RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #50 (Robert Parish)

[pandrade83]

Reed's tough for me to support for a while. He has a relatively high peak - but there's still others left who exceed it by a reasonably comfortable margin. His longevity is amongst the worst; it's at parity or worse than some current players either gaining traction or coming up. He only has era advantages over Beaty & Daniels amongst centers.

The case for him is:
1) You value intangibles a lot.
2) You go against the metrics that we have (WS, PER) & key outcomes (Game 7 1970, the entire 1973 season) to believe he was the most impactful player on any title team.

His peak WS stands very well here. His PER isn't bad when scaled, it's not killer either. Unless you mean just the career numbers. Reed stands firmly above both Westbrook and Parish for peak WS numbers for example.

On the case for him going this early in general, I'm referencing vs. the remaining field.

WRT Win Shares - definitely recognize the high peak - but - it also undermines any argument that you might have that he was ever the best player on a Title Team since Frazier has him beat for both playoffs & rs. And while Reed is very good in that one metric, Westbrook got himself in the PER 30 club and basically broke BPM; it's easier to make the case for a Westbrook peak off data, especially once you take era into account.

I view Reed's peak as somewhere between the 5th & 10th best left on the board; but his longevity is probably going to be among the 10 worst of the Top 100. Balancing the two out, that means I'm probably going to go a good 20 more spots before I'll feel comfortable supporting him.

[dhsilv2]

Reed's tough for me to support for a while. He has a relatively high peak - but there's still others left who exceed it by a reasonably comfortable margin. His longevity is amongst the worst; it's at parity or worse than some current players either gaining traction or coming up. He only has era advantages over Beaty & Daniels amongst centers.

The case for him is:
1) You value intangibles a lot.
2) You go against the metrics that we have (WS, PER) & key outcomes (Game 7 1970, the entire 1973 season) to believe he was the most impactful player on any title team.

His peak WS stands very well here. His PER isn't bad when scaled, it's not killer either. Unless you mean just the career numbers. Reed stands firmly above both Westbrook and Parish for peak WS numbers for example.

On the case for him going this early in general, I'm referencing vs. the remaining field.

WRT Win Shares - definitely recognize the high peak - but - it also undermines any argument that you might have that he was ever the best player on a Title Team since Frazier has him beat for both playoffs & rs. And while Reed is very good in that one metric, Westbrook got himself in the PER 30 club and basically broke BPM; it's easier to make the case for a Westbrook peak off data, especially once you take era into account.

I view Reed's peak as somewhere between the 5th & 10th best left on the board; but his longevity is probably going to be among the 10 worst of the Top 100. Balancing the two out, that means I'm probably going to go a good 20 more spots before I'll feel comfortable supporting him.

There's a case for Westbrook's peak over Reed without a doubt. I'm not sure who else you've taking with a better peak here though, and up to 9 people ahead of him? I feel like you'd have to be looking at a lot of guys who are generally seen as "empty stats" guys, and even then that's an awful lot of them. As for Reed being the best player, I think that was a 1a 1b combo, which is why he has multiple titles. At this point I think that's perfectly fine.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #62:

Robert Parish - 8 (penbeast0, pandrade83, scabbarista, micahclay, LABird, trex_8063, janmagn, Dr Positivity)
Willis Reed - 5 (twolves97, Outside, Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2, drza)

Doesn’t look like this result is going to change. Calling it for Parish. Will have the next one up in a moment.

Spoiler:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

[pandrade83]

His peak WS stands very well here. His PER isn't bad when scaled, it's not killer either. Unless you mean just the career numbers. Reed stands firmly above both Westbrook and Parish for peak WS numbers for example.

On the case for him going this early in general, I'm referencing vs. the remaining field.

WRT Win Shares - definitely recognize the high peak - but - it also undermines any argument that you might have that he was ever the best player on a Title Team since Frazier has him beat for both playoffs & rs. And while Reed is very good in that one metric, Westbrook got himself in the PER 30 club and basically broke BPM; it's easier to make the case for a Westbrook peak off data, especially once you take era into account.

I view Reed's peak as somewhere between the 5th & 10th best left on the board; but his longevity is probably going to be among the 10 worst of the Top 100. Balancing the two out, that means I'm probably going to go a good 20 more spots before I'll feel comfortable supporting him.

There's a case for Westbrook's peak over Reed without a doubt. I'm not sure who else you've taking with a better peak here though, and up to 9 people ahead of him? I feel like you'd have to be looking at a lot of guys who are generally seen as "empty stats" guys, and even then that's an awful lot of them. As for Reed being the best player, I think that was a 1a 1b combo, which is why he has multiple titles. At this point I think that's perfectly fine.

Guys who I have ahead of him on peak (not in order)

Definitely not empty stats

Harden
Westbrook
McAdoo
Walton

Huge numbers - awful supporting casts
McGrady
Davis

Before you question it - would Reed really do better?


How much do you value the early ABA?

I go back & forth on these two - how much worse was the ABA in those early years?

Hawkins
Beaty

Because of the league weakness, I think these two are debatable; but regardless, I don't think I threw up any empty stats guys at all here.

[dhsilv2]

On the case for him going this early in general, I'm referencing vs. the remaining field.

WRT Win Shares - definitely recognize the high peak - but - it also undermines any argument that you might have that he was ever the best player on a Title Team since Frazier has him beat for both playoffs & rs. And while Reed is very good in that one metric, Westbrook got himself in the PER 30 club and basically broke BPM; it's easier to make the case for a Westbrook peak off data, especially once you take era into account.

I view Reed's peak as somewhere between the 5th & 10th best left on the board; but his longevity is probably going to be among the 10 worst of the Top 100. Balancing the two out, that means I'm probably going to go a good 20 more spots before I'll feel comfortable supporting him.

There's a case for Westbrook's peak over Reed without a doubt. I'm not sure who else you've taking with a better peak here though, and up to 9 people ahead of him? I feel like you'd have to be looking at a lot of guys who are generally seen as "empty stats" guys, and even then that's an awful lot of them. As for Reed being the best player, I think that was a 1a 1b combo, which is why he has multiple titles. At this point I think that's perfectly fine.

Guys who I have ahead of him on peak (not in order)

Definitely not empty stats

Harden
Westbrook
McAdoo
Walton

Huge numbers - awful supporting casts
McGrady
Davis

Before you question it - would Reed really do better?


How much do you value the early ABA?

I go back & forth on these two - how much worse was the ABA in those early years?

Hawkins
Beaty

Because of the league weakness, I think these two are debatable; but regardless, I don't think I threw up any empty stats guys at all here.

Interesting list. I've gone back and forth on McAdoo...I can't place my finger on it but something is lacking. Westbrook and Harden have interesting cases. Completely disagree on walton (didn't play enough in his healthy years). Hard to judge AD fairly but the fact that he's just as healthy and his stats have fallen is a concern. Tmac is a tough one as well. As for ABA, I personally place extremely little value on it. The quality was just too big of an issue. But thanks for the list.

[pandrade83]

Guys who I have ahead of him on peak (not in order)

Definitely not empty stats

Harden
Westbrook
McAdoo
Walton

Huge numbers - awful supporting casts
McGrady
Davis

Before you question it - would Reed really do better?


How much do you value the early ABA?

I go back & forth on these two - how much worse was the ABA in those early years?

Hawkins
Beaty

Because of the league weakness, I think these two are debatable; but regardless, I don't think I threw up any empty stats guys at all here.

Interesting list. I've gone back and forth on McAdoo...I can't place my finger on it but something is lacking. Westbrook and Harden have interesting cases. Completely disagree on walton (didn't play enough in his healthy years). Hard to judge AD fairly but the fact that he's just as healthy and his stats have fallen is a concern. Tmac is a tough one as well. As for ABA, I personally place extremely little value on it. The quality was just too big of an issue. But thanks for the list.

Keep in mind that's peak value - not career - reading your statement, I am not 100% sure we're speaking the same thing. I wouldn't put all of the guys I mentioned ahead of Reed overall - but on peak I would (iffy on what to do wrt the ABA guys).

[dhsilv2]

Interesting list. I've gone back and forth on McAdoo...I can't place my finger on it but something is lacking. Westbrook and Harden have interesting cases. Completely disagree on walton (didn't play enough in his healthy years). Hard to judge AD fairly but the fact that he's just as healthy and his stats have fallen is a concern. Tmac is a tough one as well. As for ABA, I personally place extremely little value on it. The quality was just too big of an issue. But thanks for the list.

Keep in mind that's peak value - not career - reading your statement, I am not 100% sure we're speaking the same thing. I wouldn't put all of the guys I mentioned ahead of Reed overall - but on peak I would (iffy on what to do wrt the ABA guys).

I was talking peak, but for say walton at his peak he was missing games. A peak year with 80 games played should rank over 60 games within reason as an example. Now if you think his playoffs make it up, then fair enough.