RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #30

[mikejames23]

The little I've seen of him, he's a center who I *think* would translate a lot better to today's game than many others. Looks to be a guy who would be more of a threat on a pick and role than in the post for example. I haven't seen enough to make a strong statement there, just an ill informed observation.

Definitely a guy I expect I won't be voting for as he'll get in before I'll be ready to vote for him, but one I won't object with.

I think he'd be really weird. Modern day teams force centers to shoot 3 pointers... so that's what he'd be doing.

It's a good thing for him that he came in the pre-handcheck era. Back to basket, break you down, a slower style favored for a bigs etc. ? Those days are out.

[rebirthoftheM]

If by "super-elite" you mean "really, really special players worth talking about high up on a GOAT list", that actually sounds about right doesn't it?

Look, fundamentally here, people should give a damn if one player wasn't actually contributing the value people thought he was regardless of whether his low BBIQ is to blame, and the very idea that we would try to blame it on a teammate that was ACTUALLY effectively is just absurd.. The idea that we should compensate for it implicitly assumed that volume stat production is what's real and it's up to coaches to simply aim the weapon better and everything will be fine.

Here, as is often the case, people need to remember Wilt. Wilt was more valuable playing NOT as a volume scorer, and it ain't close...and that means if makes no sense at all to try to rate Wilt on a foundation of how many points he was racking up in earlier years. It was fool's gold. It was something being achieved by producing tons and tons of waste, which were apparently what Wilt needed in order to pull that off.

This is not to say I don't think about players transported into future eras and care about the fact that they might be able to do better. I absolutely do transports like that, and in the right comparison they might make a great difference with someone like Baylor. In a case where, say, we have a guy who was known to be a knucklehead but still played as an efficient volume shooter because of his coach, an argument for Baylor could certainly be made.

One last note:

I think it's very dangerous to try to divide credit (or blame) between player and coach. The coach operates through the players, he's not competing with them for impact. As such, when people knock a guy as a "system player" simply because the coach was smart enough to use him properly, that just doesn't make sense. They both deserve credit.

And yes, Laker coaches deserve blame for letting Baylor play like he did to some degree, but it takes no blame away from Baylor since he's a player and not a coach. Moreover, there is the matter that Baylor was FAR more powerful than the coaches were and clearly liked playing with the primacy he did.

Wanted to chime here. You said

...West in many ways played like modern players simply because they had a feel for what worked on the floor, and that's why they deserve such high praise.

This kind of implies Jerry West knew that if he played a certain way, he would be more impactful, as opposed to say Baylor's style of play. Fair enough. But going back to Penbeast's point... if Jerry West knew this all along, and given Baylor was his teammate for so many years, and Jerry was indeed the floor general of the team, why do we see so little change in how Baylor played? Did Jerry only understand 'playing the right way' as it pertained to him, and was incapable of seeing Baylor's flaws? Did he think 'well we can get away with it' type of thing, and no point in ruffling feathers? Did he try and change things, and Baylor ignored him? Did the Laker coaches ignore his back-room requests for shifts?

I guess we don't have the answers to all these questions. Would be cool to hear Jerry comment on it, because all I've heard from him about Elgin was praise.

If he didn't see it as an issue, then perhaps Jerry's excellent Bball IQ was quite limited, in the sense that he could only see things as it related to himself. And as a true floor general and leader, you are responsible for your own flock, not just your own individual play. This is the essence of 'team defense' and I see no reason for why it doesn't extend to the offensive end, when your most important teammate is playing a style of play that is sub-optimal and nothing is done about it.

Hell, Shaq routinely blasted Kobe for playing a style of offense which he perceived as sub-optimal. He did so both internally and publicly. I wonder if Jerry did similar things, or if he was blind to it all like the rest of the basketball world.

[dhsilv2]

Guards – Cousy, Thomas, and Frazier
Shoot Guard – Sam Jones, Iverson, Gervin, Drexler
Small Forwards – Pippen, Baylor, Havlicek, Barry
Power Forwards – McHale
Center – Reed, Cowens

I've updated the list of candidates. I'm not REALLY ready to talk about drexler who's getting some traction here and I don't think he's a bad choice.

I'll ask the Drexler team to explain why he's over Gervin who I think is a fairly comparable player. Longevity is a factor for Drexler but I'm not sure I like the finals trips argument given the skill gap between the two's teammates. Either way I think that's an interesting discussion, more so than KD vs Gervin.

MVP's not on the list yet (no order)
Bill Walton
Have Cowens
Willis Reed
Wes Unseld
Allen Iverson
Derrick Rose
Russel Westbrook

I'll be keeping this list running as we go as I'd like to think other than Walton, Rose, and Westbrook all should be pretty clear top 75 guys.

Baylor, Havlicek, and Pippen are really the 3 stand outs here for me. I am however starting to think about Frazier as really for me he's the guy who in my recent look back game watching has stood out (those knicks teams were really good, it's odd saying knicks and good). The problem good or bad for him is that I think Reed is getting underrated a bit in commentary here so I'm struggling with who among those goes in first which means I don't feel strongly on this yet. Both however looked better to me than their stats said.

Vote Hondo - I still don't feel good about this pick. The advanced stats I think are better than some have implied, especially if he was such a bad shooter/chuckster. A player just doesn't play that many minutes on that many championship teams without having some special value. Throw in accolades and the general high opinions of him from his era pushes me over the top. I know in 30 years I'll be explaining to some dumb 30 year old about how a Tim Duncan was FAR more than his box score stats. I'm guessing Hondo fans in the 60's and 70's are just as flustered with these rankings.

Alternative Baylor - Baylor has been a consistent top 20 guy for decades. He had a huge impact in the early days of the game. While he never won, he certainly made a lot of finals. His scoring is exceptional. His rebounding....I hate rebounding in that era. The athletic players were dominate in ways that just don't make sense and I can't imagine they could be replicated. I still struggle with my high praise for West and the lack of a title for the two. There were some good comments on his early years vs Pettit a few threads back that I've been mulling over and I think they pushed Baylor up here. He came into the league and hit the ground running. Perhaps I can forgive his inability to adapt with West.

Once we get 1-2 more older generation players in this list, I'll feel a lot better about Pippen who I honestly think should be a top 25 guy, but just didn't get to showcase himself in such a way I could rank him higher.

[dhsilv2]

The little I've seen of him, he's a center who I *think* would translate a lot better to today's game than many others. Looks to be a guy who would be more of a threat on a pick and role than in the post for example. I haven't seen enough to make a strong statement there, just an ill informed observation.

Definitely a guy I expect I won't be voting for as he'll get in before I'll be ready to vote for him, but one I won't object with.

I think he'd be really weird. Modern day teams force centers to shoot 3 pointers... so that's what he'd be doing.

It's a good thing for him that he came in the pre-handcheck era. Back to basket, break you down, a slower style favored for a bigs etc. ? Those days are out.

I'm thinking of him as another Modern day Gobert, who is a lot like what I'd think Wilt would be today (please lets not get into that wilt was better or whatever, I just think Gobert plays in a way that maximized long athletic bigs who can't shoot). Bigs who can finish at the rim off lobs and play great defense are still pretty darn valuable. That long and lean body with a lot of strength is still deadly with a good guard to set them up.

But I'm more talking relative to other bigs. A lot of all time great bigs I think would find today's game crippling for their strengths. I don't see him as a great post up guy so breaking that habit outside of optimal places would be all the better.

[RCM88x]

Vote: Scottie Pippen

In my opinion the GOAT perimeter defender, and one of the best passing Forwards of all time. Pippen posted an impressive prime run of 9 seasons from '90 to '98, averaging a BPM of 6.1 and a WS/48 of .173. He ranks an impressive 13th all time in career playoff WS, 18th in career average playoff BPM, and an insane 5th all time in playoff VORP.

In my opinion, probably the idea 2nd option. Doesn't need the ball to have an impact and when he does, is a 3 way threat to drive, pass or shoot.

2nd Vote: John Havlicek

[Winsome Gerbil]

#30 Pippen
#31 Baylor

Pippen has as more First Team All Defense selections (8) than Kawhi, Draymond, Iggy and Tony Allen together. He's quite possibly the greatest defensive "little" of all time. And not reputation great. Not oh he's doing subtle things great. In your face harass the hell out of you and help power a defensive dynasty great. Smother other HOF great. So great he's got 10 All Defense selections (8/2) 7 All Stars, 7 All NBAs (3/2/2), and 6 titles. After Stockton perhaps the greatest true #2 of all time.

Baylor essentially pioneered the super-high scoring SF position. Era of course, but to this day the man owns the 3rd highest career scoring average (27.2) in NBA history, to go with 13.5reb and 4.3ast. Maybe he wasn't a great defender, but its hard to accuse him in any way of being 1 dimensional. If a certain Stilt out of Kansas hadn't entered the league at the same time, it might have been Elgin who was known as the greatest scorer of the early NBA. At the time of his retirement in 1972, he was the 3rd highest scorer of all time behind Wilt and Oscar. #4 was Jerry West. All of those other guys have long since made the list. Its about time for Elgin to join them.

[pandrade83]

Building upon this:

-From '72 to '76 the ABA & NBA should be considered equals. The games between the two were a very narrow split - 79 to 76 in favor of ABA.
-Gilmore appeared to be on a steady decline basically from the get-go - that's why his NBA impact seems more questionable. But he did anchor a Top 2 defense through '77 - and Top 1 most years.
-His Ten Year prime was 21-15-3 blocks on 60% TS. That's damn impressive.
-Highest in Win Shares by far of anyone left
-7th highest in VORP left - those ahead of him - Kidd, Drexler, Pippen, Reggie, Payton, Pierce.

I didn't vote for him - but he's 5th on my list at this point.

Yes, and add on to this a really, really long prime with a body that sustained the physical play of that era. 672 straight games? Really? Star from his rookie year, right off the bat all the way to ~86. That's 14 years. 14 years! W/S is also a good argument. Some of Ewing's peak W/S 48 is basically prime Gilmore level.

I am actually really impressed after all the reading. There are a lot of uncertainties, but on the positive side if you're sold, you could easily make a case for him in the mid to late 20's next to Ewing.

Agreed. So here's some of his warts - because I want to make sure I'm looking at this holistically.

-Turnover machine. Nearly 4 Turnovers a game which is a rather large amount for someone who is only getting you around 21 ppg.
-People have noted that his defensive impact seems to have waned quickly after he entered the NBA which is true. From '78-'80 in what should have been his prime, his teams finished in the bottom third defensively and they took 3 straight 50 loss seasons. To be fair those teams were pretty bad. I believe part of the reason is he loses his mobility pretty quickly. He has a very strong 6 year peak - but his #'s seem to slip little by little year after year - this tells me he never really got better.

This is a game in which the Spurs won and Gilmore put up monster numbers against Kareem but his mobility is obviously not there and he's out-manuevered by Kareem quite a bit.

Watch on YouTube

Regardless, I will vote for him soon.

[Outside]

I'm baffled why Baylor isn't getting more traction. He was #21 in 2008, #26 in 2011, and #33 in 2014, and he fell 12 places, not because 12 new players came in above him, but apparently because the general consensus about him soured.

In my view, one of the biggest issues holding him back is lack of familiarity among the voting pool. If you can, take some time to review this video. It's long (over 50 minutes), so I don't expect everyone to watch the whole thing, but even a few minutes will give you a sense of the type of player Baylor was.

Watch on YouTube

I'm not generally a fan of YouTube highlights, but these are instructive for several reasons:

-- There's so little video of Baylor available that this at least provides something.

-- Rather than the typical ooh and aah video, this one breaks down his abilities into categories.

-- B-R.com stats are valuable, but they don't show a level of greatness that becomes apparent when watching a player like Baylor.

The video is particularly good at emphasizing several aspects of Baylor's game.

-- Offensively, he can score from inside, mid-range, and outside, and can use either hand inside. He has excellent ballhandling skills, body control, and strength. He is able to challenge big men like Russell by using his quickness and speed to gain an edge to the basket or by jumping laterally and not releasing his shot until he's on the way down. He combines all those skills with an innate creativity that makes him an exceptional scorer.

-- His rebounding is GOAT for his position. The video shows him getting rebounds when it looks like other players had a better chance at them.

-- His passing is outstanding. His defense was very good.

-- He combined his rebounding, speed when dribbling the ball, and passing to initiate the fast break, much like Magic Johnson and Draymond Green.

Consider some basic facts about Baylor.

RS career averages of 27.4 points (3rd all time), 13.5 rebounds (10th), 4.3 assists
PS career averages of 27.0 points (7th), 12.9 rebounds (13th), 4.0 assists
RS career totals of 23,149 points (34th), 11,463 rebounds (27th, 1st among SFs), 3650 assists in 846 games
Had two postseasons when he averaged over 38 PPG (4th and 5th)
Holds the finals records for points in a game -- 61
10th all time in career finals PPG -- 26.4
17 50-point RS games (4th)
Played in 44 finals games (11th)
Averaged 19.8 rebounds in 1960-61 -- only five players have done better (Wilt, Russell, Thurmond, Pettit, Lucas)

Going to stop here to post this so that I get my vote in. Will address criticisms of Baylor when I can.

Vote: Baylor
Alternate: Havlicek

[euroleague]

I do see some recency bias - not by percentages, but just by players voted in. CP3, Nash, Ewing, Wade over Hondo/Cousy/Baylor seems strange.

Cousy is what - 10x first team all NBA, multiple time champion, regular season MVP, all-star game MVP, etc... with a huge impact on the entire league (forget only his team). What more does he need? Ewing only made one all-nba 1st team.

Pick: Cousy
Alt: Hondo
HM: Baylor

Cousy was a guy who chucked inefficiently relative to his teammates who is supposed to be a legend because he was a great floor general. He was overrated in his day because people didn't have the basis to really understand how far from optimal he was, and meanwhile his teammate Bill Sharman was underrated, and Bill Russell was underrated as well until Cousy retired and the team rose further with that lead weight removed.

I like Hondo, but he's not a guy you want volume scoring for you and it is his scoring peak that convinces many that he was something more than he was.

Baylor was someone who only had a few years before he was next to a teammate who was much better than him, and since Baylor never adjusted his play he held the team back by a good amount compared to what he could have accomplished. Like Cousy, it's a double whammy because he got big stats because of his sub-optimal approach, and this then led him to get accolades from the naive journalists of the time.

Last: I understand it seems the height of moxie to proclaim people at the time as naive but do people clear I'm not dismissing them outright, I'm specifically saying that they lacked an understanding of the diminishing returns of inefficient volume scoring, which should not be controversial because many journalists still don't understand this.

Cousy was the guy who defined how offenses play the ball. He was rated so highly because everyone was copying him. The stats you see from everyone else are those who have followed in his footsteps. He's the first guy to have flair in his game in competitive basketball. Russell's teams did well after Cousy retired because Russell and Sam Jones hit their prime, while copying the methods of cousy.

Hondo carried his teams to championships. He had 3.5 WS in 74 as the team captain, and by far best member of his team. His FG% doesn't look high, but not only is his TS% very strong for the offense he was in - he also was an amazing passer and led his team in assists many times. Hondo was the centerpiece on 3 championships and the 2nd fiddle (first on offense) on many more. Because of rule changes in defending (you can't just hack the shooter) and fouls being called far more easily in recent times, his FG% looks bad. Don't take it too far out of context.

Even offense aside, Hondo was the MVP of the defensive side of the floor against Jerry West.

Baylor took his team to the finals without West. He took a team of scrubs past 3 all-stars, including petit who is already in. He then challenged the Celtics in the finals to a relatively close series. How is he "holding back" his team? Only Jerry West, before he was an acknowledged star, was held back, and that was only temporarily. As others have mentioned, Jerry West was the PG of the team and played a big part in holding himself back - perhaps you should dock Jerry West for not demanding the ball, instead of docking Baylor so hard.

[scrabbarista]

...

Seven feet of Dolomite, 240 pounds of intimidation, Gilmore was cut from the cloth of Wilt. A 32-inch waist, 27-inch things. The NBA’s all-time leader in field-goal percentage (.599), Artis took it to the rack, and he took it strong. No one stepped in front of the A-Train. Gilmore was an 11-time All-Star. He was the ABA’s MVP and Rookie of the Year in ’72, and the MVP of the ’75 ABA Finals. Artis Gilmore was the NBA’s first pick in the ABA dispersal draft – not Moses.

Some more stuff from SLAM:

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/original-old-school-unhappy-gilmore/#7LW1YuGPLSPlZCJJ.97

(see bold) I sure hope that's a typo!

You mean the "s"?

[Lou Fan]

1st Vote: Pippen
He's the ideal second option and his versatility and greatness was one of the fulcrums of the Bulls dynasty. He was a great off the ball player and has great portability. He was also great with the ball as he was one of the original and one of the greatest point forwards. He also had a pretty underrated post game. Perhaps most importantly he is the GOAT perimeter defender. His accomplishments speak for themselves 6 rings, 10 time All-Defense, 7 time All-NBA, and Dream Team member.
2nd Vote: Drexler
I'm firmly locked on Pippen but am wide open on my second vote. At least I finally get to stop voting for Curry . I will put more reasoning if I have the time.

[penbeast0]

After looking at team results and individual play both (feeding off my comments on page 1)

VOTE: Scottie Pippen
Alternate: Gary Payton

[drza]

Elgin Baylor

So, for the first time in this project, I've taken the time to look at Elgin Baylor in some depth. I have some memories of doing so in previous projects to some level, and coming to some similar conclusions, but I couldn't find those posts. Today, I looked again, especially in response to this "smart/superior player" West vs "didn't know any better/holding team back" Baylor conversation and frankly...

I think it's wrong. I'm not at all seeing the evidence that a) West was clearly playing a game in a smarter way or b) that he was having a more positive impact on the court.

Impact thoughts

A lot of the evidence that West is better is tied to the fact that he scored more efficiently, and he certainly did. West was also on the continuum of combo guard/point guard, which means he was generating offense for his teammates, another plus. And, he was a great jump shooter, which suggests spacing impact. All strong points in his favor.

However, Baylor's "inefficiency" is wildly overrated as a detriment to his being an impact player. As I've pointed out relentlessly, individual scoring efficiency tends to be one of the most overrated elements in how much impact a player does or doesn't make. A high-volume shooter still only shoots about a quarter of the possessions that he's on the court. There are a lot of other elements that can raise or lower an impact to a larger degree. In Baylor's case, he too was a great passer for his position, and it was coming from the frontcourt, which is often more of a positive to offensive impact. He was an outstanding rebounder, especially for his position, which should benefit his impact. And he absolutely was thoroughly feared as a scorer in his time, which likely led to relatively strong gravity for his time.

Impact estimates

Up until recently, the scoring efficiency was the only quantitative "advanced approach" measure that we had access to. So, perhaps that's why it's become so cemented around here that West was playing so much better. But these days, thanks to ElGee, we do have some WOWY runs to consider. Baylor has two seasons, in the seven years of his peak before major knee injury, when he missed double-figure games: 1962 and 1965. West, on the other hand, missed double-digit games a lot of times. This is what their WOWY impacts looked like, per the games ElGee has tracked in his spreadsheet:

1962 Baylor: 30 games missed, 4.7 SRS in, +6.4 difference when playing
1963 West: 26 games missed, 4.9 SRS in, +7.1 difference when playing
1965 Baylor: 13 games missed, 2.9 SRS in, +6.8 diference
1968 West: 27 games missed, 7.7 SRS in, +7.5 difference
1969 West: 20 games missed, 5.8 SRS in, +5.8 difference
1971 West: 18 games missed, 5 SRS in, +6 difference
1973 West: 12 games missed, 11.7 SRS in, +12.4 difference
1974 West: 48 games missed, 4.9 SRS in, +4.8 difference

Outside of 1973 West, which was clearly an outlier for him in this measure (and also the one from the fewest missed games), Baylor and West measured out with almost exactly the same impact in those seasons when they missed a lot of games.

And (this is important), Baylor's scoring efficiency during those prime years is just as relatively bad compared to West in his prime years as in his later years... actually Baylor's scoring efficiency was LOWER in his prime than it would be in the years after his horrible knee injury. So, to me, efficiency is not the hallmark that proves West to be the better player. Impact-wise, in Baylor's 7-year pre-injury prime, he and West seem like similar impact players despite West's greater efficiency.

Now, in 1966 Baylor had his worst season before the end as he dealt with the knee injury. His WOWY was weak (12 missed games, 2 SRS in, 0 difference) but he also had by-far the lowest scoring and rebounding volumes of his career in the games he did play in. He was clearly a shadow of himself all around.

Then, from 1967 - 1969, Baylor didn't have any seasons with extended missed time. His scoring and rebounding volumes were not quite where they were in his early healthier seasons, but they were close. And he was actually scoring more efficiently than in his prime, though obviously still less efficiently than West. But as we saw above, that difference in efficiency didn't in any way hamper prime Baylor's impact compared to West's. Plus, in those three seasons, West would miss 45 more games than Baylor. Thus, Baylor was often playing without West which may well have inflated his FGAs as he attempted to make up for lost volume. I don't have those numbers, so ::Shrugs:: Would be interesting to see.

Conclusion: All told, maybe West was the better player. He has an argument. But when I look at things, it certainly does seem like it's an argument that could go either way...and West was voted in a long time ago. At the moment, I'm feeling Baylor here.

I'd like to put in some time on secondary players, too. I will if I have time...and it could change my vote. But for now, just in case, I'll put my vote down:

Vote: Elgin Baylor
2nd: Jason Kidd

[ThaRegul8r]

...


Some more stuff from SLAM:

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/original-old-school-unhappy-gilmore/#7LW1YuGPLSPlZCJJ.97

(see bold) I sure hope that's a typo!

You mean the "s"?

No.

thing
noun
[...]
used euphemistically to refer to a man's penis.

The bolded emphasis should now be clear.

[Dr Spaceman]

.

.

Actually it's like Einstein deserves more credit than his contemporaries because he saw things clearly, because the point is that other players were playing right. Not all of them, not most of them, but Russell, Oscar, and West in many ways played like modern players simply because they had a feel for what worked on the floor, and that's why they deserve such high praise.

I wouldn't dream of knocking Baylor relative to the guys of today who don't get it, but I'm not going round up Baylors actual impact because of his blindness when he had a teammate next to him every damn game who saw things clearly.

If I may, it seems as though you're saying it's OK to blame Baylor for being unaware of a problem that almost no one else at the time was aware of, and justifying that by noting a mere handful of the super-elite players who seemed to see the game more clearly.

otoh, I would argue the blame doesn't rest entirely on Baylor for playing as he did. Where is coaching/management's responsibility? Could they not pressure him to alter his play if it was hurting the team?

What about Jerry West himself? West is the guy bringing the ball up. West is the guy initiating the offense. And West is the guy who could score more efficiently AND who did so while rarely being assisted (majority of his shots appear to be off the dribble). If his understanding of what works in basketball was so superior and his understanding of how to play "right" was so much higher than Baylor's......why didn't he----again, given he was the floor general----simply stop deferring to Baylor so often? Instead of passing off, he could have just taken those shots himself, no?

Outside of Baylor himself, no one on the court had more ability to limit Baylor's volume than Jerry West.

So are we suggesting that West had knowledge that Baylor's style of play and shot selection wasn't what was best for the team, but opted to do nothing about it [perhaps didn't want to ruffle any feathers]? Or did he, like Baylor and pretty much everyone else at the time, not truly recognize it as a problem?

'Cause it's one or the other. And I can't see laying so much of this criticism on Baylor, while completely absolving the initiator of the offense (and the coaching) of all responsibility.

I actually don't see it as one or the other. The lack of reliable data is simply exacerbated by sports/locker room culture.

Even nowadays, and even with highly portable players, we see all sorts of issues with hierarchy/who eats first and whatnot. I remember a really good article where Doc Rivers mentioned that one of the ways he kept KG engaged was giving him the first post up of the game, even though he was so jacked up at the start of games he'd often just pummel the ball off the backboard.

The thing is, nowadays when something is not working coaches have clear things to point to to get that through to the players. Back then they didn't. And it's a tall, tall order to ask a rookie and relative nobody to go to an established team and just say "we're going to throw out the playbook and do something totally different". We're 50 years past the Baylor era right now, and yet we STILL have Kylie Irving thinking he's too good to be lebron´s wingman, despite everyone who's ever picked up a basketball knowing the difference.

Im not going to fault West for not having the vision to see a better way AND the balls to walk into a locker room and make it happen. Because that's a combination we've seen like once (?) in NBA history.

[Dr Positivity]

Impact estimates

Up until recently, the scoring efficiency was the only quantitative "advanced approach" measure that we had access to. So, perhaps that's why it's become so cemented around here that West was playing so much better. But these days, thanks to ElGee, we do have some WOWY runs to consider. Baylor has two seasons, in the seven years of his peak before major knee injury, when he missed double-figure games: 1962 and 1965. West, on the other hand, missed double-digit games a lot of times. This is what their WOWY impacts looked like, per the games ElGee has tracked in his spreadsheet:

1962 Baylor: 30 games missed, 4.7 SRS in, +6.4 difference when playing
1963 West: 26 games missed, 4.9 SRS in, +7.1 difference when playing
1965 Baylor: 13 games missed, 2.9 SRS in, +6.8 diference
1968 West: 27 games missed, 7.7 SRS in, +7.5 difference
1969 West: 20 games missed, 5.8 SRS in, +5.8 difference
1971 West: 18 games missed, 5 SRS in, +6 difference
1973 West: 12 games missed, 11.7 SRS in, +12.4 difference
1974 West: 48 games missed, 4.9 SRS in, +4.8 difference

Outside of 1973 West, which was clearly an outlier for him in this measure (and also the one from the fewest missed games), Baylor and West measured out with almost exactly the same impact in those seasons when they missed a lot of games.

Baylor in 65 played 74/80 games, so the sample must be using how his team did in the playoffs vs in the regular season with him? That seems questionable with difference between regular season and playoff games, and in SSS the impact of getting worked by Boston (+12.6) in the Finals without Baylor.

His prime is cited as 7 years before his knee injury, but looking at his stats the drop-off point is clearly after 63. In 64 he has .109 WS/48 and 65 .078 and puts up 25/17 and 27/13 those years, numbers that would be representative of the rest of his post knee problems career. So if 65 is used I don't see an issue with including 1970 Baylor which was a very good season for him, his best WS/48 after 63 and the best TS of his career, and also one of his biggest samples of missed games. It looks to me like they did well without him that year (17-11, 50 W pace). 11 Gs in 1967 could be included as well (4-7 without, 30 W pace, although how many games West missed at the same time would be important) along with 1966 which is mentioned later in the post

62 Baylor may be as valuable as prime West, but I think the issue people have with Baylor isn't the prime years when he was putting up crazy 38/20 stats, it's the ones after his knee problems when his TS declines. This is also reflected by box stats like WS

And (this is important), Baylor's scoring efficiency during those prime years is just as relatively bad compared to West in his prime years as in his later years... actually Baylor's scoring efficiency was LOWER in his prime than it would be in the years after his horrible knee injury.

Compared to his league Baylor's efficiency during his pre knee injury years is better.

59 +3.1
60 +2.5
61 +3.1
62 +1.6
63 +2.9
64 -0.1
65 -1.8
66 -3.4
67 -0.6
68 +0.9
69 +1.3
70 +2.3

Then, from 1967 - 1969, Baylor didn't have any seasons with extended missed time. His scoring and rebounding volumes were not quite where they were in his early healthier seasons, but they were close.

Baylor from 62-64 put up 35/20, 38/19, 34/14. From 67-69 he put up 27/13, 26/12, 25/11. Those seem like substantial dropoffs.

And he was actually scoring more efficiently than in his prime, though obviously still less efficiently than West. But as we saw above, that difference in efficiency didn't in any way hamper prime Baylor's impact compared to West's.

Baylor pre knee surgery was less efficient than West but he was also a higher volume scorer than he ever was, in addition to the effect of his rebounding. So if prime Baylor was equal to prime West as a scorer in impact it doesn't mean the TS is irrelevant, it could also mean his volume made up for the TS difference, the same way Kobe has arguably as valuable offensive impact as prime Dirk despite being less efficient. In the late 60s however this doesn't apply to him because he is both a lower volume scorer than prime West and much less efficient and therefore it becomes more unlikely he has impact similar to prime offensive West.

This is before considering whether a small sample size of WOWY should be trusted as anything meaningful. To each his own when it comes to which data to use, but I've made my feelings clear in the past of why I don't put any value at all in the stat (SSS data of any kind tends to be useless and we know that full seasons of raw +/- barely stick let alone 10 games of it, players can rise up and play harder without a star to survive in the season, a lag in the playbook from the opponent of how to play a team without a star or from the star's team to play without him, etc.)

Conclusion: All told, maybe West was the better player. He has an argument. But when I look at things, it certainly does seem like it's an argument that could go either way...and West was voted in a long time ago. At the moment, I'm feeling Baylor here.

West was voted in a long time ago, but it has a lot to do with the length of their primes in my opinion. If Baylor was his 59-63 self no doubt he'd have been voted in a long time ago as well

[70sFan]

I'd also point out that "inefficient" Baylor during his prime was similar in terms of relative efficiency to Kobe Bryant. From 1959 to 1963 he posted consistently +2% rTS which is quite good given his huge volume. Keep in mind that West became all-star in 1962, before that season he didn't have reliable 2nd option.

[scrabbarista]

(see bold) I sure hope that's a typo!

You mean the "s"?

No.

thing
noun
[...]
used euphemistically to refer to a man's penis.

The bolded emphasis should now be clear.

I was joking. I know what a "thing" is, lol.

[drza]

(duplicate)

[drza]

Spoiler:

Impact estimates

Up until recently, the scoring efficiency was the only quantitative "advanced approach" measure that we had access to. So, perhaps that's why it's become so cemented around here that West was playing so much better. But these days, thanks to ElGee, we do have some WOWY runs to consider. Baylor has two seasons, in the seven years of his peak before major knee injury, when he missed double-figure games: 1962 and 1965. West, on the other hand, missed double-digit games a lot of times. This is what their WOWY impacts looked like, per the games ElGee has tracked in his spreadsheet:

1962 Baylor: 30 games missed, 4.7 SRS in, +6.4 difference when playing
1963 West: 26 games missed, 4.9 SRS in, +7.1 difference when playing
1965 Baylor: 13 games missed, 2.9 SRS in, +6.8 diference
1968 West: 27 games missed, 7.7 SRS in, +7.5 difference
1969 West: 20 games missed, 5.8 SRS in, +5.8 difference
1971 West: 18 games missed, 5 SRS in, +6 difference
1973 West: 12 games missed, 11.7 SRS in, +12.4 difference
1974 West: 48 games missed, 4.9 SRS in, +4.8 difference

Outside of 1973 West, which was clearly an outlier for him in this measure (and also the one from the fewest missed games), Baylor and West measured out with almost exactly the same impact in those seasons when they missed a lot of games.

Baylor in 65 played 74/80 games, so the sample must be using how his team did in the playoffs vs in the regular season with him? That seems questionable with difference between regular season and playoff games, and in SSS the impact of getting worked by Boston (+12.6) in the Finals without Baylor.

His prime is cited as 7 years before his knee injury, but looking at his stats the drop-off point is clearly after 63. In 64 he has .109 WS/48 and 65 .078 and puts up 25/17 and 27/13 those years, numbers that would be representative of the rest of his post knee problems career. So if 65 is used I don't see an issue with including 1970 Baylor which was a very good season for him, his best WS/48 after 63 and the best TS of his career, and also one of his biggest samples of missed games. It looks to me like they did well without him that year (17-11, 50 W pace). 11 Gs in 1967 could be included as well (4-7 without, 30 W pace, although how many games West missed at the same time would be important) along with 1966 which is mentioned later in the post

62 Baylor may be as valuable as prime West, but I think the issue people have with Baylor isn't the prime years when he was putting up crazy 38/20 stats, it's the ones after his knee problems when his TS declines. This is also reflected by box stats like WS

And (this is important), Baylor's scoring efficiency during those prime years is just as relatively bad compared to West in his prime years as in his later years... actually Baylor's scoring efficiency was LOWER in his prime than it would be in the years after his horrible knee injury.

Compared to his league Baylor's efficiency during his pre knee injury years is better.

59 +3.1
60 +2.5
61 +3.1
62 +1.6
63 +2.9
64 -0.1
65 -1.8
66 -3.4
67 -0.6
68 +0.9
69 +1.3
70 +2.3

Then, from 1967 - 1969, Baylor didn't have any seasons with extended missed time. His scoring and rebounding volumes were not quite where they were in his early healthier seasons, but they were close.

Baylor from 62-64 put up 35/20, 38/19, 34/14. From 67-69 he put up 27/13, 26/12, 25/11. Those seem like substantial dropoffs.

And he was actually scoring more efficiently than in his prime, though obviously still less efficiently than West. But as we saw above, that difference in efficiency didn't in any way hamper prime Baylor's impact compared to West's.

Baylor pre knee surgery was less efficient than West but he was also a higher volume scorer than he ever was, in addition to the effect of his rebounding. So if prime Baylor was equal to prime West as a scorer in impact it doesn't mean the TS is irrelevant, it could also mean his volume made up for the TS difference, the same way Kobe has arguably as valuable offensive impact as prime Dirk despite being less efficient. In the late 60s however this doesn't apply to him because he is both a lower volume scorer than prime West and much less efficient and therefore it becomes more unlikely he has impact similar to prime offensive West.

This is before considering whether a small sample size of WOWY should be trusted as anything meaningful. To each his own when it comes to which data to use, but I've made my feelings clear in the past of why I don't put any value at all in the stat (SSS data of any kind tends to be useless and we know that full seasons of raw +/- barely stick let alone 10 games of it, players can rise up and play harder without a star to survive in the season, a lag in the playbook from the opponent of how to play a team without a star or from the star's team to play without him, etc.)

Conclusion: All told, maybe West was the better player. He has an argument. But when I look at things, it certainly does seem like it's an argument that could go either way...and West was voted in a long time ago. At the moment, I'm feeling Baylor here.

West was voted in a long time ago, but it has a lot to do with the length of their primes in my opinion. If Baylor was his 59-63 self no doubt he'd have been voted in a long time ago as well

You make some good points in here, and I don't have the time to give a full in-depth response from work today. But, a few thoughts/rebuttals I have:

*Baylor's knee issues beginning in 63 v 65. Fair enough. I chose '65 because that's when the acute injury happened that required the most surgical intervention, but you're right that he's attributed with having knee issues by 63.

*Individual scoring efficiency vs SSS WOWY, utility: One thing I note is that the entire premise of my post could be shrunk down to "scoring efficiency is not a good way to measure impact", and your response is full of evidence given by "but scoring efficiency, tho". You list Baylor's relative scoring efficiency to league average, you prove his injury in 63 by pointing to his WS (HEAVILY scoring efficiency based), you argue that his '70 season is actually a good season for him based on the fact that he had his career-best scoring efficiency (and consequently best WS/48 score after 1963). But my point here, and in many other recent posts, is that I believe small changes in individual scoring efficiency to be somewhere on the scale between "vastly overrated" and "barely relevant" in estimating impact. Gross differences can mean something, but even then probably not as much as we think. And overall, there are many other elements to the game that are very likely more explanatory for impact changes than individual scoring efficiency.

This brings me to the more "good statistical analysis" discussion realm. And I'm not sure how to frame what I want to say. Let's try this...statistical analysis to estimate basketball goodness is far from an exact science, and in fact (as one would expect) has much lower standards (especially in non-funded endeavors like our discussions) than actual experiments. I say this because I am aware of the issues of SSS when it comes to analysis. In an experiment, if you have a SSS such that you can't get statistical significance, you can't use that data in any kind of publication to argue a conclusion. BUT. In the type of statistical analysis done here, I think dismissing data completely when the sample size is smaller than what would reach significance is a mistake. I think you have to be aware of the size of your samples, and allow for the fact that the ratio of signal and noise can be smaller than you'd like, and take conclusions with whatever sized grain of salt floats your boat. But dismissing entirely (as some do with WOWY, as many do with postseason +/- data, for two examples)...I think is a mistake, especially when the alternative is to simply not have that data.

Said another way, I think it's more dangerous to make conclusions without considering some of the SSS data that we have, because when we do that often the assumption is just to rely on the data we do have to find our results. But the data we DO have is extremely limited by the fact that we don't have a way to evaluate it (think Doc MJ's validity vs reliability bulls eye image). So to me, simply ignoring SSS data when the alternative is not having ANY data of that type, and thus trying to make evaluations without it, is overall weaker analysis. The conclusions that you reach, even if they may be more statistically reliable, have less basis in reality, less basis to be claimed as a valid measure...and I think that's a bigger deal than SSS noise, here.

1965: upon review, I do see that ElGee must have used playoffs data in his 1965 WOWY. And I'll grant your point that the exact figure may therefore be not ideal. But, following from the rambling point I tried to make just above this, I think it important to still glean whatever information we might be able to about Baylor's presence/absence that we can from that year. Yes, in the playoffs, the Lakers got absolutely tooled by the Celtics (lost 4 - 1, the four losses by average of 21 points). But, I saw in the RPOY thread from 1965 that the Lakers entered the playoffs on a 17 - 3 run, in which they beat the Celtics twice in their three meetings...with Baylor healthy. Yes, the playoffs is a different animal than the regular season. But if the Lakers go from solidly competitive in their last three meetings with Baylor to getting smashed without him, I think that's an indication that Baylor was an important player on that team. Whether his actual WOWY score is of value to you or not, that is the kernel that I get from this.

*Baylor broad overview: Suppose I go with Baylor had a career that was 5-years worth of mega impact (59 - 63), followed by knee issues that reduced him to great-not-absurd boxscores volume with unsure levels of impact. 1) I'd be more inclined to look at his reduced athleticism, which (in the boxscore data we have) may be reasonably tracked by his big decline in rebounding, than his TS% as a cause/reason for that potentially lower impact and 2) therefore, the predominant argument I've heard used against him that it was his basketball IQ and not recognizing that he should have a lower scoring role is very weak to me.

3) If I don't buy into there being an inherent weakness in Baylor's approach (which I haven't been convinced of) and if there's no proof that Baylor's scoring efficiency/volume was hurting his team (which I haven't been convinced of) but I do buy into his injury lowering his value after an all-world 5-year prime...then I don't know that I could let him slide much beyond where he's landing now. He proved enough, in those five years, to indicate that he had the ability to play at the level of players long voted in...the era affect on him isn't necessarily era weakness. No, instead, to me the era weakness that most characterizes Baylor is the lack of medical options in his era compared to today. That knee injury is likely handled much better today than in the 60s, which would have allowed him to stay at his all-world level for longer. How much do I penalize him for that? Especially considering he DID keep playing at a (from what I can tell) high level for many years after, so it's not like he's a Walton-like "what if" case.

Again, West is in. That's fine. I made my case for Baylor being on West's level to make a point, and I hope that I got that point across. But West isn't Baylor's competition for this spot. And if Baylor was West-level for five years, then had injuries (that likely are treatable in other eras) that reduced him to only star-level thereafter (again, I'm not buying he was hurting his team with his BBIQ, as I've seen no evidence that strongly supports that stance)...I still think that's better than the other alternatives for this slot.