RealGM Top 100 List #36

[Doctor MJ]

Much less? Beaten with a stick for taking the turnaround fade too often, for sure. Offensive boards, cuts in trailing a driving wing, limited isos. In short, a role his ego wouldn't accept in his prime. Hayes' passing precluded good volume offense, and that's without regard for his efficiency.

Yeah this. To me Hayes is a guy like so, so many other bigs from earlier eras. They were given heavy offensive primacy seemingly working under the assumption that "If we can get it to the guy close to the hole, he can punch it in" without much thought to checking the actual direct efficiency, and often with no thought at all to the issues of predictability and teammate stagnancy that could result.

We've now found a better way to do things, and for me it means that when comparing bigs, I end up viewing guys who were seen as "defense only" sometimes as being in the same actual offensive ballpark as some of the guys seen as two-way guys.

[trex_8063]

Spoiler:

Just wondering, should Hayes be a part of the conversation to this point? If not, when should he be?

ElGee discussed his defense earlier in the project I believe. I think he noted that Hayes was the paint protector, while Unseld bodied up centers?

My general take on Hayes vs Unseld is this:

Unseld got some key accolades back then, but the more rationally-minded observers (both at the time and folks like me later) looked at all Hayes did on the court and concluded that while Unseld could be said to "do more" than his numbers and Hayes less, there was no way that could truly make up for the objective gap, and they rated Hayes higher.

Over time as I've realized just how much good a player can undo with undue primacy, I'm not so sure. Well and good to say that if Unseld were asked to score like Hayes he couldn't do it as well...but the reality is that neither should have been doing it. If we look at the guys in terms of whether every moment out there they were doing the right thing so as to have positive impact, it's clearly Unseld. If Unseld played today, you'd have him do basically exactly what he did back then, while Hayes would be asked to do something very different. (And then you also get into Hayes' negative reputations. How happy would he be with the offensive role he should actually be playing in?)

So, on offense and intangibles, I'm perfectly happy giving Unseld the edge. My dilemma is the defense. Hayes was a legit interior, help defender, and I see no reason to see his impact as suspect on that front.

Of course on the other hand, in Unseld's ROY/MVP season (which granted was an overreaction to him), we can now say that it was the defense that was transformed with the Bullets that year rather than the offense. As with everything else, Unseld's defense is solid, but there's a question of how much impact he can truly have as a short big. I welcome the thoughts of others, but it makes me feel a little more confident in him knowing at the very least that he was instrumental in the original creation of an elite defense.

What do you think of the apparent jump the Bullets took in '73 or the Rockets in '69 when Hayes arrived? Don't take this as a petulant and defensive "well then, how do you explain that?"; I don't really have a stake here, just genuinely curious of opinions.

In '68, the Rockets were 15-67 with a -7.94 SRS (12th/12); they were dead-last in ORtg and 10th/12 in DRtg.

In '69, they lose aging (but still pretty decent) Johnny Green and Dave Gambee, as well as sharp-shooter John McGlocklin, and John Barnhill. Really the only major acquisitions I can see were getting rookie Elvin Hayes and rookie Rick Adelman (who would play 18.8 mpg). Even the coach remained the same.
But with those changes, they improved by 22 wins and +7.64 SRS. Their offense improved from dead-last to 12th/14, and their defense improved from 10th/12 to 3rd/14.


In going from '72 to '73, the Bullets lost All-Star SF Jack Marin, as well as a aging reduced-role Gus Johnson. Major replacement acquisitions: rookie Kevin Porter (Porter had "not yet become Porter" though) and Elvin Hayes (although should be noted that Phil Chenier---who was a rookie in '72---improved a little as well). And the Bullets improved by 14 wins (and +4.1 SRS).
Relative to league avg, their ORtg actually IMPROVED +0.7 (though in rank fell from 10th/17 to 12th/17). And their DRtg (relative to league) improved -3.4 (rank from 9th/17 to 5th/17). Two years later (I think primarily as chemistry gelled, Chenier and Porter improved, and perhaps of note is getting role player Jimmy Jones from the ABA) they would have #1 SRS, win 60 games and make it to the finals.

Just putting that stuff out there. Thoughts?

[Joao Saraiva]

Mutombo and Ben Wallace are great players but I don't think they are in this range yet. Is the gap on D really big to peak Dwight? Because Dwight's offensive gap is really big over them. How about Mourning too?

Some RAPM numbers - just doing absolute peak hear because we lack data for the older guys, know though that that to me means the numbers are noisier:

Code: Select all

Player   Peak    All    Off    Def
Mourning 1998  11.90   4.74   7.18
Mutombo  2000   8.54   0.44   8.11
Howard   2011   7.35   2.27   5.08
Wallace  2004   5.69  -1.11   6.80

Note that this is just for the year of overall peak. For example, Mutombo's defensive peak gave him a Defensive RAPM of 9.74, but his Offensive numbers that year - like most years, was negative.

Just looking at the numbers and trying to think how they could be true:

The first thing I always have to point to with Howard is that RAPM has just never loved him as much common perception has. I'd say the keys are two-fold: 1) His reputation as a help defender is overrated, he's never blocked an extreme amount of shots, and he's never shown an extreme BBIQ in his coverage, 2) His signature stat is his defensive rebounding, and that's actually a very problematic stat because crashing the boards on defense as an individual isn't necessarily the best way to play - and regression analysis on rebounding has confirmed that while Howard has very nice impact there, it's not extreme.

What about that offense? Howard's way ahead of the two one-way guys, but Mourning seems considerably ahead of him. In all honesty, I'm not sure, and I'd be reluctant to go too far based on Zo having the offensive edge.

So now, when I look at all of this my general thinking is that if we just look at impact, Zo seems pretty far ahead of the rest. Again, I take his number with a grain of salt because of limited data, but he's so far ahead of Howard - and we do have other years that seem to show this as not that much of an outlier relative to Zo's other years - that I can't help but see a difference.

Mutombo vs Howard to me is basically within the same tier, and then also I start asking myself about era differences. If I'm siding with Mutombo over Howard (which I actually think I probably will here), it's more because of longevity than anything else.

Wallace is clearly below Howard, and while he has a longevity edge, I still rate Howard above him based on his prime edge.

Thanks for the data, but while RAPM is useful I like to also see other stats such as volume scoring, efficiency, RPG, rebound %, PER, WS/48, etc.

Still I think it's accurate enough. About Howard's defensive impact I think that stat in particular doesn't make him look too good because his teammates were actually bad defenders, and from what I understand the +/- has also has influence on RAPM.

I like that you added context there, but I think Howard's help D was actually solid.

[Texas Chuck]

Official Vote: Dikembe Mutombo

Main reason: Best defensive player left.

Also an elite shot-blocker and rim protector

Good rebounder

Competent offensively

Part of some pretty significant playoff success as a key contributor.

[Doctor MJ]

What do you think of the apparent jump the Bullets took in '73 or the Rockets in '69 when Hayes arrived? Don't take this as a petulant and defensive "well then, how do you explain that?"; I don't really have a stake here, just genuinely curious of opinions.

In '68, the Rockets were 15-67 with a -7.94 SRS (12th/12); they were dead-last in ORtg and 10th/12 in DRtg.

In '69, they lose aging (but still pretty decent) Johnny Green and Dave Gambee, as well as sharp-shooter John McGlocklin, and John Barnhill. Really the only major acquisitions I can see were getting rookie Elvin Hayes and rookie Rick Adelman (who would play 18.8 mpg). Even the coach remained the same.
But with those changes, they improved by 22 wins and +7.64 SRS. Their offense improved from dead-last to 12th/14, and their defense improved from 10th/12 to 3rd/14.


In going from '72 to '73, the Bullets lost All-Star SF Jack Marin, as well as a aging reduced-role Gus Johnson. Major replacement acquisitions: rookie Kevin Porter (Porter had "not yet become Porter" though) and Elvin Hayes (although should be noted that Phil Chenier---who was a rookie in '72---improved a little as well). And the Bullets improved by 14 wins (and +4.1 SRS).
Relative to league avg, their ORtg actually IMPROVED +0.7 (though in rank fell from 10th/17 to 12th/17). And their DRtg (relative to league) improved -3.4 (rank from 9th/17 to 5th/17). Two years later (I think primarily as chemistry gelled, Chenier and Porter improved, and perhaps of note is getting role player Jimmy Jones from the ABA) they would have #1 SRS, win 60 games and make it to the finals.

Just putting that stuff out there. Thoughts?

Well, I think Hayes is a good player, so it's not weird that he helped his team, and I'll note that the defense seeing the real boost by Hayes' new presence is in line with what I was saying.

[Quotatious]

Vote - Kevin Durant

I didn't have anyone more "conventional" (which means retired, or active, but clearly out ot prime right now) that I thought would be more deserving, so I'm simply going with the best available player at this point, and I think that Durant is CLEARLY the best remaining player in terms of an extended, 5-year prime. He has all of the advanced stats, raw numbers, efficiency...And even though I don't really care about accolades, he's already a 5-time member of the All-NBA 1st team, won the MVP over a top 10 (or more like top 5) GOAT player in his prime (and deservedly so), already 13th in career MVP shares (I was pretty shocked when I found out about it), pretty good playoff performer (his career playoff numbers, raw and advanced, are very close to his RS stats), and for example he already has more win shares, in 7 seasons (88.6 in RS, 12.1 in PS), than isiah had in almost 13 (80.7 in RS and 12.5 in PS) - I know it's not really a great argument, but it still shows how amazing Durant has been so far in his career.

He's not a great defender or playmaker, but he's one of the very best scorers in NBA history (and a really good rebounder), which means that he can really carry a team by himself.

I talked about longevity being an important factor in my evaluation process, but sometimes there's a player who's so much better than the others, that even though he lacks longevity, he's still more deserving than less talented players who just played longer (like the WS argument for KD over Zeke).

[Doctor MJ]

Thanks for the data, but while RAPM is useful I like to also see other stats such as volume scoring, efficiency, RPG, rebound %, PER, WS/48, etc.

Still I think it's accurate enough. About Howard's defensive impact I think that stat in particular doesn't make him look too good because his teammates were actually bad defenders, and from what I understand the +/- has also has influence on RAPM.

I like that you added context there, but I think Howard's help D was actually solid.

I fully expect everyone to use other things beyond RAPM.

Re: +/- influence RAPM and so bad teammates hurt him. The reason why we use something other than pure +/- is to adjust for these things.

What RAPM can't adjust for - and I would argue couldn't possibly and shouldn't really - is if the player in question is in a poor fitting situation, which includes him simply being used in a way that doesn't show his capabilities that well.

[SactoKingsFan]

Durant has clearly peaked higher than Payton, has the most impressive 5 year prime and will probably be in the top 20-25 after a few more elite/ATG seasons, however, I'm sticking with the Glove for his substantial longevity edge, playmaking and two-way play.

Vote: Gary Payton

Sent from my LG-D800 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[penbeast0]

Gary Payton -- penbeast0, trex_8063, SactoKingsFan

Isiah Thomas -- ronnymac2

Reggie Miller -- Doctor MJ

Kevin Durant -- RSCD3_, DQuinn1575, Quotatious

[Quotatious]

Gary Payton -- penbeast0, trex_8063, SactoKingsFan

Isiah Thomas -- ronnymac2

Reggie Miller -- Doctor MJ

Kevin Durant -- RSCD3_, DQuinn1575, Quotatious

Chuck voted for Mutombo, and Jaivl made it clear that he's leaning heavily towards him, as well (pretty likely that he'll confirm his vote soon).

[ceiling raiser]

How do you guys feel about Pierce vs Payton and KD?

[Quotatious]

How do you guys feel about Pierce vs Payton and KD?

Based on peak/prime, Durant is obviously much better than Pierce, that's not even debatable, but Pierce played twice as many minutes as KD, being a very solid contributor pretty much every single season of his career, so it's a prime example of a "prime vs longevity" type comparison. You know - I love the Truth, my favorite player, but I just decided to vote for Durant because basically every single season of his prime (2010-14) is better than Pierce's peak, to an extent where they're not even really comparable. That's enough of an evidence for me. I saw there was a similar situation on the 2011 list, where you had LeBron (after 8 seasons, compared to just 7 for Durant AD 2014, but LeBron was never scrutinized more than during the summer of '11, after that awful finals performance), and he was ranked 18th, compared to 38 for Pierce. LeBron was better than Durant, but the gap wasn't really THAT big. How much value does one extra season have? I think not nearly enough to justify such a big difference (I mean LeBron being 18th in 2011, and Durant not being even top 35 by 2014) - it really shows that this year's project has a lot more participants who put a lot of emphasis on longevity (for better or worse...hard to say).

What I'm trying to say is - Durant isn't like Bill Walton, or even Penny Hardaway, who may've been better than Pierce at their peaks (Walton was obviously in a totally different class), but their longevity was REALLY bad. Durant has already put together a very nice career (13th in career MVP shares, not a bad accomplishment for a guy who just turned 26 a few days ago), and if this project was based solely on 5-year primes, I think KD would already have an argument for top 20.


Payton and Pierce are really close, in my opinion, but I see GP as the better player because he was actually a true all-time great in one area - defense. PG defense isn't usually super-impactful, but with a GOAT level perimeter defender like Payton, it was a very important factor.
Their longevity is pretty close, and Payton was a very good offensive player for the most part in the RS (very comparable to Pierce, once you take both scoring and playmaking, into account). Both guys declined noticeably in the playoffs (but Payton's career playoff numbers are skewed a bit by his LAL, BOS and MIA years, when he was past his prime - he was relatively worse in the PS in Seattle, as well, but better than without his post prime years).

Anyway, Pierce is a fringe top 40 player, for me, and I'm glad that many people agree with that. I'll have to think more about Pierce vs Isiah and Gervin, though.

[trex_8063]

How do you guys feel about Pierce vs Payton and KD?

I partially compared Payton and KD itt (post #27; also brought J.Kidd into discussion), as they were/are my top two candidates for this spot. I ultimately went with Payton largely for longevity reasons. Or at least Payton's longevity case (which over Durant is HUGE) is what brings him into contention (because obv KD's peak is much higher); and then Durant's less than stellar (and less than Payton) RAPM was sort of a tie-breaker for me.

For similar reasons, Pierce is pretty much right there (you've essentially nailed the three guys I'm favoring for the next three spots), though I currently hold him just marginally behind Payton and Durant. I feel his peak is just marginally behind Payton's, and his prime numbers appear just marginally behind Payton's as well. Longevity pretty similar overall: Payton has one more season and a whopping 158 more games played, but then Pierce has a greater number of truly "effective" seasons (although not always as durable).
I suspect (based on the data we have from the back-half of Payton's prime) that his databall numbers would beat Pierce's by a small amount as well. It's enough for me to separate them, and even enough that at this time I've nudged Durant in between them.

[Jaivl]

A question for the people who really know about this stuff:

How much do Durant's horrendous first two years impact in his PI RAPM? It's kinda... weird he lags behind not only LeBron and Paul, but the likes of Harden and Griffin too. It could help me a bit on the next few votes.

Cause yeah, as Quotatious said I'm voting Dikembe Mutombo again. Still feeling the same, unparalelled, ultraportable defense on good longevity, with prime-end data which blows out of the water nearly everyone else.

[john248]

Voting Reggie Miller again. I have a wall of text on the previous threads that I will edit into here later. I do feel he is the best wing left and a better player than Gervin, who's at the top of most people's wings list that are left, and his longevity is far better than Durant. As much as I like some of the defensive centers remaining, I have them ranked in the 40s or later. GP does make me think a little at this spot, but Miller's offensive value is just too strong.

[penbeast0]

Still only 2 votes for Reggie so . . . . Looks like a runoff between Payton and Durant . . . will Durant get enough of the people that feel you need a few more years to win? We shall see.

[Doctor MJ]

A question for the people who really know about this stuff:

How much do Durant's horrendous first two years impact in his PI RAPM? It's kinda... weird he lags behind not only LeBron and Paul, but the likes of Harden and Griffin too. It could help me a bit on the next few votes.

I don't think this is really affecting matters, though maybe someone will say otherwise.

What I've seen in general is that a guy who makes a big transition between seasons has big gap between his NPI and PI RAPM that year, and in such cases you should go by his NPI data more than his PI data. I haven't noticed any such issues spreading across multiple years.

We've had a little discussion lately about whether PI RAPM uses the NPI or the PI data from the previous year as its prior. I believe it uses the NPI, but even if it doesn't, the PI from the breakthrough year isn't exactly going to be awful.

I do know what you're talking about though. Why doesn't Durant look even better? I'm convinced that much of it has to do with the problematic fit with Westbrook. Aside from what we'd already seen, it's impossible to look at how Durant carried the Thunder in Westbrook's absence and not see serious night & day impact there...but when the two guys play together it remains pretty common to realize that you've spent the last 15 minutes watching them and you can't recall anything Durant's done in that time because Westbrook is the one dictating play.

This type of thing simply doesn't happen with the other guys you mention the same way. LeBron, Paul, & Harden dictate the offense, and Griffin plays with Paul whose primary job is to make sure that Griffin gets used.

[Basketballefan]

Vote Payton.

I weigh longevity a fair bit, therefore i go with Payton over KD. Payton had a large impact on his team, he's the GOAT guard defender to me, while being very good on offense. I'm not comfortable putting KD's short career over Payton's long successful career.

I just want to point out i think its highly dubious that Paul went in 5+ spots before KD. KD already peaked higher and has similar longevity. Much more playoff success as well.

[tsherkin]

Vote Durant

Accolades, a good 5-year peak already... It's time. Better than Payton IMO.

Durant is crazy good; we've not seen his like in a while, a proprrly dominant volume scorer consistently going nuts on high efficacy. He's a monster. Era differences are worth a nod: he wouldn't be the ame today, but Payton was a terror defensively. This is reasonably close based prime longevity, for now, but I go KD.

[JordansBulls]

Vote: Gary Payton

Led the Sonics to 6 seasons in a row of 55+ wins as the man, won DPOY as well.