - Willis Reed

- 10 year career
- 5x all NBA (1 1st, 4 2nd)
- 1x all defensive 1st team
- 1x reg season MVP (2 other top 5 finishes)
- 2x finals MVP
- 2x NBA champion

RS prime (65-71)

20.1 PPG, 13.8 RPG, 1.8 APG, 47.7% FG, 74.8% FT, 52.5% TS, .158 WS/48

PS prime (67-73)

19.7 PPG, 11.6 RPG, 2.2 APG, 47.8% FG, 76.8% FT, 51.6% TS, .155 WS/48

On their way to the championship in 1970, willis helped the knicks knock off 2 of the most dominant centers of all time in wilt and kareem. Undersized for a center at 6’9”, his brute strength and good defensive instincts were still able to deter them. He also had a great outside shot for a big man, which was very effective against wilt in his later years. He would again get the best of wilt in 73 when the knicks took down the lakers in the finals.

I don’t have a problem with questioning his 2 finals MVPs relative to Clyde’s level of play in those series. However, I don’t doubt that reed was a player whose impact went beyond the box score, and I’d say that’s what voters were recognizing when selecting him as finals MVP in both seasons. This was best exemplified in the famous moment when reed came through the tunnel in game 7 of the 70 finals:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGNITggLFs[/youtube]

As the lakers were warming up, they froze as they saw willis coming onto the court (he had previously missed game 6 with a torn muscle in his thigh, and no one expected him to play). He hit his first 2 jumpers, and the rest was history. Dramatic narrative? Of course, but Clyde himself said they wouldn’t have had the confidence to go out there and perform like they did without their captain leading the way. When you have the talent to back it up as willis did, that makes a difference.

He was certainly deserving of winning reg season MVP in 1970, leading the knicks to a 60-22 record and the #1 ranked SRS in the league. He put together season averages of 21.7 PPG, 13.9 RPG, 2 APG, 50.7 FG, 75.6% FT, 55.2% TS (+4.1% above league avg) and .227 WS/48

From 69-73, reed would anchor a knicks defense that ranked in the top 3rd of the league for 4 seasons:

69 - 4th
70 - 1st
71 - 2nd
73 - 4th

The season after reed retired, the knicks dropped to 11th (of 18) in DRTG. His impact on that end of the floor was clear, as was ability to lead a group of players to what’s often considered one of the best stretches of “team play” in NBA history.

I have concerns about Reed, so I'll put these, and some possible counter-arguments out there.

1) Is he another of those guys whose historical status is given a huge boost as the percieved star on champ (as I'd suggest Thomas, Hayes and Barry are. From this era one might argue Cowens too).

2) Longevity: Not just the 10 year career, but that he doesn't have too many seasons close to his peak performance. By the boxscore he's got a fairly clear two year peak ('69, '70); two very good years ('71, '68); one that might be at or near that standard ('67, horrible year for DWS but that might be short changing him); a good solid role player year ('73); and injury crippled version of same ('74); a hard-to-gauge inefficient volume scorer rookie year ('65); another injury crippled year ('72) and year the metrics suggest he was below average ('66).

Now admittedly at this point the bar above which seasons need to be to be majorly relevant will be dropping (you'd need a lot of "good" years to match the value of an MJ year), but still Reed has short longevity in absolute terms (8 proper seasons) and then perhaps too few of those are great (perhaps only two, then another two or three very good, then three lower ones as a role player or inefficent volume scorer).

Obviously this is without fully factoring in D (DWS tries in WS, PER can't for that era) or intangiables, including floor spacing from a center (though he wasn't always playing C on the Knicks).

Okay on to responding to the post. Hard to know how much is claimed in saying he "detered" Wilt and KAJ. But Wilt was coming back from a major knee injury that year and was already remodelling his game around being a defender rebounder and offensive role player. Then it's hard to know without full boxscores but it doesn't look like Kareem was to "deterred", on O at least. Then too "getting the better of Wilt" in '73. Sure he easily outscored him in lot less minutes. But even per minute he was clearly worse on the boards. IDK, you'd have to watch the games, and I may look at what books I have on finals series before I'd want to go comparing their series. In any case as a 30mpg player it limits your ability to make an impact. The one thing I will say just from '70 is with Wilt less mobile, Reed is a bad matchup for him, because Wilt doesn't want to come out a guard him.

I can buy serious positive intangiables (and things that weren't measured like D and spacing), but I'm not huge on weighing his 4 points as a really important thing in measuring a players greatness (maybe his D on Wilt would be more important, would have to look at that game and focus on that, it seems like he did a good job though as noted it wasn't full strength Wilt). I get that others will weight things differently though.

Regarding deserving of '70 MVP, he's a plausible candidate, but hardly a given. It's very possible that he wasn't the best player on the team. '69 might be better year for him.

Then regarding the defensive drop off, the season after Reed retired is also the season after DeBusschere retired. '74 (or '72) might be fairer bar for the drop off without him. Not least because the drop is not only in the standard of play at PF and C (DeBusschere and Reed replaced by John Gianelli, Phil Jackson and Harthorne Wingo) and in continuity but also in motivation (going from a recent champ to a .500 team).

A little counter-argument to your counter-argument. In the 1970 Finals, the game Reed missed, Wilt went off for 45 points. Whilst I appreciate Wilt was adapting, when he didn't have Reed on him, he was much more like his old self. Of course, the front court of Reed and Debusschere was no easy front court to score against.

A counter to that would be Reed went down early in Game 5. Specifically he went down in the first quarter with LA up (it seems it may have been when the score was 25-15). LA convincingly won the first quarter 30-20. They slightly up their lead in the 2nd 53-40 and Wilt had 18 and 12 (I can't find his quarter numbers). In the second half a "swarming" NY defense (press, it seems) and LA apparently telegraphing their intent to get the ball to Wilt meant he finished with just 22, LA turned it over too much and New York, scoring easily off turnovers, took the win.

I don't like saying any one moment is decisive, in a series every game counts. But if you were to pick one in this series it might plausibly be that New York retained HCA from ten points down to win by 7. They did so without Reed. Not that this is a huge thing against Reed that he his teammates played well in one game without him. But I wouldn't overweigh G6 either.


Anyway I'll vote T-Mac epic boxscore peak; longevity not great but certainly not a disadvantage in this matchup; Toronto years flash some versatility to suggest he would have been capable of other roles if he hadn't been taking on huge volume scoring and large playmaking duties (12.5 trb%, 2.1 stl%, 4.2 blk% at age 18-20). If his playoff numbers were bad I'd understand the 1st round stuff. They're really good though.

[Texas Chuck]

If his playoff numbers were bad I'd understand the 1st round stuff. They're really good though.

But what do you make of his teams having relatively low seeds due in no small part to the amount of RS games he was missing every year? Maybe I make too much of that, but I think its an overlooked aspect of him not getting out of the first round. Big difference imo from Minnesota KG in that KG was doing everything he could and those Wolves teams just couldn't earn higher seeds in a tough West. But TMac had some stronger squads, especially in Houston.

Anyway food for thought perhaps, not trying to influence your vote obviously.

[trex_8063]

If his playoff numbers were bad I'd understand the 1st round stuff. They're really good though.

But what do you make of his teams having relatively low seeds due in no small part to the amount of RS games he was missing every year? Maybe I make too much of that, but I think its an overlooked aspect of him not getting out of the first round. Big difference imo from Minnesota KG in that KG was doing everything he could and those Wolves teams just couldn't earn higher seeds in a tough West. But TMac had some stronger squads, especially in Houston.

Anyway food for thought perhaps, not trying to influence your vote obviously.

There's an alternate perspective to view what you're talking about here. You're sort of taking the "it's McGrady's fault they didn't have a better playoff record" angle: if he hadn't missed a smattering of games in multiple seasons, they might have had a better seeding (faced a weaker team) and thus won more playoff games.
The alternate perspective is looking at his playoff record in context, realizing it wasn't that he was incapable of leading better teams, but that his injuries got in the way (sort of "falsely" lowering his career playoff record); i.e. the "bad luck with injuries" angle.

Anyway, food for thought.

Put another way, with a hypothetical comparison: suppose player A and player B are essentially the same in player quality and career arc, etc, except that player A played 10 seasons and 650 games (missing 75 games in each of two seasons, while playing the entire season the other 8 years), while player B played 10 seasons and 650 games (missing 25 games in 6 different seasons, while missing none in the other 4)........I personally don't think we should hold the distribution of when the games were missed against player B.

[Texas Chuck]

I don't view injuries as just "bad luck" tho. Not when they are that chronic. It's one think to have a serious injury and miss most or all of a year. That stuff is going to happen. But missing double digit games almost every year suggests something different to me and something that should be held against a guy. Because its not like the guys who are playing 75+ year after year after year aren't also dealing with some injuries.

[RayBan-Sematra]

Some impressive playoff series by Reed.

'67 EDSF vs Russell: 27.5 ppg, 13.5 rpg, 1.8 apg on 53.8 %FG/60.4 %TS

'68 EDSF vs Wilt: 21.3 ppg, 10.3 rpg, 1.8 apg on 54.1 %FG/57.6 %TS

'69 EDSF vs Unseld: 28.3 ppg, 15.0 rpg, 1.3 apg on 51.1 %FG/55.8 %TS

'69 EDF vs Russell: 24.0 ppg, 13.5 rpg, 2.3 apg on 50.9 %FG/56.4 %TS

[trex_8063]

I don't view injuries as just "bad luck" tho. Not when they are that chronic. It's one think to have a serious injury and miss most or all of a year. That stuff is going to happen. But missing double digit games almost every year suggests something different to me and something that should be held against a guy. Because its not like the guys who are playing 75+ year after year after year aren't also dealing with some injuries.

I didn't mean to imply missing games is only about luck (although obv there is the "luck" component to injury). It's also about genetics and durability, style of play (some players like Westbrook, KJ, etc, play a style that is putting their bodies at high risk). I just used the word "luck" to express a different mind-set with which to view the context of the Rockets' lower-than-hoped-for playoff record during his tenure there. Putting the "McGrady's fault" label on it implies he under-performed, which generally is not at all accurate. That's all I'm saying.

I guess there's one other thing I'm saying, which is that not giving McGrady an "extra deduction" due to the chronicity of his injury troubles is not at all the same as giving him a pass on his durability issues. Obviously it counts against him. I just don't particularly agree that he should be penalized MORE for being there about 70% of the time for three seasons, as apposed to missing one season entirely.

With regards to chronically missing games: the exact same complaint/criticism can be made of Jerry West, and I don't think we, as a forum, overtly held the chronic nature of his injury problems against him. I could be wrong, haven't gone back and read the thread (still got voted in at #15, anyway, which is certainly not an UN-generous placement for him). At any rate, no one accuses West of malingering (which is perhaps what you're implying about McGrady??).

[Texas Chuck]

I'm not trying to extra-penalize T-Mac. I'm simply trying to make a counter to the idea that none of his playoff resume is his fault. For all the absurdity of jordansbulls and his HCA arguments, the fact is that in the NBA playoffs HCA is a meaningful edge for a team. And if TMac's teams either aren't making the playoffs(end of his Magic days) or are taking lower seeds in part due to him missing a bunch of games--well imo that's part of his playoff resume.

2007 and 2008 they lose to Utah who has HCA including a very close game 7. McGrady missing 11 and 16 games those years. And clearly in 2010 the Rockets should be a playoff team, but McGrady misses almost the entire year after missing the PS in 2009 when his presence might well mean they beat the eventual champion Lakers.

IDK--seems to me not something to gloss over.

[Basketballefan]

At first i was going to vote tmac but when i think about it, even though tmac has the better peak, Reed does have 2 rings...ill research them more when i get the chance.

[Owly]

If his playoff numbers were bad I'd understand the 1st round stuff. They're really good though.

But what do you make of his teams having relatively low seeds due in no small part to the amount of RS games he was missing every year? Maybe I make too much of that, but I think its an overlooked aspect of him not getting out of the first round. Big difference imo from Minnesota KG in that KG was doing everything he could and those Wolves teams just couldn't earn higher seeds in a tough West. But TMac had some stronger squads, especially in Houston.

Anyway food for thought perhaps, not trying to influence your vote obviously.

It's a fair point. I guess I'd give him some leeway for the fact that Orlando ran him into the ground playing him about 40mpg with a huge shot creation (for self and others) burden.

And the flip side of tough playoff competition for which he might slightly be responsible is tough playoff competition against whom he was putting up strong numbers despite everyone knowing where the ball was going (in Orlando).

The other thing would be minutes would be a bigger issue if he wasn't up against Reed.

But missing double digit games almost every year suggests something different to me and something that should be held against a guy.

This part I wouldn't go along with. Assuming the suggestion malingering, yes? I just don't think were in any place to fairly judge.

I have concerns about Reed, so I'll put these, and some possible counter-arguments out there.

1) Is he another of those guys whose historical status is given a huge boost as the percieved star on champ (as I'd suggest Thomas, Hayes and Barry are. From this era one might argue Cowens too).

2) Longevity: Not just the 10 year career, but that he doesn't have too many seasons close to his peak performance. By the boxscore he's got a fairly clear two year peak ('69, '70); two very good years ('71, '68); one that might be at or near that standard ('67, horrible year for DWS but that might be short changing him); a good solid role player year ('73); and injury crippled version of same ('74); a hard-to-gauge inefficient volume scorer rookie year ('65); another injury crippled year ('72) and year the metrics suggest he was below average ('66).

Now admittedly at this point the bar above which seasons need to be to be majorly relevant will be dropping (you'd need a lot of "good" years to match the value of an MJ year), but still Reed has short longevity in absolute terms (8 proper seasons) and then perhaps too few of those are great (perhaps only two, then another two or three very good, then three lower ones as a role player or inefficent volume scorer).

Obviously this is without fully factoring in D (DWS tries in WS, PER can't for that era) or intangiables, including floor spacing from a center (though he wasn't always playing C on the Knicks).

Okay on to responding to the post. Hard to know how much is claimed in saying he "detered" Wilt and KAJ. But Wilt was coming back from a major knee injury that year and was already remodelling his game around being a defender rebounder and offensive role player. Then it's hard to know without full boxscores but it doesn't look like Kareem was to "deterred", on O at least. Then too "getting the better of Wilt" in '73. Sure he easily outscored him in lot less minutes. But even per minute he was clearly worse on the boards. IDK, you'd have to watch the games, and I may look at what books I have on finals series before I'd want to go comparing their series. In any case as a 30mpg player it limits your ability to make an impact. The one thing I will say just from '70 is with Wilt less mobile, Reed is a bad matchup for him, because Wilt doesn't want to come out a guard him.

I can buy serious positive intangiables (and things that weren't measured like D and spacing), but I'm not huge on weighing his 4 points as a really important thing in measuring a players greatness (maybe his D on Wilt would be more important, would have to look at that game and focus on that, it seems like he did a good job though as noted it wasn't full strength Wilt). I get that others will weight things differently though.

Regarding deserving of '70 MVP, he's a plausible candidate, but hardly a given. It's very possible that he wasn't the best player on the team. '69 might be better year for him.

Then regarding the defensive drop off, the season after Reed retired is also the season after DeBusschere retired. '74 (or '72) might be fairer bar for the drop off without him. Not least because the drop is not only in the standard of play at PF and C (DeBusschere and Reed replaced by John Gianelli, Phil Jackson and Harthorne Wingo) and in continuity but also in motivation (going from a recent champ to a .500 team).

I look at his career and see so so longevity, with a short peak but 8 solid years of production. It’s what he accomplished in those 8 seasons and his overall contribution to those teams that makes me feel he’s a valid selection here. I wasn’t saying his 70 campaign was unrivaled by anyone else that year, but simply that he was deserving. I think only Jerry West was right there with him, though.

Regarding his historic game 7 appearance, note that i fully acknowledged it as a dramatic narrative. I’m not trying to make too much of it. It just culminates the type of player he was, and I wouldn’t consider it significant if he wasn’t very skilled in his own right. I don’t know how many players would’ve attempted to play with the severity of his injury.

As for his defense against wilt and kareem, I’m not saying they weren’t going to “get theirs” in volume, and I know wilt was older, but he was still wilt. I guess better said, reed did as good of a job on them as anyone, and played them well enough to get the knicks over the hump against both. I think his floor spacing as you mentioned is also important. A similar big like unseld really pales in comparison, whose best stretch of scoring came in his first 5 seasons at only 14 PPG.

With regards to McGrady, as a fan, he was one of the most skilled and entertaining players i’ve ever watched. I also give him more benefit of the doubt than some on his playoff shortcomings. All that said, it was pretty telling to hear him say that he actually wishes he put forth more effort in his rehab over the years. When you compare him directly to reed, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would’ve used all the medical advances available to him to rehab to his fullest abilities. It’s a bit of a slap in the face to him when looking at the 2 players and how they approached the game.

Yeah to be equally clear, I'm not hugely against him here, he is indeed a valid selection, just raising concerns that I have for him.

For his actual MVP season I think West has a clear advantage, and as I said Frazier has probably superior claim, and I'd have Jabbar above too, quite possibly Robertson, though given their circumstances Robertson wasn't in a position to show positive intangiables and offensive leadership, whereas Reed was. Chamberlain's injury also arguabuably thins the field. As I said I think '69 he has a much better claim.

I don't know about people playing or not playing with whatever injuries. I think at Game 7 of the finals those who can go want to try (and the further back you go the more willing they were get players to tough it out (Mikan playing with a broken leg, for instance). As I say each to their own, and obviously I don't know how much of a factor it is for anyone because there's no real way of explaining weighting of non-quantative stuff. I'm just saying where I'm coming from.

I wouldn't say he did as good a job on Wilt and Kareem as anyone, as both statistically and from their own words, Thurmond did the best job of covering them. I'd add that if "“get theirs” in volume" implies that there wasn't the efficiency there then I'd want evidence on that (it may well not, it may just reflect that efficiency numbers aren't always there for series). But to the gist, he's a good defender, valuable as a floor spacer and seemingly as a leader, sure.

On T-Mac's rehab I'm not sure on all the quotes but there are normally a lot of different things out there (NBA players talk a lot). There are suggestions that Toronto failed to fix issues that screwed him up e.g.

The sad part is that McGrady’s deterioration—which lead to his scoring average plummeting to single digits after the ’08-’09 season—might have been prevented. “Tracy had a bad ankle condition years ago when he was in Toronto, and the bio-chemics were never fixed—that caused the knee pain,” says Dr. Keith Pyne, sports chiropractor and the man responsible for McGrady’s relief. “So I fixed the bio-mechanics of the ankle and knee, then said to him, You have really [inflamed knee tendons]. The best guy I know to get rid of that is Dr. Peter Wehling in Germany.”

Also from that " I train extremely hard during the offseason."

So I don't know. If we're confident McGrady rehabbed lazily and cost his teams in that way fine. That's not what I get from what I have seen/recall.

[Clyde Frazier]

Quick look at reed vs. mourning (voted in at #42) through their first 9 seasons:

http://bkref.com/tiny/yzMqJ

Both had injury issues, but mourning played in 84 fewer RS games than reed. Mourning has a regular season edge in production, but it’s still close in some respects. Reed played in 12 more playoff games than mourning when there were less rounds, and production-wise things are more even, with reed having an edge in a few areas.

Mourning was able to come back post kidney transplant for a few more seasons, and that’s certainly commendable, but he had trouble just staying on the court in limited minutes. I think both players have similar career trajectories, and reed was a victim of his era when it came to treatment of serious injuries. And to be fair to mourning, you could say the same for him given all the pain medication he was taking ultimately lead to his kidney disease.

[By the way, if someone’s going to come back with a walton response, big men and foot issues are historically bad, regardless of era. He also came into the league a decade later than reed, so I don’t think it’s really analogous.]