RealGM Top 100 List #16

[pancakes3]

Moses Malone didn't even make a huge difference to the team performance at his peak, why should I want him in other seasons when he constantly was out in the first round and not the cornerstone of a franchise being able to win.

a) didn't you dismiss that exact argument when KG was being discussed?
b) i don't think he was constantly out in the 1st round when he was still in his prime (houston/philly). definitely in the late 80's onwards.

1st season in Houston: conference finals (from 40 win to 49 wins but went from missing the playoffs to #1 in the division and a 1st round bye)
2nd season: missed playoffs (foot injury)
3rd season: bounced 1st round, swept by hawks (averaged 24/20)
4th season: 2nd round, swept by Celtics
5th season: realignment, beat Lakers on way to finals, bounced by Celtics in 6
6th season: 1st round exit to sonics
post-moses Rockets: 46 wins to 14 wins

in Philly: won finals, lost 1st round, lost conference finals, lost semifinals
in Wash: 1st round bounce, 1st round bounce
in ATL: 1st round, no playoffs, 1st round
in MIL: missed playoffs

[/quote]
I count 8 seasons in which Malone was healthy enough and good enough to be the best player on a championship team, that is exactly 1 season more than James has.
[/quote]

so i guess Moses is 1/8 and Lebron is 0/7 in terms of actually winning that championship... and also has 1 more MVP in the same span.

But Malone had a lot less impact, if we don't dismiss all the evidence we have. He made a small improvement to the Rockets when he joined. He didn't improve a below average team much (granted, he had that playoff run to the finals),

so he had an impact except for that one time he made an impact? what about the precipitous drop in wins that the Rockets felt when they traded malone? yes. trade. not loss in FA, which is a TOTAL loss like cleveland felt, but rather an exchange of assets, which cushions the +/- in wins, hypothetical wins (SRS), etc.

he didn't make a big difference to the 76ers at his absolute peak. The 76ers without him were already a 5.7 SRS team, with him that improved to 8.15 SRS with a healthy Erving playing in 1983. When Erving missed 10 games (2 games in January and 8 games in March with a wrist injury) the 76ers went down to a 3.06 SRS team. The 76ers without a absolute peak Malone were better than the 76ers with absolute peak Malone and without past peak Erving. What should I believe when peak Malone doesn't even come close a difference LeBron James made?

the world isn't modeled linearly. there are diminishing margins of return. a team with an eyepoppingly high 5.74 SRS has very little room to go... up to 7.53. Miami starting out at 2.00 flat has more wins to potentially be won and ended up at a 6.67. However, it'd be foolish to say "oh wow. Lebron is such a crazy boost. If you added him (and bosh) to the sixers, they would have easily been able to rack up a sRS of 10 something and go win 70+!

additionally you can't say "oh, malone was added to a stacked 76ers peak and his impact wasn't as high as a 10 game sample size cobbled together from 2 separate incidents from when Doc got hurt". You've got to macro it a bit and say, hm. they tossed moses onto a stacked squad and they went on to coast through the playoffs like a breeze through a screen door whereas Lebron was added to a ridiculously stacked team and they got shown the door by Dirk and a decent ensemble crowd.

I think people are putting way too much stock into the boxscore numbers and way too easily they are impressed with big offensive rebounding numbers.
...
If you want to know how much someone helps a team win with his rebounding look at the DRB% of that player. Moses Malone's defensive rebounding is basically on par with Nowitzki's, his BLK% and STL% too. The defensive impact of Moses Malone was not big, for sure not bigger than Nowitzki's, especially when we take into account the negative effect of turnovers for the team defense. It is very likely that Moses Malone's impact on the game was lowered due to the high TO-R (turnover rate has a -0.3 correlation coefficient to scoring margin, a much bigger impact factor than offensive rebounding).

And that all is reflected in the team results with and without Moses Malone. He didn't make such a big difference, for sure not a big difference as people seem to think.

you want to see how somebody is helping their team DEFENSIVELY you look at the DRB%. O-boards help, flat out. It's an entire new offensive possession without the 50% chance of giving up a bucket in return! how can it NOT help the offense to grab boards? The 4-7 EXTRA POSSESSIONS that Moses could net his team translates to 4-7 extra points a game!

I would never claim that moses was a defensive impacter. his meager 2 all-defensive nods pales in comparison to the defensive C's left aboard: namely Ewing and Drob. However he IS comparable to Lebron offensively, who is arguably one of the most prolific scorers we've seen AND had a decent handle on the boards both offensively and defensively.

futhermore, you compare Moses's DRB%'s to Dirk's like it's a BAD thing (or even a relevant thing considering you specifically asked for a Moses to Lebron head-to-head argument). Dirk's 22% DRB% is respectably high, and Moses's 23% is equal to that of Shaq's DRB%. He's no Duncan on the glass, or Hakeem, but those guys are already voted in. What's the problem? It's certainly higher than Lebron's 17%, if you want to keep the discussion germaine. definitely weaker in the assist department though.

8 seasons vs. 7 seasons while James had a bigger impact, I don't see the longevity argument for Moses Malone. Nobody would pick Kevin Willis over Dwight Howard based on longevity either.

more seasons, more hardware, won a ring, can pull down defensive boards like Shaq, and grab offensive boards like Rodman, and score with the same volume and efficiency as Lebron is in fact, nowhere near the player that Lebron is?

now i'm not saying you HAVE to vote moses, but you did ask for someone to provide an argument. there's a far way to go from "i can't see ANY argument" to "i can see why you would think that way but personally i disagree" which is still a far way from "ok. i get that. i still don't agree but i'm fine with you holding that opinion." and it seems you're closer to the 1st of the 3 mindsets, which to me with regard to this particular matchup seems closed-minded.

Nobody is ignoring playoff games, but that comparison wins James easily. Don't be fooled by some playoff games you might not be impressed about, but James had much more dominant performances than Moses Malone. And Malone played in 100 playoff games, James in 92.

No, I don't agree that Moses Malone was overall a player which gives me more than LeBron James. He has more personal accomplishments with the MVP awards and Finals MVP, but those awards were also really circumstantial.

James had 1 postseason where he monopolized the ball to a degree that nobody has ever done before - not even Jordan. The result? conference semis loss in 6. Yes it was impressive, but it also needs a healthy dose of reality juice seeing as he was bounced in 6. also, if there's any "fooling" it'd be on Lebron's part. 92 playoff games in a system that has a best of 7 first round instead of best of 3, and doesn't give 1st round byes to #1 seeds which would wipe out roughly 24 of Lebron's 92 games as well as a good chunk of his inflated stats against sucky first round teams.

[Sedale Threatt]

But if that doesn't matter whether Thomas played or not, why would you pick him as a "better" player? He might have been a good coach at that time already, but I thought we are making a list about the best players? Maybe we should start nominating Don Nelson and Phil Jackson soon, both were vital parts of championship teams and were even able to show their transcendent abilities later in their coaching career?

Goodness...

I'm not nominating the guy. I'm not even making a case for him. I don't know how I could possibly be more plain about what I said.

[Dr Positivity]

I like to look at the peak of teams to see what a player is capable of doing as the best guy. In the case of someone like Wilt who changed his style of play at times, it's less trustworthy, but Moses was always close to the same guy in his prime

While the 83 Sixers were loaded, there were very few best players who could lead a run like that. They swept one of the most purely talented Magic/Kareem teams and shut down a pretty great Bucks team as well, with Marques, Moncrief aligning and Lanier still playing good.

On the 82-83 Sixers difference. One difference is that the 82 team definitely had more depth. I know they don't jump off the statistical screen, but the impact of Daryl Dawkins, Lionel Hollins, Steve Mix and Caldwell Jones together is pretty solid, at least when you compare it to the players the 83 team had after Moses/Erving/Toney/Cheeks/Jones. The 80-82 teams without Dawk, Hollins, Mix, Jones are a very different team in my opinion. If you added those 4 in place of the bench players the 83 team, I suspect now that may be a 10 SRS team

[mysticbb]

a) didn't you dismiss that exact argument when KG was being discussed?

I didn't dismiss that, I even pointed out how past peak Garnett improved a 6.29 SRS team to be a 9.77 SRS team, that is a bigger difference than peak Moses Malone made to the 76ers, a team weaker than those Celtics.

b) i don't think he was constantly out in the 1st round when he was still in his prime (houston/philly). definitely in the late 80's onwards.

3 times out in the first round, once missing the playoffs. Additional to that he was out in the first round 5 times during his other double-double seasons and missed the playoffs an additional time during those seasons. That makes 8 first round exits and two missed playoffs during his 15 double-double seasons.

1st season in Houston: conference finals (from 40 win to 49 wins but went from missing the playoffs to #1 in the division and a 1st round bye)

The Rockets added also #1 pick John Lucas, and improved overall by only 2.1 points. They won against the weaker Bullets with HCA in the first round to make it to the conference finals, nothing special at all

post-moses Rockets: 46 wins to 14 wins

Well, if I look at that team which was left, I'm not surprised. That is like arguing James had the greatest impact ever, because a injury-riddled Cavaliers team without a frontcourt played horrible (and might even had tanked).

so i guess Moses is 1/8 and Lebron is 0/7 in terms of actually winning that championship... and also has 1 more MVP in the same span.

Do you honestly think that James joining last seasons Lakers wouldn't have resulted into a championship? What kind of argument is that? James never played on a team that was without him remotely close to the strength of the 76ers without Moses Malone. Even this years Heat were worse than that.

so he had an impact except for that one time he made an impact?

I said "made less impact", I didn't say he made no impact. ;)

what about the precipitous drop in wins that the Rockets felt when they traded malone? yes. trade. not loss in FA, which is a TOTAL loss like cleveland felt, but rather an exchange of assets, which cushions the +/- in wins, hypothetical wins (SRS), etc.

They got Caldwell Jones and a draft pick for the 1983 draft. What kind of compensation is that? And that Rockets team had not much to do with the Rockets teams Malone played with. From the 10 plyaers with the most minutes per game, 6 never played with Moses Malone on the Rockets. And two of the other 4 players were an injury-prone 34 yr old Calvin Murphy and the 37 yr old Elvin Hayes. I don't think that we can take anything out of this rather than the Rockets sucked in 1983.

the world isn't modeled linearly. there are diminishing margins of return. a team with an eyepoppingly high 5.74 SRS has very little room to go... up to 7.53.

For sure, nobody is denying this. But why was past peak Garnett able to push the 6.29 SRS Celtics to 9.77 SRS (+3.48), while Moses Malone made a +1.79 at his freaking peak? Why was Garnett able to push a better team more than Moses Malone, without even accounting for the dimishing returns. ;)

additionally you can't say "oh, malone was added to a stacked 76ers peak and his impact wasn't as high as a 10 game sample size cobbled together from 2 separate incidents from when Doc got hurt". You've got to macro it a bit and say, hm. they tossed moses onto a stacked squad and they went on to coast through the playoffs like a breeze through a screen door whereas Lebron was added to a ridiculously stacked team and they got shown the door by Dirk and a decent ensemble crowd.

Well, nice narrative, but nothing which is indeed a valid argument.

you want to see how somebody is helping their team DEFENSIVELY you look at the DRB%. O-boards help, flat out. It's an entire new offensive possession without the 50% chance of giving up a bucket in return! how can it NOT help the offense to grab boards? The 4-7 EXTRA POSSESSIONS that Moses could net his team translates to 4-7 extra points a game!

Did you count the times when Moses Malone lost the battle on the off board and wasn't in a good defensive position? I tell you something, even the best offensive rebounder lose more battles than they win. That is something not written into the boxscore. The defensive rebounder is in a better position and more likely to win the battle at the board. You don't account for that, you just count the grabbed offensive boards. So, how many extra points missed Moses Malone due to missed offensive rebounds? And how many times could have team used him rather on defense instead of going for the offensive rebound?
The data suggest that the positive impact on offense by an offensive rebounder gets eliminated by the negative effect on defense. Obviously, that is just the average, but it seems like Moses Malone was closer to the average in this regard than other players.

futhermore, you compare Moses's DRB%'s to Dirk's like it's a BAD thing (or even a relevant thing considering you specifically asked for a Moses to Lebron head-to-head argument). Dirk's 22% DRB% is respectably high, and Moses's 23% is equal to that of Shaq's DRB%. He's no Duncan on the glass, or Hakeem, but those guys are already voted in. What's the problem? It's certainly higher than Lebron's 17%, if you want to keep the discussion germaine. definitely weaker in the assist department though.

Oh, not a bad thing at all, and if we look at the playoffs, we might even see that Nowitzki has a higher DRB% than Moses Malone. I just made a point for Nowitzki, who should be ahead of Moses Malone too.

more seasons, more hardware, won a ring, can pull down defensive boards like Shaq, and grab offensive boards like Rodman, and score with the same volume and efficiency as Lebron is in fact, nowhere near the player that Lebron is?

Oh, yes, he is not the player James was. The reason was explained before.

now i'm not saying you HAVE to vote moses, but you did ask for someone to provide an argument. there's a far way to go from "i can't see ANY argument" to "i can see why you would think that way but personally i disagree" which is still a far way from "ok. i get that. i still don't agree but i'm fine with you holding that opinion." and it seems you're closer to the 1st of the 3 mindsets, which to me with regard to this particular matchup seems closed-minded.

Oh, I didn't say that I can't see any argument, I said I want to see a compelling argument, you haven't provided one. That is my dilemma here. The basic argument is 3x MVP, Final MVP and 15 double-double seasons. Half of the double-double seasons are meaningless to me, that's like counting double-double seasons for Zach Randolph to make the point he is a better player than Kevin Durant.

James had 1 postseason where he monopolized the ball to a degree that nobody has ever done before - not even Jordan. The result? conference semis loss in 6. Yes it was impressive, but it also needs a healthy dose of reality juice seeing as he was bounced in 6. also, if there's any "fooling" it'd be on Lebron's part. 92 playoff games in a system that has a best of 7 first round instead of best of 3, and doesn't give 1st round byes to #1 seeds which would wipe out roughly 24 of Lebron's 92 games as well as a good chunk of his inflated stats against sucky first round teams.

My point was that James played in more playoffs games than the few he had not performed well. ;)

[Dr Positivity]

On the topic of Artis Gilmore - I'm picturing healthy Andrew Bynum in the 70s. Am I off base? Huge, can score in the post and rebound/defend, but seems like he's missing something

[DocHoops]

Project sucks

[Laimbeer]

On the topic of Artis Gilmore - I'm picturing healthy Andrew Bynum in the 70s. Am I off base? Huge, can score in the post and rebound/defend, but seems like he's missing something

That's a great comparison, Doc.

[FJS]

Isiah, Nash, Payton, Kidd and Stockton have their flaws and their strong points, and it's difficult to argue about one ignoring his flaws.

Isiah and Stockton were the more complete in my opinion in what I want for a PG. Understand me, Kidd is pretty bad shooting in his carreer for a PG (around 40%FG), Payton it's not the best distributor, which is pretty important for a pg. Nash is weak in deffense, and need the ball to shine, because if you want to say about Stockton had Malone when Nash had Nowitzki, another type of MVP Nash never smelled mvp votes and did by far worse than Stockton. He needed a gun n' run system with several shooters to shine.

Isiah was a great scorer, but he was not very efficience, and he had not 3 pt range (around 30%FG) and not a great FT shooter (76 %) for a pg.
It's curious that he was not better than Stockton in MVP votes, being the alpha dog of Pistons, and how he did not make any all nba team in 88,89 and 90 when his team was in finals.
Magic and Jordan beat him for the first in 88, Stockton and Drexler for second
In 89 Magic and Jordan first, Stockton and KJ second, Dale Ellis and Mark Price 3rd
In 90 Magic and Jordan first, Stockton and KJ second, Drexler and Dumars were 3rd.

Pretty curious than Dumars beat him here and in MVP finals. This tell how good pistons roster were.

[penbeast0]

Probably because both Gervin and Thompson were appreciably BETTER players in the NBA than the ABA. Gilmore was a very good player even in the NBA but never a fan favorite because he wasn't outgoing at all, on or off the court. This is a legit critique of him; can you see Shaq letting his team make him a 4th option in his prime quietly and without complaining or yelling for the ball?

If there's a case for Ewing over Gilmore it's because of Ewing's fiery nature demanding the ball more and transmitting itself to his teammates; the case the other way is Gilmore's superior efficiency and rebounding.

[Sedale Threatt]

My father and his friends, all huge basketball fans and college basketball players, were never impressed by Gilmore.

I got the same reaction from a couple of older guys I trust, and this is in San Antonio, where he not only played but came through as an ABA player. The general reaction is sort of a shoulder shrug. "He was good, but..."

Story perhaps interesting only for me: I had to cover a pro-am golf tournament a while back sponsored by George Gervin, in which Gilmore was playing.

I went up to him as he was getting his clubs out of his car to ask him a question. I'm used to being around athletes, but dude is just massive. He looks at me, very deliberately put down his bag, paused for a few seconds, and just when I thought he was going to tell me to F off, gave me one of the more soft-spoken and thoughful answers I'd ever gotten.

Very enjoyable experience.

[An Unbiased Fan]

And your point is? So was Christian Laettner.

The context of John Stockton being selected for the Dream Team is VASTLY different from Laettner, who only got in becuase they wanted to pick one college guy. The point is that your earlier comparison of Stockton to Mark Jackson was off base.

Yes, but those are elite seasons where he never close to being an MVP caliber player. Nash, Payton, Thomas, & Kidd were. That's the difference.

MVP =/= Best player

I mean really, Nash has more MVPs than Shaq, but his peak was no where comparable. Stockton wasn't going to get high MVP rankings when he teammate is Karl Malone. Nash wouldn't have been getting top MVP votes in the 90's either, so it's a strange point to begin with. Nash wouldn't have been given major MVP votes if he had stayed next to Dirk, who was a better player.

Stockton's elite years blow Nash out of the water production-wise. How can you dismiss his utter domiantion at the PG position?

I'm really confused why these things are remotely relevant when discussing impact of the player at their most elite forms. How about this, Stockton was never a top 5 MVP candidate, why is it that despite hitting these "assist" numbers, the Jazz were never close to being a team offensively on par with ANY of Nash's Mavs OR Suns teams from a historic perspective?

Why is it that from a accolade perspective (since you love hyping your buddy Bryant on accolades), Stockton was only a top 10 MVP vote getter a mere three times? IF Stockton was so elite why was he never regarded as a top 5 player ever in the league, or close to being considered a superstar? Why is it that the Jazz hit elite marks in terms of peak play reaching the finals on multiple occasions when Stockton was on the clear drastic decline in production? Why is it that even during Stockton's most elite seasons that guys like Porter & Price rank ahead of him in MVP voting? Why is it that his own teammate in every SINGLE season they've been together Malone's always been ahead?

1) You're confused why a PG leading the NBA 8 straight years in apg is relevant? Really, why? It shows that Stockton beat Nash's best year in apg...8 straight seasons during his prime. Stockton's production blows Nash out of the water, and he did it for a much longer span of years.

2) Accolade-wise, Stockton has more All-NBA teams, and 5 All-D teams. Stockton was never high in MVP rankings, but again, that had to do with how people voted in that era, and his star teammate.

Nash's efficiency goes up as his volume goes up once he arrives in Pho, why is it that? Shouldn't it be correlated the other way around? Nash was never utilized in the same concept of completely letting him "run" the offense until he arrived in Pho, why is it that he hit historic marks once Don Nelson let him take more control in '04? Or he continued to hit historic marks offensive with the Suns during multiple seasons with various coaches, why is it that?

Nash's efficiency went up due to rule changes & D'Antoni's schemes. Also, When we talk about all-time greats, longevity factors in, and for most of his career, Nash wasn't a 50/40/90 guy, nor did he top 8.8 apg. Nash's USG% was actually higher than Stockton's, even in Dallas.

So when you have a guy like Stockton who did this for 15 years, it's quite striking. Think about this, in 2003 Stock was 40 years old, yet still dishing out 7.7 apg. Nash was 28 and dropped 7.3 apg. Even past his prime, Stockton out-produced Nash every year they were in the league together. In Stock's first 2 years he had 7.4 & 8.2 apg, but in only 23.6 & 22.7 mpg. So even when "he was under utilized", he produced.

Huh? Offensively in 2004, the Mavs are considered the 6th greatest offensive team ever, where they hit historic marks, and if you're focusing relative to that season the Mavs hit a historic mark where they were considered 3rd (You know why they're 6th now? Yeah, cause of the '07, '06 and '10 Suns).

Considered the 6th greaest offense by whom?? Because I sure don't consider them such. Also, how can Nash get a pass for his lower numbers in Dallas, because "he wasn't utilized enough", yet still get credit for Dallas's offense? Strange.

In 2005, without Nash.....the Mavs won 6 MORE games, and their ORtg was still 4th in the NBA at 110.3. Funny enough.....their DRtg went from 26th (107.4) with Nash, to 9th (104.1) in 05', hehe.

In 2006, Dallas was #1 in ORtg, and #2 in 2007. So no, I don't see much of a dropoff. In fact, it's telling that Dallas had more success once Nash left....

This is an excuse. I'll counter that statement by saying prove your point, you're just pulling statements out of your ass right now, I literally want to see an argument where there is presentable objective evidence backing up your claim.

Why is it that he's hit historic marks offensively with 2 different offensive systems? Why is it that various players that play alongside Nash (Amar'e, Bell, Shaq, Marion, Barbosa, Johnson) hit highs in efficiency, but take drastic dips without him?

Why is it that even without the Suns most lethal offensive weapon in '06, the Suns replicated performances from the prior season, and relative to 2006, set historic marks offensively (2nd greatest offensive team ever). He clearly wasn't properly utilized in Dallas, not sure if you were alive or watching basketball then though. Because all of your claims are wildly inconsistent with your postings.

No, blaming a lack of utilzation for Nash's numbers in Dallas, is an excuse. Saying that Nash has always played on offensively orientated teams is reality. And I can't believe you're arguing that he's been on offensively structured teams. Don Nelson & D'Antoni is all the evidence you need. The guy had Dirk & Finley in Dallas, and then Amare, Marion & Joe in PHX.

Compare that to the list of guys Stockton turned into 10+ ppg scorers in Utah...
Karl Malone
Thurl Bailey
Darrell Griffith
Jeff Malone
Blue Edwards
Tyrone Corbin
Hornacek
David Benoit
Chris Morris
Byron Russell
^
He put up way better numbers passing to these guys.


You reference Amar'e, Bell, Shaq, Marion, Barbosa, Johnson, as having their highs in efficiency with Nash, but that's a bit of a red herring. Shaq's best year didn't come with Nash, nor did JJ's. Amare & Marion's primes both overlap with Nash, so it's hardly surprising that they had their most efficienct years next to him.

Conversely, Dirk had his best years post-Nash, so again the point is mute.

?

He's done it various times, to various offensive schemes, in various mind-you historic levels of play offensively. Stockton's Jazz in his 19/20 seasons haven't even come close.

What various times are you refferring to? Nash has had offensive teams in PHX. The whole system he ran is vastly different from what Sloan ran in Utah. Even still Stockton's production dwarfed Nash's.

Nash is much more of a superior and much more lethal scorer, and more efficient in consideration to elite seasons (2002 and after) on more volume. Yet at the same time his "superior" defense cost him multiple series where the opposing point guard absolutely lights him up, Ex. Terry Potter WCF '92 26PPG/8.3APG/4RPG/55 FG%/46.8 3PT%

Except Stockton has a higher career TS%, so where do you get the idea that Nash is more efficient at scoring???

And I never said Stockton was a lockdown defender, his strength lies in team defense. He was tremendous at disrupting passing lanes, and perhaps the best PG at stripping bigs of the ball(which is why he's the all-time steals leader).

What?

Dude Nash was a critical part of 5 of the top 11 greatest offensives ever, while taking into account that it was through 3 different offensive schemes and coaching strategies. It goes beyond the 3 year run from '05 to '07.

Again, what are you basing the "5 of the top 11 greatest offensives ever" claim on? I hope it's not ORtg.

And I guess we're counting the Dallas years again, when Nash "wasn't untilized enough", and giving him credit for those team offensive numbers..

Yet, peak still trumps everything. Nash still gives you the same 3-4 seasons of elite level of basketball play that Kidd, Payton, & Isiah give you. The arguments go beyond that discussion. My point is what do all of the players have in common?

They all have played elite level OR superstar level of basketball, something John Stockton hasn't. I'll say it again if you want a player that will give you many many great years go ahead and take Stockton. If you want a player that will give you many great years, while giving 3-4 seasons of elite superstar level play, you take any of the following.

Stockton's best year > Nash's best year. Stockton's elite years >>> Nash's. Nash got 2 narrative based MVPs, but it's not like he was a consensus Top 5 player during those years either. Was he better than Kobe, Bron, Wade, Dirk, Duncan, KG, Paul, etc.?

Stockton's production on both sides of the court is higher than Nash at their respective peaks. And it's not even close when you look at their careers.

[DocHoops]

Edited by Mod

[TMACFORMVP]

Re: Gilmore v. Ewing has always been a great comparison. IIRC, I started a thread about it a long time ago since I was all aboard the Ewing bandwagon at the time. I think it's a really a matter of preference, and I'd probably side with Ewing. I've always been a believer that Gilmore was underrated because:

a.) People ignore the ABA, despite Gilmore winning his championship in 75', the peak of the ABA where the talent level was similar to that in the NBA (if not slightly better).

So if we go with that first point, then all of his sudden his career looks rather dry because:

b.) His NBA career was frankly not ridiculously impressive. He was never a huge volume scorer, didn't fare too much team success, and was often overshadowed by the likes of Kareem, Moses, and Walton during his peak.
c.) His efficiency declined in the playoffs. Granted it was still ultra efficient, it's still something worth noting when Gilmore was doing his 65+% shooting, in the playoffs it dipped to more seen sort #'s (55-58%). After his first season with Chicago, his teams missed the playoffs in four out of the five seasons, and their DRTG didn't even decline once he left.
d.) The Spurs didn't noticeably improve in terms of success when he joined - they reached the second round like they did the season before, then missed the playoffs, and snuck into the playoffs the next year and lost in the first round.

So in total for Gilmore's NBA career, his teams went 44-38 (82), 40-42 (82), 31-51 (82), 30-52 (48), 45-37 (82), 34-38 (82), 53-29 (82), 37-45 (64), 41-41 (81). That's for a total of 355-373 for a winning percentage of .487 with Gilmore playing in 685/728 games, meaning he played in 94% of his teams games.

And outside of his first NBA season, his teams were in fact below average defensively - again playing majority of his teams games. I'd like to say that Ewing had far more superior defensive supporting casts, along with coaching, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless to see that Gilmore led teams (even with the years coached by Sloan), were generally below average in terms of DRTG.

76-77: 2/22
77-78: 20/22
78-79: 16/22
79-80: 15/22
80-81: 14/22
81-82: 17/23
82-83: 15/23
83-84: 21/23
84-85: 17/23

So the extremists that ignore the ABA, and only look at his NBA career, outside a couple nice FG% seasons, it's rather unimpressive to the naked eye. Poor defensive teams, and an overall under .500 record for his NBA career - with a slight dip in that godly efficiency in the playoffs.. the question we got to ask ourselves when comparing Ewing and Gilmore is how much do we value Gilmore's peak in the ABA over Ewing's assuming outside of Gilmore's first 4-5 seasons, we're more impressed with what Ewing was able to accomplish.

And his ABA peak was awesome, no doubt. His teams were very good, and ranked among the top in DRTG, he led the team to the championship, doing roughly 24/17 on 54%. It's worth mentioning his supporting cast being pretty decent with Dampier and Issel providing huge contributions. Wil Jones, as I've learned from penbeast was a terrific defender, and a guy Erving claimed played him best..similarly with McClain who was a good defender also. Heck, even in Game 1 of the ABA Finals, Gilmore fouled out with roughly 9 mins left in a 5 point game, and Kentucky ended up winning by 26. But it obviously Gilmore who was the anchor for this team; 41 points with 28 boards in Game 3, a gamewinniner in Game 2, he had a clunker in Game 4, but a big 28/31 game in Game 5.

I still think Ewing was an appreciably better scorer (he just scored more simply put - even in Gilmore's ABA days as well if we account for pace, the Knicks were ridiculously slow, though that comes with two sides as they were a defensive powerhouse), the efficiency edge is there for Gilmore during his peak, but it's not as large as it's made out to be. Gilmore in the ABA recorded .620/.589/.531/.615/.598 - Ewing in his five year best peak did .599/.561/.563/.546/.551. Defensively, at their peak, they're very similar. Some give the passing edge to Gilmore, but I'd be willing to argue that's a wash as well, considering Ewing had far less offensive talent in these particular seasons we're comparing; Ewing had to do more creating - I mean John Starks was their second leading scorer, lol. In that run to the Finals, Ewing's second best offensive player did 14 PPG on 38% from the floor, and were literally a quarter away from being an NBA champion.

Granted Ewing choked on big ones during that Finals, he's generally underrated in closeout games. He had monster games in 90, coming back from a 0-2 deficit to lead his team to a playoff round win (33/19, 44/13/5 with 7 steals, and 31/8/10). He had a huge game in that second round to to get a win against the Pistons, a 45/13 game. Obviously the big game against the Pacers, where he had like a 20/20 game with big block #'s to send the Knicks to the Finals - with a game clinching tip dunk/layup IIRC. Yeah, yeah, he had the missed finger roll layup, but I don't know if Gilmore sort would even get in that situation. I saw ronnymac say it in the last thread, something along the lines that Ewing tried, and it's hard to fault that with other players that just avoided the situation. I'm not saying Gilmore did, but I completely agree with that point.

So in short, if we compare their top five seasons, namely Gilmore's ABA years, and Ewing's, I still think Ewing was the slightly better, more feared scorer, while being comparable/wash defensively. And after the injury/transition to the NBA, I don't think what Gilmore did was particularly more impressive than the sort of years Ewing had in 88, 95-97.

I'd like to point out I don't really blame Gilmore for achieving very little in terms of team success, his teams were particularly not that good, but just stating what he accomplished was rather unimpressive, and brings to mind the idea of "what if Gilmore had called for the ball more, looked to score more, in a similar way Ewing called for the ball." Would his teams have fared better? Would he have had more than one 50 win season, and not had five losing season?

For those reasons, I'd probably take Ewing over Gilmore, but it's damn close.

[drza]

I'm still not fully satisfied with who to vote for. Last thread I left it on Nowitzki, though it was obvious that West would win so my actual vote didn't matter so much. Now, it's a new thread, and I'm in the same predicament: what to do about Moses, LeBron, and Dirk.

This is an instance where the +/- arguments aren't moving me as much as they usually do. No, I should rephrase. I'm perfectly content with using +/- evaluations for LeBron and Dirk, as the data is plentiful and available and I have vetted it pretty thoroughly in my evaluations of these players through the years. But I've been increasingly dissatisfied with making any +/- conclusions on Moses. From age 23 to age 29 (essentially, Moses' prime) he only missed more than 4 games once, and in that season (post MVPs and title) he still only missed 11 games. That's not a big enough sample size to get any kind of meaningful idea about the team's real level, to me.

That said, I do question whether Moses' style was conducive to the kind of sweeping impact that we've seen from some of the others under consideration. Moses was a center who was a great scorer and a dominant rebounder, especially on offense, but he was a pedestrian defender and a worse passer. His lack of defense, which I consider to be one of the primary job descriptions for any big man, IMO puts him at a sizable disadvantage off the top. He'd need to be ridiculous as an offensive player to overcome the other nominee's offensive contributions to the point that his lack of defense is made up for. And I just don't see that he did that. Moses was a gifted scorer, but as I pointed out in an earlier thread, he was scoring 23.2% of his team's points over his 9-year scoring peak, the same proportion that KG was scoring of the Timberwolves' offense in his scoring peak. I've heard the arguments that scoring can be timely, or that there is something to be said of a scorer that will go on a run of huge scoring to carry a team over stretches...and maybe there's something to that. The problem is, both Dirk and LeBron are a) scoring higher percentages of their teams' points than Moses (I didn't calculate that, but given their scoring ability relative to KG that seems an obvious conclusion) and b) also proven to have both timely and scoring binges like Moses. And on top of the scoring, LeBron and Dirk are both better passers (LeBron much better, even position corrected) than Moses as well, which means that the team offense can be run through and around LeBron and Dirk to a larger degree than it could for Moses, who absolutely had to have teammates capable of generating the ball movement. On the whole, it just seems to me that Moses wasn't as strong of an offensive player as either LeBron or Dirk (or, frankly, Barkley, who had his scoring ability (again, haven't calculated percentages) volume-wise but at much higher efficiency, his rebounding ability, and was a much better passer). And if Moses can't stake his claim offensively, given that he doesn't fulfill what I believe to be a center's responsibility defensively, I just don't see how he can have as big of a positive impact as LeBron, Dirk or Barkley in this comparison.

I'm still not sure what I want to do with LeBron or Dirk, or whether Barkley sneaks into the mix (again, would love for someone to start fleshing out arguments for him), but unless someone turns my head with a Moses post I don't think I'll be voting him here.

[JordansBulls]

Malone and KG have been selected already, but here are the records of the 4 PF's players with HCA.

Code: Select all

 vs 50 win teams/non-50 win teams
Garnett:   3-2  (60%) /5-0 (100%)
Dirk:      6-2 (75%)  /2-1 (67%)
Malone:    4-4 (50%)  /8-2 (80%)
Barkley:   2-1 (67%)  /8-1 (89%)


[mysticbb]

This is an instance where the +/- arguments aren't moving me as much as they usually do. No, I should rephrase. I'm perfectly content with using +/- evaluations for LeBron and Dirk, as the data is plentiful and available and I have vetted it pretty thoroughly in my evaluations of these players through the years. But I've been increasingly dissatisfied with making any +/- conclusions on Moses. From age 23 to age 29 (essentially, Moses' prime) he only missed more than 4 games once, and in that season (post MVPs and title) he still only missed 11 games. That's not a big enough sample size to get any kind of meaningful idea about the team's real level, to me.

You can still look at the overall performance of the team he played on. The 76ers improved only a little bit, when he came. The Rockets had only a small improvement when he joined. When Moses Malone joined the Bullets they improved marginally. We are supposed to believe that Moses Malone made such a big difference, but somehow the teams he joined didn't improve by much, even though in the case of the Rockets and the Bullets it should have been easy to push slightly below average teams to being +3 or +4 teams, but that didn't happen. The 76ers improved a bit, but that was peak Moses Malone going to a +5.7 team, the team went to the finals the year before and even scored 1 point more during those games against the Lakers in the 1982 finals. That was a very strong TEAM, that wasn't a very high impact player pushing them from being mediocre to be a contender.
That is like giving all the credit to Tyson Chandler for the Dallas Mavericks winning the championship, he gave the Mavericks a similar improvement like Moses Malone in 1983.

That said, I do question whether Moses' style was conducive to the kind of sweeping impact that we've seen from some of the others under consideration. Moses was a center who was a great scorer and a dominant rebounder, especially on offense, but he was a pedestrian defender and a worse passer. His lack of defense, which I consider to be one of the primary job descriptions for any big man, IMO puts him at a sizable disadvantage off the top. He'd need to be ridiculous as an offensive player to overcome the other nominee's offensive contributions to the point that his lack of defense is made up for. And I just don't see that he did that. Moses was a gifted scorer, but as I pointed out in an earlier thread, he was scoring 23.2% of his team's points over his 9-year scoring peak, the same proportion that KG was scoring of the Timberwolves' offense in his scoring peak. I've heard the arguments that scoring can be timely, or that there is something to be said of a scorer that will go on a run of huge scoring to carry a team over stretches...and maybe there's something to that. The problem is, both Dirk and LeBron are a) scoring higher percentages of their teams' points than Moses (I didn't calculate that, but given their scoring ability relative to KG that seems an obvious conclusion) and b) also proven to have both timely and scoring binges like Moses. And on top of the scoring, LeBron and Dirk are both better passers (LeBron much better, even position corrected) than Moses as well, which means that the team offense can be run through and around LeBron and Dirk to a larger degree than it could for Moses, who absolutely had to have teammates capable of generating the ball movement. On the whole, it just seems to me that Moses wasn't as strong of an offensive player as either LeBron or Dirk (or, frankly, Barkley, who had his scoring ability (again, haven't calculated percentages) volume-wise but at much higher efficiency, his rebounding ability, and was a much better passer). And if Moses can't stake his claim offensively, given that he doesn't fulfill what I believe to be a center's responsibility defensively, I just don't see how he can have as big of a positive impact as LeBron, Dirk or Barkley in this comparison.

That seems like a pretty good explanation why we don't see a big improvement of the overall team performances when Moses Malone joined teams like the Rockets, 76ers and Bullets during his better years. And even if we look at the Hawks, they became slightly better offensively, but no change defensively when Moses Malone joined. So, how much stock should we put into 15 double-double seasons?

[lorak]

He was streaky, but when he got hot he could be as efficient as anyone.

That can be said about every player, including Isiah's teammate Vinnie Johnson. Because you know, when someone got hot he is as efficient as possible...

In the clutch, very few rivaled his ability to create a sure thing. Isiah hit so many big three's

How many exactly?
And how many he missed?

[penbeast0]

On the topic of Artis Gilmore - I'm picturing healthy Andrew Bynum in the 70s. Am I off base? Huge, can score in the post and rebound/defend, but seems like he's missing something

Yes, but bigger, more athletic, more developed, and most of all, completely healthy for first 5 years and with another 12 years of very solid play. Only thing he is missing is personality for leadership. Another way to put it is Gilmore is basically Shaq if he were as introverted as he is extraverted.

[Gongxi]

Also I notice all of your presumptions are based of stats, like Isiah being inefficient. He was streaky, but when he got hot he could be as efficient as anyone. In the clutch, very few rivaled his ability to create a sure thing. Isiah hit so many big three's, his percentage was low, but considering the three-point didn't exist until he got to the NBA...

So are you arguing for or against the idea of 'efficiency'? I can't tell. When he's inefficient that means nothing, but when he's efficient it means something? If he had such a great "ability to create a sure thing" why didn't he do it more often?

[DocHoops]

Stop here, it's a waste of time.