RealGM Top 100 List #13

[ronnymac2]

ElGee wrote the following quoted text:

Btw, here's Barry playoffs from 1975:

vs. Seattle (43-39, -1.2 SRS. Average DRtg)
G1: 39 points 11 ast 8 steals.
G2: 29 points
G3: 33 points (13-21). Charles Johnson 24 points.
G4: 11 points. 4 1st half fouls. Wilkes 22. C. Johnson 16.
G5: 19 pts. 8 in 4th q after voluntarily resting much of 3rd with a huge lead. Wilkes 28 pts 8 reb. C. Johnson 16 pts.
G6: 31 points. George Johnson is "the toast of the town" after exploding for 18 pts 15 reb and 8 blocks to change the game. Fred Brown DNP for Seattle with a broken finger. Wilkes 20 pts. C. Johnson 14.

vs. Chicago (47-35, 2.89, -3.3 DRtg)
G1: 38 points. "Love (37 points) played barry almost even." Wilkes 28 points.
G2: 26 points. Barry is the goat as he shoots an unnecessary jumper with 12 seconds left instead of running out the clock. Chicago scores and wins. C. Johnson 23 points. Wilkes 16.
G3: 21 points (9-23 FG). Wilkes and C. Johnson 18 points. "Van Lier's penetration made the difference" according to Bulls coach Motta. Van Lier with 35.
G4: 36 points. 32 after the 1st quarter. Warriors storm back behind bench -- 30-13 run in 2nd quarter -- to win from 19 down.
G5: 20 points (8-26 FG). Bulls play a "defensive gem" led by Sloan.
G6: 36 points 8 reb 8 ast 7 steals. The AP calls barry's series "up and down."
G7: 22 points. 14 in 4th. Wilkes with 10 3rd Q points with Barry on bench. Motta credited George Johnson for changing the game inside with his play.

vs. Washington (60-22, 6.5 SRS -6.4 DRtg) -- courtesy chez
G1: 24 points (8-21) 0 reb 5 ast 3 steals.
G2: 36 points (14-31) 9 reb 4 ast 3 steals. Wilkes and co. bother Hayes into 3-15 game. GS +9 on glass, Bench scoring +20. Wilkes 14 points.
G3: 38 points (12-23) 4 reb 6 ast 5 steals. Hayes 9-20. GS +14 on glass, +14 bench.
G4: 20 points (10-24) 3 reb 5 ast 3 steals. Hayes 7-13. GS +15 on glass, +24 bench.

[ronnymac2]

I'm not even sure I'm nominating Rick yet. However, he's got a great argument.

Not sure who I'm voting for yet either...

[drza]

I saw someone else mention it earlier, but I'm also wondering at what point we start talking about Walton. His peak was ridiculous, but it was just so short. I'm curious as to when he comes up.

Count me among those that are also starting to think hard about Pippen. He's known as an all-time second banana, but he obviously had the game to be a main option as evidenced by his top-3 MVP season while Jordan was swinging at baseballs. To me, pigeon-holing him as "just a #2" is a mistake, as he accomplished a ton and was crucially important to all of his team's successes.

[therealbig3]

I see both Barry and Baylor get bashed for their inefficiency, but ronnymac2 just had a great post about Barry. I feel more confident in my nomination for him, he sounded like a poor man's Bird.

But concerning Baylor, what about his inefficiency? The numbers he put up were almost Wilt-like, but the impression I get from the board is that he wasn't THAT good. As of right now, he's next on my list after Barry.

And as for Ewing, why Ewing over guys like Barry, Baylor, Pippen, Frazier, or Nash...or even Havlicek?

Havlicek seems like a poor man's Barry...not quite the scorer, but a great playmaker, rebounder, and especially defender in his own right. An extremely clutch player too.

[lorak]

he led his team to the finals regularly for almost a decade

People keep telling that, but it's worth nothing, because there were two rounds in the playoffs and Lakers played in conference opposite to Celtics (besides for ~first half of 60s it was Baylor's team, and he, not West, led them to the finals...).

For example in 1962 Lakers won one round in the playoffs and advanced to the finals..
The same in 1963 and 1965, and 1966...

[pancakes3]

worth something considering KG got bounced for 7 straight years in the 1st round.

for the record, the '62 lakers could win just "one round" because #1 seeds got a bye iirc, not that there was only 1 round of playoffs before the finals.

[lorak]

For Lakers there was only one round. Year after year in weak conference...

Until 1968 West never played more than two series in playoffs.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Vote: West

Nomination: Stockton

Don't have much time to post, but I'd say West has the best combination of regular season + playoff performances of the group. I really don't see how KG could go this high, when he has serious flaws in the playoffs(most important part of the season) that others don't. Has he really jumped 7 spots in the last 3 years?

[ElGee]

Moses Malone

I'm not quite sure people understand how little longevity Moses Malone provides relative to some of these other guys. He really wasn't a player worth talking much about until 1978 (first NBA AS team). Only he missed 23 games that year, and lifted the Rockets 4.8 points to a -2.7 differential when in the lineup. That's not exactly impressive stuff to me, and IIRC he was injured at the end of the year anyway so he couldn't contribute on an even better club.

1979 Moses win the MVP. I consider this MVP weaker than say, Karl Malone's 1999 MVP. Actually, I think Kareem was clearer a better player that year. Still, that's a good year for Moses, and probably not to far off from his peak.

1980 wasn't quite as good IMO, but 1981 was better.

1982 is his peak season to me, so let's discuss that. I think it's comparable to a Karl Malone season -- good go slightly better or worse, depending on the day. The gist of Moses at the height of his powers was a bruising, incredible offensive rebounder. He added this little face up jumper which he could hit with regularity and he used his body well around the basket. Of course, he was also sort of a black hole of basketball. That said, he was efficient and did great work on the offensive glass (high-quality offense), so this is a good offensive player overall. Averaged 27.4 pts/75 on +3.8 TS% for the season, and a mediocre Houston team finished 9th in ORtg. (The Rockets did have a few shooters, if anything.)

On the defensive side of the ball, Malone is somewhat lacking to me. The rebounding helps, but his DRB% is actually right in line with Karl Malone's in a year like 1997. It's a similar rebounding differential to that 97 Jazz team as well (+213). But Moses could be a bit lazy at times, and while I've seen his help be good and productive, he's definitely a level down from our true "anchor" defensive bigs.

1983 is a slightly worse to me. It's totally overrated in that people associate it with the dominant title run, but he didn't have some seismic impact. A 7.5 SRS on that team up from 5.7 (and a FInals loss) isn't an overly impressive shift, and I believe he was slightly better in 1982.

THEN the crash comes. A disastrous 1984. (Yes, it's an Orwellian thing.) Moses misses 11 games and improves the team only 2.9 points (to 2.6) in games he's in. Small sample on/off can be plenty unreliable, but in this case it reflected a growing concern about his season. The team's owner was publicly complaining Malone was more disengaged and came into training camp out of shape, which led to injuries. This really wasn't a good year and ended unceremoniously with Malone turning the ball over a lot (with worse scoring) in a loss to the Nets. He finished 10th in MVP, probably because he was the *reigning* MVP (what's the lowest a reigning MVP has finished actually??) and was on a high profile team.

1985 is his redeem season, but this is closer to his early stuff than the 82-83 peak. He did finish 3rd in MVP, but I don't see it. Everything comes way down for the playoffs, and this is certainly a guy not doing a huge amount outside the box. (20-10 51% TS) It's his final all-nba type season to me.

From 86-89, I think you get an all-star. In a similar mold of this year's Kevin Garnett (although I could certainly see a preference for KG over those years).

SUMMARY: This is a good 2-3 year peak, but not anything different (or better IMO) than Karl's 3-best years. Then there's the issue of sustaining that level of play, and relative to this pod of players it just doesn't hold for Moses. Let's give him 79, 80 and 85 as just short of the 81-83 range.

That's 6 high quality years. That's really similar to Dwyane Wade's longevity. And not so coincidentally, I have Wade only slightly behind Moses. By comparison, I have high quality year count on order of:

Oscar 9-10
West 7-9
Barkley 6
Dirk 6
LeBron 6

[pancakes3]

Havlicek seems like a poor man's Barry...not quite the scorer, but a great playmaker, rebounder, and especially defender in his own right. An extremely clutch player too.

i wouldn't even say "poor man's" Barry. In the post-russell, pre-cowens years Havlicek put up some high powered scoring numbers when his team needed it. It was solely because he didn't have a low post presence that the C's missed out on the playoffs for those seasons (hondo was the leading rebounder as a sf). In the '72 finals Havlicek was THE MAN despite Cowens being the regular season MVP as hondo went on to average 27ppg for the playoffs that year to Dave's 20.

all things even, Havlicek was able to top out at 29/9/7.5 in the 70's NBA and Barry's peak numbers were 30/6/6. The two are rather comparable in my book. There are differences you can point to: Barry being able to will a cinderella Warriors team to a championship while Havlicek missed the playoffs until he got a dominant big man again. However, Havlicek does have 5 all-d 1st teams and 3 all-d 2nd teams under his belt as well as a touch more longevity (200 more games, 8000 more minutes played).

i really wouldn't be upset with either being nominated.

[Fencer reregistered]

Regarding the "What's changed about Garnett since the last vote?" question:

1. Huge swing in intangibles. He went from being the guy who got into a fight with his squeaky-clean teammate Wallyworld to the guy who anchored an unprecedented team chemistry accomplishment. (It was so successful that other teams quickly tried to match it, but the coming together of the New Big Three was quite the accomplishment when it occurred..

2. Won a championship.

3. Anchored an awesome defense.

4. Added a few years to his longevity.

[ElGee]

Steve Nash

(Next thread if I have time I will absolutely assault John Havlicek. I think he's one of the most overrated players in history.)

Off the heels of the Moses Malone post, keep in mind the number of high quality seasons we are looking at for these players as a benchmark:

Oscar 9-10
West 7-9
Barkley 6
Dirk 6
LeBron 6
Moses 6

All of a sudden it doesn't seem strange for Steve Nash to be behind this group -- that's where I have him. We all know Nash has some borderline all-nba seasons in Dallas. There are a number of AS quality years there where he is quarterback -- although not to the same degree -- historically good offenses with great passing/decision making and shooting. This year's shouldn't be minimized; for instance, Nash missed 12 games in 2001 and Dallas was 6.6 points better with him (up to 5.2), so he was clearly a very good and valuable offensive player at times in Dallas.

Then the good years in Phoenix. 05-7 is a 3-year peak that's somewhat comparable to Moses. Differnet time, different player, but those are seriously MVP-level seasons from Nash. He's giving you GOAT level offense with somewhere around neutral PG defense, at a position where defensive impact isn't large one way or the other.

To put the value of his peak in perspective, Nash missed 16 games in that time span. Phoenix was -5.7 in those games, and 13.2 points better at a championship level +7.5 with Nash in. That's without ever having a defensively oriented big and a season of crippling injuries. That's stunning stuff ITO of value...Walton-esque. (

I also addressed the typical criticisms of Nash here (system, rules, titles, defense, etc.): http://www.backpicks.com/2010/12/19/add ... teve-nash/

2008 is a pretty good year and 2009 looks like the end. Although Nash still has big value, improving Phoenix 6.3 pionts to +2.5. A big drop of value for me with health...but then 2010 is a 4th really high quality season. So, for HQ years,

Nash 4-5 years

Plus all of his all-star/all-nba level years, and just with that snapshot one can see he isn't far behind the guys in the teens. Or, simply put, when you are an Offensive GOAT candidate and string together 3 or 4 MVP quality seasons, it separates you from most of the guys who have ever played basketball.

[drza]

Vote: Moses Malone
Nominate: Clyde Drexler

I don't see how in the hell Karl Malone went ahead of Moses Malone.

Moses got next to no love. It's pretty clear to me a peak Moses is more valuable than a peak Karl or KG, so I'd be interested in the reasoning of the folks who emphasize peak and voted Karl or are favoring KG now. Moses wasn't discussed a lot, IIRC.

Moses vs KG

Moses Malone is one of the most unique NBA players to me. His strengths are obvious...great scorer and dominant rebounder, especially on offense. His offensive rebounding percentage is absurd...most years he was grabbing almost as high of a percentage of offensive boards as he was defensive boards. It has become part of his lore that he would often use the offensive glass as part of his offensive move...throwing the ball towards the rim instead of making a move, knowing that he could get the offensive board in a better position to score (with an extra rebound chalked up to boot). But even with that strategy, he was also just a ridiculous offensive rebounder in general...he'd put that big backside on folks and just move them right out of the way so that he could clean the glass and put the ball back up. IMO Moses is the greatest offensive garbageman that the game has ever seen...if you threw the ball at the rim he considered that an entry pass. Moses knew his role very well, and almost all of his shots were in the paint outside of a little face-up jumper he developed, which helped him to have great scoring efficiency. And something like Kevin Mchale, once Mo got the ball in the paint it was going up. He wasn't one to pass.

The argument for Garnett over Malone begins, perhaps surprisingly, on offense. Because Moses had some big raw scoring seasons, including one up over 30 ppg, I expected to find that he was a better scorer than Garnett but that Garnett may have helped bridge that gap with other parts of his game. Instead, when I looked into it last night in response to Penbeast's post, I find that in Moses' 9 highest scoring years (in which he averaged over 25 ppg), he actually scored EXACTLY as much of his team's point total as Garnett did in his 9 highest scoring seasons (23.2% of the scoring, to be exact). That the reason that Moses' scoring numbers look better at a glance is because of the pace (well over 100) and the high scoring of the 80s (teams usually around 110 ppg). But in reality, Garnett was scoring just as much for his teams as Moses was for his.

And that's a huge statement, because Moses' scoring volume was (in conjunction with his rebounding and scoring efficiency) the big feather in his cap. But Garnett matched his scoring volume, but in a much more diverse way. While Moses was more efficient, Garnett's ability to score both inside and outside created spacing for his teammates to work. And once you consider passing, where Garnett was often his teams de facto point guard/offense initiator while Moses averaged well over twice as many turnovers as assists, it seems clear to me that Garnett was on the whole a larger offensive presence on his teams than Moses was on his. At the very worse, speaking ultra conservatively in Moses' favor, offensively their impact was very similar.

But defensively? Defensively this is a blowout. Moses was an adequate defensive center, but Garnett slaughters him on this end of the floor.

Moses and Garnett played the game in very different ways. But I just don't see how KG wasn't clearly having a larger impact on games than Malone was.

[Dr Positivity]

Only 6 HQ seasons for Dirk??? By my count he just finished his 10th or 11th straight depending on how one feels about 01 (not as high ppg but a sparkling 14.6 WS and made 3rd team All-NBA). I also give Chuckles more credit, he made 11 All-NBA teams and was top 6 in MVP voting as early at 86 and as late as 95

[Laimbeer]

where does someone like Bill Walton come into play? His peak is amongst the best.

Criteria: Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball.

If career plays any role, it's hard to see how we're close to him.

[mysticbb]

Only 6 HQ seasons for Dirk??? By my count he just finished his 10th or 11th straight depending on how one feels about 01 (not as high ppg but a sparkling 14.6 WS and made 3rd team All-NBA). I also give Chuckles more credit, he made 11 All-NBA teams and was top 6 in MVP voting as early at 86 and as late as 95

Yeah, I thought the same. If Oscar Robertson had 9 to 10 high quality seasons, Nowitzki has 11. Compare Nowitzki in 2001 with Oscar Robertson in 1969 and I see no reason why Nowitzki should be worse. Wayne Winston has +12.7 APM for Nowitzki in 2001. If that is not high quality, I have no idea what high quality should even mean.

And Dwyane Wade just finished his 5th season in which he was halfway healthy, but he has the same longevity as Dirk Nowitzki? That is crazy.

Steve Nash has 9 All-NBA quality seasons (I count 2009 and 2011 also). Nash should be ahead of Wade imho.


Vote: Kevin Garnett

Nomination: Elgin Baylor

[Dr Positivity]

The way I'm approaching Walton is asking at what point do I prefer having him for 2.5 years than X player for their entire career

We're a long way from that point for me. I know he has the mystique of being so good in 77 to get that title, but most of the time, you need the long years to get a title. Look at MJ, Shaq, Lebron's waits, and I consider all those guys better than Walton in their regular seasons.

[Laimbeer]

Repeating what I said last thread. Garnett vs West is very, very close for me. Garnett has the defense and West has the offense. I prefer them both to Malone and Erving.

Overall I give Garnett the benefit of the doubt for greater health and doing it a modern era

Nominate: Patrick Ewing. IMO he should be in already. Consistent 20 and 10 with elite defense, got much better offensively as his career went on, took his team to G7 of the Finals where he could've won if not for Starks, plus pushed Jordan's Bulls as hard as anyone. Played a long time and always hard. Dominant Cs are the most important spot, I don't know how anyone could say they'd actually prefer having Havlicek or Nash/Frazier with their short superstar primes over Ewing, if given the choice

This sort of goes to the conflicting criteria being used. Center, by it's nature, is usually considered a more important position. So does a center who's similar in caliber of play to a guard get the edge because he'd be more more valuable from a start-a-franchise viewpoint?

[Dr Positivity]

I just care about who's the more valuable player. Being a C or guard just helps you get there.

[Laimbeer]

The way I'm approaching Walton is asking at what point do I prefer having him for 2.5 years than X player for their entire career

We're a long way from that point for me. I know he has the mystique of being so good in 77 to get that title, but most of the time, you need the long years to get a title. Look at MJ, Shaq, Lebron's waits, and I consider all those guys better than Walton in their regular seasons.

How do you judge a current player? For example, do you weigh LeBron's career-to-date against the full career of Jerry West? Or do you extrapolate what you expect LeBron to do over his career?