RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #30 (Walt Frazier)

[trex_8063]

Thru post #40:

James Harden - 3 (DQuinn1575, Joao Saraiva, Magic Is Magic)
John Havlicek - 1 (Cavsfansince84)
Scottie Pippen - 1 (trex_8063)
Elgin Baylor - 1 (Odinn21)
Walt Frazier - 1 (penbeast0)
Kawhi Leonard - 1 (ZeppelinPage)


Probably about 20 hours [or just under] left for this thread.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Doctor MJ]

To me all of this^^^ is illustrating the limitation of usefulness of this new stat, particularly in comparing players of differing scoring roles….

This is true, and to be clear, yes, I did understand that when I made my post.

...The other guys who rated better than Baylor in TS Add in ‘61 were Wilt, Oscar, and Pettit……..OK. I’m fine with people taking any one of them for granted; and no shame on Baylor there.

My point was that we're not talking about a situation where we have these other all-timers slightly ahead of Baylor who is then light years ahead of everyone else, which is what you'd expect both based on Baylor's accolades form the time and the language being used to argue that it was clearly time for the next guy from the era. What we're talking about is Baylor being in the mix with a bunch of other guys unlikely to get any serious contention in the Top 100.

It's fine to give the reasons why Baylor should get the nod above those other guys, but him being definitively behind them was not what I was arguing.

Note that Baylor is 7th on that list well below guys like Jack Twyman and Bailey Howell who will likely get no Top 100 consideration but honestly may well have been more effective at basketball than Baylor.

Whoa, I’m definitely going to disagree with the bolded.

That's fine, and you made good points. I don't really want to get into this further so I'll let your words be the last on this.

I'll also note that the Laker offense at that time was 7th out of 8th in the league with Jerry West & Rudy LaRusso on the roster. Those guys were young and all, but this is the same year rookie Oscar Robertson came into the league and instantly made the Cincinnati Royals the best offense around. Yeah Oscar is Oscar, but my point is that this was still a time where you reasonably could expect that an outlier talent could drop into the league and just be a tier ahead of those who came before, and Baylor showed no ability to do anything like this.

??
Then neither did West, I guess [so he's also not an outlier talent]???

What was meant to be a burn against the idea of Baylor being an outlier talent almost seems to work MORE against Jerry West.
Baylor as a rookie averaged 25/15/4 @ +3.1% rTS, while the team improved by 14 wins and +4.36 SRS (and made a surprising NBA Finals appearance).
Rookie Jerry West......did less.

I used '60-61 because it was arguably Baylor's best.
'60-61 was also arguably West's worst.

You seem to be saying: "Doc if I use your methods, then West's Worst looks even worse than Baylor's Best, clearly that makes no sense."

To which I'd obviously point out: Actually, that not only makes sense, I'm pretty sure it's what you already believe.

Not that I think that that actually means anything [in the sense you're implying]. Some players are just more ready to hit the ground running in the NBA: like Oscar Robertson or Tim Duncan, or [to a slightly lesser degree] Chris Paul.
Other players need a little bit of time to get there: like Lebron or Steph Curry [or Jerry West needing that one year].


I get that there are things to criticize in Baylor (particular in respect to the usual [mainstream] vaunted opinion of him). I just don’t see the criticisms as terrible case-breaking in the 30s of the list.

Hmm. It's kind of strange to me that you started thinking about rookie West and then proceeded to go on a tangent about rookies oftentimes not being very good without it registering to you how little any of this has to do with my point about prime Baylor. Honestly, it feels to me like when you saw West's name you saw an opportunity to pounce rhetorically and just couldn't help yourself. Not any unforgivable sin, but I think you lost the thread for a minute there.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:

1. Reggie Miller
2. John Havlicek
3. Walt Frazier

And if need be, among players already receiving votes, my next choices would be Pippen then Kawhi.

To say a little bit about my list:

On Miller. So let's just walk through Miller's 6 conference final runs:

'93-94: Takes a #5 seed, upsets #4 & #1, takes the #2 Knicks to 7. Against Knicks he was the game's leading scorer in each of the last 4 games and he had the highest PPG & TS% of all big minute players in the series.

'94-95: Interestingly they were the #2 seed this year but upset the #3. Pacers got the 2nd seed by virtue of winning their division, but the Knicks with the better record had HCA. This was the series with the game Miller score 8 points in 9 seconds for a miracle comeback. Also worth noting that Indiana gave Orlando a really tough fight and put up better offensive numbers against the Magic than even the Rockets (though admittedly Houston didn't exactly need more buckets than they got).

'97-98: No upsets this time, though another victory over Ewing's Knicks surely felt good. Important to note that the Pacers gave the Jordan Bulls their toughest battle with an offense that seemed considerably more resilient than the Jazz'.

'98-99: Pacers get upset by the Knicks this time, and Miller doesn't look so great.

'99-00: Top seed Pacers get to the finals, beating the Knicks one more time. The 34-year old Miller is continues to be the team's best player.

'03-04: The torch has been passed to O'Neal & Artest now with Miller fitting in great as a role player (who as I've noted will step things up the next year after said torch gets Maliced.

I'm definitely not trying to be the longevity guy here, but I do think it's worth noting just how much it means for a franchise like Indiana to have that much success over Miller's time there. Prior to Miller, the team had had only 1 winning NBA season and had won a grand total of 1 playoff games.

I'd also ask folks to consider how the Pacers evolved as a team over Miller's career based on the talent they had access to. I'd argue they adapted well in part because Miller was able to fit in with a variety of talent, and could do so either as the team's leading threat or in a role with less primacy.

On Havlicek: The fact that he was able to switch to a higher primacy role later in his career to great team success has always stuck with me. Sometimes hard to know where to rank him compared to guys who were more classic stars, but he deserves a ton of respect, and yeah, probably a smidge more than Pippen.

On Frazier: Was strongly considering Pippen here, but I'm more enthralled with Frazier and his leading role on those beautiful '70s Knicks. Still see arguments for Pippen here certainly, but for now, I'll go Clyde.

[Dutchball97]

Thru post #40:

James Harden - 3 (DQuinn1575, Joao Saraiva, Magic Is Magic)
John Havlicek - 1 (Cavsfansince84)
Scottie Pippen - 1 (trex_8063)
Elgin Baylor - 1 (Odinn21)
Walt Frazier - 1 (penbeast0)
Kawhi Leonard - 1 (ZeppelinPage)


Probably about 20 hours [or just under] left for this thread.

You missed my vote for Kawhi on page 2. I've removed the quotes to make it more legible.

[Hal14]

1. Elgin Baylor
2. John Havlicek
3. Isiah Thomas

Pettit was voted in several rounds ago, but IMO Baylor is slightly better than Pettit because Baylor was faster, better passer and better ball handler. And in terms of impact, Baylor was Dr. J before Dr. J. Baylor was Connie Hawkins before Connie Hawkins. Jordan modeled his game after Dr. J, as did Dominique Wilkins. Kobe and LeBron modeled their game after Jordan. Baylor was a pioneer. He paved the way for all of the explosive, big, strong, athletic wings to come later.

Also, Pettit's crowning achievement was his 50 point, 19 rebound game to led the Hawks to the win in game 6 over the Celtics to clinch the 1958 NBA championship. However, Russell only played 20 minutes that game because he had a severely sprained ankle suffered in game 3 of that series. Baylor meanwhile, scored 61 points and pulled down 22 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a win over the Celtics in game 5 of the 1962 NBA finals, so Baylor put up better numbers and did it against a healthy Russell who played all 48 minutes of that game. Baylor also played all 48 minutes that game. Jerry West? He had 26 points, 4 rebounds and 0 assists.

Baylor is the best all-around player left on the board IMO when you take into account his scoring, rebounding, passing, defense, ball handling and ability to score/defend both inside and outside.

Baylor and Pettit are both very close and it's definitely debatable which was the greater player. I think both have a case to be top 20 of all time. Scary to think how good they would have been if they played in the modern era with the advantage of 50 years of advances in basketball skills, more favorable rule changes, less days off between games, better equipment, better facilities, better weight training, better nutrition, better sports science, etc. Pettit was voted in several spots ago - it's Baylor's time now.

Baylor's teammate Jerry West is the no. 13 player on this list. And while I do have West ranked ahead of Baylor all-time, it is very close, so if West is no. 13 then Baylor could definitely be the no. 30 guy, considering that when they were teammates, Baylor was often times the better player. Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn was quoted saying that Baylor was the best player he covered - not West. West is quoted saying that Baylor was better than him. Dr. J ranks Baylor as one of his top 5 players ever. Both Baylor and West made first team all NBA 10 times. Baylor was a better rebounder than West, a bigger, stronger more powerful player who could score and defend just as well inside as he could outside.

Anyone thinking Baylor isn't a top 29 player ever, I invite you to watch these videos:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Hondo is in my no. 2 spot here. 8 titles (8-0 in the NBA finals), Celtics all time leading scorer, outstanding defensive player, strong clutch player, 1 NBA finals MVP.

And yes, I do have Isiah ranked slightly ahead of Stockton and Nash. Isiah, Stockton and Nash - all 3 of them had good careers, and had good supporting casts. But of the 3, Nash is the only 1 who could never make it to the NBA finals and he's also the only one who couldn't play a lick of defense. Plus he struggled his first few years when the game was more physical, had less spacing and more geared towards big men/post play (a.k.a. the environment that Isiah played his whole career in and Stockton played his entire prime in) and wasn't until rule changes, no more hand checking, no more hard fouls, more spacing, the rise of the 3-point shot, D'Antoni's system - defense got much weaker in 05, etc. it wasn't until then that Nash dominated.

In this video at the 14:45 mark, Bill Simmons says, "And then David Stern changed the rules so you could succeed"

Watch on YouTube

At the 49:35 mark of this video, Isiah says, "the game today, it favors the point guards and the small players. The era that I won in, the rules were geared towards the bigger players."

Watch on YouTube

Stockton made it to the finals twice, but a) that was after Isiah retied and b) Stockton's Jazz team lost to Jordan's Bulls both times. Meanwhile, during the time when Stockton and Isiah were both in their prime, Isiah made it to 3 NBA finals, won 2 championships and would have been 3 if not for the phantom foul call on Laimbeer in 88, which even Pat Riley admits was a BS call:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2103545-pat-riley-admits-84-lakers-benefited-from-phantom-foul-vs-detroit-pistons

And while Stockton's team lost to Jordan's Bulls twice in the finals, Isiah's Pistons beat Jordan's Bulls 3 times in the playoffs, and beat Magic's Lakers in 89, would have beat Magic Lakers in 88 if not for Phantom Foul and beat Bird's Celtics in 88..

Yes, it's a team game and Isiah had a strong supporting cast, but Isiah was the Piston's best player his entire career except for the very end of his career when he had injuries and the Pistons were a joke before they drafted him.

[trex_8063]

I'll also note that the Laker offense at that time was 7th out of 8th in the league with Jerry West & Rudy LaRusso on the roster. Those guys were young and all, but this is the same year rookie Oscar Robertson came into the league and instantly made the Cincinnati Royals the best offense around. Yeah Oscar is Oscar, but my point is that this was still a time where you reasonably could expect that an outlier talent could drop into the league and just be a tier ahead of those who came before, and Baylor showed no ability to do anything like this.

??
Then neither did West, I guess [so he's also not an outlier talent]???

What was meant to be a burn against the idea of Baylor being an outlier talent almost seems to work MORE against Jerry West.
Baylor as a rookie averaged 25/15/4 @ +3.1% rTS, while the team improved by 14 wins and +4.36 SRS (and made a surprising NBA Finals appearance).
Rookie Jerry West......did less.

I used '60-61 because it was arguably Baylor's best.
'60-61 was also arguably West's worst.

You seem to be saying: "Doc if I use your methods, then West's Worst looks even worse than Baylor's Best, clearly that makes no sense."

To which I'd obviously point out: Actually, that not only makes sense, I'm pretty sure it's what you already believe.

Not that I think that that actually means anything [in the sense you're implying]. Some players are just more ready to hit the ground running in the NBA: like Oscar Robertson or Tim Duncan, or [to a slightly lesser degree] Chris Paul.
Other players need a little bit of time to get there: like Lebron or Steph Curry [or Jerry West needing that one year].


I get that there are things to criticize in Baylor (particular in respect to the usual [mainstream] vaunted opinion of him). I just don’t see the criticisms as terrible case-breaking in the 30s of the list.

Hmm. It's kind of strange to me that you started thinking about rookie West and then proceeded to go on a tangent about rookies oftentimes not being very good without it registering to you how little any of this has to do with my point about prime Baylor. Honestly, it feels to me like when you saw West's name you saw an opportunity to pounce rhetorically and just couldn't help yourself. Not any unforgivable sin, but I think you lost the thread for a minute there.

I think maybe I misconstrued what you were trying to say, and thus you missed where I was coming from [and why I went off on a tangent about rookies]. I'll show your words within quotation marks, with sections of interest bolded, and in parenthetical and different colour the subtext I interpreted below:

"I'll also note that the Laker offense at that time was 7th out of 8th in the league with Jerry West & Rudy LaRusso on the roster (so even with a [really] good supporting cast he can't lead a good offense). Those guys were young and all, but this is the same year rookie Oscar Robertson came into the league and instantly made the Cincinnati Royals the best offense around. Yeah Oscar is Oscar, but my point is that this was still a time where you reasonably could expect that an outlier talent could drop into the league [raw] and just be a tier ahead of those who came before (i.e. Jerry West was THE Jerry West [and not just "rookie West"] because Oscar came into the league ready to be THE Oscar we think of right off the bat [as "an outlier talent" should do, and Jerry West was an outlier talent]), and Baylor showed no ability to do anything like this."


The coloured portions is what I was inferring from this.
The Oscar comment kind of threw me, particularly following that "but" and being [apparently] part of the same thought regarding West being young. I'm still a little confused on what it actually is you're trying to say.

At first it seems the whole point of invoking West and LaRusso's names is to imply Baylor had a really good cast that year [which he still couldn't do anything with, so: bad on him].......until you then briefly acknowledge that they're young, and thus perhaps not quite up to the standard we'd soon expect [and thus maybe not a good supporting cast after all???].
But then you immediately [following the big "but"] seem to switch gears on that implication by basically saying "but Oscar was ready to go as a rookie, as would any outlier talent just dropped [raw] into the league of that era".......and if Jerry West isn't an outlier talent, who is?

So at that point I was confused: were you saying West was ready to go [i.e. play at a prime level] as a rookie [because he is an outlier talent]? But if so, then why were both his individual numbers AND his impact on the Laker offense so far below his typical prime level [despite him having a supporting cast of Baylor and LaRusso]? Either an outlier talent CAN'T always just drop into that league and be ready to dominate, or Jerry West wasn't an outlier talent.
But it can't be both ways; that's what I was saying.


Short-version:
You name-dropped West and LaRusso seemingly as a means of saying "See? Even with good help...."
But imo [and despite any assertions about what raw outlier talents can or cannot do in the league of that era] BOTH of those guys were merely fair/OK starter-level players at that time, nothing more.

Should Baylor be able to engineer a better offense with "fair/OK" help? That is a fair criticism.
The name-dropping seemed to imply he had better than "fair/OK" help, though......and that just didn't sit well with me because both of those guys were not yet what they would become [in West's case, not by a long shot]. That's what I was getting at.
And I also was just confused about what you were saying, as outlined above.

[trex_8063]

btw, if it's not already clear from your votes, it's probably a good idea to sound off on your pick between Baylor and Harden.....I suspect it's going to be relevant to deciding this spot.

[Cavsfansince84]

btw, if it's not already clear from your votes, it's probably a good idea to sound off on your pick between Baylor and Harden.....I suspect it's going to be relevant to deciding this spot.

I am going to go with Harden. Its extremely close imo but what I don't like about Baylor is that I think West was clearly the best player on those teams from 64 on so I can't give him too much bonus points for making it to so many finals over Harden.

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Walt Frazier
Vote 2 - Scottie Pippen
Vote 3 - Rick Barry

Baylor over Harden for me.

Frazier in the Finals

70 (7 games): 17.6 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 10.4 APG, 54.1% FG, 77.5% FT, 5.7 FTAs per game

(yes, i'm aware of the potentially faulty assist count in game 7…)

72 (5 games): 23 PPG, 8 RPG, 8 APG, 58.5% FG, 70.4% FT, 5.4 FTAs per game

73 (5 games): 16.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 5.2 APG, 47.9% FG, 65% FT, 4 FTAs per game

While the knicks would lose in 5 games to the lakers in 72, this was without reed, so they didn't have much of a chance. That said, Clyde stepped up in his absence as evidenced by his impressive all around play. Overall, he was a great performer in the finals. He really had a solid case for finals MVP in 73, but the "big bias" of the time essentially put reed over the top. In addition, his historic game 7 in the 70 finals put the knicks over the top, some of which can be watched here:

Watch on YouTube

It's also worth noting the knicks nearly went to 4 finals in a row if not for a 2 pt game 7 loss to the bullets in the 71 ECF. Frazier led some truly great teams during that stretch.

Frazier embodied just about all you could ask from a star player. He was a versatile playmaker with great decision making, rarely deterred by defensive pressure. On the other side of the ball, he's widely considered one of the best defensive guards of all time. He had the unique ability to lull a player into an "easy" drive to the basket, and then tapping the ball from behind for a steal and fast break bucket. He was also great in passing lanes, and had the size and speed to guard both the 1 and 2.

From a more intangible standpoint, clyde fit in seamlessly with one of the most balanced scoring teams in NBA history. Team chemistry was huge, and he valued the importance of his teammates highly. Per Page 2 interview via ESPN:

The story of that night is that Reed's presence really inspired your team and really rattled the Lakers …

Frazier: Oh, unequivocally. If Willis didn't come out, I would not have had that game.

Is that right?

Frazier: Absolutely. He gave us the confidence we needed. The crowd ... the crowd propelled us to that win, man. They never shut up. They had us doing things we never thought we could do.

The knicks routinely ran an "option-less" offense, where "hit the open man" was the basic game plan. Clyde would further his ability to adapt to playing with other star players when his conference rival Earl Monroe was traded to NY. Two of the best guards in the game with only one ball to go around were expected to clash, but instead their styles of play complemented each other quite well en route to the 73 title.

Albert pointed out that Frazier, too, had to make accommodations. ''They both subjugated their game,'' he said. But, after playing so intensely against one another, Albert said: ''They both were so in tune with one another and what needed to be done. So it worked.''

- - - - -

But for basketball fans, Monroe's career was a tutorial in winning. ''By enthusiastically adopting the Knicks' philosophy,'' Bradley said, ''Earl helped to show that no one can accomplish alone as much as all of us can accomplish together.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/sports/backtalk-when-stars-collide-in-new-york.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A9%22%7D

[trex_8063]

Thru post #49:

James Harden - 3 (DQuinn1575, Joao Saraiva, Magic Is Magic)
Kawhi Leonard - 2 (Dutchball97, ZeppelinPage)
Elgin Baylor - 2 (Hal14, Odinn21)
Walt Frazier - 2 (Clyde Frazier, penbeast0)
John Havlicek - 1 (Cavsfansince84)
Scottie Pippen - 1 (trex_8063)
Reggie Miller - 1 (Doctor MJ)



Time's up on this one. 12 votes requires 7 for a majority. We'll start by eliminating the bottom three. This transfers two to Frazier, one to Baylor.....

Frazier - 4
Harden - 3
Baylor - 3
Leonard - 2

So we'll eliminate Leonard next, which transfers one each to Baylor and Frazier.....

Frazier - 5
Baylor - 4
Harden - 3

So Harden ends up on the chopping block next, which transfers one more to Frazier, and ghosts two.....

Frazier - 6
Baylor - 4
(ghosts) - 2 [Joao Saraiva, Magic Is Magic]


So I next need to call on our two ghost votes to state their picks between Frazier [who seems to have come out of no where] and Baylor to see if that decides it.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[penbeast0]

Not exactly nowhere, he only started one vote down in a widely split group where no one had more than 3.

[trex_8063]

Not exactly nowhere, he only started one vote down in a widely split group where no one had more than 3.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. He didn't have a single 1st-place vote in any prior thread; which---if he ends up winning this spot---I'm pretty sure will be a first (where a guy who didn't receive a single 1st-place vote on any prior round wins it).

[penbeast0]

LeBron

[Joao Saraiva]

I have Frazier over Baylor.

If there is reasoning required please tell me.

[DQuinn1575]

Not exactly nowhere, he only started one vote down in a widely split group where no one had more than 3.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. He didn't have a single 1st-place vote in any prior thread; which---if he ends up winning this spot---I'm pretty sure will be a first (where a guy who didn't receive a single 1st-place vote on any prior round wins it).

'
Did we have anybody get the most first place votes finish 3rd in the round?

[trex_8063]

Joao Saraiva has sounded off in favour of Frazier, so that decides it. Will get the next up in a moment.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[tmorgan]

As an observer, I find it extremely apropos that Frazier wins out earlier than expected. He could easily lose a one on one best player debate to a handful of players not yet listed, but still gets it done.

All he does is win.

[Doctor MJ]

So, I’ve been thinking about and have concluded this thing where I guy gets in with something (or some player) not actually getting debated is an unintended consequence of the use of an instant runoff system.

It’s a system that rewards “non-offensive candidates”. In politics this is a feature. I think we are finding in GOAT lists it is more complicated than that.

I’m not complaining about this. I don’t think this is an invalid approach in the slightest and I’m reluctant to make changes to process mid project. But yeah, it’s been on my mind since the Curry kurfuffle.

To the point of Frazier essentially being the most extreme case of this so far, yes, and it happened just when you’d expect it to: When there is no consensus top 2/3.

We should probably expect this will keep happening in such circumstances which probably means that when we experience a tier shift that we can recognize, we should really make a point of getting into discussions about everyone who folks want to bring up in that next tier.

[Cavsfansince84]

So, I’ve been thinking about and have concluded this thing where I guy gets in with something (or some player) not actually getting debated is an unintended consequence of the use of an instant runoff system.

It’s a system that rewards “non-offensive candidates”. In politics this is a feature. I think we are finding in GOAT lists it is more complicated than that.

I’m not complaining about this. I don’t think this is an invalid approach in the slightest and I’m reluctant to make changes to process mid project. But yeah, it’s been on my mind since the Curry kurfuffle.

To the point of Frazier essentially being the most extreme case of this so far, yes, and it happened just when you’d expect it to: When there is no consensus top 2/3.

We should probably expect this will keep happening in such circumstances which probably means that when we experience a tier shift that we can recognize, we should really make a point of getting into discussions about everyone who folks want to bring up in that next tier.

While I see where you are coming from with what you are saying I think the process is the best we could hope for and I would also say that fairly strong cases/debates were laid out for Frazier in the last 2-3 rank debates. I would also hope that the case I made for him going back 3-4 ranks was reasonably strong.

[Doctor MJ]

So, I’ve been thinking about and have concluded this thing where I guy gets in with something (or some player) not actually getting debated is an unintended consequence of the use of an instant runoff system.

It’s a system that rewards “non-offensive candidates”. In politics this is a feature. I think we are finding in GOAT lists it is more complicated than that.

I’m not complaining about this. I don’t think this is an invalid approach in the slightest and I’m reluctant to make changes to process mid project. But yeah, it’s been on my mind since the Curry kurfuffle.

To the point of Frazier essentially being the most extreme case of this so far, yes, and it happened just when you’d expect it to: When there is no consensus top 2/3.

We should probably expect this will keep happening in such circumstances which probably means that when we experience a tier shift that we can recognize, we should really make a point of getting into discussions about everyone who folks want to bring up in that next tier.

While I see where you are coming from with what you are saying I think the process is the best we could hope for and I would also say that fairly strong cases/debates were laid out for Frazier in the last 2-3 rank debates. I would also hope that the case I made for him going back 3-4 ranks was reasonably strong.

Right but those who disagree on Frazier weren't focused on making their cases against Frazier.

To be clear, I'm one of the people who's vote went for Frazier, so I'm really not talking about myself here, but I recognize how it can feel to be on the other side of things.