AEnigma wrote:OldSchoolNoBull wrote:Vote: Charles Barkley
More longevity than Jokic or Giannis(over 2x in the case of Jokic) and imo a higher peak/prime period than Wade or Harden.
Barkley's peak consisted of a period where he had a 10+ rTS and 60%+ 2P for five straight seasons while rebounding at a rate unheard of for someone his size. I simply don't understand how that isn't a standout peak.
People point to Barkley's lack of playoff success, like this:
AEnigma wrote:Barkley I see as a guy who never won a title, peaked as maybe the third best player in the league, and has one legitimately impressive win as his team’s leader (1993 Sonics).
But again, almost his entire prime was spent languishing on a poor Philly team, so it's no wonder there's a a lack of impressive playoff performances. That some of those teams made the playoffs at all is a testament to Barkley's value.
Kevin Garnett coming in at #9 in this thread indicates that a lot of people here have given him the benefit of the doubt despite spending much of his prime in a bad situation. Why does Barkley not get the same benefit of the doubt?
Because we know he was not as significant a piece to those wins as Garnett was.
That's perhaps valid for his Phoenix/Houston years(though debatable), but the Sixers didn't have many series wins in Barkley's time there because those rosters - after Moses and Doc were gone - were very lacking. Like I said before, that those 1990 and 1991 rosters had guys like Hersey Hawkins, Johnny Dawkins, Rick Mahorn, Arman Gilliam; if Barkley wasn't the most significant piece for their being as good as they were and winning a playoff series in each of those years, then who was?
You talk about his peak/prime quality weighed against Wade, but many people feel he peaked in Phoenix — despite completely losing that “+10 rTS” streak — and he was relatively underwhelming after 1993, so what exactly is this peak/prime advantage?
I don't know why you put "+10 rts" in quotes. It's a thing that happened, and I'm pretty sure no one that's been inducted so far did it. It is impressive and bares mentioning.
Anyway, I feel like most people(here anyway) think of Barkley's prime ending early in his Phoenix tenure - 93 or 94 - and that most of his prime was in Philly.
If you don't limit it to wins, Barkley had a number of impressive playoff series during his prime.
27.6/14.7 on 62.2% FG - 1986 ECSF loss to Milwaukee
24.6/12.6 on 57.3% FG - 1987 EC1R loss to Milwaukee
27.0/11.7 on 64.4% FG - 1989 EC1R loss to New York
25.6/14.0 on 55.3% FG - 1990 EC1R win vs Cleveland
23.8/17.0 on 53.2% FG - 1990 ECSF loss to Chicago
23.7/11.0 on 52.0% FG - 1991 EC1R win vs Milwaukee
25.6/10.2 on 64.0% FG - 1991 ECSF loss to Chicago
The whole 1993 run
37.3/13.3 on 60.5% FG - 1994 WC1R win vs Golden State
33.7/13.7 on 57.4% FG - 1995 WC1R win vs Portland
There is a difference between being a bad playoff performer and not being some exemplary one. Aside from arguably the 1993 Sonics (based on SRS), Barkley never did better than expected. However, he had several losses which were to some degree unexpected. They were against Jordan and Hakeem, so hey, totally willing to err on “expected”, but as I have gone over, Barkley’s teams tended to underperform even outside of cold win/loss analysis.
I mean, you just said it. He was never expected to beat Jordan or Hakeem. Most of his high-profile playoff series losses as the #1 option came to Jordan three times in four years and then to Hakeem in back-to-back years. That said, that 1995 loss to Houston after being up 3-1 with HCA is for sure a black eye.
But it's really hard for me to blame him for losing anything in Philly with the rosters he had when he was the #1 option.
Which brings us to…
I'm sure some would argue that putting up those numbers against what was in many cases first-round fodder doesn't qualify as impressive, but when you're 6'4-6'6'(depending on source) and you're primarily an inside scorer, putting up those statlines against frontlines that included Patrick Ewing/Charles Oakley, Brad Daugherty/Larry Nance, and Horace Grant/Scottie Pippen is impressive.
A 6'4' guy scoring at the volume and efficiency and rebounding at the rate with reasonable consistency in the playoffs is incredible.
I'm just getting really frustrated with this board's constant undervaluing of Sir Charles.
Barkley does not receive bonus points for being short. If anything, it is the opposite.
Scoring production does not mean much if it does not really translate into high impact. Why do most of us not have Dantley in the top fifty? Barkley’s scoring was “impressive” in much the same sense (honestly Dantley’s is
more impressive based on shot profile and level of athleticism), but that “impressive” lack of height is also much of what kept him from being a better player. He was not much taller than Wade, but I am a lot more confident in building around Wade because a) Wade is a better defender generally, and b) I can play Wade as a guard next to much better defenders than I can with Barkley as a forward.
Well, we just simply disagree there. I think the things Barkley achieved statistically at his height are very, very impressive. It's not bonus points, it's just recognizing the talent, instincts, and drive you have to have to do the things he did at his height.
To the extent I would consider Barkley, it would be that his lower prime / out-of-prime years are better and more productive, and for as much as both dealt with limiting playoff injuries, Wade was hampered more. All the same, I am not sure what exactly suggests Barkley was regularly rising to a level where he would win more with the same approximate team situation as Wade, or that Wade would have won less with the same approximate team situation as Barkley.
Barkley and Wade both had periods where they were the #1 option on an underwhelming roster that made the playoffs. Let's compare those seasons:
1990 Sixers - 53 wins, 4.23 SRS, +5.1 Net Rtg, #2 seed
1991 Sixers - 44 wins, -0.39 SRS, -0.2 Net Rtg, #5 seed
Key players other than Barkley: Johnny Dawkins, Hersey Hawkins, Rick Mahorn, Mike Gminski, Arman Gilliam
2009 Heat - 43 wins, 0.49 SRS, +0.3 Net Rtg, #5 seed
2010 Heat - 47 wins, 1.99 SRS, +2.5 Net Rtg, #5 seed
Key players other Wade: Mario Chalmers, Quentin Richardson, Shawn Marion, Michael Beasley, Jermaine O'Neal
I don't know that there's enough there to draw a strong conclusion either way, but it certainly doesn't paint Wade as having some huge advantage.
Wade at his best was a top fifteen-ish peak who could win a title by upsetting back-to-back 6-SRS teams with middling support. Barkley at his Philadelphia best was an underwhelming second-round exit generally not even losing to title teams, and then he joined a top five team and elevated them to looking like the league’s second or third best team.
You mention Wade "upsetting back-to-back 6-SRS teams with middling support" - I just want to mention that Shaq was still there. I know he was in decline by 2006, but he put up 21.7 and 10.5 on 65.5% FG in the ECF vs the Pistons against the Big Ben/Rasheed frontcourt. His Finals volume was lower(largely due to two below-average games out of six), but his efficiency was still elite - 13.7 and 10.2 on 60.7% FG. Shaq averaged 18.4/9.8 on 57.1% TS throughout those playoffs, and he had a 4.85 RS+PO RAPM per J.E. in 2005-06.
Wade was the #1 option in 2006 but, say what you want about the rest of the roster, the Heat aren't winning that championship without Shaq. It may seem irrelevant to the debate at hand, but since so much of Wade's case seems to center on that title run, I just think it's important that we don't diminish Shaq's role in it for the sake of making it appear a bigger carry job than it was for Wade. And also that we acknowledge the, ahem, friendly whistle Wade was getting in those playoffs. It wasn't the 94 Rockets or the 03 Spurs.
I think he merits top thirty, but you started pushing for him around top twenty, and for what — high field goal percentage?
So, I started pushing Barkley earlier than that, but the reason - and I explained it then - was that I knew Karl Malone was probably going to get inducted before him. They were the two best PFs of their era, and there was a five-spot gap between them on the 2020 ranking, and it's going to be more than that this time. I very strongly disagree with the notion that there is that much separation between the two of them. I'm still frustrated at this board's apparent opinion that Malone is that much better than Barkley. That doesn't necessarily mean Barkley needed to be higher, BTW - if Malone were lower that would be fine by me, so long as they were closer together. Anyway, that's a tangent, but that's why I started pushing Barkley that early.
And not for nothing, but let's not minimize "high field goal percentage". First, it wasn't just FG, it was TS. Second, if a player is consistently scoring on that volume and that efficiency, that means he's one of the greatest scorers of all time. So, yes. Because he's on the of the greatest scorers of all time, and unlike Adrian Dantley, who you mentioned earlier, he's not as one-dimensional because he's also a GOAT-tier rebounder.
