RealGM 2017 Top 100 #99 (Connie Hawkins)

[dhsilv2]

Which is fair enough, except Mullin isn't on the ballot here. The relevent argument here is his five year stretch versus the other 2 guys stretches and then whether there's any value in what else Hawkins or Archibald did.


The problem here is Win Shares values the difference between, say (and the labels here are arbitrary) dreadful and average (0.000-0.100 WS/48) as much that between average and very good (0.100-0.200). And whilst having dreadful players playing certainly can cost a team, and this is often underestimated, it is rare that you would think of an average player as causing a team to be good. They could be valuable in the right situation (above average for a backup, for instance). But hard to see them as driving even goodness, never mind the level typically needed to strive for a title. Win Shares, which tilt quite a bit towards team performance, on a very good team, see Archibald as very slightly above league average player as a Celtic (.105 WS/48), but the cumulative version tacks on 26.9 wins for this span. And at the top end of evaluating historical players, it's hard to see that and feel like that really makes a difference (otoh, I wouldn't say they missed anything with Henderson taking his minutes). If we were valuing wins above 0, and thus valuing longevity so, Buck Williams and Otis Thorpe should have been in a while ago. And that's not to say they're bad, but there's a lot of minutes that don't really move the needle a lot if you aspire to titles.

I'd want to look at the numbers, but I have a feeling the point guard position is lower on that scale and the I know people have found that in general the deviation is wider today. So I'm not so willing to buy into that Tiny was purely a replacement level player for Boston. A quick look at other starter point guards makes him look somewhat middling among starters which I'd assume would be above your more average player metrics.

Still yes, that is a good point.

To be clear, the case isn't that Archibald is literally at replacement level whereby you could pickup someone out the minor leagues to replace them (whilst Henderson an unsigned Spurs 3rd round pick played a season in the WBL, he transpired to be better than you could typically expect from such a pickup - curiously, Brad Davis was on the scrapheap around this time too) from the waiver wire; rather it is that as a fairly average player they could plausibly have given that money (or traded him, or the pieces used to get him if we want to be pedantic about there not being proper free agency back then) for another perhaps somewhat run-of-the-mill, league average player who will deservedly get no consideration here, and done the same. Then from this arguing that 0 wins (and indeed replacement level) probably shouldn't be our baseline for top 100 players (would a 25 year consistently .100 WS/48, 15 PER, 0 RAPM etc career warrant a place on this list, it'd be a curiosity but my take is no), and if there's no needle moving above average ... a longevity advantage means little.

On greater variation now (less then) there's two arguments there, one is whether there evidence that "scaling" is better/more representitive/more accurate (or better retrodictive) and secondly would doing so help Archibald much ... he's mainly just around average, not much to stretch there, and then below average in the playoffs.

Then finally I'd ask whether you are talking point guards in general or within era for "lower on that scale". Without a deep dive ... it's probably more the case within era, but then that could just as well be turned into argument that this simply means Archibald was competing (and failing to really distinguish himself from) a mediocre crop of players.

Without Tiny's peak, I wouldn't see him in this project. However given that peak, I believe the value of those post prime Celtic's years need to be evaluated. At the time he was seen as a 3 time allstar and 1 time second team all nba. Now we all can clearly identify that the box metrics we have strongly disagree with these selections. That is what lead me to review how he compared to peers in box metrics (other point guards) and the general image I got was he was an average starter. I would argue that there's decent value in an average starter even for this project, and at this low level of the project.

As for the 25 year question, absolutely not. However we're looking at 3 players that depending on your mind set have all time level peaks. As they're hard to directly compare for peaks, I'm looking at what else they did and here to my eyes Tiny is the standout of "other body of work".

[pandrade83]

Some of the pro-Tiny supporters are going to have to help me out. Of the high peak guys, he seems like one of the weaker candidates.

Here's how I view his career - tell me where I'm wrong:

'71 - Decent enough rookie year. but not one that adds that much value I don't see this as a needle mover - being the 2nd/3rd best player on a 33 win team.
'72 - Tiny has a nice rise - 28/9. Cincy is about league average on offense, porous on defense. The rise of Tiny is more than off-set by the (basically full year) loss of Van Lier - Cincy drops to 30-52. If the NBA/ABA were merged, Archibald would probably be a low-level All-Star.
'73 - The peak. The year Tiny gets the 34/11 & KC leads the league in offense. If the NBA/ABA were merged, I'd say Tiny is in the Top 10 - I don't feel comfortable saying Top 5 given the team result of 36-46.
'74 - Kind of a lost year with the injury although the WOWY impact is decent enough - 16-19 with, 17-30 without (37 win pace with, 30 without)
'75 - KC makes the playoffs - fueled by the defense ironically enough. Tiny is miserable in the playoffs - finishing with a 13 PER. Given Lacey was the defensive anchor of the team & defense was the strength of the team, Tiny is sort of a co-best player and in a merged league, low level All-Star seems about right - I'd personally rather have Lacey for that year.
'76 - The Defense falls off and KC is bad on both sides. Tiny puts up big numbers, but KC is once again below average offensively. For me, I'm wrestling with his absolute value at this point given the dilution of pro basketball.

'77-'79 are lost years.

I'm sympathetic to Tiny's value in '80 & '81 - he's probably the 5th best player on a title team in '81. He gets hurt in the '82 playoffs & has minimal value after that.

A couple things:

-The availability argument was used against Walton - but Walton's peak was undeniably a lot higher than Tiny's.
-For being such an offensive savant, his teams finished above average in offensive rating exactly once in his prime ('73).
-We have no evidence he was good in the playoffs - his PER was at 13 or lower every year.
-He was a lead on a playoff team just once during his prime.

All of this was in a pretty diluted era. If you believe that the gap between the pre-merged NBA & today is minimal, I can see taking Tiny. I see it as a major drop-off - I see Davis' peak as better than Tiny's by a bit - and unlike Tiny, Davis showed up in the playoffs.

[trex_8063]

Have been thinking it over, and I'm going with Connie Hawkins for my runoff vote.

Tiny has a really nice peak: I'd possibly include his '73 season in my top 50 player peaks of all-time; but I think I'd have '68 Hawkins even higher (and Connie was even marginally better [statistically] in the front half of '69 before he went down with injury). Tiny's prime is pretty short like Connie's, too, and he doesn't really have any other years that compare to '73. '72 is the only other one that even comes close in terms of individual numbers, though the team result was much more lacking. And that's the thing that's sort of swayed me here as I made my decision: the inconsistency of apparent [or sizable] impact on offense, outside of '73.

Even where '73 is concerned--->yes, it was the #1 offense, but it wasn't exactly "elite" in an historic sense (just +2.9 rORTG). And that's literally the only legitimately "good" offense he led. A quick recap of the teams he played for.....

'70 Royals (a year before Tiny's arrival): -1.0 rORTG
In '71, they'd lose Oscar Robertson and Connie Dierking, but would retain the most of their core of Norm Van Lier, Tom Van Arsdale, Johnny Green, while obtaining rookie Tiny, rookie Sam Lacey, and capable bench scorer SG Flynn Robinson.......they'd improve marginally to a -0.1 rORTG.
'72 (break-out year for Tiny; lose NVL, but obtain Jim Fox, Matt Guokas, and rookie Nate Williams): +0.1 rORTG.
'73 (same basic core, add aging Don Kojis, and John Block at mid-season): +2.9 rORTG
'74 (Tiny's injury year, misses just over half the season; his absence largely replaced by newcomer Jimmy Walker; also lose ancient Johnny Green, Ron Riley, Matt Guokas, and Tom Van Arsdale; add rookie PF Ron Behagen.....so some roster shake-ups and generally a net loss of talent [not just Tiny's injury]): -1.7 rORTG.
'75 (John Block gone, get rookie Scott Wedman, expand role of second-year PF Larry McNeill; Tiny back from injury, a somewhat reduced player): Kings have best all-around season with Tiny on the roster (winning 44 games), though largely as result of DEFENSE (-0.6 rDRTG). They're only a -0.9 rORTG (13th of 18 teams).
'76 (mostly same cast): -0.9 rORTG.
'77 (Tiny has left; been replaced by ABA defensive stud Brian Taylor; Ron Boone, rookie Richard Washington, and Jim Eakins also obtained): +1.0 rORTG


Going from '76 to '77, there are too many rosters losses for the Nets (most notably: Julius Erving) and change of league, etc, to really discern anything of value about Tiny's arrival there (he missed more than half the season anyway). fwiw, in '78 (Tiny absent) their rORTG did improve by +1.4.

'78 Celtics (before Tiny's arrival): -1.8 rORTG.....a surprisingly bad result for a team that had Dave Cowens, Sidney Wicks, ancient versions of John Havlicek and Dave Bing, rookie Cedric Maxwell, a half-season each of Charlie Scott and Kermit Washington, and oft-injured Jo Jo White.
'79 Celtics (lost Hondo and Bing; obtained Chris Ford, Cornbread's improved and his role expanded, and obtained Tiny): -2.2 rORTG
The Celtic rORTG's over the next four years (with Tiny) were: +4.1, +2.9, +2.9, +2.2, respectively......but obviously Tiny wasn't the primary reason or engine behind that (there was this guy Larry Bird, who was apparently pretty good).

In '84 Tiny's left for Milwaukee, replaced by Dennis Johnson......the Celtic offense improved from +2.2 to +3.3

I'll admit there's a ton of mud in the water, but this isn't [at least in any overt way] the impact profile of a consistently elite offensive engine. His individual numbers, outside of a few years, actually aren't overly impressive either.
And at his size, I cannot imagine Tiny was EVER any better than merely average defensively (and likely was a net liability for much of his career). His size cannot help but contribute to problems with contesting jumpers, post defense, fighting thru screens, or if ever stuck on a switch.


Some others have pointed out other holes in his candidacy (though fwiw, I still favor him over Anthony Davis as this point).

[trex_8063]

Thru post #43:

Connie Hawkins - 5 (trex_8063, penbeast0, eminence, euroleague, Doctor MJ)
Tiny Archibald - 2 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2)
Anthony Davis - 2 (HeartBreakKid, pandrade83)


No need to narrow. Guess we'll just call it for Hawkins. Will have the next up in a moment.

Spoiler:

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