RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #57 (Bob Lanier)

[Owly]

Magic's neutered?

Merely meaning Magic's full offensive potential likely isn't realized unless you give him full rein to the offense (similar to a Steve Nash). Wasn't comparing his fit [next to Nixon] to Dantley's fit on the team (which I'll concede was likely inappropriate within the context of what I said).

Also ignored here is that the '79 Lakers actually led the league in efg% the area where you'd expect Dantley to have an impact (though they would improve in this area in '80).

fwiw, I'd expect FTr to be the offensive FF that Dantley shifts the needle the most on (Lakers were just 17th/22 in FTr). And Dantley's eFG%, while significantly above league average, was 0.7% worse than the Laker team average in '79 (he was 4th on the team, not counting Brad Davis and his 65 total minutes played).

But you're right that the prior post was shallow analysis on my part.

On FTr, see the prior seasons to show the role of fit in LA on Dantley's ability to get to the line (his an area mostly an area directly attributable to an individual in the boxscore, and certainly in Dantley's case - he's not impacting it as a playmaker). After one season in Utah at similar levels (if charitable, might be explained by Dantley's "star" call stock being harmed by his time in LA, and/or a dumpster fire of a New Orleans team about to move possibly getting less respect or home court intimidation on refs - this later idea is perhaps more of a reach, the former somewhat plausible) it comes back up. Certainly versus his career that looks like a fit thing.

To the efg% point
1) In purely numbers terms, Dantley doesn't need to be north of the Lakers (efg%, or just fg%, as pre-three point line in '79) to help lift them to first (if that is taken to be the goal), just better than 2nd. And Dantley is almost there (he'd be tied, rounding to 1 or 3 decimal places - depending whether you express as an actual percent or more conventionally - if he had made one more of his field goal attempts). Mind you I don't know that you're talking about 1st as the target but more broadly ...

2) In a broader context of supporting Iverson on the notion of pure boxscore not capturing everything, it seems slightly churlish to suggest Dantley, whilst taking on (somewhat surprisingly, and very narrowly) the largest usage burden (23.4 to Jabbar's 23.3, with Wilkes at 22.3) isn't part of what allows, say, Nixon to shoot the percentage he does (cf: Nixon's shooting percentages with a usage north of 20, even with the benefit of playing alongside Magic). And then also (going back to the raw numbers) ...

3) Is the bar for Dantley at this point Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Because he might be lifting that efg%. And perhaps that's the point in terms if one were take my arguments as a case for Dantley as primary cause for a league leading efg%, he isn't. But to say he's under team average ... I mean you acknowledge he's fourth so I don't think you think he was a drag ... still, I think you get that why doing that is a bit misleading. Because it sets the bar at a Kareem inflated level.

[trex_8063]

To the efg% point

2) In a broader context of supporting Iverson on the notion of pure boxscore not capturing everything, it seems slightly churlish to suggest Dantley, whilst taking on (somewhat surprisingly, and very narrowly) the largest usage burden (23.4 to Jabbar's 23.3, with Wilkes at 22.3) isn't part of what allows, say, Nixon to shoot the percentage he does (cf: Nixon's shooting percentages with a usage north of 20, even with the benefit of playing alongside Magic).

Fair enough; I might be acting slightly inconsistent between these two individuals, but only because I'm not seeing the suggestions of major impact [read: particularly that which is consistent with his box-based metrics] thru large swaths of Dantley's career. If you have further evidence to the contrary, please believe I'm being sincere when I say I want to see it; I haven't had the time to harvest everything that I'd like to for every player who will come up in the course of this project. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut until I've investigated every available morsel, but I'd rather take the chance of appearing the idiot if it generates discussion within these threads.

I can't say whether Dantley had much to do with Nixon's high%; are there other examples where he has this effect on his teammates' shooting efficiency to begin to establish a trend? My hunch is not really, but I could be mistaken.

And then also (going back to the raw numbers) ...

3) Is the bar for Dantley at this point Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Because he might be lifting that efg%. And perhaps that's the point in terms if one were take my arguments as a case for Dantley as primary cause for a league leading efg%, he isn't. But to say he's under team average ... I mean you acknowledge he's fourth so I don't think you think he was a drag ... still, I think you get that why doing that is a bit misleading. Because it sets the bar at a Kareem inflated level.

Didn't mean to suggest the bar is prime Kareem.
Maybe a better way to state it would have been that I think there's a good chance they'd have led the league in FG% without Dantley.

Note that all of Dantley's FGA could be replaced by someone shooting 2.0% below league average, and the Lakers would still have led the league in FG%. Or that Nixon could have shot 2% worse on his attempts (lack of previously suggested Dantley-effect), while all of Dantley's attempts are replaced at league-avg FG% scorer, and the Lakers still would have been #1.

[trex_8063]

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I know you've championed Bob Lanier in the past; just out of curiosity, where do you have him on your own ATL?

Also, wrt the scaled WS/48 studies, I've begun looking into whether or not it better predicts actual wins. The answer so far appears to be "not really....but does no worse either."
I haven't run a huge volume of teams thru yet, but basically it will come marginally closer to the actual total for some teams, marginally further for others. Correlation thus far seems pretty much exactly the same as actual win shares.......which we probably should have anticipated based on it's construct: because for however it is scaling above average players further or closer to the mean, it is scaling below average players further or closer to the mean by equal proportions.

[Owly]

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I know you've championed Bob Lanier in the past; just out of curiosity, where do you have him on your own ATL?

Also, wrt the scaled WS/48 studies, I've begun looking into whether or not it better predicts actual wins. The answer so far appears to be "not really....but does no worse either."
I haven't run a huge volume of teams thru yet, but basically it will come marginally closer to the actual total for some teams, marginally further for others. Correlation thus far seems pretty much exactly the same as actual win shares.......which we probably should have anticipated based on it's construct: because for however it is scaling above average players further or closer to the mean, it is scaling below average players further or closer to the mean by equal proportions.

In all honesty I don't have an All Time list. Looking back I don't know that I ever have, though since I really got back into the game (circa a decade ago now) I've done a lot of little projects, comparing published rankings, putting them and boxscore composites into a spreadsheet. I guess, say up to around last time the list was done (maybe a bit beyond), I felt I was moving towards a more concrete list.

Nowadays I'm looking for something internally consistent that actually means something, and I'm not sure that I'm going to get that (difference in available data over time, difficulty of reconciling (1) my own low rating of the playoffs with that of just about all others and (2) any weighting even low, of playoffs with the huge variety in quality of competition, health, matchups, change in year-to-year sample sizes etc ...). I think the most I can say on Lanier is the more I got into (1) the numbers and (2) the year by year history rather than the big, broad strokes, after the fact histories (and related rankings), the more I thought "Isn't he better than much more fabled 70s centers (Reed, Unseld, Cowens)?" Instinctively I'd say maybe in Ewing's ballpark (slightly lower than here on him than perhaps the norm here, based on scouting reports defensively - easy to fake and get foul on as a man defender, supposedly; and perhaps being a bit black hole, high turnover-ish on O, though those numbers fluctuate) though this isn't hard and fast so much as on off the top of my head comp (if I was confident on Ewing as the cause in those elite Knicks Ds, rather than one factor along with continuity, coaching, a number of other good defenders and arguably a favourable rules climate - though you can only play the rules of your time so ..., then I'd probably see Ewing as clearly separated - I think WoWY and what we've got for RAPM type stuff was bullish on his impact ...) so take that for whatever it's worth. The following rambling hopefully at least illustrative of why I'm feeling further away from putting everything together.

Regarding your Win Shares model, obviously it's more awkward (and open to error, bias etc) and maybe I'll get the language here wrong but could you look at trades for predictive power. Based on what you said (I didn't get too deep back into your other thread) the problem is doing retrodiction (probably the wrong word) using data from that season to predict that season, and your method will just magnify (or shrink) the range of positives and negatives (so end result is everyone in the same position just on a different scale)? Maybe (and I'm not super confident in Win Shares doing this well, being tied, as it is, to team performance) looking at players who moved and whether conventional Win Shares versus your model does better. If all else is equal (huge if, you need stability in other regards) and I've understood right, with players moving you look at the data the year before and see which version is closer to the (SRS?) impact of arrival. Then again in trying to explain my thinking I've become less and less convinced that what I'm proposing isn't nonsense (or that I've properly undestood the problem).

I may revist this when less tired.