RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #15 (Oscar Robertson)

[iggymcfrack]

Vote: David Robinson
Already have made the case a bunch of times so I'm not going to re-hash it with a super long post, but ultimately I feel like the gap between Robinson and any of these other players defensively is absolutely massive and offensively.... it's pretty damn close. Look at Oscar, probably the frontrunner right now. By all accounts an average defender at best, absolutely nothing special on that end. If you just pace adjust their playoff stats, you get:

Robinson: 18.1/10.6/2.3 on .547 TS%
Oscar: 16.8/6.7/6.7 on .544 TS%

Like does anyone see an absolute chasm there? Oscar was the better offensive player, sure, but they were in the same ballpark. Defensively, they're absolutely not.

Alternate: Dirk Nowitzki
Best single season peak (2011), better longevity than any nominated candidate except for Malone.

Nomination: Nikola Jokic
Literally top 2 all-time in box stats, RS and postseason. Already has better longevity than Mikan in a massively stronger league. Best offensive player in the history of the league. Let's give the dude a look.

Alternate nomination: Giannis Anteokounmpo

[HeartBreakKid]

Vote: David Robinson
Already have made the case a bunch of times so I'm not going to re-hash it with a super long post, but ultimately I feel like the gap between Robinson and any of these other players defensively is absolutely massive and offensively.... it's pretty damn close. Look at Oscar, probably the frontrunner right now. By all accounts an average defender at best, absolutely nothing special on that end. If you just pace adjust their playoff stats, you get:

Robinson: 18.1/10.6/2.3 on .547 TS%
Oscar: 16.8/6.7/6.7 on .544 TS%

Like does anyone see an absolute chasm there? Oscar was the better offensive player, sure, but they were in the same ballpark. Defensively, they're absolutely not.

Alternate: Dirk Nowitzki
Best single season peak (2011), better longevity than any nominated candidate except for Malone.

Nomination: Nikola Jokic
Literally top 2 all-time in box stats, RS and postseason. Already has better longevity than Mikan in a massively stronger league. Best offensive player in the history of the league. Let's give the dude a look.

Alternate nomination: Giannis Anteokounmpo

Oscar Robertson and David Robinson are not in the same ball park offensively. Why did you adjust their playoff pace boxscore stats but nothing else?

Robinson and Robertson having the same TS despite one guy playing 30 years earlier isn't a good thing. Oscar has lead the post season in TS% 3 different times, including seasons that had peak Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabar. He is a much better shooter than Robinson, they're not close.

Oscar Robertson's APG is incredibly high for his time as well when assist were not given out as easily. He has lead the playoffs in assist most post seasons. Making it seem like "he just" has 4 more APG undersells what his APG means.



Even without context they wouldnt' be close as offensive players. Robertson is the primary ball handler, passer, and has anchored many #1 ranked offenses.



Yes, there is a chasm in their offense. No, just because two players PPG are similar does not mean they are close. You can't just adjust their pace and then call it even.

[penbeast0]

Vote: David Robinson
Already have made the case a bunch of times so I'm not going to re-hash it with a super long post, but ultimately I feel like the gap between Robinson and any of these other players defensively is absolutely massive and offensively.... it's pretty damn close. Look at Oscar, probably the frontrunner right now. By all accounts an average defender at best, absolutely nothing special on that end. If you just pace adjust their playoff stats, you get:

Robinson: 18.1/10.6/2.3 on .547 TS%
Oscar: 16.8/6.7/6.7 on .544 TS%

Like does anyone see an absolute chasm there? Oscar was the better offensive player, sure, but they were in the same ballpark. Defensively, they're absolutely not.

Alternate: Dirk Nowitzki
Best single season peak (2011), better longevity than any nominated candidate except for Malone.

Nomination: Nikola Jokic
Literally top 2 all-time in box stats, RS and postseason. Already has better longevity than Mikan in a massively stronger league. Best offensive player in the history of the league. Let's give the dude a look.

Alternate nomination: Giannis Anteokounmpo

If you are going to use simple pace adjustment, you should adjust for relative efficiency too. In a more nuanced analysis, you aren't adjusting for the greater difficulty of assists in the 60s, or Robinson's positional advantage either though I have no problem not accounting for positional advantage since if we are talking ability to affect the game, big men have traditionally had the greater effect on the game both due to the way league offenses and defenses were set up and because the much smaller sample size of people the size of a Mikan, DRob, or Jokic makes for greater variance.

[One_and_Done]

A flat adjustment for effciency based on era is very problematic as I've explained. Put Giannis in 1957 and his efficiency is waaaay higher relative to era, but he's still the same player.

[HeartBreakKid]

A flat adjustment for effciency based on era is very problematic as I've explained. Put Giannis in 1957 and his efficiency is waaaay higher relative to era, but he's still the same player.

No one suggested a flat adjustment for efficiency. Someone readjusted two players pace to make their stats look closer, when without adjusting it Oscar's is better. So if we are going to look at their stats with context, then it should probably be more than just seeing that they have the same PPG per possession.


It also removes the greater point. If Oscar Robertson has high TS% in the RS and has high TS% in the post season that would mean his offense is resilient. It's been proven many times that David Robinson can be guarded. That makes a difference in evaluating scoring ability.

[Doctor MJ]

Like idk man if we’re knocking some guys like wilt for example, with clashing with coaches and general off the court stuff


Like damn bro I get it didn’t effect the team but her age was legit on a clock that’s nasty

I would say that there's a clear distinction here:

We are not ranking the best people. We're ranking careers in basketball.

If one believes that the only thing really relevant in ranking basketball players is what happens on the court, that's a perfectly reasonable stance.

But a player's off-court behavior can affect a player's career, and when it does, I find it hard to justify ignoring it.

Last note: I think it's reasonable to talk this through a bit further, but please don't make this about Malone's sexual behavior thread after thread.

[iggymcfrack]

Vote: David Robinson
Already have made the case a bunch of times so I'm not going to re-hash it with a super long post, but ultimately I feel like the gap between Robinson and any of these other players defensively is absolutely massive and offensively.... it's pretty damn close. Look at Oscar, probably the frontrunner right now. By all accounts an average defender at best, absolutely nothing special on that end. If you just pace adjust their playoff stats, you get:

Robinson: 18.1/10.6/2.3 on .547 TS%
Oscar: 16.8/6.7/6.7 on .544 TS%

Like does anyone see an absolute chasm there? Oscar was the better offensive player, sure, but they were in the same ballpark. Defensively, they're absolutely not.

Alternate: Dirk Nowitzki
Best single season peak (2011), better longevity than any nominated candidate except for Malone.

Nomination: Nikola Jokic
Literally top 2 all-time in box stats, RS and postseason. Already has better longevity than Mikan in a massively stronger league. Best offensive player in the history of the league. Let's give the dude a look.

Alternate nomination: Giannis Anteokounmpo

Oscar Robertson and David Robinson are not in the same ball park offensively. Why did you adjust their playoff pace boxscore stats but nothing else?

Robinson and Robertson having the same TS despite one guy playing 30 years earlier isn't a good thing. Oscar has lead the post season in TS% 3 different times, including seasons that had peak Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabar. He is a much better shooter than Robinson, they're not close.

Oscar Robertson's APG is incredibly high for his time as well when assist were not given out as easily. He has lead the playoffs in assist most post seasons. Making it seem like "he just" has 4 more APG undersells what his APG means.



Even without context they wouldnt' be close as offensive players. Robertson is the primary ball handler, passer, and has anchored many #1 ranked offenses.



Yes, there is a chasm in their offense. No, just because two players PPG are similar does not mean they are close. You can't just adjust their pace and then call it even.

That "assists not being given out as much in the '60s" is completely false. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all. There was a lot less aggressive motion and passing in that era and you still had 49.2% of field goals being assisted in 1967 compared to 60.9% in 1997. It's pretty comparable even with players getting their own shots more. Oscar was a very good passer for the time, but he wasn't anything like an elite modern point guard. Here's what Backpicks had to say about his passing:

Unlike the modern ball-dominant quarterbacks, Oscar wasn’t spearheading attacks by relentlessly creating opportunities for teammates — such plays weren’t common for much of the 1960s. Oscar led the league in assists in most years, but even then assist rates were far below what they would become after the merger in 1977. Oscar’s assists per 75 possessions were regularly between 5.9 and 7.5. For comparison, John Stockton has the highest rate ever at 13.6, while Magic and Steve Nash peaked around 12. But the best mark before the merger was Kevin Porter’s 8.5.

Thus, Oscar wasn’t making life way easier for his teammates the way creators like Nash and LeBron did. Instead, he was a great facilitator. His more conservative passes put players in the right position to score. He could find easy offense in transition and his great feel for mismatches helped team efficiency too. But an enormous chunk of his global impact came from his own isolation scoring

Again, I'm not saying Oscar wasn't better than Robinson offensively. Sure he was. But if Oscar's like an 8.5 offensively, Robinson has to still be like a 7, right? Whereas on defense, it's more like the difference between a 10 and a 5.

[OhayoKD]

Like idk man if we’re knocking some guys like wilt for example, with clashing with coaches and general off the court stuff


Like damn bro I get it didn’t effect the team but her age was legit on a clock that’s nasty

I would say that there's a clear distinction here:

We are not ranking the best people. We're ranking careers in basketball.

If one believes that the only thing really relevant in ranking basketball players is what happens on the court, that's a perfectly reasonable stance.

But a player's off-court behavior can affect a player's career, and when it does, I find it hard to justify ignoring it.

Last note: I think it's reasonable to talk this through a bit further, but please don't make this about Malone's sexual behavior thread after thread.

I think for those who like to think predictively, it's pretty optimistic to think that sort of decision-making doesn't have a decent chance of causing problems in a lockeroom setting.

[trex_8063]

VOTE: Karl Malone
Alternate: David Robinson

Well, with the emergence of Malone as a candidate, that totally changes my vote. I have him #13 on my personal list, and am thinking of moving him up to #12, displacing Larry Bird believe it or not. But in the 13 years of '89-'01, Malone had a 25.8 PER, .235 WS/48, and +6.5 BPM [for 13 f***ing years!], while playing the equivalent of 1.5 seasons more than Bird did in his entire career. And Malone has other value-adding years ('87, '88, '02-'04 [he's even an All-Star level player some of these]).

Playoff drop-off is a concern, though in that same 13-year span he was a 23.1 PER, .162 WS/48, +5.4 BPM (in >40 mpg) in the playoffs. That's still a pretty substantial player.
Did I mention the guy missed 6 games total in those 13 years (rs + ps)?
He was 2nd in the league in rs AuPM in '94, 5th in '95 and '96, 14th in NPI RAPM in '97 (that includes playoffs), 8th in PI RAPM in '98, 16th in '99, 19th in '00. So his impact profile lags slightly behind his box-based profile......but only slightly.

And if the reffing gaffs I'd previously mentioned didn't occur, and Karl Malone had a title and FMVP in '98 (not a sure-thing, but a better than coin-flip chance)........not a single poster would blink at me for putting him in the top 15 (or the top 12), even if his playoff performances were exactly the same.

Seriously, putting a.....
*2-time MVP (8th all-time in total shares)
*who is 2nd all-time in career rs pts (8th all-time in playoffs)
*and 8th all-time in career rs reb (7th all-time in playoffs)
*a PF who's primarily known as a scorer, but who's also 61st all-time in rs assists (44th all-time in playoffs), and made 3 All-D teams
*and who won a title as the best player, winning FMVP.....

....putting him #12-15? Madness!!!

I don't want to get into his personal life or how well you like the guy. I don't like him either; that's not what this project is about. The guy was really good at basketball, for a really long time, and almost never missed any games until his 19th and final season.



DRob had a super-high peak and was still a solid contributor (I'd gauge him as at least sub All-Star) in his final season: thirteen healthy seasons [not counting '97], having come into the league a superstar [solid All-NBA level] player and never declining below Sub All-Star (and peaking somewhere between MVP and "All-Time Tier")......it amounts to a lot of career value, even without the extended prime that Nowitzki or Malone had.

For any who did not see much of Robinson, he was an athletic freak, sort of like a 7'1" version of Giannis Antetokounmpo: similar [I think] wingspan, fast in the open court, could elevate quickly off the ground, strong upper body. Not quite as lithe and agile as Giannis [to my eye, anyway], but then he was 2" taller in the balance. Just a phenomenal athletic specimen.

He combined that with good defensive instincts and timing, decent mid-range and FT shooting, a fair/decent BBIQ (he wasn't a savaant, but he wasn't Dwight Howard either) which helped translate into very solid big-man ball-control (despite consistently facing doubles/triples constantly in his prime).

While I know few people here agree, I'm of the opinion that he peaked marginally higher than Hakeem defensively, while also being a helluva good offensive player. This was, after all, a guy who once led the league in scoring on very good shooting efficiency and turnover economy, while simultaneously averaging a team-best 4.8 apg and anchoring the 4th-rated offense (again: facing double-teams/triple-teams A LOT; that's where most of the assists came, in fact).

He was doing that while being in the conversation as the best defensive player in the league......a league containing prime/peak versions of Hakeem, Mutombo, and Ewing. Seriously think about that.

It's a narrative thing, but I'll say it again: the Spurs circa mid-90s were asking of Robinson---nay, requiring of Robinson [in order to succeed]---to be Michael Jordan on offense AND Bill Russell on defense.
And the guy was so f***ing phenomenal, that he damn near pulled it off........in the regular season.

Therein lies the [small] catch. While I'm of the opinion that his defensive value mostly held up in the ps, his offensive value did not. He fell from being a "diet Jordan" level offensive talent in the rs to being more, idk..........something notably less than that (can't think of a good comp; Dan Issell, maybe) in the ps. And sadly, the Spurs just never had the offensive talent around him to adequately pick up the slack. Sean Elliott [not there until '95], Avery Johnson [gone in '94], an aging Dale Ellis [gone by '95] and Dennis Rodman [for his offensive rebounding] were the best offensive talents he was ever surrounded by (note two weren't there in '94, the season I've referenced above).

I still believe if Rodman had not gone supernova toxic in the '95 playoffs (and I'm sorry, I refuse to hold Robinson accountable for another man's bull****), and had, you know......actually played any defense on Robert Horry (the principle thing his reputation would have you expect of him), then the Spurs may have won that series, and we'd have an entirely different perception of Robinson (and Hakeem, for that matter).
Or alternately, Rodman can still be a dink, and the perimeter core doesn't wet the bed from behind the arc, maybe the Spurs still win the series.
I know I know: if "if's" and "buts" were candy and nuts.......
Gosh, there are so many little contextual twists and turns and elements of chance in the NBA's history, though. Truly.

Robinson shapes out as one of the very best of his generation in the impact metrics we have (rs AuPM ['94-'96], RAPM ['97 onward]), despite very little of that falling in his prime:

'94: 1st in league [by silly margin: +1.5 over 2nd place (K.Malone)]
'95: 1st in league [by even sillier margin: +2.8 over 2nd place (S.Pippen)]
'96: 1st in league [+0.2 over returned Michael Jordan]
**Honestly, I think you could make an argument that David Robinson, peri-peak, was the regular season GOAT.

PI RAPM [playoffs included] after returning from injury (and well into his 30s, fwiw):
'98: 23rd
'99: 3rd (1st in NPI, fwiw)
'00: 4th
Remained top 10 in '01 [NPI], still top 20 in '02, bounces back to fringe top-10 in '03 [more limited minutes].

He was a beast, plain and simple. Lot of accumulated value during his span, imo.



Nomination #1: Chris Paul
Alt. Nomination: Kevin Durant

[HeartBreakKid]

Vote: David Robinson
Already have made the case a bunch of times so I'm not going to re-hash it with a super long post, but ultimately I feel like the gap between Robinson and any of these other players defensively is absolutely massive and offensively.... it's pretty damn close. Look at Oscar, probably the frontrunner right now. By all accounts an average defender at best, absolutely nothing special on that end. If you just pace adjust their playoff stats, you get:

Robinson: 18.1/10.6/2.3 on .547 TS%
Oscar: 16.8/6.7/6.7 on .544 TS%

Like does anyone see an absolute chasm there? Oscar was the better offensive player, sure, but they were in the same ballpark. Defensively, they're absolutely not.

Alternate: Dirk Nowitzki
Best single season peak (2011), better longevity than any nominated candidate except for Malone.

Nomination: Nikola Jokic
Literally top 2 all-time in box stats, RS and postseason. Already has better longevity than Mikan in a massively stronger league. Best offensive player in the history of the league. Let's give the dude a look.

Alternate nomination: Giannis Anteokounmpo

Oscar Robertson and David Robinson are not in the same ball park offensively. Why did you adjust their playoff pace boxscore stats but nothing else?

Robinson and Robertson having the same TS despite one guy playing 30 years earlier isn't a good thing. Oscar has lead the post season in TS% 3 different times, including seasons that had peak Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabar. He is a much better shooter than Robinson, they're not close.

Oscar Robertson's APG is incredibly high for his time as well when assist were not given out as easily. He has lead the playoffs in assist most post seasons. Making it seem like "he just" has 4 more APG undersells what his APG means.



Even without context they wouldnt' be close as offensive players. Robertson is the primary ball handler, passer, and has anchored many #1 ranked offenses.



Yes, there is a chasm in their offense. No, just because two players PPG are similar does not mean they are close. You can't just adjust their pace and then call it even.

That "assists not being given out as much in the '60s" is completely false. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all. There was a lot less aggressive motion and passing in that era and you still had 49.2% of field goals being assisted in 1967 compared to 60.9% in 1997. It's pretty comparable even with players getting their own shots more. Oscar was a very good passer for the time, but he wasn't anything like an elite modern point guard. Here's what Backpicks had to say about his passing:

Unlike the modern ball-dominant quarterbacks, Oscar wasn’t spearheading attacks by relentlessly creating opportunities for teammates — such plays weren’t common for much of the 1960s. Oscar led the league in assists in most years, but even then assist rates were far below what they would become after the merger in 1977. Oscar’s assists per 75 possessions were regularly between 5.9 and 7.5. For comparison, John Stockton has the highest rate ever at 13.6, while Magic and Steve Nash peaked around 12. But the best mark before the merger was Kevin Porter’s 8.5.

Thus, Oscar wasn’t making life way easier for his teammates the way creators like Nash and LeBron did. Instead, he was a great facilitator. His more conservative passes put players in the right position to score. He could find easy offense in transition and his great feel for mismatches helped team efficiency too. But an enormous chunk of his global impact came from his own isolation scoring

Again, I'm not saying Oscar wasn't better than Robinson offensively. Sure he was. But if Oscar's like an 8.5 offensively, Robinson has to still be like a 7, right? Whereas on defense, it's more like the difference between a 10 and a 5.

No, the gap is bigger than that. They aren't close on offense.

Oscar did make life easier for his teammates otherwise the Royals wouldn't have the best offense. Point guards job is to run the offense not to rack up APG. That is why pointing out that Oscar's APG looks low seems misleading. Walt Frazier has low APG and Rondo has high APG, I do not think that means Rondo is a better playmaker than Walt Frazier.


Also, basketball isn't some additive sport. Someone who is a 8/10 on offense and a 7/10 on defense is not necessarily better than someone who is a 10/10 on offense and a 5/10 on defense even if 17>15. The best basketball players dominate people by being overly dominant at a couple key aspects of the game to varying degrees. It isn't relevant if Shaq, Russell, or Curry have holes in their games because they are so dominant at the things they do it warps the game around them. At some level this is what all stars do, even versatile ones.



I think saying Robinson's defense is more valuable than Oscar's offense or roughly as valuable sounds fair. But trying to make it seem like their offense is close enough to basically be a push, and thus all that leads is Robinsons all time great defense and Oscar's negligible defense isn't a very good way to look at basketball, and it is also inaccurate (because their offense is not a push, at all).

[HeartBreakKid]

Also, if we are going more toward the direction of "Oscar was only efficient because everyone else was not efficient" route then Robinson having the same TS as Oscar would still discredit David Robinson.

At that point, why shouldn't we just vote for Dirk over Robinson then? Robinson has the same TS% as some 60s player. (I don't think you're exactly saying this iggy, but I do get the notion that if we are not considering that Oscar actually has incredible TS then we are basically heading in that direction) etc

[One_and_Done]

Robinson is better on offence when you take era quality into account.

D.Rob & Oscar tied at 5 each after preferences btw.

[70sFan]

Most of my perceptions of Erving were indexed on those league finals in 1976 and 1977. And they still impress. He was really, really, really great in those two series, and the 1977 Finals in particular was a fun watch. But the reality I have come to accept is that I cannot extend those performances to his entire career. He averaged 30 on 55.8% efficiency against Artis Gilmore in the postseason; cannot say that moves me too much either. However, all these nominations are so flawed, I think I might just abstain until I am comfortable making a push for Nash.

Any thoughts on his defense in '77? Gross seemed very box productive in that series but haven't watched it in a long time or closely.

Been several years myself, and will not claim to have kept an especially close eye on Gross. My hedged commentary would be that Erving was not impressive off-ball — which is really what you needed to be to handle those Blazers — but he also did not make himself a target or a liability. Again, going mostly off memory, and without having honed in on rigorous film assessment of Erving on that end. Recollection is also of Gross making a lot of… maybe not tough shots, but call them shots you would expect to miss more often than they did. There is room for criticism of Erving’s defence generally, but I do not see him as any particularly weak link on that team at least.

That is a good question to bring up those because I have never been overly impressed by Erving’s defence… Not unimpressed either, and not beyond being occasionally wowed by his athleticism, but not the guy who seemed to be — certainly not used as — a highly disruptive individual figure against dynamic teams. But on the other hand, if at that point they had Bobby Jones instead of McGinnis, or maybe other defensive forwards like Bob Dandridge or Jamaal Wilkes, maybe that would have been enough to slow down the Blazers and flip the results of Games 5 and/or 6.

From my observations, Erving improved notably in the early 1980s as an off-ball defender. He became more aware and could legitimately work as the secondary rim protector. His man defense still wasn't perfect, but he was never liability in that aspect.

[70sFan]

A flat adjustment for effciency based on era is very problematic as I've explained. Put Giannis in 1957 and his efficiency is waaaay higher relative to era, but he's still the same player.

You assume that Giannis would post the same TS% with 1950s rules, which is a very strong assumption, ESPECIALLY in Giannis case.

[70sFan]

That "assists not being given out as much in the '60s" is completely false. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all. There was a lot less aggressive motion and passing in that era and you still had 49.2% of field goals being assisted in 1967 compared to 60.9% in 1997. It's pretty comparable even with players getting their own shots more.

You just proved that there is a massive difference in assist distribution in the 1960s vs 1990s. 49% vs 61% is a huge gap, bigger than I would think without the data.

It's also not true there was less passing back then. Teams didn't play the same amount of isolation basketball back then, there were less P&Rs run... Teams did most of their creation either in transition or with ball movement.

Oscar was a very good passer for the time, but he wasn't anything like an elite modern point guard. Here's what Backpicks had to say about his passing:

Unlike the modern ball-dominant quarterbacks, Oscar wasn’t spearheading attacks by relentlessly creating opportunities for teammates — such plays weren’t common for much of the 1960s. Oscar led the league in assists in most years, but even then assist rates were far below what they would become after the merger in 1977. Oscar’s assists per 75 possessions were regularly between 5.9 and 7.5. For comparison, John Stockton has the highest rate ever at 13.6, while Magic and Steve Nash peaked around 12. But the best mark before the merger was Kevin Porter’s 8.5.

Thus, Oscar wasn’t making life way easier for his teammates the way creators like Nash and LeBron did. Instead, he was a great facilitator. His more conservative passes put players in the right position to score. He could find easy offense in transition and his great feel for mismatches helped team efficiency too. But an enormous chunk of his global impact came from his own isolation scoring

Ben is talking about the nature of the game back then, not about Oscar being worse than modern PGs.

[One_and_Done]

A flat adjustment for effciency based on era is very problematic as I've explained. Put Giannis in 1957 and his efficiency is waaaay higher relative to era, but he's still the same player.

You assume that Giannis would post the same TS% with 1950s rules, which is a very strong assumption, ESPECIALLY in Giannis case.

I assume it'd be even higher actually. But let's assume it dropped a bit; it'd still be so far above the average TS% that he'd be the all-time 'adjusted' TS% leader.

[Gibson22]

Vote: Oscar Robertson
Alternate: DRob

Nominate: Julius Erving
Alternate: KD

I would rank these 5 like this
Oscar
(gap)
Drob
Dirk/Malone
Mikan

I just rank oscar's offensive dominance over drob's two way dominance. Dirk was a wonderful offensive player, but oscar was a bit better, and he was just a more prominent player in his era than dirk was in his. As far as malone, I think that his superior defense and obviously longevity isn't enough to overcome the offensive gap. And mikan, I put him around 20, obviously most dominant player left but played in a very weak era and only played like 6 seasons of basketball

[One_and_Done]

Mikan has no longevity. Because they didn't record minutes for some of his seasons it's hard to capture how little longevity he had, but let me take a crack this way. From 2001 to 2005 McGrady took about as many shots as Mikan did over his whole career... and T-Mac only played 74 games a year in that span. Mikan's career is an eye blink relative to the guys he's going to get compared to in this range. That's before we talk about the quality of his league (non-existent), etc.

Giannis has more meaningful longevity than Mikan, and of course he'd have owned Mikan so badly on a basketball court it would have been embarassing to watch the degree of pantsing.

[70sFan]

A flat adjustment for effciency based on era is very problematic as I've explained. Put Giannis in 1957 and his efficiency is waaaay higher relative to era, but he's still the same player.

You assume that Giannis would post the same TS% with 1950s rules, which is a very strong assumption, ESPECIALLY in Giannis case.

I assume it'd be even higher actually. But let's assume it dropped a bit; it'd still be so far above the average TS% that he'd be the all-time 'adjusted' TS% leader.

Are you aware how 1950s ball-handling rules and offensive fouls officiating would affect Giannis offensive game? Giannis wouldn't be able to play his usual style back then, it was impossible to play that way.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I'd like to talk about Karl Malone. As he's officially on the ballot now, and as some of you might be considering voting for him now or in the next thread or two, I want to make my argument for why everyone else we're talking about in this thread in terms of the current ballot and potential nominees(save for Jokic and Giannis because they don't have enough years, and CP3 because I'm not as high on him as some of you are) should be inducted before him. I'm also going to be including Stockton in these comparisons because he was Malone's teammate for 18 years and I think it's relevant. Also, I know "we" aren't talking about Barkley yet, but I am, so he's included.

First, let's look at RAPM. I've taken career averages for all available RAPM years for each player. I am using J.E.'s 1997-2019 RS+PS combined with Squared2020's RAPM sets for 79-80, 84-85, 87-88, 90-91, and 95-96(where applicable to each player). I don't presently have RAPM for KD's most recent three seasons, so they're not included in his number:

DRob 4.52(9 seasons inc. 2 from Squared)
Stockton 4.39(11 seasons inc. 4 from Squared)
Dirk 4.24(21 seasons)
Barkley 2.58(8 seasons inc. 4 from Squared)
KD 2.08(12 seasons)
KD's first two seasons are massive negative outliers, if you remove them it gets up to 3.44
K.Malone 1.98(11 seasons inc. 3 from Squared)
Dr. J -0.92(2 seasons from Squared)

Now, for Dr. J, it's only two seasons, way less than everyone else, and one of those seasons is from the tail end of his career in 1985, so I'm really not sure how much we can take from that.

So, besides the limited Dr. J sample, Malone is in last place here. We should note his teammate Stockton is way ahead of him. Malone has a great four year stretch from 97 to 00 where he posts between 4.12 and 5.31 each year, but outside of that window, from the data we have, he never gets close to those numbers. After 00, his last four years see a significant drop-off. From the earlier Squared samples, we can see he finishes below Stockton, Barkley, and Robinson in those years:

88
Barkley #5 4.49
Stockton #14 3.49
Malone #64 1.07

91
Robinson #4 4.60
Stockton #8 4.03
Barkley #60 1.65
Malone #258 -0.83

96
Robinson #12 3.97
Stockton #49 2.10
Barkley #150 0.41
Malone #162 0.28

Now, let's look at RAPTOR.

These are each REGULAR SEASON RAPTORs for each season of each player's career, with career averages at the bottom:



Some of these players have outliers that drag their average down. The last five years of Dirk's career does that; the last three of Malone's; and the first two of Durant's. I've included modified averages for those players that omit those years.

The upshot is that Malone's average is behind everyone except Dirk, and using the modified averages for the two of them, they're very close. But some of these guys are ahead of Malone by significant margins.

Now, these are PLAYOFF RAPTORS for each season of each player's career, with career averages at the bottom:



Malone is in dead last, a full two points below his (unmodified) RS career average. Now, to be fair, others dropped to, but not as much. Stockton dropped by 0.3 points; Doc fell by 0.7 points; KD by 0.98 points(from his unmodified RS average); DRob fell by 1.4 points(but his RS average was nearly twice Malone's, so his PO average still four points above Malone). Barkley rose in the playoffs by 0.9 points, while Dirk rose 1.56 points(from his unmodified RS average, 0.5 points up from even his modified RS average), so while he and Malone were perhaps close in their modified RS averages, Dirk is 2.77 points above him in the playoffs.

You get the picture.

As another measure of looking at playoff performance, comparing each player's career average playoff TS with the league average over the duration of their careers, it looks like this:

KD: +5.1
Barkley: +4.8
Dirk: +4.3
Stockton: +3.6
Dr. J: +2.6
DRob: +1.6
Malone: -0.5

Now, let's talk about defense.

I'm just going to give you a complete string of all available D-RAPMs(from JE and Squared) in chronological order for a few of these players:

Barkley: -0.54,-2.00,-1.18,-2.22,0.04,-1.74,-2.64,-2.22
Malone: -2.36, -2.01, -2.56, 0.14, 0.14, -0.44,-1.42, -0.3, -1.85, -2.52, 0.27
Dirk: -0.92, -0.49, 2.40, 1.17, 2.41, 1.45, 2.17, 1.29, 0.88, 0.79, 0.89, 1.60, 2.67, 2.49, 2.21, 1.30, -0.3, 1.41, 0.22, -0.08, -1.00
Stockton: 1.33,1.15,1.23,-0.67,1.54,2.04,2.27,3.06,2.50,2.85,2.25

Dirk is positive 16 of 21 times, 1+ 12 times
Stockton is positive 10 of 11 times, 1+ all 10 times
Malone is positive 3 of 11 times, all just barely
Barkley is equally bad.

How about D-RAPTOR? Here's REGULAR SEASON D-RAPTOR:



Looking at this, DRob is way way ahead of everyone, Stockton and Dr.J are both 0.79/0.8 points ahead of Malone, and Malone is only 0.06 points ahead of Barkley. I will say, Dirk looks notably worse in D-RAPTOR than in D-RAPM, not sure what to make of that.

PLAYOFF D-RAPTOR:



Malone rises a tiny bit, by about 0.03 points, but still the the third lowest, ahead of only Dirk(who again D-RAPTOR doesn't seem to like) and KD, with DRob blowing everyone away. Barkley is a notable riser.

I've seen several people here insist that Malone was a good defender, a two-way player, etc, but the numbers do not seem to bare it out. I am open to the possibility that I am missing something, but I do not see it right now.

Now, let's look at RS efficiency

Career RS rTS averages over # of seasons:

Stockton: +7.6 over 19 seasons
KD: +7.4 over 15 seasons
Barkley: +6.9 over 16 seasons
DRob: +4.96 over 14 seasons
Malone: +4.3 over 19 seasons
Dirk: +3.96 over 20 seasons(I have omitted his final season, which was a huge -9.1 outlier; if I omitted seasons 19 and 20 too he would end up at 4.42, between DRob and Malone.)
Dr. J: +2.9 over 16 seasons

In this context, while Malone's +4.3 in 19 years is really good, there 4-5 players on this list alone that look better with a healthy amount of years.

A word about Malone and Stockton

They are perhaps the most inextricable duo in the history of the game. You say one of their names, you hear the other. They played 18 seasons together, and both were ironmen, rarely missing any games. There are little to no WOWY opportunities with them. It has always been difficult to parse one's impact from the other. Was Malone the scorer he was because of all those assists, or was Stockton the playmaker he was because he had Malone at the end of those assists?

The data we have shows Stockton measuring out higher than Malone time and again in multiple metrics. Now, Stockton is a notorious case of a player that a lot of people think impact metrics overrate, and I get that, but I don't think we ought to dismiss it completely either. There is a tendency to give Malone the lion's share of the credit for those Finals teams because he's the one that did the volume scoring and he's the won that won the MVP(twice).

I don't have an easy answer. I'm not advocating for inducting Stockton on the next vote because of those gaudy metrics, but I do think it's reason to take pause when considering Malone. Consider that Barkley was more efficient, in both RS and PO, on similar volume, without a Stockton feeding him. Consider that Stockton's defensive numbers are much better than Malone's across the board(and consider Mark Eaton's defensive impact in Malone's early years, and Greg Ostertag's good D-RAPMs during those Finals years[2.83,3.42]).

You can argue the other way by pointing at their 97-onward on/off numbers - +10.3 RS and +13.6 PO for Malone, +10.8 RS and +7.9 PO for Stockton. They're both good...Stockton with a small RS edge, and Malone with a considerable playoff edge. Does sample size matter - hundreds of RS games in that period vs a smaller amount of PO games?

Like I said, no easy answer.

What I do think, is that given the Malone/Stockton question, given that other players on this list are comparably efficient or more efficient scorers in both the regular season and the playoffs(everyone but Dr. J in the regular season, everyone in the playoffs), and some of them are measurably better defenders(based on the data I've presented anyway), namely Dirk and, to a much greater extent, DRob, given that a lot of the players discussed appear to have better impact profiles(RAPM but also in a lot of cases RAPTOR), and given that a lot of them have rings, I just remain unconvinced of the argument for Malone at this point other then longevity.