RealGM Top 100 List 2017 -- #13

[mischievous]

I'm curious to why people see Dirk and Oscar as comparable offensive players. There's an enormous playmaking edge in Oscar's favor. Is that being swept under the rug?

[trex_8063]

Again I'll be brief (of necessity), and maybe say why NOT certain others......

Jerry West - not enough longevity/durability vs most other candidates. To a lesser degree the weaker (imo) era is a factor

Oscar Robertson - again the era; longevity and durability less of a concern, as he was almost never injured

Charles BArkley - likely THE weakest defender of ALL valid candidates at this point (though he's an offensive juggernaut above nearly everyone else except [maybe/probably] Oscar and maybe Dirk). Longevity is pretty middle of the road compared to other major candidates here

David Robinson - relatively lacking longevity. That's about it, I otherwise think he's a great candidate, and expect I'll be supporting him sooner than most


More to come.....

[Jaivl]

I'm curious to why people see Dirk and Oscar as comparable offensive players. There's an enormous playmaking edge in Oscar's favor. Is that being swept under the rug?

Enormous spacing edge in Dirk's favor. Most definitely better defense too. That's speaking as someone who would vote Oscar here.

[trex_8063]

Why not......,

JULius Erving - I don't see him as offensively dominant as Dirk, Oscar, Charles, probably MOses, too. Maybe not Jerry either. Even Karl and Robinson are debatable (in other words, he might be the weakest offensive candidate here, though stilll once great). Good, but not great defensively, longevity good but not great in this company

Moses Malone- weakfish defensively, and questions about the era portability of his offensive impact (for what that's worth)

[mischievous]

I'm curious to why people see Dirk and Oscar as comparable offensive players. There's an enormous playmaking edge in Oscar's favor. Is that being swept under the rug?

Enormous spacing edge in Dirk's favor. Most definitely better defense too. That's speaking as someone who would vote Oscar here.

Where's the proof for "definitely" better defense? Seems like an assumption.

The spacing is nice, but I don't see anyone taking Reggie Miller over Magic Johnson because of spacing.

[SactoKingsFan]

VOTE #1: Oscar Robertson


This is where I feel like Big O was getting underrated because of the ERA he played in. I don't think someone like KG could ever anchor a team on total impact like Big O could.

KG was great, but he just didn't seem like the type that could carry a team to the promise land as the player who had by far the most impact. The 08 Celtics he was already passed his peak and was a part of a Fab 4 in Paul Pierce, Ray Ray & a Young but very good Rajon Rondo.

Oscar just seemed like in his time as quite possibly a top 10 player of all time esque. Do to the the dominance of Wilt and Bill Russell, they overshadowed his ability imo which why he doesn't get the recognition imo.


VOTE #2: Jerry West

Because I feel like Jerry West even though may have not been as a great as Big O in terms of overall impact and ability he was just a sliver underneath. And if you told me you thought West > Oscar I would have no problems with that as he was considered a MUCH better defensive player.

Oscar and West are worthy candidates but what makes you think KG couldn't be the clearly most impactful player on a title contender? In 04 peak KG led the Wolves to top 2 SRS and WCF (probably make Finals if Cassell is healthy) with Cassell, Sprewell and Hoiberg as his top teammates. Then in 08 KG had a good case for most impactful player in the league. He was still very valuable on offense and anchored a -8 defense. No such case exists for 08 Pierce or Allen and Rondo was more of a role player than part of a Big 4.

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[andrewww]

Vote: Jerry West
Alternate: Oscar Robertson

West from a fundamental POV, had almost no weakness. Strong defensively, clutch offensively, could shoot, handle the rock. Stepped up more than anyone else in crunch time in the playoffs.

[SactoKingsFan]

I'll vote for Oscar Robertson

Near GOAT level offense, led historically dominant offenses in CIN (62) and MIL (71) and played a major role in Kareem's Bucks making the leap from contender to all-time great team.

I think Oscar’s skillset is often underrated and is comparable to Magic’s and probably the best of all the remaining players. When you combine his 6’5” frame, athleticism and high BBIQ with a very diverse skillset (impressive passing/playmaking and rebounding, elite mid-range game, all-time PnR play) you get a dominant player within any era.

Some may criticize Oscar for his lack of success on the Royals. However, with the impact shown in ElGee’s WOWY data, I don't think it makes sense to severely penalize Oscar for playing on legitimately bad teams that would have struggled without his overall impact.

vote #1: Oscar Robertson
vote#2: Jerry West




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[mikejames23]

Talk died down some after KG/Kobe got in, Huh. So who's left..

Dirk - Made a case for him. I feel he's on the level of those who were voted previously.

Playoff Questionables, Great RS types

Karl Malone - A lot of arguments on "Just went against MJ", but had a long enough career to make something happen during the rest of the seasons. Why trust him over Dirk?

David Robinson - I am going to argue here that he was close to Tim Duncan in impact during the 99 run. Think it was Colts18, but I believe Robinson measured as being the highest +/- in the 99 run amongst playoff runs between 99-14. Also feel some of Robinson's RS performances genuinely feels on Shaq and Hakeem's level, both of who are voted in some time back.

60's Greats

The Logo - Some pretty impressive Playoff W/S totals, etc. How high would D-Wade be if he had a full prime? i feel Logo and Wade are very close glossing over their numbers. Unlike Wade, I suspect Logo lost out due to era as he seems to have really, really nice range for that time. Might've been a good 3 point shooter today.

Oscar - One of those great comps I feel vs Jerry West. Like Magic vs Bird etc. Oscar's GOAT offensive value is how GOAT-y? I need to really wrap my head around this. IS it more on Magic's level or Kobe's level? Oscar doesn't have a defensive rep unlike Jerry West.

ABA/NBA Mix

Dr J - Pre- 09 LeBron type impact? I feel that'd be accurate for him. 06-08 LeBron was a Top 5 player, sometimes the best and neck and neck with Kobe's best. I do feel he had less passing ability than LeBron. Otherwise Dr. J projects to be a 27/7RPG/4APG type of guy.

What makes Dr J. interesting with his ABA years and injury issues I suspect he was even better than this projection? That genuinely makes it feels like he would kill the rest of the names listed here. Seemed to be more of an athletic guy but hit 3's at a solid clip in the ABA - Top 5 in the league. I suppose we'll never know.

[therealbig3]

I'm curious to why people see Dirk and Oscar as comparable offensive players. There's an enormous playmaking edge in Oscar's favor. Is that being swept under the rug?

Enormous spacing edge in Dirk's favor. Most definitely better defense too. That's speaking as someone who would vote Oscar here.

Where's the proof for "definitely" better defense? Seems like an assumption.

The spacing is nice, but I don't see anyone taking Reggie Miller over Magic Johnson because of spacing.

Eh, there's a huge difference with regards to spacing when we're talking about a PF that can shoot vs a PG, rather than PG vs SG.

The proof would be that Dirk was around average/above average defensively, and he's a PF. That instantly makes him better defensively than an average/above average defensive PG, which is what Oscar was considered throughout his career, and from the film I've seen of him, nothing really changes my mind about that.

Dirk's spacing at the PF position, and his superiority as a scorer, can definitely be enough to compensate for Oscar's abilities as a playmaker.

It's a really close call. Dirk isn't behind a whole lot of players all time from an offensive standpoint when you look at what he does at the team level and the different kinds of lineups he enables. Oscar might be one of the few guys that you could take ahead of him offensively, but it's not going to be by a huge amount, and then if we give Dirk the advantage on defense (I don't think saying that a PF naturally has more defensive impact than a PG is all that controversial), it's tough to see much of a separation either way.

Just my 2 cents.

[therealbig3]

Things are way less clear to me at this point than before though. I'm kind of glad that I don't have to vote at this point, because there's a few players that I can't really see any meaningful separation for.

[kayess]

Things are way less clear to me at this point than before though. I'm kind of glad that I don't have to vote at this point, because there's a few players that I can't really see any meaningful separation for.

Same thing here. It's tough to separate Oscar/West, and then comparing them vs. Dr. J, Dirk is crazy tough (then of course you have Malone, Barkley, etc.)

[Joao Saraiva]

1st vote - Karl Malone

Talked about him in the last thread.

One of the 3 kings of longevity along with Duncan and KAJ.

According to my formula Karl Malone should be a top 10 player of all time - however some inconsistency in the playoffs moved him a bunch of spots lower in my view.

He's a 2 time MVP.

Despite not being greatly consistent he has enough very good playoff runs so people won't say he couldn't bring it in the post season.

Already talked about the Jazz lack of success to win a ring, and divided it in 3 parts:
- bad supporting cast for Karl and John in the late 80s or early 90s;
- Bad matchup against the Bulls - problems with short sized guards (Stockton and Horny vs Harper, MJ and Pippen and only one could hide on Harper) while the Bulls matched up perfectly on D with Rodman vs Malone;
- Karl Malone not coming up big in the big stage sometimes.

Despite all that I think Karl deserves this spot. Positive in all aspects of the game (scoring, playmaking, rebounding, defense). Pirme was so long that even with some lack of consistency in the post season he had enough good/great years to be considered above Oscar or Dirk.

Sorry for not putting up my vote in more detail but I've been kind of busy lately and will be for the next 2 weeks.

2nd vote - Oscar Robertson - I think he and Dirk are very very close, so last time I voted for Dirk... now I vote for Oscar.

[ThaRegul8r]

Oscar just seemed like in his time as quite possibly a top 10 player of all time esque. Do to the the dominance of Wilt and Bill Russell, they overshadowed his ability imo which why he doesn't get the recognition imo.

If you're talking present tense, Robertson played over 40 years ago. There are a lot of people who disregard everyone who played before the merger in all time discussions (Wilt and Bill included). Robertson was recognized during the time that he actually played, and had his advocates for GOAT. And during the height of the "Bird is the GOAT" talk in '86, there were people who spoke on the subject who said Robertson was their GOAT before Bird, or the guy Bird was challenging for those not fully on board the Bird GOAT train yet.

I've said this before, there's a difference between how a player was recognized during the time that he actually played, and how a player is recognized decades after the fact, when a lot of the people commenting didn't see the player play or possibly weren't even born yet. The farther removed we get from when a player played, the fewer people there are going to be who actually saw him (we've reached the point now where we have people who didn't even see Jordan play with the Bulls in real time), and as most people don't care about players they didn't see since they have no emotional attachment to them, their stature fades with time. (For some reason, there are a lot of people who can't even get Robertson's name right when they do talk about him, calling him "Oscar Robinson" for some reason. I've even seen it in newspaper articles about him written by people paid to write about sports, not just by people on internet basketball forums.)

And since Robertson no longer has the "only player to average a triple double for a season" thing going for him anymore which was his unique tagline, since that was what everyone who knew about him knew about him, that'll hurt him since Westbrook did it "in the modern era," thus there's no reason to talk about Robertson at all anymore. (What he did for NBA players' free agency isn't something talked about. Back when I watched and talked about baseball, I saw Curt Flood, Catfish Hunter, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally talked about a lot more on baseball forums than Oscar Robertson was on basketball forums. But baseball had always been better about history during the time I watched it—I can't speak to whether or not that's still the case) Wilt and Bill at least still have their unique taglines that everyone who doesn't know anything else about them will know if they know who they are.

[Dr Positivity]

Some quotes from Bill Simmons book

Even his hometown paper (the Cincinnati Enquirer) piled on by writing in February 1970, “For years, Oscar has privately scorned the Royals management; he has ridiculed Cincinnati and its fans; he has knocked other players, both on his team and others; and he has never been willing to pay a compliment. He is, has been and probably will grow old a bitter man, convinced that it was all a plot.”

Jerry Lucas: “Oscar was a perfectionist and he’d yell at you if you messed up. Then you saw that he yelled at everyone, so you learned not to take it personally.”

Zelmo Beaty: “He was such a perfectionist that I never could have lived up to his expectations. The way he’d scream at Wayne Embry: ‘You dummy, catch the ball … I put the ball right in your hands, how could you drop that one?’ I felt sorry for Wayne.”

Wayne Embry: “Oscar was so far ahead of us humans that you could never come up to his level. But because of his greatness and what he meant to the franchise, you hated to fail him. Oscar’s greatness sometimes overwhelmed Adrian Smith. [He’d] tell Oscar, ‘Please, O, you know I’m trying, I really am. You gotta believe me, O.’ ”

A question I have is, did the Royals underperform? Oscar's Royals tenure mirrors Garnett's with the Timberwolves. They similarly have the one signature year (55 Ws in 64) and then some seasons ranging from mid-high 40s, to finishing below .500 and missing the playoffs on several occasions in Oscar's prime. The Royals were not a sad sack of a team talent wise. They had HOF 2nd banana Lucas who's floor spacing probably made him one of the most valuable offensive bigs in the league. Embry was a perennial all-star the first half of the 60s. He got the last half of Twyman's career who was a HOF stud. They never quite matched up the better Embry/Twyman years with prime Lucas, but nonetheless at least in the first half of the 60s Oscar had toys to work with. Was the team less than the sum of their parts and could this be traced to something being missing backstage?

Naturally there is a lot of context to consider. In a condensed league, you just have to be worse than the Celtics, Lakers and Wilt's team to be out of luck in terms of posting a great record, and having a Jerry Lucas may not look as impressive with so few teams to share stars. It's unclear how good of coaching the Royals had. The Royals failures were always on the defensive end, which isn't Oscar's fault. But it's possible the Royals has a specifically offensive style of play that inflated their ORTG and deflated their DRTG, and the Celtics had a defensive style of play that did the opposite. I'm not as bullish on just giving full credit of their run of great ORTGs to players like Oscar and Nash as some others have been in the past, or saying Celtics dominance is all cause of Russell.

Oscar's impact on the Bucks is widely praised, and they fell apart after he retired even though his stats weren't close by then. He is a godly offensive player not just for his production but because unlike players like Dirk or Barkley, he plays the best offensive position in PG. Oscar's TS is underrated - from 61-70 he finishes 1st 1x, 2nd 7x and 3rd 3x. His most modern equivalnet in terms of scoring and passing is Harden, but Oscar is a level beyond him in terms of efficiency compared to his league. For example in a year like 64, his TS is .576 while the league's is .488. In 2017 the average was .553, so Oscar's equivalent compared to his era would be .641 TS today, whereas Harden's this year was .613 and has never been above .618 as a Rocket. By nature of how dominant his offense is, and because I supported KG with question marks about TWolves winning, I don't have a problem with Oscar getting in here

[Bad Gatorade]

Dirk
I've got him at 33 (sorry)

Positives
Longevity
Scoring
Spacing
Efficiency
Low turnovers
Good playoff performer
Leadership -- not elite compared to many guys picked in prior threads, but still notable
Good teammate -- no drama, plays team ball

Negatives
Offensive diversity -- not a driver/slasher/finisher, not useful on the break other than as a three-point trailer. Despite his size, allergic to the paint (in his career, only 14.4% of his shots come inside 3 feet, only 8.4% from 3-10 feet).
Defense -- others have tried to make a case for him on D, but he is slow, not mobile, and not gifted with a defensive IQ or mindset. He did okay around the rim, but in space, he's just never been good. He was merely okay at best and has been a liability on D for most of his career. It's no coincidence that the Mavs' title team needed Tyson Chandler at center.
Weak rebounding for his size and position -- averaged only 7.8 for his career, never averaged double figures
Not a playmaker -- averaged only 2.5 assists for his career with a peak of only 3.5
Doesn't have the versatility in his game to be considered at this point

Is Dirk's offensive diversity really that much of a problem though?

Offensive diversity is useful, sure, but Dirk (who was also quite good at drawing FTs in his prime, i.e. the most efficient shot in basketball) became essentially impossible to guard in the mid range, which is the "worst shot in basketball." So not only does Dirk's mid range jump shot become a very credible weapon on its own accord, but it allows other players to occupy the paint + 3 point area. Numerous studies have been done correlating big man floor spacing with offensive prowess, and Dirk is the premier floor spacing big.

After all, look at situations such as the Heatles - one of the reasons they remained so good offensively is that Bosh's propensity for taking jump shots allowed LeBron/Wade to keep driving to the hoop. Those shots don't magically disappear simply because a guy like Dirk doesn't take many - a lot of these shots are taken up by other players who are more free to roam to the hoop than before.

And tbh, Dirk is one of the most resilient players ever in regards to things such as playoff scoring, clutch situations (honestly, his clutch numbers are amazing) and it's those scenarios where diversity really becomes an argument vs the typical "volume/efficiency" components of scoring.

FWIW, he was also quite good at drawing fouls (he was actually very comparable to Olajuwon in FTA/FGA) and despite never averaging double digit rebounding in the regular season, he has averaged 10.0 boards across his (very lengthy) playoff career.

33 is way too low for Dirk, IMO.

I think I might actually agree with your two choices for this spot - West and Robertson (Dirk is the other guy I'd strongly consider atm).

FWIW, I think Robertson has a very good case for offensive GOAT. He routinely led elite offensive teams (1st in the league many times), was an incredible passer and was also an incredible scorer - top 5 in the league in PPG 9 times and in the top 3 in TS% 10 times. Granted, it wasn't as large of a league, but we're talking about a player whose combination of scoring + passing skill was otherworldly on consistently elite offences.

The work that ElGee and some others have done on WOWY and estimating impact has consistently shown Robertson to be one of the highest impact players in NBA history - in fact, both ElGee and Blackmill have done work placing Robertson as #1 in NBA history!

FWIW, I actually lean towards Robertson over Magic - I think Magic, as terrific as he was, had some of the most incredible fortune of any NBA superstar ever. He had a stacked team in an underwhelming conference. His Lakers teams had some of the smallest SOS ratings ever and from memory, they frequently played teams with negative SRS in the early rounds of the playoffs (before the Celtics in 1987, their best opponent was the Sonics, with an SRS of 0.08!). Robertson's team, was a -4.8 SRS whenever he didn't play during his prime. I feel like if Robertson was thrown in Magic's scenario, he could have produced similarly wonderful team results.

But yeah, looking both at Oscar's skill set (the two big offensive skills relative to PGs, scoring and passing, Oscar was dominant at) and his measures of impact (team ORTG, WOWY numbers) make me think that he's the best player remaining on board. His defence, from what I know, was also reasonable - not a defensive game changer, but average to above average.

West is my subsequent choice, and the argument is actually kind of similar to what I have for Oscar. He was a terrific scorer and a great passer, and also a great defender to boot. Elite 2 way player, and much like Oscar, he also appears really impressive in the impact data we've got, so it doesn't appear to be a case of empty stats.

I mainly pick Oscar above West because even though both of them seem to be incredibly skilled, and both of them put up some really nice numbers, Oscar's impact footprint seems more resolute to me - he's absolutely superb in WOWY and just seemed like an offensive demigod. Real tight race between these two, for me. Two unbelievable players whose impact was a bit less visible due to their underwhelming team success (and in the case of West, his health to an extent).

Side note - given his propensity as a floor spacer, and his perimeter defence (factors which are moving the impact needle more now than they did in West's time), West could actually be even more of a high impact player today. So, he's definitely a player that warrants some serious thought at this point in the project if era portability is a criterion for some of you.

Vote 1 - Oscar Robertson
Vote 2 - Jerry West

[Hornet Mania]

On the subject of Oscar Robertson's prickly personality, I have always suspected (because so many others first made the connection and voiced it) that the rampant racism in Cincinnati growing up greatly affected his personality. It can't have been easy to be treated sub-human all you life, and then be (arguably) the best at your position only to receive criticism because you were making the sport "too black" while you're being pilloried with the n word and worse in every arena- even at home.

Maybe it's too much leeway, I don't know, but I give Oscar and Baylor a lot of slack for being **** later in life. Racism still exists today, certainly, but today's players don't have to experience anything close to the abuse black players of that era took from the day they were born and that abuse only intensified as they because successful (and thus, uppity, taking away what "belonged" to whites) and well-known athletes. Here is the full text from he Simmons excerpt that was posted a bit up the page, it includes the racism in addition to the quotes about Oscar being a jerk. No way to prove he'd be a better teammate without that abuse of course, but it certainly is worth considering. Also dredged up an article about how Oscar was taking hell even during HS in his hometown, and a Soundcloud of Oscar himself discussing it in his own words. He claims "it didn't bother me at all, it's just how it was" after explaining he couldn't eat at a restaurant, go to a movie or use a clean bathroom. Not to argue with the man himself, but it seems hard to believe that experience doesn't leave a scar of some sort:

http://grantland.com/features/the-big-o-had-plenty-game-plenty-chips-shoulder/

http://www.newsday.com/sports/basketball/oscar-robertson-still-feels-sting-of-racism-from-high-school-days-1.13067419

https://soundcloud.com/siriusxmnba/nba-legend-oscar-robertson-talks-about-his-experience-with-racism-in-the-1960s

Racism isn't delved into nearly enough when mainstream accounts discuss players in the 60s and the circumstances they planned under. It's understandable to an extent , it's a tricky subject for the media to handle with grace, but it's probably absolutely vital to understanding their mindset and what drove them to success and likewise what tormented them when even success couldn't make a significant portion of their own team's fans respect them as human beings. If there's any valid excuse to grow up to be a bit of a dick, having your entire society treat you less than human (when you're possibly the best in the world at what you do) would be towards the top of the list.

[drza]

Still in Vegas (Summer League was FUN this year...some really good young talent), still not a lot of time for posting/research. While I'm glad KG got in, I hate that I wasn't around much for the last two threads as there was still a bit more research/conversation that I wanted to work through on his playoffs performance. Nevertheless, I guess it's time to move on.

For this thread, I'm again going to the vaults for previous posts. Dr. J was my first favorite player, and I'm actually giving serious thought to making an earlier push for David Robinson than he usually gets in these projects, but my vote in this round is going to Oscar Robertson. Ironically (considering the last sentence of the previous paragraph), the best Oscar post of mine that I can find right now is a comp between he and KG. The information in it is good, though, and I think he makes a fitting vote at this part in the project:

Garnett vs Oscar

There has been lots of excellent information given on both KG and Oscar in this project, which is a great thing. It lets us speak with some degree of confidence about the characteristics of each player, and the type of impact that they were having. I do like to start with numbers where possible, though, so I'll start by re-posting some of the numbers we have for both from this thread.

Regular season, 10 year primes per100 possessions
Oscar Robertson ('61 - 70): 29.3 pts (57.2% TS), 8.5 reb, 10.3 ast (TO not recorded)
Kevin Garnett (1999 - 2008): 30.2 pts (55% TS), 16.8 reb, 6.6 ast, 3.7 TO

Playoffs, 10 year primes per 100 possessions
Oscar Robertson ('61 - 70): 29.7 pts (56.6% TS), 9.3 reb, 9.4 ast (TO not recorded)
Kevin Garnett (1999 - 2008): 29.5 pts (52.3%), 16.8 reb, 5.9 ast, 3.9 TO

*Oscar doesn't have per-100 numbers on B-R, but since they almost certainly were playing at least 100 possessions/game pace I used his actual per-game numbers

First blush impression, both are very impressive and well-rounded stat lines...which really you'd expect from these two. ElGee has also posted WOWY numbers for both players (and in KG's case we also have RAPM and other non-boxscore data), and both exhibit huge impacts (on the order of the best of their generations, with Oscar competing with West and maybe Russell while KG's peers in this respect are Shaq and LeBron). In both instances, it's clear that a) the boxscore impression of impressiveness is beared out and b) both are impacting the game well beyond the box scores.

So where does that leave us in a comparison?

Well, at this point let's discuss what we know about each player's style. Oscar is one of the best point guards in history, a great floor general that can score in volume at high efficiency. He showed that he could use these skills to lead excellent team offenses in a unipolar approach in Cincinnati. Then, he showed that he could modify his offensive approach to be the general in an offense built around Kareem's scoring in Milwaukee. This exhibits excellent offensive magnitude and portability, better than Nash (great unipolar in Phoenix but not as impactful in Dallas with Dirk) or Kobe (great unipolar post-Shaq but more co-existed than enhanced Shaq) and analogous to Magic moving between these roles for the Lakers as Kareem aged.

There's been some question about his defensive ability, but I don't necessarily see it as a negative. We have anecdotal evidence to suggest that Oscar was a solid man-to-man defender (good at using his size and athletic ability to keep opponents out of the paint), but that he wasn't a big help defender (like maybe West may have been). From the non-boxscore data that I've seen, solid man defensive wings don't tend to have huge defensive impact but they can be small positives. Think Paul Pierce as opposed to LeBron James. From this I would deduce that Oscar could be a part of either bad defenses or good defenses, depending on his environment, but that he wouldn't be the catalyst for either.

With Garnett, it has been covered in great detail that he is one of the best defensive players of all-time. In Minnesota he established himself as one of the to best defensive players in the league while carrying a heavy offensive load. This led Boston to believe that he was the best defensive player of his generation, and that they could build an outstanding defense around his talents. Then, they proceeded to do so, with Garnett as the anchor of a championship-caliber defense.

The questions about Garnett have been on offense. I don't know that a consensus has been agreed upon yet, but there is a lot of evidence that he is (at least) capable of being the best offensive player on a championship caliber team. Let's move for a second beyond the RAPM debates (where KG at his peak measured out as a top-3 offensive player in the league) or the questions about KG's postseason scoring efficiency (does it decline as some think, or is it still great when taken in context?). Instead, let's look at big picture evidence. Garnett's scoring volume in both the regular and postseason was similar to Oscar's (as evidenced by the box score scoring stats above) and he was doing this while maintaining a larger distribution responsibility than any of the other elite big men under consideration (as evidenced by the box score assists). KG wasn't on Oscar's level as an offensive player...not even on Dirk's, or Kobe's, or West's, or the other elite offensive players under consideration. BUT, Garnett WAS a big offensive positive. He was the leading scorer on 3 different teams that made the conference Finals, and was the leading scorer (and primary 4th quarter and crunch time scoring option)on a championship squad. Whether he could have been more offensive elite may be up for debate, but that Garnett was unquestionably good enough on offense to lead a contender from the front has been proven.

At the end of the day, both KG and Oscar are elite, worthy choices here. They have all of the stats to demonstrate this, and further analysis into either seems to indicate that they were even better than their stats would indicate.

Vote: Oscar Robertson
2nd: Not sure, as haven't had the chance to scope things out yet. I could see any of West, Robinson, Dr. J or Dirk here, at a first blush. But, some questions about Doc have come up in recent years so I'm unlikely to vote my heart here. For now I'll vote West 2nd, but this is very subject to change once I can get back to the project with more attention.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Unfortunately anticipating this moment, a few threads back I introduced some numbers on Karl v. Dirk which I want to reintroduce here and expand upon:

Karl Malone has a crushing advantage over Dirk, for his entire career, as a rebounder, a defender, a passer.

While Dirk is lauded for longevity, like KG he pales before the machine that was the Mailman. The longer Dirk goes, the more his career stats plummet.

Right now we are talking about:

Mailman 1476 54852min 25.0pts (.577TS%) 10.1reb 3.6ast 1.4stl 0.8blk 3.1TO
Nowitzki 1394 48673min 21.7pts (.578TS%) 7.8reb 2.5ast 0.8stl 0.9blk 1.7TO

Those gaps are only going to broaden the longer Dirk hangs on. Dirk has had great longevity, but he's just hanging on now and fighting a deteriorating body. It wasn't until Mailman's very last season that the machine finally broke down. He crushes all these guys depending on "I hung around" arguments for greatness, because he didn't just hang around.

And while Dirk absolutely deserves credit for being a playoff performer, and Mailman was rarely truly up to his normal snuff, if you cut through the fast pace that Dirk played at in his younger years, and the slower pace the Jazz (and perhaps much of 90s basketball) played at, these are the playoff per 100 numbers for both guys:

Playoff Per 100
Mailman 193gms 32.6pts 14.1reb 4.2ast 1.8stl 0.9blk 3.8TO
Nowitzki 145gms 32.8pts 12.9reb 3.2ast 1.3stl 1.2blk 2.9TO

and let's look at those playoff shooting efficiency stats:
Mailman .463FG% 0.0-0.3 3pt 8.7-11.8FT .736
Nowitzki .462FG% 1.3-3.7 3pt 9.6-10.8FT .892


So this is what you have:

1) Mailman persisting at a considerably higher level, and just dusting Dirk's career regular season stats. The gap is even larger in the playoffs where Mailman churned out 50 more games than Dirk ever reached (Mailman has 4761pts 2062reb 610ast in the playoffs, Dirk 3663-1446-360).
2) Even with Dirk playing above his head in the playoffs, and Mailman playing below his standards, Dirk probably still falls slightly short of Mailman in playoff productivity once you look through pace.
3) Where Dirk DOES have a playoff edge is in scoring efficiency, but that's it. And what is it? Does he shoot for a higher percentage? No. They are virtually identical. But Dirk hits a three a game, and he shoots his FTs at a higher percentage.

So there, point #3 is what you have to base an entire Dirk > Mailman argument on, despite the heavy pummeling he takes in the face of Mailman's all around excellence just forever.

That's another way of saying that Dirk, like KG, doesn't measure up to Mailman's relentless excellence for almost 20 years.

There are a number of fallacies that swirl around Dirk, but the "infinite playoff goodiness" fallacy is the one most problematic right now. Somehow we've developed an argument that if you're a lesser player who plays over your head in the playoffs, then you are somehow magically teleported atop a better player who plays below his norm, even if the end result of you playing about your head and the better guy playing below his norm is that you both end up in the same neighborhood. As if your playing over your head makes more impact than a guy putting up the same numbers who normally crushes it even more. Its optics, not rationality.

(I'll set aside my normal note that these guys played in 1400-1500 regular season basketball games, and fewer than 200 playoff games, and that applying some sort of multiplier to the importance of playoff games such that they are 10x as important as regular season games in telling how good a guy is is just...SMH.)

Dirk Nowitzki really was a standout playoff performer. Such a standout performer that he ALMOST made up the huge gulf in productivity between himself and Karl Malone across the board. But he was STILL a weaker rebounder, STILL less of a passer, STILL less of a defender. What he did manage to do was exceed Mailman's scoring efficiency, if not his actual scoring output. That's why I broke down exactly how that efficiency came about. 1 FT, and 1 extra point from a 2pt shot being a 3pt shot. That is the ENTIRE gap between the two players. There is no other magic. I can only imagine watching a playoff series involving Utah, and then one with Dirk, and after they were over calling up a friend and saying "did you SEE that Dirk hit that FT!! OMG! And I couldn't believe it when Mailman hit that 18 footer rather than a 23 foot three. Man he's struggling."

Somebody...somewhere up above made a remark about trusting Dirk more in the playoffs, again as if that is some infinite talent gap eraser. Sure, my peak, prime, longevity, rebounding, passing and defense all pale in comparison to the other guy...but hey, they trust me! They really trust me!

Really? Trust you to what I wonder. Because somewhere in the rush to complain about Utah underachieving in the playoffs this little fact is lost: Dallas underacheived worse. You know why Mailman played in 50 more playoff games than Dirk has (or likely will given how the West is looking this season)? It's not because Mailman played that many more season than Dirk -- in fact both guys have played 19 seasons. No, the reason Mailman played in 50 more playoff games, while playing through seasons when early rounds were shorter to boot, was because his team won MORE than Dirk's team. Not less.

Dirk Playoff Career
made playoffs 15 of 19 seasons
avg 53.7 wins in playoff seasons
8 first round exits (including the Warriors disaster)
7 2nd round appearances
3 Conference Finals
2 Finals (won 2011)
70-75 total record

Mailman Playoff Career
made playoffs 19 of 19 seasons
avg 52.9 wins in playoff seasons
9 first round exits
10 2nd round appearances
6 Conference Finals
2 Finals
98-95 total record

So yeah, Mailman really tanking his team's chances over the years, unlike that magical winning totem named Dirk of course.

So other than being worse at virtually everything except 1 on 1 scoring, despite not winning any more than Mailman, an entire argument has to be constructed over the awesomeness of 1 FT and 1 3pt shot a game in a bunch of playoff games Dirk was normally losing anyway. That...is poor. There is a reason Mailman was a Dream Teamer. A reason he scored the 2nd most points in NBA history, and actually could easily have passed Kareem if he wanted to. There's a reason he was First Team All NBA for 11 straight seasons.

[JoeMalburg]

Again I'll be brief (of necessity), and maybe say why NOT certain others......

Jerry West - not enough longevity/durability vs most other candidates. To a lesser degree the weaker (imo) era is a factor

Outstanding durability/longevity for his era. Had no control over when he was born. I find both criticisms entirely invalid.

David Robinson - relatively lacking longevity. That's about it, I otherwise think he's a great candidate, and expect I'll be supporting him sooner than most

Assuming you do, how do you reconcile putting him above Barkley, a contemporary who was considered better/greater during their careers and after?

How do you justify changing the narrative more than a decade later?