RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #26 (Nikola Jokic)

[70sFan]

I'm sure he was relentless by the standard of a 1960s player. Looking at footage of him I doubt he'd be playable against elite offenses today.

What exactly makes you doubt?

Doesn't look like an outlier. Too unathletic. No special skills that would set him apart today. Poor efficiency. His player type of big, doesn't shoot 3s, but is lanky and slower, basically doesn't exist in today's game. Also overrated even relative to his own time. Was never the best player over a player who would matter today, won a title the year Russell got hurt, and actually only led the Hawks to an average of 44 wins during his career. A bunch of sub-500 seasons and playoff misses. His 8 team league would lose to today's Euroleague teams.

I ask about defense, you respond with "poor efficiency" and "doesn't shoot 3s"... Calling Pettit lanky is also wrong, he filled out his body at 245 lbs with 6'9 height. I won't go further, because it's a waste of time

[70sFan]

I can definitely see the case for Ewing over Frazier based on longevity.

Something I will point out:

Frazier in 93 games actually has more playoff Win Shares than Ewing in 139. So Ewing played about 50% more, but Frazier still has him beat on this front. Remember too, this is Frazier playing in eras where you played less playoff games. The Knicks played only 3 series, for example, in their 2 championship years.

I think it's fine to point out that supporting cast matters in this, but I think that's more compelling as an argument for Ewing maybe having a higher peak/prime, than it is for a longevity based argument, and I'd personally side with Frazier on peak/prime.

I mean, supporting cast does matter in this. Frazier literally played with Reed, while the best teammate Ewing had in his prime was who - Oakley or Rivers? These two weren't even on DeBusschere level.

Ewing definitely had a better longevity than Frazier. Judging longevity by postseason sample is very flawed, otherwise players like Garnett should be treated as guys with very mediocre longevity for top 20 players.

Not sure how closely you read my post.

I didn't say supporting cast didn't matter, though I did question it's relevance when specifically talking about longevity.

I wasn't arguing against the guy with less games played. I was pointing out that despite Ewing's longevity advantage here, Frazier still has a better cume by this stat, while also noting that Ewing's longevity advantage by playoff games played overstates things due to there being less playoff series back in Frazier's time.

I read it fine Doc, but I don't find using playoff WS as a good approximation for longevity. That's why I focused on supporting cast in my response, despite your statement that:

"I think it's fine to point out that supporting cast matters in this"

Playoff can be a nice addition to your longevity, but it's RS where you truly rack up longevity.

[One_and_Done]

You did, and I was considerate enough to go beyond just discussing his D. If you want to ignore the rest be my guest. He's slow and unathletic by today's standards, thus would be bad on D.

[70sFan]

Knowing is well and good in the 90s. In today's game you can know what you're supposed to do, but it's irrelevant if you can't physically do it. Kevin Love is a good example. Ewing's knee problems would have significantly hampered him moving to the degree needed in today's game.

Yeah, if we talk about 1997 Ewing that's true. Still fail to understand why you focus on post prime Ewing instead of talking about his best years...

[70sFan]

You did, and I was considerate enough to go beyond just discussing his D. If you want to ignore the rest be my guest. He's slow and unathletic by today's standards, thus would be bad on D.

Could you show me examples of him showing his slowness and lack of athleticism? Or did you go with that looking at his photos?

[One_and_Done]

Knowing is well and good in the 90s. In today's game you can know what you're supposed to do, but it's irrelevant if you can't physically do it. Kevin Love is a good example. Ewing's knee problems would have significantly hampered him moving to the degree needed in today's game.

Yeah, if we talk about 1997 Ewing that's true. Still fail to understand why you focus on post prime Ewing instead of talking about his best years...

What version of Ewing is mobile enough for today's league? As I noted with a link last thread, his knee problems began in 1986. It's hard to remember a time he didn't have knee pads and knee issues. People were asserting one reason the Knicks got better. Which is it? Did he get better, or was he always the same guy? What years are we looking at here if not 1997?

[70sFan]

Knowing is well and good in the 90s. In today's game you can know what you're supposed to do, but it's irrelevant if you can't physically do it. Kevin Love is a good example. Ewing's knee problems would have significantly hampered him moving to the degree needed in today's game.

Yeah, if we talk about 1997 Ewing that's true. Still fail to understand why you focus on post prime Ewing instead of talking about his best years...

What version of Ewing is mobile enough for today's league? As I noted with a link last thread, his knee problems began in 1986. It's hard to remember a time he didn't have knee pads and knee issues. People were asserting one reason the Knicks got better. Which is it? Did he get better, or was he always the same guy? What years are we looking at here if not 1997?

Anything from 1988-94 really.

Knicks got better in 1993 because of coaching change and better supporting cast. Ewing was at his best 1988-94.

[One_and_Done]

You did, and I was considerate enough to go beyond just discussing his D. If you want to ignore the rest be my guest. He's slow and unathletic by today's standards, thus would be bad on D.

Could you show me examples of him showing his slowness and lack of athleticism? Or did you go with that looking at his photos?

Sorry, I don't know how to share film projector reels. The sprockets on my Panoptikon are broken now, plus the filmstrip is dusty af. If you look on www.youtube.com I'm sure you can find the same grainy footage I've found though.

This video in particular is telling, if you can bear with Pettit's self promoting narrative. Despite this footage being picked to hype Pettit, he looks unathletic and has meh foot speed by today's standards.
https://youtu.be/tICuHazSl3o?si=JKy_p0tjUkwRDR-r

[70sFan]

You did, and I was considerate enough to go beyond just discussing his D. If you want to ignore the rest be my guest. He's slow and unathletic by today's standards, thus would be bad on D.

Could you show me examples of him showing his slowness and lack of athleticism? Or did you go with that looking at his photos?

Sorry, I don't know how to share film projector reels. The sprockets on my Panoptikon are broken now, plus the filmstrip is dusty af. If you look on www.youtube.com I'm sure you can find the same grainy footage I've found though.

This video in particular is telling, if you can bear with Pettit's self promoting narrative. Despite this footage being picked to hype Pettit, he looks unathletic and has meh foot speed by today's standards.
https://youtu.be/tICuHazSl3o?si=JKy_p0tjUkwRDR-r

Nothing specific, as always.

If you bother to watch these YouTube videos, you can see Pettit beating Bill freaking Russell off the dribble with his quick first step. If you look for highlight dunks, then Pettit isn't your guy but he certainly wasn't slow for 6'9 player.

Also, if you think that documentary "highlights" are chosen for self-promoting narrative, then you don't understand how documentaries work. We have extremely limited footage from that era and even with what we have, producers use the best quality footage they have, they don't take into account how impressive basketball plays are. I have been working with producers of "Goliath" - recent doc about Wilt. I provided them 95% of game footage they used for that documentary and they didn't select the most impressive plays from him. Documentaries are not about it.

[One_and_Done]

Yeah, if we talk about 1997 Ewing that's true. Still fail to understand why you focus on post prime Ewing instead of talking about his best years...

What version of Ewing is mobile enough for today's league? As I noted with a link last thread, his knee problems began in 1986. It's hard to remember a time he didn't have knee pads and knee issues. People were asserting one reason the Knicks got better. Which is it? Did he get better, or was he always the same guy? What years are we looking at here if not 1997?

Anything from 1988-94 really.

Knicks got better in 1993 because of coaching change and better supporting cast. Ewing was at his best 1988-94.

So even if we take this limited 7 year sample, which btw is a very short prime unless you were an all-timer, in the first 4 of those seasons the Knicks averaged 43 wins. So you're really asking us to focus on the first 3 Riley years. Yes, they won 51, 60 and 57 games, but also the team was saturated with other talent besides Ewing so how much can we really credit Ewing with? It would seem like the more logical explanation than 'Riley started using him right', is 'the Knicks added a whole bunch of talent that wasn't there before'.

I also question the timeline because Ewing's knees had troubled him well before this period, and you seem to put zero weight on this. Ewimg was able to get by in the slow it down 90s iso ball, but it seems clear to me that a guy with his knees and general stamina/mobility issues would have pretty serious problems guarding modern offense.

Ironically I could see myself alternating to Ewing this round. I'd take him over Stockton still. He's a talented MVP calibre type guy. But it's impossible to believe his effectiveness wouldn't be notably reduced today.

[iggymcfrack]

Spoiler:

You don't feel Harden strong enough to preference him? Because it's not totally implausible Harden is in contention here.

I don't feel like doing an alternate because I'm so strong on Jokic, but between the candidates, I'd have:

Jokic >> Wade > Barkley >> Harden >>> Pettit

I know Harden's playoff numbers aren't as bad as the eye test, but it feels like it's so rare for him to come up big when it really matters in the postseason. Even the year they almost beat the Warriors, it felt like Chris Paul was the real heart and soul of the team who you could trust in crunch time. Like what's Harden's best playoff run? Statistically it would be 2020, but they were never remotely in that series with the Lakers and he didn't have the normal pressure of the crowd because of the bubble. Has he ever come up big in a competitive series after the first round?

Like averaging 35/7/5.5 and being the best player in the series in 2019 against the warriors?

Or putting up 32/8/7 on 66 TS%, including 2 top 30 game scores for the entire decade of the playoffs, in the first 4 games against the #1 defense, 67 win warriors in 2015, including 1 and 3 point losses on the road in Oracle, with something like a +40 on/off (really), only to still be down 1-3? Or is it retroactively not competitive if you lose by one possession to a great team? When your worldview is just "haha 12 turnovers" from game 5, you miss things.

Also great in the 2012 WCF to beat an unbelievable spurs team. And of course almost beating the 2018 warriors and having it not count is a nice bit of trickery. Cp3's 20/6 on 52 TS% and something like +3 on/off (I think it was 0 in the 5 games he actually played) was better than harden's 29/6/6 on 54 TS% and +14 on/off. So yes, if you ignore all his good moments, then he didn't have any.

OK, so he actually played pretty well in the loss to Golden State in 2019 and it was just overshadowed by his team blowing it at home as a 7.5 point favorite after Durant got hurt. Other than that, his clutch playoff highlights are:

-A series where in the final 2 losses he goes: 3/16 from the field with 4 rebounds and 3 assists and 2/11 from the field with 12 turnovers and 5 fouls.

-A series where he scores 18.5 PPG off the bench

-A series where he shoots 14/69 from three in the final 6 games including 6/36 with 7 turnovers per game in the final 3.

That's the greatness I'm "missing"? I mean he's just so consistently terrible in big games. Playing great the first couple games of the series isn't worth as much when you know eventually he's going to choke it away in the end. Jokic literally never has games like that. Here are their career playoff games by Game Score

Jokic
30 or higher: 16
20-30: 36
10-20: 14
5-10: 2
5 or less: 0

Harden
30 or higher: 14
20-30: 55
10-20: 63
5-10: 22
0-5: 17

[70sFan]

So even if we take this limited 7 year sample, which btw is a very short prime unless you were an all-timer,

You asked when Ewing was at his best physically, it doesn't mean he was past his prime in 1995 for example.

in the first 4 of those seasons the Knicks averaged 43 wins.

Yeah, so what?

So you're really asking us to focus on the first 3 Riley years.

No, I don't.

Yes, they won 51, 60 and 57 games, but also the team was saturated with other talent besides Ewing so how much can we really credit Ewing with? It would seem like the more logical explanation than 'Riley started using him right', is 'the Knicks added a whole bunch of talent that wasn't there before'.

Yeah, Knicks got more talent and became a better team. That's how it works in basketball. It doesn't mean we shouldn't give any credit to Ewing. He was clearly the best player on his team the whole time discussed here and he didn't really play with stacked teams. It's funny because you don't have such problem when you analyze players you like (like Durant for example), but here you basically want to diminish everything Ewing did because the team around him got better.

I also question the timeline because Ewing's knees had troubled him well before this period, and you seem to put zero weight on this.

I put zero weight on this, because 1990 Ewing was mobile and athletic enough to do well against modern teams.

Again, this is very ironic considering how much you pushed Duncan for high spots. Duncan started to slow down as early as in 2000 and his mobility never recovered 100%. By 2005 he was clearly diminished and struggled against quickness, yet you never brang up similar concerns regarding him. Ewing is very similar to Duncan in general when you evaluate his defense - not as good overall, but he possessed similar strengths and weaknesses and his career trajectory was also quite similar regarding injuries.

Of course the difference is that you like Duncan.

Ewimg was able to get by in the slow it down 90s iso ball, but it seems clear to me that a guy with his knees and general stamina/mobility issues would have pretty serious problems guarding modern offense.

Maybe they would, but it doesn't change the fact that he looks like bettert P&R defender than Robinson and Duncan when you actually watch the tape.

[One_and_Done]

Yeh I disagree.
1) The KD comp doesn't work. KD showed he was very capable of carrying teams, just as he also showed he was very capable of blending seamlessly with existing contenders on the Warriors.
2) I have said many times that Duncan was at his peak in 02 and 03. It's not a coincidence that Duncan was 25 & 26 those years. The next year Duncan was injured, and between his 04 injury and 07 he was about 90-95% of what he had been at his peak. By 08 the injuries were too much and Duncan was not in his prime anymore. Duncan gradually lost effectiveness from there, until to compensate he lost weight for the 2012 offseason. This let him move quicker. Duncan was actually a better player from 12-14 than he was in 2010-11. Aside from having watched it first hand, and having heard others discuss it, the stats bear this out too. I have also discussed this at length before on here. I have noted that Duncan's last few years at least would be impacted in how he could play in the modern game.

Duncan was fortunate in that he started out as an olympic swimmer, and only came to basketball late in his youth. Doctors recommend swimming over running because it is just as good for you, but without the high impact stress on your body. Some people think Duncan's swimming career explains in part Duncan's longevity, as opposed to Ewing who had knee issues in 86 at age 23 onwards. Big guys tend to get injury issues by age 30. Not always, but mostly. Young Duncan was also very mobile, even playing small forward as a rookie.

I also just flat out disagree that prime Duncan was comparable to Ewing in terms of mobility or stamina or durability. One poster even compared him to D.Rob, which was pretty preposterous. You make the comparison above as well, but D.Rob could actually move on the perimeter like a guard while Ewing could not. Smarts can't make up for physical ability, and in today's game Ewing's smarts wouldn't cut it. Duncan was a special worker, which is why he was able to stay in such great shape and lose weight from 2012 onwards. Ewing never seemed to lose weight, and to my eyes his stamina and mobility from 88-94 bore no resemblance to prime Duncan.

[Gibson22]

VOTING: Pettit
Alternate: Barkley


So, Pettit is finally here.
Let me clarify something. I don't rate any era exactly the same. Context is important. Basketball has grown a lot in the past decade. Before 2000 also it wasn't really open to players from other countries. Before the 80s the nba wasn't big. And in the 70s there was the aba. In the 40s and start of the 50s there were no black players. So, It's like, if today is a 100, 90s and 00s are a 98, 80s a 97, 70s a 94, 60s a 92, second part of the 50s a 90 and end of 40s start of 50s like a 70.
That's why I have pettit at around 23 and not much higher. Pettit, he's one of the guys that have title and legitimate season(s) as the best player in the world + high level longevity. There are a few guys that don't have that title or that stretch as the best player who I have ranked ahead of him (west, oscar, karl malone, garnett has 04 but no title, david robinson). I have him and moses neck and neck for that. Both have that title and that best player in the world thing and they are not one hit wonder. Pettit has more longevity, malone has era advantage. There are guys that have that title or best player thing but have way less longevity like wade, leonard, obviously walton. and the guys like schayes and arizin who were even before him and are just worse players.

Like a guy above me said "He was a 2-time MVP and 10-time All NBA First Team and Second Team once. I will also concede that I never saw him play live. But his adaptability is extremely impressive to me. His first season was 1955 and Neil Johnston was the big star then (a broken-down Mikan came out of retirement to play 37 games in 56). But by 1964, Pettit's second to last season, he was competing against the likes of Wilt, Russell, Oscar, West, Baylor, Lucas and Havlicek. The league strength was much higher in 1964 than 1955 and yet Pettit was still All NBA First Team in 64. He was the bridge from the Mikan era to the Russell/Wilt/Oscar/West era and he was elite in both eras. He doesn't strike me as a flashy player at all, just a tenacious motor guy with solid fundamentals who can do whatever was needed."

So yeah, the comparison with mikan is difficult, wilt and russell were certainly a lot better than him, but I struggle to understand what's the argument for oscar and west (who i have as unarguable top 12 and don't find it absurd to argue them just outside the top 5, btw I think one of the top examples for what ben taylor was talking about in that podcast about, are we totally sure if we knew the answer to who's the goat it would 100% be one of those 2-3 names that we usually consider) being that much better than him.


About barkley, jokic is a better player but he doesn't have enough longevity. again peak wade i think is a better playoff performer but he's penalized by his 2007 and 2008 seasons. Harden again has a little bit less longevity than barkley while being more or less the same caliber of player.
Barkley, while a flawed player as far as defense, shooting, holding the ball a lot, was an historic scored and rebounder, from 87 to 90 he averaged 26/12/4/2.8 stocks on an absurd +12 rts. He was a weak mvp to all-nba player for a good 10 years and an all star caliber for a few more. He has great playoff performances and the truth is he very often lost to great great teams, like the bulls i think 3 times, the rockets both those repeat years, the lakers in 99, the jazz in 97 and 98, the larry bird celtics i don't remember what year, while himself having competent, but not great teams and teammates. I'm wondering, if he as lucky as other guys and has a few rings (which is entirely possible, just luck), considering his numbers, do we consider him a top 10ish player?


Nominations: stockton. when i talk about his consistency and durability, it's not just about amassing minutes and marginal value added, it's about the fact that with him, you knew exactly what you were gonna get. which wasn't some outlier living mismatch thing like penny or magic, it wasn't some crazy athleticism or shooting or scoring, it wasn't nash level of virtousness, it wasn't some dpoy level defense like gary, it wasn't strokes of genius like jason kidd. but it was knowing that you have this guy, who is gonna play every single game, he will defend hard, will bring the ball up, not turn it over stupidly, will set up his man, run the play smoothly and rapidly, control the pace, hit his shots, all of that. and do that for 82 games x 19 seasons

By the way, stockton in his prime was averaging 17/14 and 3 steals. and he has a career average of 114 ts+. he has multiple +10 rts seasons. if we go by accolades, he has 5x all def, 11x all nba (even tho, just 2 1st teams), he will hold the assist and steals record live forever. etc.

i don't know who's next after that, I think havlicek, pippen, frazier, ewing, kidd, gervin, baylor and rick barry al have a good case. i will think about it, but i'm thinking i'd like to hear some rick barry talk by now. mmm, i think its between barry, pippen and havlicek.

[70sFan]

1) The KD comp doesn't work. KD showed he was very capable of carrying teams, just as he also showed he was very capable of blending seamlessly with existing contenders on the Warriors.

Ewing also showed he was capable of carrying teams. He also blended extremely well with the talent he had in the mid-90s. The difference is that Durant always played next to another superstar, while Ewing never really played with an all-star.

2) I have said many times that Duncan was at his peak in 02 and 03. It's not a coincidence that Duncan was 25 & 26 those years. The next year Duncan was injured, and between his 04 injury and 07 he was about 90-95% of what he had been at his peak. By 08 the injuries were too much and Duncan was not in his prime anymore. Duncan gradually lost effectiveness from there, until to compensate he lost weight for the 2012 offseason. This let him move quicker. Duncan was actually a better player from 12-14 than he was in 2010-11. Aside from having watched it first hand, and having heard others discuss it, the stats bear this out too. I have also discussed this at length before on here. I have noted that Duncan's last few years at least would be impacted in how he could play in the modern game.

Duncan lost some of his mobility already in 2000, way before his peak. He was still fairly mobile in 2002-03, but it's visible that he struggled against space at times. I can show you literally dozens of examples if you wish, as I have tracked over 30 peak Duncan games recently.

In 2004-07, Duncan mobility was concerning enough that some people successfully hunted him on P&Rs. That version of Duncan wasn't more mobile than Riley Ewing. Somehow, he made this up with his other features and he remained the best defender in the league basically.

Duncan was fortunate in that he started out as an olympic swimmer, and only came to basketball late in his youth. Doctors recommend swimming over running because it is just as good for you, but without the high impact stress on your body. Some people think Duncan's swimming career explains in part Duncan's longevity, as opposed to Ewing who had knee issues in 86 at age 23 onwards. Big guys tend to get injury issues by age 30. Not always, but mostly. Young Duncan was also very mobile, even playing small forward as a rookie.

Young Duncan lost that mobility though, which is why I'm talking about him. For all this swimming hypothesis, Timmy himself started to lose his mobility at the age of 23.

I also just flat out disagree that prime Duncan was comparable to Ewing in terms of mobility or stamina or durability.

Why do you disagree? Ewing and Duncan had fairly similar style in terms of defending perimeter and P&Rs. The difference is that Ewing was usually more successful using hedge coverages, where Duncan was usually cooked.

One poster even compared him to D.Rob, which was pretty preposterous. You make the comparison above as well, but D.Rob could actually move on the perimeter like a guard while Ewing could not.

Could you show me examples of Robinson superior perimeter defense and P&R coverages?

Duncan was a special worker, which is why he was able to stay in such great shape and lose weight from 2012 onwards. Ewing never seemed to lose weight, and to my eyes his stamina and mobility from 88-94 bore no resemblance to prime Duncan.

Duncan slimmed down because he was forced to. Ewing played in an era where bigs bulked up intentionally. No context, as always.

[Gibson22]

I want to talk about rick barry. I think barry is right outside, like between 25 and 30. As far as body of work, we can't put him much higher than that, but I'm not sure if we are not underrating him. Barry was 6'7, he had athleticism, he was one of the best shooters ever, a great great scorer, but also a very good passer and defender. His first season in the league, he was already 1st team all nba. by his 2nd season, this guy was averaging 36/9 on +4rts, and lost in the ecf 4-2 against an historically good team in 67 wilt's sixers, averaging 41. he has to sit out a year, he comes back averaging 34 on 123 TS+ in the aba. his career is not perfect, i mean, he doesn't have an mvp and he didn't win a playoff series in his career, beside his 2nd year, until his 7th season, when he made the finals in his last aba season. then, his first season in the nba isn't the best (still 2nd team all nba), but then his 74-76 stretch is really good, obviously he's the best player in the world in 75, winning the title and averaging 30. He is 9 times 1st team, 1 team 2nd team. 12x all star, steals champ, scoring champ. i also wondered how his career would have turned out if he stayed in the nba

[One_and_Done]

We disagree basically.
1) KD showed carrying ability without great team mates, which I've cited before. In 2014 for example the Thunder were killing it with no Westbrook. In 2021 his 2 co-stars were hurt and he still almost beat the champs. I don't see the same ability from Ewing at all.
2) Suffice to say we disagree on Duncan. I've seen tonnes of games and no amount of you showing clips is going to convince me otherwise. Duncan was still incredibly mobile up until his 04 injury. Probably the only thing you said about it I agree with was that 04-07 Duncan "Somehow... made up [for it] with his other features and he remained the best defender in the league basically." I actually watched a Duncan vs KG game from 03 the other day, in anticipation of this argument. While the Spurs lost that particular game, I felt very comfortable my earlier assessment had been correct. Duncan looked mobile af. Selected samples of the guy blowing a coverage isn't going to sway me. Everyone blows some coverages.
3) you keep talking about Ewing's great PnR defence in the 90s. It's like talking about how great Ewing was stopping arrows with a wooden shield, so he'd be great at stopping bullets with it too. PnR in today's game, and the related actions flowing from it, bear little resemblance to the simplistic stuff Ewing guarded.

That's all the time you get from me today Chief.

[70sFan]

2) Suffice to say we disagree on Duncan. I've seen tonnes of games and no amount of you showing clips is going to convince me otherwise. Duncan was still incredibly mobile up until his 04 injury.

I guess that says it all. No need to waste more time on this subject then.

[Owly]

I want to talk about rick barry. I think barry is right outside, like between 25 and 30. As far as body of work, we can't put him much higher than that, but I'm not sure if we are not underrating him. Barry was 6'7, he had athleticism, he was one of the best shooters ever, a great great scorer, but also a very good passer and defender. His first season in the league, he was already 1st team all nba. by his 2nd season, this guy was averaging 36/9 on +4rts, and lost in the ecf 4-2 against an historically good team in 67 wilt's sixers, averaging 41. he has to sit out a year, he comes back averaging 34 on 123 TS+ in the aba. his career is not perfect, i mean, he doesn't have an mvp and he didn't win a playoff series in his career, beside his 2nd year, until his 7th season, when he made the finals in his last aba season. then, his first season in the nba isn't the best (still 2nd team all nba), but then his 74-76 stretch is really good, obviously he's the best player in the world in 75, winning the title and averaging 30. He is 9 times 1st team, 1 team 2nd team. 12x all star, steals champ, scoring champ. i also wondered how his career would have turned out if he stayed in the nba

123 TS+ is off a 35 game sample in an ... immature (I think, realistically, probably 2nd tier)... league.

"One of the best shooters ever" ... All time elite from the stripe (with a "not in game" form). From the field ... bar the imcomplete early ABA years ... it's typically around average (with high usage) through '75 then weaker later. The three point percentage isn't special, even for the time. I do, then, wonder if his general reputation as a shooter might have benefited from a subconscious racial bias.

Regarding "obviously the best player in the world in '75" ... that doesn't seem obvious to me and the reasoning offered is somewhat superficial.

"very good passer and defender" is interesting. My understanding is later model Barry (he wasn't so much for passing early on) was held as an elite forward passer. So to slide defense in with that is interesting. Without doing a deep dive on either I'd be (very) surprised if the latter were up to the standard of the former. That said, I think I would be open to a wide range on where his D comes out over his career and that could move him quite a lot all time.

At the margins ... "a great great scorer" in terms of getting volume of points this is hard to argue. But in terms of putting it together with efficiency ... "great great" seems a touch strong. And it is included in the same sentence as "very good passer" and that raises further questions regarding putting it all together as the higher passing level seems to be circa the 2nd GSW run (if assist stats are a reasonable proxy) but by then he's only a little above average efficiency (managing TS adds in the circa 30-45 range for 3 years before dropping into the negative in '76 and after). Somewhat like Bird then (pretty much everyone to some extent, but I tend to think of Bird as an example of this), he wasn't really all the things he ever was at one time. This isn't to say he couldn't have had significant global offensive impact, but I as I say I'd argue against any impression he was all these things at once.

[f4p]

I don't feel like doing an alternate because I'm so strong on Jokic, but between the candidates, I'd have:

Jokic >> Wade > Barkley >> Harden >>> Pettit

I know Harden's playoff numbers aren't as bad as the eye test, but it feels like it's so rare for him to come up big when it really matters in the postseason. Even the year they almost beat the Warriors, it felt like Chris Paul was the real heart and soul of the team who you could trust in crunch time. Like what's Harden's best playoff run? Statistically it would be 2020, but they were never remotely in that series with the Lakers and he didn't have the normal pressure of the crowd because of the bubble. Has he ever come up big in a competitive series after the first round?

Like averaging 35/7/5.5 and being the best player in the series in 2019 against the warriors?

Or putting up 32/8/7 on 66 TS%, including 2 top 30 game scores for the entire decade of the playoffs, in the first 4 games against the #1 defense, 67 win warriors in 2015, including 1 and 3 point losses on the road in Oracle, with something like a +40 on/off (really), only to still be down 1-3? Or is it retroactively not competitive if you lose by one possession to a great team? When your worldview is just "haha 12 turnovers" from game 5, you miss things.

Also great in the 2012 WCF to beat an unbelievable spurs team. And of course almost beating the 2018 warriors and having it not count is a nice bit of trickery. Cp3's 20/6 on 52 TS% and something like +3 on/off (I think it was 0 in the 5 games he actually played) was better than harden's 29/6/6 on 54 TS% and +14 on/off. So yes, if you ignore all his good moments, then he didn't have any.

OK, so he actually played pretty well in the loss to Golden State in 2019 and it was just overshadowed by his team blowing it at home as a 7.5 point favorite after Durant got hurt.

not as a 7.5 favorite! all harden did was lead both teams in scoring and put up 35/8/5 in game 6. was he even trying?


i realize from the past that you have it out for harden and kind of sound like one of those reddit posts with all of harden's career lowlights with nothing good mentioned and you've made arguments against harden like "Chris Paul never won a title, but he’s consistently played very well in the playoffs in big moments" (actual quote), but i guess i'll respond anyway:

Other than that, his clutch playoff highlights are:

-A series where in the final 2 losses he goes: 3/16 from the field with 4 rebounds and 3 assists and 2/11 from the field with 12 turnovers and 5 fouls.

the 32/8/7 and 66 TS% number INCLUDED the 3/16 game. i didn't realize you couldn't have bad games in between others, lol. otherwise factoring it out it would be 37/10/8 on 73 TS% in the good games. with a +11.7 on and -50.3 off (not a typo) for a +62.0 on/off per 48. oh, and his team went 1-2. why couldn't he just play well, he clearly would have won the title! his first 2 games in Oracle were as good as you can get, in a high pressure situation, but since they didn't win you retroactively declare he didn't play well in a big moment and then focus on game 5 of a gentleman's sweep as the real "high leverage" moment from the series.

-A series where he scores 18.5 PPG off the bench

yeah, a bench player became the 2nd best player on the team to get his team to the finals against a very good opponent who had won 20 in a row. is that not good?

-A series where he shoots 14/69 from three in the final 6 games including 6/36 with 7 turnovers per game in the final 3.

whatever it takes to give him no credit, i guess. sorry he could only go 3-4 with a teammate injury against a team that was 28-3 in the rest of the 2017/18 playoffs. his series numbers still ended up looking basically the same as steph's btw (18.6 vs 19.2 game score), which tells you the kind of defensive series it was.

That's the greatness I'm "missing"?

well, yes, you literally missed a year in 2019. and then decided his peak years didn't count either.

2018 where he was the best player on one of the best teams ever and almost knocked off another GOAT team didn't count because he missed some 3's.

decided 2020 didn't count because i guess it wasn't competitive enough against the lakers. of course, i'm assuming game 1 (series tied 0-0), game 2 (rockets up 1-0) and game 3 (series tied 1-1) would have felt competitive and harden put up 32 ppg and 7 apg on 70 TS% and was still down 1-2, which is kind of a theme at this point (and was also pretty good in game 5 but then that would actually be in the uncompetitive part).

I mean he's just so consistently terrible in big games.

no one has said he's the world's greatest playoff performer. i have in fact many times posted my resiliency stats and he doesn't do do well. but with harden people tend to classify all bad games as "big games" and never remember a good game. we just voted nash #24 with basically the same bad resiliency and also with a notable lack of post-1st round great performances. and this project doesn't really do resiliency anyway (the best fit coefficient through vote #21 was literally 0.0). harden almost literally has the same playoff stats as this project's #11 in steph curry, even down to the RAPM (4.11 vs 4.12) and raw plus/minus (+11.4 vs +12.0). while at worst playing him equal on their head to head series and probably outplaying him with better stats and on/off plus/minus.

Playing great the first couple games of the series isn't worth as much when you know eventually he's going to choke it away in the end. Jokic literally never has games like that. Here are their career playoff games by Game Score

Jokic
30 or higher: 16
20-30: 36
10-20: 14
5-10: 2
5 or less: 0

Harden
30 or higher: 14
20-30: 55
10-20: 63
5-10: 22
0-5: 17

A. are you really including all of harden's 0-5 and 5-10's from like 2010/11 and 2022/23? does that seem like a good faith attempt at an argument by you?

B. you made an absolute statement about harden never doing anything, not a relative one comparing him to jokic.

C. why are you comparing him to jokic? jokic is literally battling lebron and jordan for all-time playoff box score supremacy. he's a monster compared to anyone, not just james harden. this is like every time jimmy butler puts up 45/9/8 in a playoff game and people are like "is that better than james harden?" like it's not better than a lot of other people as well.

D. since you like game score, let's look at leading a series (both teams) in game score from harden's best years:

2018 1st Round - led both teams (including jimmy butler as opponent and chris paul as teammate)
2018 2nd Round - led both teams (including donovan mitchell as opponent and chris paul as teammate)
2018 WCF - 3rd (18.6) behind KD (21.0) and just a fraction behind steph (19.2)
2019 1st Round - led both teams (including donovan mitchell as opponent and chris paul as teammate)
2019 2nd Round - led both teams (including kevin durant and steph curry as opponents and chris paul as teammate)
2020 1st Round - led both teams (old chris paul as only significant opponent)
2020 2nd Round - led both teams at 23.4 (including lebron james (22.9) and anthony davis (21.9) as opponents)
2021 1st Round - led both teams (including jayson tatum as opponent and kevin durant and kyrie irving as teammates)

that's 7 out of 8 series from his peak, with the "loss" being by a very small number. given that leading even 50% of your career series is incredible, 7 out of 8 is probably hardly matched by anyone but lebron, jordan, hakeem, and jokic (i didn't actually confirm for jokic but it seems likely). so much of his actual "horrible" play in big moments has come from arguably the much lower leverage moments of his career. like 2013/14 first rounds. or game 5 in 2015 being after the series was pretty much over after being brilliant when it was competitive. or even his worst moment, game 6 in 2017, was just for the right to get obliterated by the 2017 warriors. but with his best teams and his best chances, he's been really good. 7 out of 8 good. with the only other team-level "chances" being 2015 where he was amazing in the WCF until the last game and 2012, where he got his team a surprise finals appearance, even if he was weak in the finals.