RealGM Top 100 List #50

[Doctor MJ]

So let me just say after all of this talk, I love KJ. Hell, my brother lives in Phoenix and named his son Kevin (our last name is Johnson). I really have a hard time getting worked up about Paul over KJ. We can talk about KJ not being the distributor Paul is, but when you put up those numbers on consistently phenomenal offenses, and see big on/off except when Barkley's involved that's great.

LG & I were talking, and he said something I agree with: The frustrating part of what's happened here with the two of them is that it seems like KJ's holding Paul back rather than people truly considering KJ as an independent entity. Seriously, if you think KJ's peak matches Paul's, then how the hell is he not getting voted in in the 30s?

So I feel like people are basically just thinking "Well Paul's not much better than KJ, and it's too early for KJ, so it's too early for Paul" without ever really placing KJ head-to-head against other serious 30s & 40s candidates.

[Doctor MJ]

My choice of Ginobili is set for this thread, but my mind is still open going forward. I just keep thinking about how his actual minutes played isn't much different from Marques & King, I think his per minute impact is superstar worthy, and he's kept up that impact for many years in a way Marques & King didn't.

Re: Worthy. I don't get his case. Maybe someone can go into this in more detail. People seem to be thinking he's like Ginobili in impact somehow, but I don't see any basis at all for that. Ginobili's per minute number trounce Worthy's and his APM impact is far beyond his per minute numbers. How does Worthy fit in to that?

[Dr Positivity]

Well for one, I do have KJ in the 30s.

But secondly, I think the position most of us are taking is that KJ's peak doesn't match Paul's, but it doesn't have to because Paul only has 2 years at that elite level and in one of them he plays just ok in the playoffs. Very similar to the players below King who don't have his peak. KJ has like 2 seasons for every roughly equivalent Paul one

[Dr Positivity]

My question to the Paul supporters... choose between these options:

a) 89, 90, 91, 92 KJ or b) 08, 09 Paul

c) 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 KJ or d) 06, 07, 10, 11 Paul

For me it's pretty clearly a) and c). I think Paul is the better player but not enough to take 2 over 4 and 3 over 5 (don't care about 2010). KJ anchored a 55 W team with close to the same talent that I'd expect Paul to lead to a 55 W type pretender, and I'm fairly certain they'd both need that special talent either through dominant defense or a superstar partner to anchor a #1 option title team. So really, although Paul is better, I don't think it's substantial to much since I consider having +2 kicks at the can in each of those choices to be a HUGE deal.

[drza]

Vote: Chris Paul
Nominate: Manu Ginobili

The only player that I could see voting over Paul here is McAdoo. I won't say that the case is completely closed, but I can see Paul's peak right there with Doo's, plus his positional value seems to be better. Both are awesome offensive players, but I'll take Paul's ability to impact the team. As a big man, McAdoo could have counter-balanced that positional advantage with strong defense of his own. But that isn't the case here.

[therealbig3]

Yeah I have KJ at 43 on my list in fact. But I have Paul at 42, and I actually had KJ ahead of Paul before, but ElGee's posts convinced me.

As for Marques Johnson, I've moved him up to 53 on my list, so as far as I'm concerned, we're behind on the nomination for him. Then I have King, Gasol, and Ginobili coming up, all of whom are extremely close for me.

[penbeast0]

Well for one, I do have KJ in the 30s.

But secondly, I think the position most of us are taking is that KJ's peak doesn't match Paul's, but it doesn't have to because Paul only has 2 years at that elite level and in one of them he plays just ok in the playoffs. Very similar to the players below King who don't have his peak. KJ has like 2 seasons for every roughly equivalent Paul one

The problem I have with Paul is while his peak coincides with the elements that make up PER which are all extremely valuable, his actual play did not seem to create value for his team that equaled that of Kevin Johnson who won with Tom Chambers, basically a Blake Griffin clone complete with great dunks and shaky defense, and made that team a contender even before Barkley showed up. And, neither of them developed as strong a team as Moncrief's Milwaukee squads nor did they abuse and dominate opponents to the same degree (eye test) -- while Moncrief's defensive skills, possibly the GOAT man defender of all time, don't show up in stats like PER although he is no slouch there either with his great efficiency and 20 ppg scoring. So, I have them
(a) Moncrief
(b) KJ
(c) Paul

McAdoo would be up with, possibly above, Moncrief if his lack of career value had been because of injuries like Moncrief and KJ, but it was because of choices -- first, his selfishness and lack of defensive effort, and then his substance abuse issues. I downgrade his career for this -- how much I'm not sure -- but enough to put him behind Moncrief and KJ, and possibly even Paul.

PS -- because I've been unable to get new threads up for the last couple of weeks, I am leaving them open 2.5 days rather than cutting them off at 1.5 so this will run through Tuesday night.

[lorak]

vote: Chris Paul

[drza]

My question to the Paul supporters... choose between these options:

a) 89, 90, 91, 92 KJ or b) 08, 09 Paul

c) 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 KJ or d) 06, 07, 10, 11 Paul

For me it's pretty clearly a) and c). I think Paul is the better player but not enough to take 2 over 4 and 3 over 5 (don't care about 2010). KJ anchored a 55 W team with close to the same talent that I'd expect Paul to lead to a 55 W type pretender, and I'm fairly certain they'd both need that special talent either through dominant defense or a superstar partner to anchor a #1 option title team. So really, although Paul is better, I don't think it's substantial to much since I consider having +2 kicks at the can in each of those choices to be a HUGE deal.

I've seen you list this before, but to me it's not really within the scope of this particular project. To me, your either-or scenario is more of a list of accomplishments as opposed to an indication of "how great they were at playing basketball", which is what I interpret as the most important part of the OP.

Everyone judges longevity differently. I don't know that I ever formalized my definition, but I know that pretty consistently over the course of this project I've been less focused on longevity than others. At this point, I think I'm ready to formalize a bit more just what impact "health" and "longevity" have on my rankings.

1) Health affects "how great they were at playing basketball", and you can see this through injury history. As such, for players whose careers are drastically shortened by injury (Walton, Bill) that is an aspect of longevity that I factor into my rankings.

2) Being an iron-man is a boost on "how great you are at basketball", because it indicates that on a yearly basis I can consistently expect that player's full capabilities. So for someone like Karl Malone, this is worth a bit of a boost in his rating. Interestingly, I don't think you have to have Malone-like longevity to get this boost. Someone like Dwight Howard, who plays 82 games per year year-in and year-out for a long enough stretch can get this boost from me even without having 20 years already in the bank because his record has convinced me that he has the iron man gene.

3) Relatedly, being a young player is not in itself a negative mark of poor longevity to me. What having a larger body of work does, for me, is convince me of who you are. Piggy-backing on the last example, Howard has already convinced me in 7 years that he is an Ironman. And he has convinced me over the last 3 or 4 years that who he is at his peak (so far) is who he is, as well. On the flip side, a player like Chris Paul has convinced me that who he is at his peak (so far) is who he is also...but his injury history at the very least indicates that he isn't an iron-man, and the door is still open on him being injury prone. As such, his lack of more years hurts him more than it does Dwight in my eyes, because it still leaves him with question marks.

4) And the opposite side of that coin, is, more years played doesn't really give a player that much of a boost beyond Ironman status, to me. Kareem played 20 years, Russell played 13. Both were generally healthy over their careers. But the fact that Kareem played for more years didn't make him a better basketball player, in my eyes...we have more than ample evidence of exactly who those players were, plenty enough to gauge "how great they were at playing basketball". As such, while the extra years are nice, they aren't really going to shift my vote in any particular direction.

Bringing it back to Paul vs KJ, Paul has many fewer years played. But he has enough prime years to let me know that I find him to be a better player than KJ. And Paul's current durability question marks, which are exacerbated by fewer years played, aren't as much of a weakness against KJ since KJ had his own durability question marks as well. Added years played didn't really change that to his favor. And since the other player I'd consider here, McAdoo, has his own self-inflicted longevity issues, that doesn't move him over Paul either. As such, at the moment I am content with my vote for Paul here.

[Laimbeer]

FWIW, Dantley was a distraction in Detroit. He helped the team because they really needed the offense, but they were better after they traded him for Aquirre. Mark was willing to play the role he had to when put in the right culture. No culture was right for Dantley, and the Mavs' days as a serious contender were over when he arrived. The Pistons got over the hump after he left, and that was one reason.

[Laimbeer]

KJ and Paul are short tenured and way too high here. McAdoo at least had greater impact in his prime.

Vote: McAdoo
Nominate: Sam Jones (No shot for Schayes yet)

[therealbig3]

My count (updating Dr Mufasa's count):

Vote:

Chris Paul (5) - therealbig3, ElGee, Doctor MJ, DavidStern, drza

Kevin Johnson (4) - colts18, Dr Mufasa, JordansBulls, Snakebites

Bob McAdoo (4) - FJS, ronnymac, lukekarts, Laimbeer

Sidney Moncrief (1) - penbeast



Nominate:

Manu Ginobili (3) - David Stern, drza, Doctor MJ

Bernard King (2) - Dr Mufasa, ronnymac

Marques Johnson (2) - therealbig3, ElGee

James Worthy (2) - FJS, lukekarts

Sam Jones (2) - penbeast, Laimbeer

Penny Hardaway (1) - JordansBulls

Pau Gasol (1) - colts18

[Laimbeer]

C'mon somebody flip to McAdoo. Much more impactful than KJ or Paul.

[penbeast0]

Don't want to flip to a player to create a tie so I'll let this stand . . . Chris Paul goes on the list and Manu Ginobili is nominated.

[therealbig3]

C'mon somebody flip to McAdoo. Much more impactful than KJ or Paul.

Based on what? I see Paul ahead of both, while KJ and McAdoo are pretty comparable.

[Dr Positivity]

Well my criteria is pretty simple

How much does your career (in total) help your team - with the goal being winning titles

So by that measurement, yes - I would say extra years veteran players stack on top are important. Otherwise Durant and Rose would be getting jobbed if they fell out of the top 50 and Lebron should've been no lower than 13, etc. Durant's career is clearly less valuable than Reggie Miller's despite crushing him in peak and having a very healthy first 4 years...

I think it's very clear that we have not been discarding youth as "less time to prove their healthiness" alone in this project - And the value of players has not been judged as "Per year", but "Total"

@ Kareem vs Russell. Well the thing about that comparison to me, is that Russell's prime lasted as long, hell, arguably longer. And I think the more years players have in comparison to each other, the less having a few more matter compared to simply having the best player, especially if the gap is merely post prime years

[lorak]

and the Mavs' days as a serious contender were over when he arrived.

C'monn, Mavs days as a "serious contender" (they never were true contenders - had one year when advanced to WCF, but that was a lone exceptions, during Aguirre career they didn't advance to playoffs at all (2 times) or lost in 1st round (2) or lost in 2nd round (2)) were over because in 1989 they lost Tarpley and Schrempf. Donaldson also missed a lot of games (almost 30).
And Dantley was at the end of his career in Dallas (76 games in Dallas were basically his last games in NBA), he clearly was past his prime, so his impact at the time was nowhere near his impact in Utah.