Re: REDOING THE NBA HALL OF FAME (retired in 1985 or earlier)

[Dutchball97]

If I'm reading it right Spencer Haywood and George McGinnis are currently tied for 10th with 5 votes each. I voted for both but if I had to choose which one I believe deserves it more it's George McGinnis. I know plenty people here have explained why they aren't as high on him as they thought on first look but I still think McGinnis had a more substantial peak and was just more impactful overall as a player than Haywood but that's definitely taking narrative into account too.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, committing to a vote subject only to changing opinions:

Roger Brown - I've given my arguments for Brown. Doesn't look like they're quite enough, ah well.
Elvin Hayes - not a big fan of his, but can't honestly make a case against him here
Wes Unseld - a guy who did all sorts of hidden good things on the court, and a culture-builder off of it. Class King candidate def.
Bob Dandridge - was not originally on my list, but playing such a key role on two franchises means something
Tiny Archibald - pretty spectacular talent who was way more versatile than I first expected
Bob Lanier - just too accomplished to be considered a statpadder, big-time NBA body, able to remain a valuable piece for a long time

Dave Cowens - arguably a next generation type of player who should have been seen as a major trendsetter, instead it feels like his legend exists on an island - established as a phenomenon without his attributes actually being copycatted. Regardless, Class King candidate.

Dan Issel - the extended success he had after his very successful ABA career makes it hard to pass him up. Definitely a player with limitations whose strengths would be better understood by today's coaches, but who showed them enough that he remained in demand.

David Thompson - that lack of longevity really could have kept him from getting my vote in a stronger class, but in terms of me having confidence in the star-worthiness of his game, yup, I'm sold.

George McGinnis - okay this will be a longer story.

You should know that the 3 guys I was thinking of for that last spot were McGinnis, Haywood, and Lenny Wilkens.

Originally I was taking Haywood's ABA dominance and early statistical success combined with his plenty-long career as being more impressive than McGinnis, who really shouldn't have won the MVP, gets too much credit for his Pacers' championship, and really has a problematic NBA career.

What we can absolutely say about McGinnis though, is that there wasn't a level of competition that was too much for him. There are guys who are great against lesser competition, but against the best, they just can't play their game the same way. Quite honestly, at least to some degree, that's what Haywood seems to be. He was good enough to become the anointed franchise player of an NBA team, but he couldn't actually make them all that relevant.

And in fact, who is that I see what his teammate and coach without whom the team collapsed the next year? Lenny Wilkens. Already a guy I was considering, and frankly I think I'd have to rank Wilkens ahead of Haywood.

But McGinnis? His body was state of the art. No one was pushing him around. He could do his thing against the Artis Gilmore's of the world and when you're the Pacers and you have Daniels & co, that means you can ride McGinnis to a championship. You might say "just" and ABA championship, but frankly by this point the ABA is solid and those Pacers have to beat strong teams to win those back-to-back titles.

There's also the matter that the Pacers seem pretty clearly to have begun coasting in the regular season at a certain point (by contemporary accounts) as they become established as a playoff-focused crew. Hard to argue with the success. Indiana Pacers won 9 of 11 series in McGinnis' 4 years on the team in the ABA, 5 of those series wins were "upsets" based on HCA.

This was great success that relied heavily on McGinnis, and there's no way around that. There's no reason to think he couldn't have analogous success in the NBA imho.

But the downside ain't good.

You can't really use McGinnis' rookie year as proof he could be a great role player, because the guys scoring more than him are considerably more efficient than him, and he literally never in his entire basketball career ever seems to figure out efficiency no matter his role, and later on he struggles precisely because he isn't able to bend and shape his game around superior talents.

I am struck by what was pointed out to me: The Nuggets didn't fall off a cliff with McGinnis arrival, they fell off after his injury, and after the injury it's understandable why a player wouldn't be the same. This has helped shape my sense of McGinnis where I find it problematic to - say - actually treat Haywood like he was destined to remain valuable in demand longer than Mcginnis.

On the other hand, it's also a ubiquitous comment that McGinnis had a poor work ethic who didn't like practice, eroded culture, and basically got by on natural talent. I don't like rewarding someone like that.

In the end I just felt like McGinnis was more of a physical marvel than Haywood and more accomplished on a grand stage.

I had a debate between McGinnis and Wilkens that I could have gone either way on, and will acknowledge that the fact that voting for Wilkens would only make tiebreaker issues likely worse played a part, but what is also the case is that McGinnis left an indelible impression on the NBA/ABA world as a player. McGinnis was the kind of guy who comes along that makes everyone saying "Oh my god, I didn't even know they made those!", and changes what people acknowledge to be possible. That feels pretty HOF-y to me.

Other guys who were on my mind:

Lou Hudson - still mentioning him because I can see a case for him, but if I felt strongly he'd have already gotten my vote. Since no one is voting for him...

Rudy Tomjanovich & Calvin Murphy - folks may not realize this but these two in Houston were the stars behind the offensive dynasty of the decade. I really wonder if Rudy T gets my vote with a few more years of prime play, perhaps doing something great on another team. The fact that his health was almost certainly permanently compromised by Kermit Washington's savage punch is a story worth telling, but I didn't want a guy to make the Hall just because he got punched.

In the end, those Suns were mediocre teams because their defense was terrible, and these two share some of the culpability for that I think. Murphy was super-tiny, and Rudy T's crashing of the offensive boards look a little different to me now as we exist in an era where teams get back on defense most of the time instead.

Gail Goodrich - really thought hard about him again, still feels like he won the lottery playing with West & Wilt, and didn't have to encore that Dandridge had.

Jamaal Wilkes - love the guy. Couldn't really find an argument for him though.

Jo Jo White - Boston still just letting gunners gun and as the league expands, there are just more worthy candidates who played high primacy roles, and doing it the way White did it isn't good enough.

Paul Silas - The type of undersung guy I'd love to be swayed for, but couldn't really find a case. I can see someone ranking him ahead of, say, McGinnis if you really value the longevity, but then there are other guys like Wilkens who also have that longevity and played more prominent roles.

Paul Westphal - not really sold on him. Short prime as an offensive star on a defensive team that got better when they traded him

[penbeast0]

Updated Vote totals:

Elvin Hayes (Dutchball97, Narigo, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, 70sFan, eminence, Doctor MJ)
Dave Cowens (Dutchball97, Narigo, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, 70sFan, eminence, Doctor MJ)
Wes Unseld (Dutchball97, Narigo, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, 70sFan, eminence, Doctor MJ)
Bob Lanier (Dutchball97, Narigo, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, 70sFan, eminence, Doctor MJ)
Dan Issel (Dutchball97, Narigo, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, 70sFan, eminence, Doctor MJ)

Tiny Archibald (Dutchball97, Narigo, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, Kipper34, 70sFan, eminence, Doctor MJ)

Bob Dandridge (Narigo, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, 70sFan, Doctor MJ)

Paul Westphal (Dutchball97, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, 70sFan, eminence)
David Thompson (Dutchball97, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, Kipper34, eminence, Doctor MJ)

George McGinnis (Dutchball97, Narigo, Dr Positivity, trex_8063, eminence, Doctor MJ)

Spencer Haywood (Dutchball97, penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, eminence)

Walt Bellamy (trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan)

Lenny Wilkens (Narigo, 70sFan)
Roger Brown (Kipper34, Doctor MJ)

Pete Maravich (Narigo)

[70sFan]

As a short note - Jamaal Wilkes isn't available here yet. Otherwise I'd be willing to make a case for him.

[70sFan]

Paul Westphal - not really sold on him. Short prime as an offensive star on a defensive team that got better when they traded him

To be fair to Westphal - Suns got better when they got him in 1976 and they took a hit offensively after the trade (+0.3 in 1980, -0.9 in 1981). Suns weren't terrible offensively with him, although it's true that their defense was more important. He also sustained his production in playoffs and Suns faced some tough competition there.

I also think that you should look closer at his skillset, as I know you like modern apporach in old generation players. Westphal was someone who would be far better in modern offense than he actually was. For some reason he reminds me smaller version of Luka.

[Dutchball97]

As a side note, I've been looking ahead at the 1990 class and it's really stacked at the top. Though I'm not sure if there will be 10 guys better than Haywood.

[penbeast0]

Paul Westphal - not really sold on him. Short prime as an offensive star on a defensive team that got better when they traded him

To be fair to Westphal - Suns got better when they got him in 1976 and they took a hit offensively after the trade (+0.3 in 1980, -0.9 in 1981). Suns weren't terrible offensively with him, although it's true that their defense was more important. He also sustained his production in playoffs and Suns faced some tough competition there.

I also think that you should look closer at his skillset, as I know you like modern apporach in old generation players. Westphal was someone who would be far better in modern offense than he actually was. For some reason he reminds me smaller version of Luka.

The Suns were a defensive team at some point in their history? A bit facetious but really, of every team in the NBA, the Suns are the one I've associated most with good offense, weak defense from their early days with Neal Walk and Gail Goodrich to Kevin Johnson and Charles Barkley to Steve Nash and the SSOL etc. And with a top two of Paul Westphal and Alvin Adams, still hard not to think of them as offensively focused but they were a better defensive team pretty much every year, topping the NBA in 78. Westphal, Adams, and Walter Davis were the scorers plus Don Buse, Gar Heard, and Ronnie Lee as defensive specialists. I might have to rethink Alvin Adams a bit.

[kipper34]

My votes are...

You have Lanier in twice so you can add another player if you wish.

Thanks, I think I meant Elvin Hayes instead of the first Lanier. He's definitely a lock

[trex_8063]

I'm considerably more critical on Hayes on offense. I think that at the time and for a long time afterward there was a feeling that with Hayes being the scorer (rather than Unseld) you have to give him the nod. I think though that it's really clear that the Bullets shouldn't have been using Hayes as a volume scorer at all. Like - if that's all you got, don't use a volume scorer period. Unseld's approach to the game led him to concentrate all his efforts on stuff that actually helped his team, Hayes was spending a lot of his effort in the glamorous role with just bloody awful efficiency. And of course, as I say, whenever I see a volume scoring big man with poor efficiency for no obvious justifiable reason, I get skeptical.

As I say all of this, I'll be very surprised if I don't vote Hayes in. I doubt there's 10 guys here who I think actually are more worthy. Hayes was part of a Big 2 that had great success in the '70s.

Tone is so hard to interpret in text, but in the bolded portion you sound almost disappointed…..like it’s only with reluctance (and a sense of failure that you can’t find 10 guys more worthy [which imo, is “ldo”]) that you vote for him.
I’m all for questioning the status quo [not as much as my brother, or----judging from our past disagreements---as much as you], but one doesn’t need to go out of his way to find a loophole to go against the grain just for its own sake. Sometimes the obvious choice is just that: obvious.

As to the first paragraph, it sort of glosses over [doesn't mention at all] the crux of what Hayes was: a near top-tier defensive big (who was productive and valuable for a REALLY long time), something he accomplished despite massive offensive loads, something that he was [as you say] not very good at. But how much that offensive load is his fault [him clamoring for the "glamorous role", as you put it], and how much is coaching's fault, and how much is the fault of circumstance is somewhat open for debate. I'll maybe touch on that a little below.
To my eye (which is entirely based on games I’ve seen from his Bullets days), he doesn’t box out as consistently as Unseld [occasionally he seems to rely on his size/athleticism and just being under the hoop, which sporadically would come back to bite him], but he’s a tremendously underrated shot-blocker/rim-protector. And fwiw, he’s not a bad outlet passer in his own right there with the Bullets (no Unseld, but jsia).

And as far as this project is concerned: aside from his statistical footprint (which is insane in an historic sense: notably bigger than the previously mentioned Bellamy’s, for example---->Hayes is 12th [in NBA/ABA combined numbers] in career points, 6th in career rebounds, and 28th in blocks [even though it wasn’t even recorded for his first FIVE seasons!] ) and his vast amount of accolades, and regardless of whatever offensive/defensive disconnect you feel is present in him, there's a lot to indicate he was a BIG impact player for much of his career, too......


In '68, the Rockets were a brand new expansion team and were basically what you'd expect of a brand new expansion team. That is: they were godawful---->led by such names as Don Kojis, John Block, Toby Kimball, John McGlocklin, a half-season of aging Johnny Green, John Barnhill, Jim Barnett, and Art Williams [2-3 of these guys are virtual unknowns even to me] they won just 15 games, had a -7.0 net rating and a -7.94 SRS.

In the off-season they draft Elvin Hayes. Although he's not the ONLY roster change, he is BY FAR the most relevant change. They lose John McGlocklin (a dead-eye mid-range shooter) and Jim Barnhill. A rookie Rick Adelman is really the only relevant addition aside from Hayes.
imo, the other [aside from adding Hayes] roster changes are, if anything, a small negative.

So what happens in '69?

Their defense improves by a staggering -4.7 (from +2.0 rDRTG to a -2.7 rDRTG), and their offense also improves by +2.2 (from putrid to merely "bad"), improving their overall net rating by a gigantic +6.9 (from -7.0 to -0.1), and their SRS improves by +7.64 (from -7.94 to -0.30) as they add 22 wins from the year before.

fwiw, the scale of this turnaround is not quite as big as that seen in the Celtics with the arrival of rookie Larry Bird, but it is LARGER THAN the improvement seen in either the Bulls with the arrival of rookie Jordan, or that seen in Baltimore with the arrival in of rookie Unseld [in the same year].
Admittedly, some might say it's easier to "lift" when you're starting closer to the floor, but this should nonetheless raise an eyebrow or two.

Hayes appears to be a monster defensive anchor while also dropping >28 ppg on poor, but not atrocious efficiency (-0.9% rTS) as a rookie, and apparently improving their offense in the process. Based on what this same basic cast essentially proved themselves capable of the previous year, it seems he is lifting the abysmally bad up to mediocrity.

They would hover around mediocrity for a few years with Hayes (admittedly not showing the improvement you might hope to see as the supporting cast improved [a little]), and then the Rockets deal him to the Bullets after the '72 season in exchange for Jack Marin (who’d just emerged as an All-Star that year, averaging 22/7 on good efficiency).
The other changes, fwiw, are that the Rockets swapped PG/SG Stu Lantz for PG/SG Jimmy Walker (potAto/potOto....basically swapping one 18/4/4(ish) guard for another), and picked up Otto Moore as the primary replacement for Hayes in the frontcourt.

What happens as a result of adding Marin and Moore while losing Hayes?

Well as you might expect the Rockets' offense improves with Marin, by a pretty significant +3.6 (from -2.5 rORTG to +1.1 rORTG)......but their defense tanks by +3.7 (from a -1.1 rDRTG to a +2.6 rDRTG). So despite the replacement pieces, overall the team worsens by 1 win, -0.1 net rating, and -0.59 SRS.

And what happens to the Bullets (who had largely the same team as in '72 otherwise, just swapped Marin for Hayes)?
Well, their offense actually improves by +0.9 (from -1.4 to -0.5 rORTG) with Hayes as the first option, and their defense improves by a fairly drastic -3.2 (from -0.3 to -3.5 rDRTG). So a +4.1 net rating jump [in swapping Marin for him], a +4.11 jump in SRS (-1.26 to +2.85), and 14 added wins (from 38 to 52).

And so begins the run of consistent "goodness" that so characterizes the Bullets of the 70s, which would include three more trips to the finals (they'd gone once in '71 already), their one and only title, the franchise record in wins (60), the single-best team defense in franchise history (-6.4 rDRTG), the TWO best SRS marks in franchise history (+6.53 and +4.75)......all this occurring while Hayes is around.

Their success in this time period entirely centered around their defense. Let's look at their defensive FF league ranks by year. Some things to consider regarding the FF’s [these things I know you're aware of, Doc, but for anyone else reading]….
Opponent FTA/FGA is usually somewhat more driven by your perimeter defenders [Chenier and co], as is opp TOV% (usually), although obviously the bigs have some effect.
DREB% is obviously very closely related to your bigs/rebounders [Hayes and Unseld].
Opp eFG% is a group effort, but no one has as much influence [or even close] as your rim protector [in this case: Hayes].
It’s also worth noting that among the FF, nothing influences the team’s DRtg more than opp eFG%.

'74: 1st (of 17) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB% 6th in opp eFG%, 11th in opp TOV%.
'75: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG%, 2nd and 5th, respectively, in opp TOV% and opp FTAr; DREB% was actually their worst FF (though still 9th).
'76: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG% and opp FTAr, 5th in DREB%; only 14th in opp TOV%.
‘77: 3rd (of 22) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB%, 6th in opp eFG%; only 20th of 22 in opp TOV%.
‘78 (added Bob Dandridge): 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr, 3rd in DREB%, 10th in opp eFG%; only 21st in opp TOV%.
‘79: 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr and 1st in DREB%, 3rd in opp eFG%; dead-last in opp TOV%.
‘80 (Hayes slipping into post-prime by now): 2nd (of 22) in DREB%, 5th in opp eFG%, 7th in opp FTAr, and again dead-last in opp TOV%.

Though they obviously had some good perimeter defenders (Chenier is good, and I was just watching a game from ‘75 and note Mike Riordan’s better than I’d previously credited him for), it looks like an awful lot of the credit for their defensive success belongs to the rim protector and the rebounders (Hayes, and Hayes&Unseld, respectively).


At the end of all this I believe that Hayes, while perhaps not a true “superstar”, was definitely [and easily] having “star-level” impact thru much of his career; likely [imo] similar to that of Wes Unseld (or at least REALLY close), while having superior longevity and durability compared to Unseld.

Hayes [as noted above] was a legit star right out of the gate as a rookie, and he would continue to be a star-level player for an additional 10-11 years after that, before finally beginning to show notable decline in his mid-30s. And even in decline he would remain a legit good role player as late as his 15th season. And he did so while being a true iron-man: the guy missed 9 games TOTAL in 16 years .
Lebron James has been as durable as anyone in the modern era, and even he has missed >9 games in a single season TWICE. That’s phenomenal. Let’s not forget Hayes averaged 38.4 mpg for his career, too; averaged 40.9 mpg thru his first 14 seasons.


Oh, and as to how much of the extraordinarily high usage was his fault, is he “demanding” the ball? Does he have control of how often he receives it? I think the answer to the 2nd question to some degree is no. As to the first, are there reports of him making “I want the ball or I walk” type of threats? I’m genuinely asking; I don’t know (though I’ve not heard anything to that effect). In watching the 70s Bullets, they appear to be going to him on a regular basis quite a lot. He’s off-ball, posting up, the rest of the team continues to try and get him the ball. I admit I’m not a fan of him repeatedly going to the turnaround jumper, but they keep going to him.

And then one must also ask: if taking shots away from Hayes, who do they go to (assuming your offense can’t generate “easy” looks for just anyone on demand)? The Bullets were already getting 19-22 ppg from Chenier [often on similar or even worse efficiency than Hayes] in those years; they were getting 15-18 ppg out of Riordan already, for a few years anyway [his efficiency was better, but he couldn’t really do anything in isolation]......how much more do you think you can milk those cows? Unseld just didn’t seem to want to try to score, except when it was an easy opportunity.

In the early Houston days, I guess I’d like to have seen them go to Tomjanovich and Murphy more, though I’ve not seen the tape to see if they’re actively trying to get Hayes the ball (they must be, realistically; again, he’s off-ball). And prior to Rudy and Calvin, they were already getting 15-23 ppg out of both Don Kojis and John Block [both of them on similar efficiency as Hayes]. How much more can be milked out of guys like that?
To some degree, I think circumstance and expectation PUT that usage upon Hayes. It’s true he wasn’t a passer, shooting the ball was really the only thing he knew to do with it. But this wasn’t exactly an unknown aspect of him to his teams…….but they still kept going to him.


To me, Hayes was a super-duper easy pick here. I’m sort of glad there was a pinch of “ho-hum”, just as persuasion to make a post about him. Digging a little has reinforced for me that he had a big-time career, despite the poor efficiency (which is not quite as poor as one or two other potential candidates being discussed, fwiw: his career rTS is -2.5%; Jo Jo White’s is -3.2%).

[Doctor MJ]

Spoiler:

I'm considerably more critical on Hayes on offense. I think that at the time and for a long time afterward there was a feeling that with Hayes being the scorer (rather than Unseld) you have to give him the nod. I think though that it's really clear that the Bullets shouldn't have been using Hayes as a volume scorer at all. Like - if that's all you got, don't use a volume scorer period. Unseld's approach to the game led him to concentrate all his efforts on stuff that actually helped his team, Hayes was spending a lot of his effort in the glamorous role with just bloody awful efficiency. And of course, as I say, whenever I see a volume scoring big man with poor efficiency for no obvious justifiable reason, I get skeptical.

As I say all of this, I'll be very surprised if I don't vote Hayes in. I doubt there's 10 guys here who I think actually are more worthy. Hayes was part of a Big 2 that had great success in the '70s.

Tone is so hard to interpret in text, but in the bolded portion you sound almost disappointed…..like it’s only with reluctance (and a sense of failure that you can’t find 10 guys more worthy [which imo, is “ldo”]) that you vote for him.
I’m all for questioning the status quo [not as much as my brother, or----judging from our past disagreements---as much as you], but one doesn’t need to go out of his way to find a loophole to go against the grain just for its own sake. Sometimes the obvious choice is just that: obvious.

As to the first paragraph, it sort of glosses over [doesn't mention at all] the crux of what Hayes was: a near top-tier defensive big (who was productive and valuable for a REALLY long time), something he accomplished despite massive offensive loads, something that he was [as you say] not very good at. But how much that offensive load is his fault [him clamoring for the "glamorous role", as you put it], and how much is coaching's fault, and how much is the fault of circumstance is somewhat open for debate. I'll maybe touch on that a little below.
To my eye (which is entirely based on games I’ve seen from his Bullets days), he doesn’t box out as consistently as Unseld [occasionally he seems to rely on his size/athleticism and just being under the hoop, which sporadically would come back to bite him], but he’s a tremendously underrated shot-blocker/rim-protector. And fwiw, he’s not a bad outlet passer in his own right there with the Bullets (no Unseld, but jsia).

And as far as this project is concerned: aside from his statistical footprint (which is insane in an historic sense: notably bigger than the previously mentioned Bellamy’s, for example---->Hayes is 12th [in NBA/ABA combined numbers] in career points, 6th in career rebounds, and 28th in blocks [even though it wasn’t even recorded for his first FIVE seasons!] ) and his vast amount of accolades, and regardless of whatever offensive/defensive disconnect you feel is present in him, there's a lot to indicate he was a BIG impact player for much of his career, too......


In '68, the Rockets were a brand new expansion team and were basically what you'd expect of a brand new expansion team. That is: they were godawful---->led by such names as Don Kojis, John Block, Toby Kimball, John McGlocklin, a half-season of aging Johnny Green, John Barnhill, Jim Barnett, and Art Williams [2-3 of these guys are virtual unknowns even to me] they won just 15 games, had a -7.0 net rating and a -7.94 SRS.

In the off-season they draft Elvin Hayes. Although he's not the ONLY roster change, he is BY FAR the most relevant change. They lose John McGlocklin (a dead-eye mid-range shooter) and Jim Barnhill. A rookie Rick Adelman is really the only relevant addition aside from Hayes.
imo, the other [aside from adding Hayes] roster changes are, if anything, a small negative.

So what happens in '69?

Their defense improves by a staggering -4.7 (from +2.0 rDRTG to a -2.7 rDRTG), and their offense also improves by +2.2 (from putrid to merely "bad"), improving their overall net rating by a gigantic +6.9 (from -7.0 to -0.1), and their SRS improves by +7.64 (from -7.94 to -0.30) as they add 22 wins from the year before.

fwiw, the scale of this turnaround is not quite as big as that seen in the Celtics with the arrival of rookie Larry Bird, but it is LARGER THAN the improvement seen in either the Bulls with the arrival of rookie Jordan, or that seen in Baltimore with the arrival in of rookie Unseld [in the same year].
Admittedly, some might say it's easier to "lift" when you're starting closer to the floor, but this should nonetheless raise an eyebrow or two.

Hayes appears to be a monster defensive anchor while also dropping >28 ppg on poor, but not atrocious efficiency (-0.9% rTS) as a rookie, and apparently improving their offense in the process. Based on what this same basic cast essentially proved themselves capable of the previous year, it seems he is lifting the abysmally bad up to mediocrity.

They would hover around mediocrity for a few years with Hayes (admittedly not showing the improvement you might hope to see as the supporting cast improved [a little]), and then the Rockets deal him to the Bullets after the '72 season in exchange for Jack Marin (who’d just emerged as an All-Star that year, averaging 22/7 on good efficiency).
The other changes, fwiw, are that the Rockets swapped PG/SG Stu Lantz for PG/SG Jimmy Walker (potAto/potOto....basically swapping one 18/4/4(ish) guard for another), and picked up Otto Moore as the primary replacement for Hayes in the frontcourt.

What happens as a result of adding Marin and Moore while losing Hayes?

Well as you might expect the Rockets' offense improves with Marin, by a pretty significant +3.6 (from -2.5 rORTG to +1.1 rORTG)......but their defense tanks by +3.7 (from a -1.1 rDRTG to a +2.6 rDRTG). So despite the replacement pieces, overall the team worsens by 1 win, -0.1 net rating, and -0.59 SRS.

And what happens to the Bullets (who had largely the same team as in '72 otherwise, just swapped Marin for Hayes)?
Well, their offense actually improves by +0.9 (from -1.4 to -0.5 rORTG) with Hayes as the first option, and their defense improves by a fairly drastic -3.2 (from -0.3 to -3.5 rDRTG). So a +4.1 net rating jump [in swapping Marin for him], a +4.11 jump in SRS (-1.26 to +2.85), and 14 added wins (from 38 to 52).

And so begins the run of consistent "goodness" that so characterizes the Bullets of the 70s, which would include three more trips to the finals (they'd gone once in '71 already), their one and only title, the franchise record in wins (60), the single-best team defense in franchise history (-6.4 rDRTG), the TWO best SRS marks in franchise history (+6.53 and +4.75)......all this occurring while Hayes is around.

Their success in this time period entirely centered around their defense. Let's look at their defensive FF league ranks by year. Some things to consider regarding the FF’s [these things I know you're aware of, Doc, but for anyone else reading]….
Opponent FTA/FGA is usually somewhat more driven by your perimeter defenders [Chenier and co], as is opp TOV% (usually), although obviously the bigs have some effect.
DREB% is obviously very closely related to your bigs/rebounders [Hayes and Unseld].
Opp eFG% is a group effort, but no one has as much influence [or even close] as your rim protector [in this case: Hayes].
It’s also worth noting that among the FF, nothing influences the team’s DRtg more than opp eFG%.

'74: 1st (of 17) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB% 6th in opp eFG% (DREB% obviously more driven by your bigs and rebounders [Hayes and Unseld], opp eFG% most heavily influenced by a rim protector [Hayes])
'75: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG%, 2nd and 5th, respectively, in opp TOV% and opp FTAr; DREB% was actually their worst FF (though still 9th).
'76: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG% and opp FTAr, 5th in DREB%; only 14th in opp TOV%.
‘77: 3rd (of 22) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB%, 6th in opp eFG%; only 20th of 22 in opp TOV%.
‘78 (added Bob Dandridge): 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr, 3rd in DREB%, 10th in opp eFG%; only 21st in opp TOV%.
‘79: 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr and 1st in DREB%, 3rd in opp eFG%; dead-last in opp TOV%.
‘80 (Hayes slipping into post-prime by now): 2nd (of 22) in DREB%, 5th in opp eFG%, 7th in opp FTAr, and again dead-last in opp TOV%.

Though they obviously had some good perimeter defenders (Chenier is good, and I was just watching a game from ‘75 and note Mike Riordan’s better than I’d previously credited him for), it looks like an awful lot of the credit for their defensive success belongs to the rim protector and the rebounders (Hayes, and Hayes&Unseld, respectively).


At the end of all this I believe that Hayes, while perhaps not a true “superstar”, was definitely [and easily] having “star-level” impact thru much of his career; likely [imo] similar to that of Wes Unseld (or at least REALLY close), while having superior longevity and durability compared to Unseld.

Hayes [as noted above] was a legit star right out of the gate as a rookie, and he would continue to be a star-level player for an additional 10-11 years after that, before finally beginning to show notable decline in his mid-30s. And even in decline he would remain a legit good role player as late as his 15th season. And he did so while being a true iron-man: the guy missed 9 games TOTAL in 16 years .
Lebron James has been as durable as anyone in the modern era, and even he has missed >9 games in a single season TWICE. That’s phenomenal. Let’s not forget Hayes averaged 38.4 mpg for his career, too; averaged 40.9 mpg thru his first 14 seasons.


Oh, and as to how much of the extraordinarily high usage was his fault, is he “demanding” the ball? Does he have control of how often he receives it? I think the answer to the 2nd question to some degree is no. As to the first, are there reports of him making “I want the ball or I walk” type of threats? I’m genuinely asking; I don’t know (though I’ve not heard anything to that effect). In watching the 70s Bullets, they appear to be going to him on a regular basis quite a lot. He’s off-ball, posting up, the rest of the team continues to try and get him the ball. I admit I’m not a fan of him repeatedly going to the turnaround jumper, but they keep going to him.

And then one must also ask: if taking shots away from Hayes, who do they go to (assuming your offense can’t generate “easy” looks for just anyone on demand)? The Bullets were already getting 19-22 ppg [often on similar or even worse efficiency than Hayes] in those years; they were getting 15-18 ppg out of Riordan already, for a few years anyway [his efficiency was better, but he couldn’t really do anything in isolation]......how much more do you think you can milk those cows? Unseld just didn’t seem to want to try to score, except when it was an easy opportunity.

In the early Houston days, I guess I’d like to have seen them go to Tomjanovich and Murphy more, though I’ve not seen the tape to see if they’re actively trying to get Hayes the ball (they must be, realistically; again, he’s off-ball). And prior to Rudy and Calvin, they were already getting 15-23 ppg out of both Don Kojis and John Block [both of them on similar efficiency as Hayes]. How much more can be milked out of guys like that?
To some degree, I think circumstance and expectation PUT that usage upon Hayes. It’s true he wasn’t a passer, shooting the ball was really the only thing he knew to do with it. But this wasn’t exactly an unknown aspect of him to his teams…….but they still kept going to him.


To me, Hayes was a super-duper easy pick here. I’m sort of glad there was a pinch of “ho-hum”, just as persuasion to make a post about him. Digging a little has reinforced for me that he had a big-time career, despite the poor efficiency (which is not quite as poor as one or two other potential candidates being discussed, fwiw: his career rTS is -2.5%; Jo Jo White’s is -3.2%).

Lots of great analysis here.

Let me put something front and center: Since I'm voting for Hayes, what you're objecting to is my attitude about Hayes.

Where do I get my attitude about Hayes?

1. He butted heads with his Rockets coach, Tex Winter, and said that Winter didn't know what he wanted Hayes to do on offense. Not shoot at all? As someone who thinks that no volume scorer should ever shoot with such poor efficiency, it's not exactly hard to think that maybe his coach was seeing actual problems and Hayes was refusing to learn. It's worth noting that there were 2 guys already on the team who would lead the best offenses of the '70s - Tomjanovich and Murphy - beginning within a couple years. In general seems the secret was that they made the shots they took. Of course, they don't get a nomination here.

2. How inefficient was Hayes? Hayes has the 10th most points in history with 27000+. If I go make a list of every player who has scored 20,000 or more points and sort by TS%, can you guess who's worst? Hayes.

If I make a list of the guys with the 100 most points and sort by TS%, there are two guys worse. What those two guys have in common (Cousy & Schayes) is that they are old enough to be Hayes father.

I will say that Hayes was certainly a better scorer than Nate Thurmond, but both are very clearly in the category where you don't want them volume scoring for you, and if any player shot that poorly today and got chippy when a coach tried to get some sense into them, I would not want that player on my team.

So yeah, I can acknowledge he still deserves to be in the Hall, just like I can vote for McGinnis, but I don't have to like rewarding players for making bad basketball a major part of what they are to the point where they cause problems with coaches.

[trex_8063]

Spoiler:

I'm considerably more critical on Hayes on offense. I think that at the time and for a long time afterward there was a feeling that with Hayes being the scorer (rather than Unseld) you have to give him the nod. I think though that it's really clear that the Bullets shouldn't have been using Hayes as a volume scorer at all. Like - if that's all you got, don't use a volume scorer period. Unseld's approach to the game led him to concentrate all his efforts on stuff that actually helped his team, Hayes was spending a lot of his effort in the glamorous role with just bloody awful efficiency. And of course, as I say, whenever I see a volume scoring big man with poor efficiency for no obvious justifiable reason, I get skeptical.

As I say all of this, I'll be very surprised if I don't vote Hayes in. I doubt there's 10 guys here who I think actually are more worthy. Hayes was part of a Big 2 that had great success in the '70s.

Tone is so hard to interpret in text, but in the bolded portion you sound almost disappointed…..like it’s only with reluctance (and a sense of failure that you can’t find 10 guys more worthy [which imo, is “ldo”]) that you vote for him.
I’m all for questioning the status quo [not as much as my brother, or----judging from our past disagreements---as much as you], but one doesn’t need to go out of his way to find a loophole to go against the grain just for its own sake. Sometimes the obvious choice is just that: obvious.

As to the first paragraph, it sort of glosses over [doesn't mention at all] the crux of what Hayes was: a near top-tier defensive big (who was productive and valuable for a REALLY long time), something he accomplished despite massive offensive loads, something that he was [as you say] not very good at. But how much that offensive load is his fault [him clamoring for the "glamorous role", as you put it], and how much is coaching's fault, and how much is the fault of circumstance is somewhat open for debate. I'll maybe touch on that a little below.
To my eye (which is entirely based on games I’ve seen from his Bullets days), he doesn’t box out as consistently as Unseld [occasionally he seems to rely on his size/athleticism and just being under the hoop, which sporadically would come back to bite him], but he’s a tremendously underrated shot-blocker/rim-protector. And fwiw, he’s not a bad outlet passer in his own right there with the Bullets (no Unseld, but jsia).

And as far as this project is concerned: aside from his statistical footprint (which is insane in an historic sense: notably bigger than the previously mentioned Bellamy’s, for example---->Hayes is 12th [in NBA/ABA combined numbers] in career points, 6th in career rebounds, and 28th in blocks [even though it wasn’t even recorded for his first FIVE seasons!] ) and his vast amount of accolades, and regardless of whatever offensive/defensive disconnect you feel is present in him, there's a lot to indicate he was a BIG impact player for much of his career, too......


In '68, the Rockets were a brand new expansion team and were basically what you'd expect of a brand new expansion team. That is: they were godawful---->led by such names as Don Kojis, John Block, Toby Kimball, John McGlocklin, a half-season of aging Johnny Green, John Barnhill, Jim Barnett, and Art Williams [2-3 of these guys are virtual unknowns even to me] they won just 15 games, had a -7.0 net rating and a -7.94 SRS.

In the off-season they draft Elvin Hayes. Although he's not the ONLY roster change, he is BY FAR the most relevant change. They lose John McGlocklin (a dead-eye mid-range shooter) and Jim Barnhill. A rookie Rick Adelman is really the only relevant addition aside from Hayes.
imo, the other [aside from adding Hayes] roster changes are, if anything, a small negative.

So what happens in '69?

Their defense improves by a staggering -4.7 (from +2.0 rDRTG to a -2.7 rDRTG), and their offense also improves by +2.2 (from putrid to merely "bad"), improving their overall net rating by a gigantic +6.9 (from -7.0 to -0.1), and their SRS improves by +7.64 (from -7.94 to -0.30) as they add 22 wins from the year before.

fwiw, the scale of this turnaround is not quite as big as that seen in the Celtics with the arrival of rookie Larry Bird, but it is LARGER THAN the improvement seen in either the Bulls with the arrival of rookie Jordan, or that seen in Baltimore with the arrival in of rookie Unseld [in the same year].
Admittedly, some might say it's easier to "lift" when you're starting closer to the floor, but this should nonetheless raise an eyebrow or two.

Hayes appears to be a monster defensive anchor while also dropping >28 ppg on poor, but not atrocious efficiency (-0.9% rTS) as a rookie, and apparently improving their offense in the process. Based on what this same basic cast essentially proved themselves capable of the previous year, it seems he is lifting the abysmally bad up to mediocrity.

They would hover around mediocrity for a few years with Hayes (admittedly not showing the improvement you might hope to see as the supporting cast improved [a little]), and then the Rockets deal him to the Bullets after the '72 season in exchange for Jack Marin (who’d just emerged as an All-Star that year, averaging 22/7 on good efficiency).
The other changes, fwiw, are that the Rockets swapped PG/SG Stu Lantz for PG/SG Jimmy Walker (potAto/potOto....basically swapping one 18/4/4(ish) guard for another), and picked up Otto Moore as the primary replacement for Hayes in the frontcourt.

What happens as a result of adding Marin and Moore while losing Hayes?

Well as you might expect the Rockets' offense improves with Marin, by a pretty significant +3.6 (from -2.5 rORTG to +1.1 rORTG)......but their defense tanks by +3.7 (from a -1.1 rDRTG to a +2.6 rDRTG). So despite the replacement pieces, overall the team worsens by 1 win, -0.1 net rating, and -0.59 SRS.

And what happens to the Bullets (who had largely the same team as in '72 otherwise, just swapped Marin for Hayes)?
Well, their offense actually improves by +0.9 (from -1.4 to -0.5 rORTG) with Hayes as the first option, and their defense improves by a fairly drastic -3.2 (from -0.3 to -3.5 rDRTG). So a +4.1 net rating jump [in swapping Marin for him], a +4.11 jump in SRS (-1.26 to +2.85), and 14 added wins (from 38 to 52).

And so begins the run of consistent "goodness" that so characterizes the Bullets of the 70s, which would include three more trips to the finals (they'd gone once in '71 already), their one and only title, the franchise record in wins (60), the single-best team defense in franchise history (-6.4 rDRTG), the TWO best SRS marks in franchise history (+6.53 and +4.75)......all this occurring while Hayes is around.

Their success in this time period entirely centered around their defense. Let's look at their defensive FF league ranks by year. Some things to consider regarding the FF’s [these things I know you're aware of, Doc, but for anyone else reading]….
Opponent FTA/FGA is usually somewhat more driven by your perimeter defenders [Chenier and co], as is opp TOV% (usually), although obviously the bigs have some effect.
DREB% is obviously very closely related to your bigs/rebounders [Hayes and Unseld].
Opp eFG% is a group effort, but no one has as much influence [or even close] as your rim protector [in this case: Hayes].
It’s also worth noting that among the FF, nothing influences the team’s DRtg more than opp eFG%.

'74: 1st (of 17) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB% 6th in opp eFG%, 11th in opp TOV%.
'75: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG%, 2nd and 5th, respectively, in opp TOV% and opp FTAr; DREB% was actually their worst FF (though still 9th).
'76: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG% and opp FTAr, 5th in DREB%; only 14th in opp TOV%.
‘77: 3rd (of 22) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB%, 6th in opp eFG%; only 20th of 22 in opp TOV%.
‘78 (added Bob Dandridge): 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr, 3rd in DREB%, 10th in opp eFG%; only 21st in opp TOV%.
‘79: 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr and 1st in DREB%, 3rd in opp eFG%; dead-last in opp TOV%.
‘80 (Hayes slipping into post-prime by now): 2nd (of 22) in DREB%, 5th in opp eFG%, 7th in opp FTAr, and again dead-last in opp TOV%.

Though they obviously had some good perimeter defenders (Chenier is good, and I was just watching a game from ‘75 and note Mike Riordan’s better than I’d previously credited him for), it looks like an awful lot of the credit for their defensive success belongs to the rim protector and the rebounders (Hayes, and Hayes&Unseld, respectively).


At the end of all this I believe that Hayes, while perhaps not a true “superstar”, was definitely [and easily] having “star-level” impact thru much of his career; likely [imo] similar to that of Wes Unseld (or at least REALLY close), while having superior longevity and durability compared to Unseld.

Hayes [as noted above] was a legit star right out of the gate as a rookie, and he would continue to be a star-level player for an additional 10-11 years after that, before finally beginning to show notable decline in his mid-30s. And even in decline he would remain a legit good role player as late as his 15th season. And he did so while being a true iron-man: the guy missed 9 games TOTAL in 16 years .
Lebron James has been as durable as anyone in the modern era, and even he has missed >9 games in a single season TWICE. That’s phenomenal. Let’s not forget Hayes averaged 38.4 mpg for his career, too; averaged 40.9 mpg thru his first 14 seasons.


Oh, and as to how much of the extraordinarily high usage was his fault, is he “demanding” the ball? Does he have control of how often he receives it? I think the answer to the 2nd question to some degree is no. As to the first, are there reports of him making “I want the ball or I walk” type of threats? I’m genuinely asking; I don’t know (though I’ve not heard anything to that effect). In watching the 70s Bullets, they appear to be going to him on a regular basis quite a lot. He’s off-ball, posting up, the rest of the team continues to try and get him the ball. I admit I’m not a fan of him repeatedly going to the turnaround jumper, but they keep going to him.

And then one must also ask: if taking shots away from Hayes, who do they go to (assuming your offense can’t generate “easy” looks for just anyone on demand)? The Bullets were already getting 19-22 ppg from Chenier [often on similar or even worse efficiency than Hayes] in those years; they were getting 15-18 ppg out of Riordan already, for a few years anyway [his efficiency was better, but he couldn’t really do anything in isolation]......how much more do you think you can milk those cows? Unseld just didn’t seem to want to try to score, except when it was an easy opportunity.

In the early Houston days, I guess I’d like to have seen them go to Tomjanovich and Murphy more, though I’ve not seen the tape to see if they’re actively trying to get Hayes the ball (they must be, realistically; again, he’s off-ball). And prior to Rudy and Calvin, they were already getting 15-23 ppg out of both Don Kojis and John Block [both of them on similar efficiency as Hayes]. How much more can be milked out of guys like that?
To some degree, I think circumstance and expectation PUT that usage upon Hayes. It’s true he wasn’t a passer, shooting the ball was really the only thing he knew to do with it. But this wasn’t exactly an unknown aspect of him to his teams…….but they still kept going to him.


To me, Hayes was a super-duper easy pick here. I’m sort of glad there was a pinch of “ho-hum”, just as persuasion to make a post about him. Digging a little has reinforced for me that he had a big-time career, despite the poor efficiency (which is not quite as poor as one or two other potential candidates being discussed, fwiw: his career rTS is -2.5%; Jo Jo White’s is -3.2%).

Lots of great analysis here.

Let me put something front and center: Since I'm voting for Hayes, what you're objecting to is my attitude about Hayes.

Where do I get my attitude about Hayes?

1. He butted heads with his Rockets coach, Tex Winter, and said that Winter didn't know what he wanted Hayes to do on offense. Not shoot at all? As someone who thinks that no volume scorer should ever shoot with such poor efficiency, it's not exactly hard to think that maybe his coach was seeing actual problems and Hayes was refusing to learn. It's worth noting that there were 2 guys already on the team who would lead the best offenses of the '70s - Tomjanovich and Murphy - beginning within a couple years. In general seems the secret was that they made the shots they took. Of course, they don't get a nomination here.

2. How inefficient was Hayes? Hayes has the 10th most points in history with 27000+. If I go make a list of every player who has scored 20,000 or more points and sort by TS%, can you guess who's worst? Hayes.

If I make a list of the guys with the 100 most points and sort by TS%, there are two guys worse. What those two guys have in common (Cousy & Schayes) is that they are old enough to be Hayes father.

I will say that Hayes was certainly a better scorer than Nate Thurmond, but both are very clearly in the category where you don't want them volume scoring for you, and if any player shot that poorly today and got chippy when a coach tried to get some sense into them, I would not want that player on my team.

So yeah, I can acknowledge he still deserves to be in the Hall, just like I can vote for McGinnis, but I don't have to like rewarding players for making bad basketball a major part of what they are to the point where they cause problems with coaches.

Re: #1
Mike Newlin is worth mentioning too. He really had 2-3 nice seasons in there (which was important especially after Marin left). There was a coaching decision to go with Murphy more (totally independent of Hayes, but which nonetheless I think helped the offense) that happened, too: Calvin averaged 24.6 mpg as a rookie ('71), 30.6 his second year, 22.0 mpg his third (the first year without Hayes). Then in his 4th season (with Johnny Egan as head coach the whole year) he finally gets star-level minutes, and that's when their offense started to take off.

Tomjanovich and Newlin were both improving in this time period, too. Just making it clear it wasn't simply Hayes left, and then they were awesome offensively. Just as big a factor(s) was a new coach and giving Murphy the reins (and the minutes).

I'd also note that while they had a couple #1 offenses in the mid-70s, they weren't "league-best" in the sense that we usually intuit when we hear "league-best offense". They were +2.7, +2.8 rORTG's that happened to be #1 (most years that would garner you top 5, maybe even top 3, but usually not #1).
They didn't achieve truly elite offenses (or come out of mediocrity overall [because their defense got a lot worse]) until they added Moses Malone.


Beyond that, while I don't necessarily disagree with most of what you're saying----Hayes shouldn't have shot so much; and if he pressured coaches to continue to let him shoot so much, that's a strike on him----this otherwise again kinda skims the big picture.
Criticisms of his offensive game still doesn't address or wipe away anything I just elaborated upon regarding his defense or his impact in general.

You've always seemed a guy who is driven by impact toward winning in his analysis. I just got thru demonstrating how Hayes [for ALL of his flaws that you've expounded on, and which I'm not going to deny] still had star-level impact for quite awhile.......We have every reason to believe that Hayes had impact that was similar to Unseld's during his career, in fact, and while being useful for longer, too.

You seem to want to downgrade what he was because you don't like the way he played, or don't like that he could have been much better if he had a better head on his shoulders. Yes, he could have been......but the fact is he still was as impactful as just about any eligible candidate for this round. That should be the bottom line.

Frankly, if he'd had a better head for offense, he'd be the run-away King of Class.

[Doctor MJ]

Spoiler:

Tone is so hard to interpret in text, but in the bolded portion you sound almost disappointed…..like it’s only with reluctance (and a sense of failure that you can’t find 10 guys more worthy [which imo, is “ldo”]) that you vote for him.
I’m all for questioning the status quo [not as much as my brother, or----judging from our past disagreements---as much as you], but one doesn’t need to go out of his way to find a loophole to go against the grain just for its own sake. Sometimes the obvious choice is just that: obvious.

As to the first paragraph, it sort of glosses over [doesn't mention at all] the crux of what Hayes was: a near top-tier defensive big (who was productive and valuable for a REALLY long time), something he accomplished despite massive offensive loads, something that he was [as you say] not very good at. But how much that offensive load is his fault [him clamoring for the "glamorous role", as you put it], and how much is coaching's fault, and how much is the fault of circumstance is somewhat open for debate. I'll maybe touch on that a little below.
To my eye (which is entirely based on games I’ve seen from his Bullets days), he doesn’t box out as consistently as Unseld [occasionally he seems to rely on his size/athleticism and just being under the hoop, which sporadically would come back to bite him], but he’s a tremendously underrated shot-blocker/rim-protector. And fwiw, he’s not a bad outlet passer in his own right there with the Bullets (no Unseld, but jsia).

And as far as this project is concerned: aside from his statistical footprint (which is insane in an historic sense: notably bigger than the previously mentioned Bellamy’s, for example---->Hayes is 12th [in NBA/ABA combined numbers] in career points, 6th in career rebounds, and 28th in blocks [even though it wasn’t even recorded for his first FIVE seasons!] ) and his vast amount of accolades, and regardless of whatever offensive/defensive disconnect you feel is present in him, there's a lot to indicate he was a BIG impact player for much of his career, too......


In '68, the Rockets were a brand new expansion team and were basically what you'd expect of a brand new expansion team. That is: they were godawful---->led by such names as Don Kojis, John Block, Toby Kimball, John McGlocklin, a half-season of aging Johnny Green, John Barnhill, Jim Barnett, and Art Williams [2-3 of these guys are virtual unknowns even to me] they won just 15 games, had a -7.0 net rating and a -7.94 SRS.

In the off-season they draft Elvin Hayes. Although he's not the ONLY roster change, he is BY FAR the most relevant change. They lose John McGlocklin (a dead-eye mid-range shooter) and Jim Barnhill. A rookie Rick Adelman is really the only relevant addition aside from Hayes.
imo, the other [aside from adding Hayes] roster changes are, if anything, a small negative.

So what happens in '69?

Their defense improves by a staggering -4.7 (from +2.0 rDRTG to a -2.7 rDRTG), and their offense also improves by +2.2 (from putrid to merely "bad"), improving their overall net rating by a gigantic +6.9 (from -7.0 to -0.1), and their SRS improves by +7.64 (from -7.94 to -0.30) as they add 22 wins from the year before.

fwiw, the scale of this turnaround is not quite as big as that seen in the Celtics with the arrival of rookie Larry Bird, but it is LARGER THAN the improvement seen in either the Bulls with the arrival of rookie Jordan, or that seen in Baltimore with the arrival in of rookie Unseld [in the same year].
Admittedly, some might say it's easier to "lift" when you're starting closer to the floor, but this should nonetheless raise an eyebrow or two.

Hayes appears to be a monster defensive anchor while also dropping >28 ppg on poor, but not atrocious efficiency (-0.9% rTS) as a rookie, and apparently improving their offense in the process. Based on what this same basic cast essentially proved themselves capable of the previous year, it seems he is lifting the abysmally bad up to mediocrity.

They would hover around mediocrity for a few years with Hayes (admittedly not showing the improvement you might hope to see as the supporting cast improved [a little]), and then the Rockets deal him to the Bullets after the '72 season in exchange for Jack Marin (who’d just emerged as an All-Star that year, averaging 22/7 on good efficiency).
The other changes, fwiw, are that the Rockets swapped PG/SG Stu Lantz for PG/SG Jimmy Walker (potAto/potOto....basically swapping one 18/4/4(ish) guard for another), and picked up Otto Moore as the primary replacement for Hayes in the frontcourt.

What happens as a result of adding Marin and Moore while losing Hayes?

Well as you might expect the Rockets' offense improves with Marin, by a pretty significant +3.6 (from -2.5 rORTG to +1.1 rORTG)......but their defense tanks by +3.7 (from a -1.1 rDRTG to a +2.6 rDRTG). So despite the replacement pieces, overall the team worsens by 1 win, -0.1 net rating, and -0.59 SRS.

And what happens to the Bullets (who had largely the same team as in '72 otherwise, just swapped Marin for Hayes)?
Well, their offense actually improves by +0.9 (from -1.4 to -0.5 rORTG) with Hayes as the first option, and their defense improves by a fairly drastic -3.2 (from -0.3 to -3.5 rDRTG). So a +4.1 net rating jump [in swapping Marin for him], a +4.11 jump in SRS (-1.26 to +2.85), and 14 added wins (from 38 to 52).

And so begins the run of consistent "goodness" that so characterizes the Bullets of the 70s, which would include three more trips to the finals (they'd gone once in '71 already), their one and only title, the franchise record in wins (60), the single-best team defense in franchise history (-6.4 rDRTG), the TWO best SRS marks in franchise history (+6.53 and +4.75)......all this occurring while Hayes is around.

Their success in this time period entirely centered around their defense. Let's look at their defensive FF league ranks by year. Some things to consider regarding the FF’s [these things I know you're aware of, Doc, but for anyone else reading]….
Opponent FTA/FGA is usually somewhat more driven by your perimeter defenders [Chenier and co], as is opp TOV% (usually), although obviously the bigs have some effect.
DREB% is obviously very closely related to your bigs/rebounders [Hayes and Unseld].
Opp eFG% is a group effort, but no one has as much influence [or even close] as your rim protector [in this case: Hayes].
It’s also worth noting that among the FF, nothing influences the team’s DRtg more than opp eFG%.

'74: 1st (of 17) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB% 6th in opp eFG%, 11th in opp TOV%.
'75: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG%, 2nd and 5th, respectively, in opp TOV% and opp FTAr; DREB% was actually their worst FF (though still 9th).
'76: 1st (of 18) in opp eFG% and opp FTAr, 5th in DREB%; only 14th in opp TOV%.
‘77: 3rd (of 22) in opp FTAr, 4th in DREB%, 6th in opp eFG%; only 20th of 22 in opp TOV%.
‘78 (added Bob Dandridge): 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr, 3rd in DREB%, 10th in opp eFG%; only 21st in opp TOV%.
‘79: 1st (of 22) in opp FTAr and 1st in DREB%, 3rd in opp eFG%; dead-last in opp TOV%.
‘80 (Hayes slipping into post-prime by now): 2nd (of 22) in DREB%, 5th in opp eFG%, 7th in opp FTAr, and again dead-last in opp TOV%.

Though they obviously had some good perimeter defenders (Chenier is good, and I was just watching a game from ‘75 and note Mike Riordan’s better than I’d previously credited him for), it looks like an awful lot of the credit for their defensive success belongs to the rim protector and the rebounders (Hayes, and Hayes&Unseld, respectively).


At the end of all this I believe that Hayes, while perhaps not a true “superstar”, was definitely [and easily] having “star-level” impact thru much of his career; likely [imo] similar to that of Wes Unseld (or at least REALLY close), while having superior longevity and durability compared to Unseld.

Hayes [as noted above] was a legit star right out of the gate as a rookie, and he would continue to be a star-level player for an additional 10-11 years after that, before finally beginning to show notable decline in his mid-30s. And even in decline he would remain a legit good role player as late as his 15th season. And he did so while being a true iron-man: the guy missed 9 games TOTAL in 16 years .
Lebron James has been as durable as anyone in the modern era, and even he has missed >9 games in a single season TWICE. That’s phenomenal. Let’s not forget Hayes averaged 38.4 mpg for his career, too; averaged 40.9 mpg thru his first 14 seasons.


Oh, and as to how much of the extraordinarily high usage was his fault, is he “demanding” the ball? Does he have control of how often he receives it? I think the answer to the 2nd question to some degree is no. As to the first, are there reports of him making “I want the ball or I walk” type of threats? I’m genuinely asking; I don’t know (though I’ve not heard anything to that effect). In watching the 70s Bullets, they appear to be going to him on a regular basis quite a lot. He’s off-ball, posting up, the rest of the team continues to try and get him the ball. I admit I’m not a fan of him repeatedly going to the turnaround jumper, but they keep going to him.

And then one must also ask: if taking shots away from Hayes, who do they go to (assuming your offense can’t generate “easy” looks for just anyone on demand)? The Bullets were already getting 19-22 ppg from Chenier [often on similar or even worse efficiency than Hayes] in those years; they were getting 15-18 ppg out of Riordan already, for a few years anyway [his efficiency was better, but he couldn’t really do anything in isolation]......how much more do you think you can milk those cows? Unseld just didn’t seem to want to try to score, except when it was an easy opportunity.

In the early Houston days, I guess I’d like to have seen them go to Tomjanovich and Murphy more, though I’ve not seen the tape to see if they’re actively trying to get Hayes the ball (they must be, realistically; again, he’s off-ball). And prior to Rudy and Calvin, they were already getting 15-23 ppg out of both Don Kojis and John Block [both of them on similar efficiency as Hayes]. How much more can be milked out of guys like that?
To some degree, I think circumstance and expectation PUT that usage upon Hayes. It’s true he wasn’t a passer, shooting the ball was really the only thing he knew to do with it. But this wasn’t exactly an unknown aspect of him to his teams…….but they still kept going to him.


To me, Hayes was a super-duper easy pick here. I’m sort of glad there was a pinch of “ho-hum”, just as persuasion to make a post about him. Digging a little has reinforced for me that he had a big-time career, despite the poor efficiency (which is not quite as poor as one or two other potential candidates being discussed, fwiw: his career rTS is -2.5%; Jo Jo White’s is -3.2%).

Lots of great analysis here.

Let me put something front and center: Since I'm voting for Hayes, what you're objecting to is my attitude about Hayes.

Where do I get my attitude about Hayes?

1. He butted heads with his Rockets coach, Tex Winter, and said that Winter didn't know what he wanted Hayes to do on offense. Not shoot at all? As someone who thinks that no volume scorer should ever shoot with such poor efficiency, it's not exactly hard to think that maybe his coach was seeing actual problems and Hayes was refusing to learn. It's worth noting that there were 2 guys already on the team who would lead the best offenses of the '70s - Tomjanovich and Murphy - beginning within a couple years. In general seems the secret was that they made the shots they took. Of course, they don't get a nomination here.

2. How inefficient was Hayes? Hayes has the 10th most points in history with 27000+. If I go make a list of every player who has scored 20,000 or more points and sort by TS%, can you guess who's worst? Hayes.

If I make a list of the guys with the 100 most points and sort by TS%, there are two guys worse. What those two guys have in common (Cousy & Schayes) is that they are old enough to be Hayes father.

I will say that Hayes was certainly a better scorer than Nate Thurmond, but both are very clearly in the category where you don't want them volume scoring for you, and if any player shot that poorly today and got chippy when a coach tried to get some sense into them, I would not want that player on my team.

So yeah, I can acknowledge he still deserves to be in the Hall, just like I can vote for McGinnis, but I don't have to like rewarding players for making bad basketball a major part of what they are to the point where they cause problems with coaches.

Re: #1
Mike Newlin is worth mentioning too. He really had 2-3 nice seasons in there (which was important especially after Marin left). There was a coaching decision to go with Murphy more (totally independent of Hayes, but which nonetheless I think helped the offense) that happened, too: Calvin averaged 24.6 mpg as a rookie ('71), 30.6 his second year, 22.0 mpg his third (the first year without Hayes). Then in his 4th season (with Johnny Egan as head coach the whole year) he finally gets star-level minutes, and that's when their offense started to take off.

Tomjanovich and Newlin were both improving in this time period, too. Just making it clear it wasn't simply Hayes left, and then they were awesome offensively. Just as big a factor(s) was a new coach and giving Murphy the reins (and the minutes).

I'd also note that while they had a couple #1 offenses in the mid-70s, they weren't "league-best" in the sense that we usually intuit when we hear "league-best offense". They were +2.7, +2.8 rORTG's that happened to be #1 (most years that would garner you top 5, maybe even top 3, but usually not #1).
They didn't achieve truly elite offenses (or come out of mediocrity overall [because their defense got a lot worse]) until they added Moses Malone.


Beyond that, while I don't necessarily disagree with most of what you're saying----Hayes shouldn't have shot so much; and if he pressured coaches to continue to let him shoot so much, that's a strike on him----this otherwise again kinda skims the big picture.
Criticisms of his offensive game still doesn't address or wipe away anything I just elaborated upon regarding his defense or his impact in general.

You've always seemed a guy who is driven by impact toward winning in his analysis. I just got thru demonstrating how Hayes [for ALL of his flaws that you've expounded on, and which I'm not going to deny] still had star-level impact for quite awhile.......We have every reason to believe that Hayes had impact that was similar to Unseld's during his career, in fact, and while being useful for longer, too.

You seem to want to downgrade what he was because you don't like the way he played, or don't like that he could have been much better if he had a better head on his shoulders. Yes, he could have been......but the fact is he still was as impactful as just about any eligible candidate for this round. That should be the bottom line.

Frankly, if he'd had a better head for offense, he'd be the run-away King of Class.

Perhaps we diverge here:

I think you're looking at the defensive impact and thinking "That's a lot of impact contributing to a success. End of Story." Maybe you acknowledge the offense to be neutral or negative, but even if you do, I feel like you're looking at it as a clear cut massive net positive impact.

How I would view it is more in terms of what you need to have an expectation to win championships with the highest quality team. I would say it was hard to win a championship with a volume scorer who was that inefficient then - it's a good thing, as you noted, it was a time of parity - and even so it could easily have not happened.

Now you may say: Isn't Unseld lucky too, to have Hayes, and the teammates they share? Sure, but Unseld played a role that made sense for a championship team, and did so in an unusually optimized way for their time. Unseld wasn't ever going to be your big scorer, but that doesn't mean Hayes wasn't a problematically inefficient primary scoring threat.

I look at Hayes as a floor raiser and the reason is because of the role he sure seemed to really want to play, but didn't quite have the chops for.

Am I projecting because of my modern gaze? That's a danger to be sure, but let's separate my tendency to be skeptical of the impact of interior scoring big men in most cases from the fact that Elvin Hayes actually shot with awful efficiency. Yes, I'd be somewhat cautious of Hayes simply because of the role he played, even if the data I saw made him look like an effective scorer. And that's why it freaks me out to see someone in that role shooting with such poor efficiency. Multiple warning lights flashing for me.

But I wasn't around at the time, so take my excitability with a grain of salt.

[penbeast0]

People around at the time had a very negative view of Hayes's offense too, at least on the Washington sports call in show I used to listen to (Ken Beatrice, still probably the worst broadcaster and the best sports show I've ever heard). They complained that he was inefficient, a selfish player, and a choke artist . . . .until the Bullets finally won a ring (the finals appearances didn't seem to matter as much). Winning changes perception, people look at your strengths more and your weaknesses less and for whatever reason, the Bullets were quite possibly the best team of the 70s.

[Doctor MJ]

People around at the time had a very negative view of Hayes's offense too, at least on the Washington sports call in show I used to listen to (Ken Beatrice, still probably the worst broadcaster and the best sports show I've ever heard). They complained that he was inefficient, a selfish player, and a choke artist . . . .until the Bullets finally won a ring (the finals appearances didn't seem to matter as much). Winning changes perception, people look at your strengths more and your weaknesses less and for whatever reason, the Bullets were quite possibly the best team of the 70s.

Appreciate your critical eye on Hayes.

Re: best team of the '70s. Well, clearly you're talking about consistency here rather than actually being one of the elite peaks of the decade. I'd say the consistency of the Bullets is pretty remarkable in that time of turbulence.

If we look at teams by the number of >.500 win seasons they had in the '70s, the leaderboard looks like:

Bullets 9
Lakers 8
Celtics 7
Colonels 7
Nuggets 7
Spurs 7
Warriors 7

The consistent success is an accomplishment in its own right of course, but success can breed a culture of successful habits. The team that had it for the longest time in our time of analysis has been the Spurs. The team that had it through the '70s I'd have to say was the Bullets from what I see.

[Doctor MJ]

Great article about Unseld in high school:

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/preps/kentucky/2020/06/02/wes-unseld-seneca-high-school-basketball-star-before-u-l-nba/3124468001/

Question: How unique was Unseld's game? Answer however makes sense to you.

While we're at it: What other players were analogously unique and "mysteriously" succeessful? Bill Russell's the first guy I'm thinking of here, to give a frame of reference.

[trex_8063]

So is this round decided? How long is voting remaining open? It’s been 48 hours or more (I think) for the thread [EDIT: 72 hours actually], and I don’t think any new votes have come in the last 12 hours.

[penbeast0]

Tell the truth, I've never formally closed any rounds. When we haven't had some votes in a while and it seems like a good time to throw up the next one, I do, while leaving the previous one open for at least a bit.

[Doctor MJ]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ns8CtEKuW9p5Cv8Vb0xYEVCtg1mU9Qp-C8un7HQ7epE/edit?usp=sharing

Spreadsheet updated.

Let me know if you have an opinion on the color scheme.