RealGM Top 100 List #62

[therealbig3]

And I guess the reason to support my Nance pick:

He had a really long prime...from 83-93, he was a 16+ ppg player, peaking at 22.5 ppg. He was extremely efficient, he was an ok rebounder, and a pretty good defensive player (got a lot of blocks too). He also seemed to be a good passer, racking up 2-3+ apg. The knock on him is his durability, but I think the fact that he maintained a high level of play for 11 seasons makes up for that.

It was between him and Kemp, and although I think Kemp peaked higher, he didn't maintain that level of play for as long as Nance, and their volume scoring wasn't all that dissimilar. And Nance was more efficient.

[Doctor MJ]

As for that Ilardi's study, there are actually two of them: one six season average and second with most recent season weighted the most heavily (I think the same is with multi year RAPM). And that's why Gasol looks so bad year by year in Memhis, very good year by year in LAL and good in multi seasons studies - beacuse recent seasons, his best years in LA, are weighted most heavily. But in Ilardi's six seasons average study and RAPM multi seasons Gasol looks worse than Odom, so I repeat my question - why Odom isn't even nominated yet, when multi season APM seems like the only pro Gasol argument? Really, what's the case for Gasol?

Whoa, hold on. Okay stuff we need to get straight, and I'm not going to claim up front that I'm necessarily right while you're wrong here.

You're saying I'm referencing a study (purposefully) biased toward recent success as if it treated each year equally. Okay:

Here's the APBRmetrics thread:

http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/viewtopic.php?t=24

Here's the quote from Ilardi:

My first little project: using the six-season full-lineup dataset I've compiled (from data provided by Aaron B. and Roland Beech) to run the offensive and defensive APM numbers based on a six-year average. In other words, each season from 2003-2004 to 2008-2009 was given completely equal weighting (while each year's playoffs were given double weighting to account for the heightened importance/significance of the league's "second season"). This multi-season approach has the advantage of reducing estimation errors, but the relative disadvantage of telling us only how each player has performed, on average, over a rather extended window of time. Still, on balance, I found the results interesting and informative.

Also, please note that I only modeled players who logged at least 400 minutes during the 08-09 season.

If interested, you can check out the results at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... l=en#gid=0

I've bolded the part I think answers our question. (And yes, this is indeed the study I've been referencing, I've re-checked to make sure the data points are the same). And as I've mentioned before there is zero doubt about Gasol vs Odom there: Gasol ranks a +5.52 (20th), Odom ranks a +2.00 (82nd).

Let's also note that my understanding is that Engelmann's studies ARE purposefully biased in the sense that they don't treat each year absolutely equally but rather use prior results to give what is thought to be a more proper assessment of how good the player actually is. He has good reasons for doing this, but from a yearly accomplishment perspective I do believe it weakens his data, and I do believe that's why we see such consistent results from year to year in his work.

So yeah, if anything is skewing perspective on Gasol, I'd say it happens to be the stuff that makes him look less impressive.

Last, just have to really object to the idea that Gasol is really an APM-first candidate. Gasol's way ahead of Odom here first and foremost because every metric and accolade says he's way ahead of Odom. Moreover, his great success (fitting in perfectly as the 2nd star for Kobe) is pretty much Odom's great failure. Odom was supposed to be that guy, and he simply couldn't do it.

Working with an alpha didn't turn Odom into a beta, it turned him into an erratic omega. Eventually Odom figured out a way to be more consistently a valuable player, but it took a long time, and the fact that he's likely to never earn any accolade greater than 6th Man of the Year in his career (never an all-star) just hammers in further that if he made the Top 100 it would be very strange.

It's only on top of all that essentially unanimous opinion that I'm also mentioning the APM which in this case basically agrees with popular opinion.

[Laimbeer]

Vote: Thurmond
Nominate: Schayes

[Doctor MJ]

Okay,

Nominate: Billy Cunningham

Cunningham's slipped quite a bit this go around from the previous two lists, and I'm not going to say that's wrong. However, as I look for my next nominee, he's the one I keep coming back to. For those not familiar with him, here's some quick hits:

Became the star of the 76ers after Wilt left as the team continued to perform shockingly well.
Switched over to the ABA, and won MVP as the team skyrocketed in performance.
Known as an extremely high BBIQ guy with a constant motor. This was a 6'6" capable of leading his team in basically all categories. In his MVP year, and granted this was the mid-ABA, he led his team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals as they won 57 games.

Understand also that he played for Dean Smith and Larry Brown before almost immediately after his retirement being handed the reigns of Philly as coach, and he had great success coaching during which he was particularly noted for crafting some fantastic defenses. So this was your point forward on offense who lit up the boards, and understood defense very well.

On the negative side, you with he'd not had that career ending injury. It would also be nice if he were a more efficient scorer. The same criticisms I level at Webber on this front could be leveled at Cunningham, but I'm much more convinced that Cunningham was a guy who would adapt to his team's needs.

[Doctor MJ]

Wanted to say that I don't have a problem with Bobby Jones getting consideration. His MPG is obviously a problem, but taking my feelings about Ginobili a bit further, it seems to make sense that Jones actually had quite a lot of minutes over his career that were at an elite per minute impact level.

[Doctor MJ]

And I guess the reason to support my Nance pick:

He had a really long prime...from 83-93, he was a 16+ ppg player, peaking at 22.5 ppg. He was extremely efficient, he was an ok rebounder, and a pretty good defensive player (got a lot of blocks too). He also seemed to be a good passer, racking up 2-3+ apg. The knock on him is his durability, but I think the fact that he maintained a high level of play for 11 seasons makes up for that.

It was between him and Kemp, and although I think Kemp peaked higher, he didn't maintain that level of play for as long as Nance, and their volume scoring wasn't all that dissimilar. And Nance was more efficient.

Good to see some of these names come up. I'd love to see a real definitive comparison between those Cavs: Nance, Price, and Daugherty. I was actually thinking Price over Nance, what makes you decide differently?

[penbeast0]

Price never impressed at the defensive end or dominated; same for Daugherty plus Daugherty's career was quite short (very good passer though in addition to solid scorer). Nance is the guy who played great two way ball; his only real issue is his lack of handles (much like Marion) and his inability to hold position in the post against strong players. His unusual strength is his mobility which is why he's one of the 10 greatest shotblockers in NBA history and the only non-center on the list -- also the NBA's 1st slam dunk champion -- over Erving among others.

As for Brand being a better defender than Marion -- Brand was a better defender in the post than Marion but Marion was a considerably more disruptive force when able to play his proper position out on the wing than Brand was playing his proper position in the post. Marion's great mobility and athleticism also made him better against active wings (the Dirk/Webbertype). Both were good man defenders, Marion was a much more disruptive help defender. I'd be willing to say Marion defended 4/5's a helluva lot better than Brand defended 3/2's but since Brand was rarely if ever forced into that role, who cares.

As for Bobby Jones, I wouldn't call him an anchor although he did anchor those Denver teams under Larry Brown -- in the sense that he was the only really good defender on a very good defensive team that played a jump and switch defense relying on athleticism and trapping -- something he was one of the best bigs ever to do. And he was a terrific man defender with very good help skills too; topping out with 2bl/2st seasons and 10 1st team all-defense awards in his 1st 10 seasons, something no one else has ever done which shows the esteem he was held in by those watching him then. As for his offense, he was an opportunistic jump shooter who ran a very good back door; not a guy who could create offense but a guy who was in constant motion and feasted on open looks and running his defender into traffic to get free on cuts. Great offense? No, he didn't have the Reggie Miller range or the Havlicek handles to be a 20-25ppg guy -- but great efficiency and a great cog who always kept the ball moving and played offense with a very high IQ as he did defense. Not an anchor but maybe the best complementary player ever (Rodman may be his best competition for this) -- or as Larry Brown called him, "Superglue."

[penbeast0]

Oh, and . . . Why not Webber?

His numbers overstate his value. His fg% and raw ppg don't show the problem that his foul draw is one of the worst ever for a 20ppg post scorer -- and that's what he was despite his tendency to hang out on the perimeter. He was a lousy 3pt shooter; one thing SAC did well was surround him with outside shooters opening up the inside and filling the perimeter so he actually moved his butt inside more. His failure to draw fouls is related to the weakness in his defensive and rebounding games. He really didn't like contact. He would let himself get pushed out of position then try to slide around his defender or shoot a midrange -- he was astonishingly talented (at least as naturally gifted as Kevin Garnett, probably more) so he made a reasonably high percentage but rarely an and-one.

Defensively the problem was the same. He got good block numbers with his quickness, coordination, and leaping but would let his man back him down into excellent position so that his opposition numbers in the post would probably be poor -- you can't let a big back you down consistently or they will get very good percentage shots even if you block some. He whined about playing center because he didn't like the physical play, forcing the Wiz to trade Rasheed Wallace (who then started whining too -- Rasheed wasn't going to let anyone get one over on him) and to play Juwan Howard at the 3 which was not their best combination.

Finally, his rebounding numbers look okay because of his great athleticism but again, from watching him, he virtually never blocked out, consistently letting his man get position then relying on his great leaping and quickness to try to outjump him to the ball. This gets you decent rebounding numbers but lets your man also get good numbers as they have position consistently. We have the same problem today with JaVale McGee, another physically gifted player whose rebounding overstates his effect on team rebounding from what I see.

Then you get his regular whining and his history of making classically bonehead plays in the clutch and you can see why, despite his great natural gifts including a PG like eye for the spectacular pass, he was less than the sum of his parts.

[penbeast0]

Looks like Pau Gasol gets added to the list. I've been coming off Bobby Jones to break these 2-2-2 ties but can't see doing it for Webber or Schayes, I'd go Cunningham if anyone but this time I'm just going to leave the vote tied.

VOTE

BKing – DavidStern, FJS. Therealbig3, ronnymac2

Gasol – drza, lukekarts, Dr Mufasa, Doctor MJ, penbeast0

Penny – ElGee, JordansBulls

Thurmond -- Laimbeer

NOMINATE

Kemp -- JordansBulls

Marion – therealbig3

Worthy -- FJS

Carmelo – Dr Mufasa

BJones – DavidStern, penbeast0

Webber – ElGee, drza

Nance – therealbig3

Schayes – Laimbeer, Fencer

Cunningham – Doctor MJ, ronnymac2

[lukekarts]

Tiebreaker: Bobby Jones

[Rapcity_11]

Might want to review what the words "volume scorer" mean...

[Scrizz]

Pau GaSoft before Bryant:
0 MVP votes
0 All-NBA Teams
1 All-Star appearance
Not even regarded as top 5 at his own position.
Not even regarded as a top 15 player.
Swept in PS three straight seasons

Food for though: Gasol with/without net (team efficiency differential) in Mermhis:
2005 -1.4 (!), 26 games missed
2007 -1.6 (!), 23 games missed



Gasol's RAPM:
2002 -0.3 (221st place)
2003 -0.8 (250th)
2004 -0.2 (150th)
2005 +0.2 (137th)
2006 +1.1 (83rd)
2007 -1.3 (313rd)


So again - before LA his not even top100 during those seasons ;]

2005: 50% W-L% with Gasol, 65.4% without Gasol (26 games missed)
2007: 28.8% with, 21.7% without (23)
2008: 25.6% with, 27.9% without (43)

So it's not a fluke, season after season, large sample in every case and Memhis without Gasol was doing as good as with him.

look at his team record with and without him when he missed an extended stretch in 2005:

With Gasol: 28-28
Without Gasol: 17-9

lol @ this dude being top 65 ever. what a joke.

[Chosen01]

^Loki24,Jay24,John24,John25,Renki24 decided not to use "24" at the end of his name any more.