I think Artis sort of mysteriously went a little high there, and it opens the door to the next group of centers. But I think Nate is largely capped by Dwight Howard, who is a player working on a similar theory who was the dominant center of his day (and yes, I myself argue that's a least partially timing luck -- if he's drafted in 1991 he's just part of the 90s pack). And that's before we get to Reed, Unseld and Cowens, all in-era MVPs, or the offensively superior numbers of Lanier and Bellamy and McAdoo (another MVP). There's also Zo, who's career got cut short, but who really had a prime only a few years short of Nate, and was a stronger offensive player. And there's the Walton question, as he seemed to be another level guy who just never had a full career.
I do object to the recency bias of raising a guy like Deke before Nate, but there is a giant scrum for that next center spot, and while Nate has a chip there with his defense, the offense is a big drawback. Yeah, he could score a bit, but largely because he was in an era which demanded all centers shoot. Even guys who were going to only shoot 41%. He played a ton of minutes to get those numbers, a good thing for the horse anchoring your team, but again emphasizes that offensively he was not prolific. He carries a career 16.5 PER, and he continued his inefficient offense well into the 70s at a time when those sorts of shooting numbers were beginning to be winceworthy for bigs. In his last couple of All Star seasons in 72 and 73 his TS% was still .499 and .492 on pretty low volume (same observation would go for him vs. Cousy btw -- Cousy's low FG% were understandable for his era, and he came around 15 years before Nate).
I don't have a clear progression of all the remaining centers from that era. I do think that none of them have slam dunk resumes and there's a bit of mythology attached to some guys that the numbers struggle to justify.
The last part is where it's so hard to build a case for guys from that era because the stat-keeping was so rudimentary. It's doubly so for a guy like Thurmond who was a defense-first player -- difficult to properly gauge even with today's advanced metrics but laughably so with the lack of stats from the era -- and who scored at a decent clip and was considered a good (not great) offensive option at the time but now is frowned upon when viewed through the current lens that rewards efficiency above almost all else.
Then there's the fact that blocks weren't kept as a stat until his last couple of years. How differently would this panel view him if we had stats showing multiple seasons with averages of 7-8 blocks per game with lots of double-digit block games? (Mark Eaton has the highest BPG average in the stat-keeping era at 5.6.) Or other defensive metrics that just aren't available?
A guy like Russell can overcome that on the strength of reputation and championships. I guess Unseld will get in before Nate on the strength of his MVP even though Unseld was an average to poor defender. Other high-scoring but poor efficiency guys will get in because they are viewed as better scorers and their low efficiency is shrugged off because they have +/- or on/off metrics to bolster their case.
This seems to be Nate's fate. For guys from that era who made the top 15 of the ranking -- Kareem, Russell, Wilt, Oscar and West -- their greatness is acknowledged and their reputations are secure, even among fans who never saw them play. But a guy like Thurmond who was a great player but a notch below those guys seems destined to be forgotten and unappreciated.
I understand that we're in the midst of a tier of players that are very, very close, that the difference between 35 and 50 in the ranking is small, and that people will naturally make decisions based on the information they have. People who didn't see Nate play aren't going to just accept the statements of an avowed Thurmond fan. I guess I'll just forget about it until some semblance of consensus starts to build for him, because I don't want to annoy everyone who isn't going to consider him for another 30 threads.
From a benefit for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Front row (L-R): Samuel L. Jackson, George Lucas, Deborah and Carlos Santana Back row: four of the greatest centers of all time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Bill Walton, and Nate Thurmond
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
I am a little fuzzy on how exactly the myth of the lesser guys who are "winners" compared to the MVP candidates who are "losers" has sprung up. Well, I'm not that fuzzy actually. I know how it springs up -- a guy gets on a winning team with a bunch of other top players, and suddenly that bleeds over and they become "winners" because they have talented teammates. Nonetheless I want to illustrate the dubiousness of that myth.
So here are the team records of guys who "do it right" vs. guys who "do it wrong" when they are in a one star/clearly their franchise's #1 type of setting:
Reggie Miller period of clear #1ness: 1989-90 to 1998-99 (from 1999-00 onward Jalen Rose and then Jermaine O'Neal took over as leading scorers) 89-90: 42-40 90-91: 41-41 91-92: 40-42 92-93: 41-41 93-94: 47-35 94-95: 52-30 95-96: 52-30 96-97: 39-43 97-98: 58-24 98-99: 33-17 (54-28 pace) ------------------ Avg: 46.6 wins
Allen Iverson period of clear #1ness: 1998-99 to 2005-06 (97-98 can be argued, but was only a 22pt scorer at time, so not the A.I. of legend) 98-99: 28-22 (46-36 pace) 99-00: 49-33 00-01: 56-26 01-02: 43-39 02-03: 48-34 03-04: 33-49 (only played in 48 games) 04-05: 43-39 05-06: 38-44 ------------------ Avg: 44.5 wins
Paul Pierce period of clear #1ness: 2000-01 to 2006-07 (could have been 99-00, Antoine Walker's chucking blurs the beginning date) 00-01: 36-46 01-02: 49-33 02-03: 44-38 03-04: 36-46 04-05: 45-37 05-06: 33-49 06-07: 24-58 (only played in 47 games) ------------------ Avg: 38.1 wins
Russell Westbrook period of clear #1ness: 2016-17, and largely 2014-15 14-15: 45-37 (Durant plays in 27 games, Westbrook plays in 67, team goes 40-27 when he plays, 5-10 when he does not) 16-17: 47-35 ------------------ Avg: 46.0 wins (with the messy 14-15 asterisk of course, otherwise 47.0 for the single 16-17 season)
Ray Allen period of clear #1ness: 2003-04 to 2006-07 (was the best of Big 3 in Milwaulkee, but not clear cut #1) 03-04: 37-45 (only played in 56games, but only 25-31 with him) 04-05: 52-30 05-06: 35-47 06-07: 31-51 (only played in 55games, but only 22-33 with him) ------------------ Avg: 38.8 wins
Dominique Wilkins period of clear #1ness: 1984-85 to 1992-93 (actually was still clear #1 in 1993-94, but traded midseason) 84-85: 34-48 85-86: 50-32 86-87: 57-25 87-88: 50-32 88-89: 52-30 89-90: 41-41 90-91: 43-39 91-92: 38-44 92-93: 43-39 ------------------ Avg: 46.4 wins
Kevin Garnett period of clear #1ness: 1998-99 to 2006-07 (Starbury still there in 98-99, but only played in 18 games) 98-99: 25-25 (41-41 pace) 99-00: 50-32 00-01: 47-35 01-02: 50-32 02-03: 51-31 03-04: 58-24 04-05: 44-38 05-06: 33-49 06-07: 32-50 ------------------ Avg: 45.1 wins
So...excuse me if I don't quite see this myth of "winners" doing it right and "losers" doing it wrong play out when guys are in somewhat comparable situations. What I do see is some stars getting lucky enough to go somewhere else and play with other stars and get their reputations burnished with "being a winner", while other guys get left behind and therefore declared "losers" for doing it wrong.
One thing that is repeatedly stated or at least implied in the vast majority of your argumentation is whoever has the highest ppg is the team's best player or the "#1" (and presumably that we can roughly tell the hierarchy of 2nd/3rd/4th-best by similar standards). Now personally, I believe there are a wealth of examples that very clearly illuminate that this is not consistently the case (Bill Russell, Ben Wallace, Rudy Gobert, Steve Nash, etc). In some of these instances, the ppg premise would lead one widely off the mark. fwiw, the absence of '08 Garnett in your above lists is another example of this.
I also interpret (maybe mistakenly, idk) a subtext or assumption in your posts that the superior scorer can easily be determined by the higher ppg (or points per whatever other unit of time/possessions).
I will again submit to you that these assumptions are not always correct. At any rate, suffice to say that many here don't agree with these foundational premises.
Beyond that, I want to take a look at some of the records that Paul Pierce had before the Boston Three Party, and perhaps view them in a new way.....
You've frequently championed DeMarcus Cousins on this forum, and iirc stated you may be giving him some support before the end of this project. I don't think the supporting casts Cousins had is much worse than the support Pierce had for the majority of the pre-Boston Three Party era (I don't care what Walker's ppg averages were, he was not a star-level player). Cousins' records in his first 7 seasons:
'11: 24-58 '12: 22-44 (27-55, prorated to full season) '13: 28-54 '14: 28-54 15: 29-53 '16: 33-49 '17: 35-47
Avg: 29.2 wins
If that's good enough to warrant top 100 consideration, what about someone who managed a little better, and did so for approximately twice as long as Cousins has even been in the league?
A few technical notes:
1) really what I did for all of the above players was not start the clock until they were clearly their team's #1, and hence that would have been 4 years ago in Cousins' case (in 2012-13 he was still a 17ppg scorer being held back by one of his numerous genius coaches in Keith Smart, who was busy telling anybody who would listen to his verbal vomit that the team didn't have any stars and therefore would feature nobody, despite having 2 of the eventual Top 5 scorers in the NBA on the same roster in Cousins and IT)
Fair enough (wasn't an intentional discrepancy, fwiw). If we utilize only the last four seasons, Cousins' teams have averaged 31.3 wins.
Winsome Gerbil wrote:2) also, for that matter really the numbers after arriving in New Orleans shouldn't count as solo star stuff anymore,
I didn't know "solo star" was the qualifier here; I merely thought it was "clear#1ness". Though I think we'd differ on our opinion of what constitutes a "star". I get the feeling players are automatically disqualified from consideration [for you] if they don't reach some benchmark ppg. As potential examples, perhaps you would say Rudy Gobert or Dramond Green are not a "stars".......but many of us would disagree.
But at any rate, including or not including his limited time with the Pelicans doesn't change anything. The 35-47 record I listed for '17 was the combined total of his time with both teams (24-33 with the Kings, 11-14 with the Pels); that 24-33 record puts the Kings on pace for 34-35 wins (basically exactly the same as listed).
Winsome Gerbil wrote: since he's now found his fellow star, and is likely to, magically of course, start winning a lot more. No doubt because he's suddenly learned how to win.
This is not really what people are saying when they compliment a player for proving capable of integrating with other talent in a way that allows them to contend, vs some players who appear to have difficulty doing so. And I think you're smart enough to know that.
fwiw (don't want to derail too far with this), I sure hope [for Cousins's sake] that they start winning. If they don't, I think it will hurt Cousins's legacy more than Davis's.
Winsome Gerbil wrote:3) as I've also detailed repeatedly in the past on this site, one of the huge problems for Sac was always that they were basically the worst franchise in the NBA without Cousins. Everytime he got hurt, they'd damn near drop every game. In fact one year they DID drop every game he missed, and went 0-11 without him. It was pathetic and makes the overall numbers look worse in Cousins' case, especially in comparison to a guy like Pierce who rarely missed games in his early career. In any case, from what I recall the overall pace with a healthy Cousins was more like 33-34 wins. The pace without him was something like 16-17 wins.
It was much the same with Pierce in Boston for the majority of his prime. Pierce missed 35 games in '07: the Celtics were 20-27 in the 47 he played (on pace for ~35 wins); they went 4-31 in the games he missed (on pace for just over 9 wins). The '04 and '06 Celtics (which won 36 and 33 games, respectively) were a similar dumpster-fire casts; the only difference was Pierce didn't miss games those years. Casts in other years were at least marginally better (and achieved at least marginally better results).
Which brings me back to my point: if you feel Cousins is that "big-time" of a player and is/was having that degree of impact, I'm trying to illustrate that Pierce was doing basically the same thing in Boston......but for twice as long, and then went on to be the clear 2nd-best player on an all-time great title-winning team (which would contend for at least 2-3 years). And more "merely useful" seasons besides.
Winsome Gerbil wrote:4) for what it's worth Pierce's teams' sucked, but they were stable, and that was always the x-factor in Sac. Through his years as a #1 Pierce only had two coaches -- Jim O'Brien and Doc Rivers and his support crew was marginal, but full of long term steady pros, rather than being turned over wholesale every 12-18 months, coaches and GMs included, like Cousins' was.
Here again, I don't find this entirely truthful. Pierce was the clear best player on the Celtics from '00-'07. The coach in '00 and part of '01 was Rick Pitino (coach #1), until he was replaced by Jim O'Brien (coach #2). O'Brien would remain at the helm for 3 years before being fired, replaced by assistant coach John Carroll (coach #3), who would only be present for that season fragment. By the start of the '05 seasons, Doc Rivers was head coach: the FOURTH coach he'd had in just over FIVE years, at that point. Doc would at least remain there for quite awhile, but that's still four coaches in eight years in which he was the clear best player in Boston. The assistant coaching staff had roughly similar turnover. As far as supporting cast, I'm going to go as far as looking at fellow starters (or primary guys filling minutes) year-by-year, and will bold ones that are different (or mostly different/different enough to be relevant--->bit of a judgment call there, but I'll try to be as fair as possible) from the previous year:
'00 PG: Kenny Anderson SG: Adrian Griffin/(Eric Williams/Calbert Chaney) (had been Ron Mercer previous year) PF: Antoine Walker C: Vitaly Potapenko (+ Tony Battie)
'01 PG: Randy Brown (+ Kenny Anderson-->injury year) SG: Bryant Stith PF: Antoine Walker C: Potapenko and Battie and Mark Blount (close enough)
'02 PG: Kenny Anderson (we'll count this as NOT different, since previous year was only due to injury) SG: Eric Williams/Joe Johnson (rookie)/Tony Delk PF: Antoine Walker C: Tony Battie
'03 PG: Tony Delk/JR Bremmer SG: Eric Williams (close enough) PF: Antoine Walker C: Tony Battie
'04 PG: Mike James/Chucky Atkins SG: Ricky Davis/Jiri Welsch PF: Vin Baker (post-prime)/Walter McCarty (+ few others) C: Mark Blount *fwiw, aside from having a mid-season coaching change, the Celtics had FIFTEEN different players start at least one game that season, TWELVE different guys started at least 5 games, TEN different guys started at least 10 times. There was no stable or consistent starting line-up here at all. And as you can see from the names above, there really isn't anyone worth much of a damn (at least as a starter); but they still managed to win 36 games.
'05 PG: [ancient] Gary Payton SG: Ricky Davis/Jiri Welsch/Tony Allen PF: Raef LaFrenz/Antoine Walker C: Mark Blount/Raef LaFrenz
'06 PG: Delonte West SG: Ricky Davis/Wally Szczerbiak/Tony Allen (close enough) PF: Raef LaFrenz/Ryan Gomes/Al Jefferson C: Kendrick Perkins/LaFrenz/Mark Blount (counting that as different as Perkins probably at the C more than anyone, and as I didn't count SG or PF as any different, even though Wally and Gomes are new, and Jefferson is gaining in playing time)
'07 PG: Rajon Rondo/Sebastian Telfair/somewhat more limited PG minutes by Delonte West) SG: Gerald Green/Delonte West/Wally Szczerbiak/Tony Allen (close enough, given I already bolded the PG position???) PF: Ryan Gomes/Brian Scalabrine/Al Jefferson C: Al Jefferson/Kendrick Perkins *I feel I've been "generous" in calling SG, PF, and C positions all basically the same, even though there's obvious changes
Avg: ~1.8 different starters/primary minute fillers (year-after-year) And generally speaking some inconsistent starting rotations within given years toward the end of this stretch.
Let's compare this to Cousins's teams in recent years (Sacramento only)........
'14 PG: Isaiah Thomas/Greivis Vasquez (close enough: had been primarily Isaiah with a little Aaron Brooks the previous year) SG: Ben McLemore/Marcus Thornton (had been Tyreke Evans and Thornton the previous year) SF: Rudy Gay/Derrick Williams/very little John Salmons (had been Salmons the year before) PF: Jason Thompson (and a little Reggie Evans (had been Jason Thompson the previous year)
'15 PG: Darren Collison/Andre Miller/Ramon Sessions/Ray McCallum SG: Ben McLemore SF: Rudy Gay/Derrick Williams/Omri Casspi PF: Jason Thompson/Reggie Evans/Carl Landry
'16 PG: Rajon Rondo/(plus a little Collison) SG: Darren Collison/Marco Belinelli/Ben McLemore SF: Rudy Gay/Omri Casspi PF: Quincy Acy/Omri Casspi/+ a little Koufos or Cauley-Stein (or Cousins himself)
'17 PG: Darren Collison/Ty Lawson SG: Arron Afflalo/Ben McLemore/Garrett Temple *might be a touch "generous" to call both these positions different from the previous year, given Collison and McLemore are consistent faces SF: Rudy Gay/Matt Barnes/(very little Casspi) PF: Kostas Koufos/Anthony Tolliver
Avg: 2.25 different starters/primary minute fillers (year-after-year); and did have a lot of years with inconsistent starting rotations. However, as is illustrated above, this is NOT widely different from the "stable" environment Pierce enjoyed during his clear#1ness years.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Rank Player MVP Shares 40. Willis Reed* 1.048 58. Wes Unseld* 0.655 143. Paul Pierce 0.040 147. Ray Allen 0.038
And yes I'm aware of Reed's longevity issues, 4, 5 year prime max. But factoring all, i'd still take those two over Pierce, Reggie and the Allen's of the world.
I don't know what you're doing quoting MVP shares with me. I know the history just fine. They got treated as far stronger MVP candidates than Pierce and Allen, that much is clear. The question is really whether they were actually on entirely different tiers as players in actuality.
They're not completely on a different tier. They're just a bit better with peak, MVP and being more elite in-era wise.
Frank Dux wrote:
LeChosen One wrote:Doc is right. The Warriors shouldn't get any respect unless they repeat to be honest.
According to your logic, Tim Duncan doesn't deserve any respect.
Thru post #83 (15 votes, requiring 8 for true majority):
Reggie Miller - 3 (Doctor MJ, JordansBulls, LABird) Willis Reed - 3 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2, oldschooled) Paul Pierce - 3 (Dr Positivity, SactoKingsFan, trex_8063) Bob Cousy - 2 (euroleague, Pablo Novi) Allen Iverson - 1 (Winsome Gerbil) Elvin Hayes - 1 (scabbarista) Wes Unseld - 1 (pandrade83) Nate Thurmond - 1 (Outside)
The bottom four are first eliminated. All actually become ghost votes (Schayes, Westbrook, Cowens, Howard). So we'd next eliminated Bob Cousy, leaving us with our top three (none of whom can achieve a majority).
So we will now enter a run-off between Miller/Pierce/Reed. If you already cast either your primary or alternate vote for any of them, you do not need to re-state who your choice is. I'd ask any and all other registered participants to please state your ONE pick between Reggie Miller, Willis Reed, and Paul Pierce, with a brief (or lengthy, even better) explanation of why. Run-off will go ~24 hours.
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"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
It's really interesting see how much value some people place on longevity.
If I am to put my GM hat on, everything in basketball is about winning a title. That's the whole thing. Everything else is somewhat meaningless to most fans and it seems GMs.
So while longevity from a number 2 or 3 guy or a number 1 who transitions is really useful, but guys who build title contenders they are unique and who cares how long they did it?
This is why for me Reed is on another from the likes of Miller or even Pierce (Who I do think is a bit better). I'd need 40 years of those two before they matched Reed's 4 years, or something like that. Now I might be downplaying a few top years for those guys that close the gap (I am to make my point).
So at least for those frustrated by the dismissal of Miller type players, it's because he was just never good enough to move up and I see marginal improvements after a point to be exponentially valuable. A 9 season is worth 3 8's, 12, 7's if you will type growth. Because truly great seasons are hard to come by.
dhsilv2 wrote:It's really interesting see how much value some people place on longevity.
If I am to put my GM hat on, everything in basketball is about winning a title. That's the whole thing. Everything else is somewhat meaningless to most fans and it seems GMs.
So while longevity from a number 2 or 3 guy or a number 1 who transitions is really useful, but guys who build title contenders they are unique and who cares how long they did it?
This is why for me Reed is on another from the likes of Miller or even Pierce (Who I do think is a bit better). I'd need 40 years of those two before they matched Reed's 4 years, or something like that. Now I might be downplaying a few top years for those guys that close the gap (I am to make my point).
So at least for those frustrated by the dismissal of Miller type players, it's because he was just never good enough to move up and I see marginal improvements after a point to be exponentially valuable. A 9 season is worth 3 8's, 12, 7's if you will type growth. Because truly great seasons are hard to come by.
I'd refer you to this study by Elgee (I guess some of the nitty gritty methodology details are shown in the thread that's linked in the the OP there).
The images of lists/spreadsheets have apparently stopped working, but you get some idea of some relevant "longevity giants" within the other posts (check out post #6, for example). The gist that you'll likely glean is that 12 years of prime Reggie or Pierce would provide equal or [likely] greater championship odds [in a vacuum] than 4 years of prime Reed.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
dhsilv2 wrote:It's really interesting see how much value some people place on longevity.
If I am to put my GM hat on, everything in basketball is about winning a title. That's the whole thing. Everything else is somewhat meaningless to most fans and it seems GMs.
So while longevity from a number 2 or 3 guy or a number 1 who transitions is really useful, but guys who build title contenders they are unique and who cares how long they did it?
This is why for me Reed is on another from the likes of Miller or even Pierce (Who I do think is a bit better). I'd need 40 years of those two before they matched Reed's 4 years, or something like that. Now I might be downplaying a few top years for those guys that close the gap (I am to make my point).
So at least for those frustrated by the dismissal of Miller type players, it's because he was just never good enough to move up and I see marginal improvements after a point to be exponentially valuable. A 9 season is worth 3 8's, 12, 7's if you will type growth. Because truly great seasons are hard to come by.
I'd refer you to this study by Elgee (I guess some of the nitty gritty methodology details are shown in the thread that's linked in the the OP there).
The images of lists/spreadsheets have apparently stopped working, but you get some idea of some relevant "longevity giants" within the other posts (check out post #6, for example). The gist is that you'll likely intuit is that 12 years of prime Reggie or Pierce would provide equal or [likely] greater championship odds [in a vacuum] than 4 years of prime Reed.
Well, I get that and I respect that. The issue is it's REALLY hard to win a title with a stockton level guy as your best player, who based on what we see was 29 on his list. You need a guy a tier above to WIN, and that's why I think these types of projections over value good player and under value stars. It is much like why I think WS is a great stat, but horrible for a top 50 list. VORP has some real flaws but at least it is scaled "better" for showing who was great and who was good. It just imo still under values greatness.
The fun of seeing how the 76ers were "rebuilding" is about this whole idea, that you need a franchise player to win, and you should tank until you have that guy to build around.
I don't think Miller or Pierce are guys you stop tanking once you get.
Moving back to that thread, I think the Malone numbers are a good example. Malone was a guy you can win a title with. I think the gap between Malone and Stockton is pretty huge.
Now again all this changes once we clear out those rare players who really moved things and we're getting close imo.
Before I cast my ballot, I'm going to briefly get on a soapbox.
I think that we're getting a bit too biased towards players that we remember personally, had decent to great longevity & had some team success - it happened w/ McHale & it's happening with Reggie. For the Reggie Miller/Ray Allen type - we literally saw the best outcome of what can happen if Miller is your best player from '94-'00 with an optimal or pretty close to it team built around him. If he's your best player and your team is built optimally, you'll get an average of 51 wins per season (their average) and win 1 or 2 playoff series (ironically enough, their average in that stretch was 1.5). There's nothing wrong with that per se. If your team has good talent, but is built sub-optimally (Chuck Person, young Smits, Fleming, Detlef Schrempf is not bad at all to support Miller as your best player) and he's your best player, you're going .500.
There's still too many players left who have done better in similar situations to get behind Reggie and I'm going to be continuing to support players who achieved that with any kind of respectable longevity before I start supporting guys like Miller.
I'm ruling out Reggie right off the bat because Pierce achieved comparable longevity with a fairly higher peak. That '02 carry job he pulled off is far more impressive than anything Miller did - he dragged a pretty awful team to the ECF; I'd rather have Miller's early 90's supporting cast than Walker, Anderson, Battie, Rodgers - and all Miller did with it was go .500. Pierce followed up the '02 performance with an upset of the Pacers in '03 to make it to the 2nd round.
I know he wouldn't have done it in the West but Miller doesn't have the team success that he enjoyed in the West either during the Pacers' peak - it cuts both ways. Pierce is just a more versatile player than Miller in general at the same position - better defender, rebounder & playmaker. I view his peak as more value add than Miller's & the longevity washes itself out.
So now it's Pierce & Reed. I take Reed's best two years ('69 & '70) over Pierce's peak - the back to back WS years of nearly 15 are very impressive as is the overall team success and the high team defensive metrics.
The problem for Reed of course, is longevity. After those two years, you have '02, '08 & '11 Pierce trumping '68 & '71 Reed for sure - with '09, '03, '05, '01 & '06 being of comparable quality to those seasons.
Ultimately, the volume of Pierce is too much for Reed to overcome for me.
Rank Player MVP Shares 40. Willis Reed* 1.048 58. Wes Unseld* 0.655 143. Paul Pierce 0.040 147. Ray Allen 0.038
And yes I'm aware of Reed's longevity issues, 4, 5 year prime max. But factoring all, i'd still take those two over Pierce, Reggie and the Allen's of the world.
I don't know what you're doing quoting MVP shares with me. I know the history just fine. They got treated as far stronger MVP candidates than Pierce and Allen, that much is clear. The question is really whether they were actually on entirely different tiers as players in actuality.
They're not completely on a different tier. They're just a bit better with peak, MVP and being more elite in-era wise.
Well so that's the thing, if Reed's only slightly better, and he's only remotely star like for a few years, that seems precisely like the situation where longevity should be a major factor.
Unseld's different. If you think Unseld over his prime was better than Pierce & Allen were in theirs, then you should side with Unseld. But by MVP shares it's really only Unseld's rookie season that makes the difference. After that year he wasn't taken any more seriously as an MVP candidate that Pierce or Allen despite playing in a league both smaller AND more watered down than today's game. So there's a case to be made for Unseld, but not really because of the MVP shares.
dhsilv2 wrote:It's really interesting see how much value some people place on longevity.
If I am to put my GM hat on, everything in basketball is about winning a title. That's the whole thing. Everything else is somewhat meaningless to most fans and it seems GMs.
So while longevity from a number 2 or 3 guy or a number 1 who transitions is really useful, but guys who build title contenders they are unique and who cares how long they did it?
This is why for me Reed is on another from the likes of Miller or even Pierce (Who I do think is a bit better). I'd need 40 years of those two before they matched Reed's 4 years, or something like that. Now I might be downplaying a few top years for those guys that close the gap (I am to make my point).
So at least for those frustrated by the dismissal of Miller type players, it's because he was just never good enough to move up and I see marginal improvements after a point to be exponentially valuable. A 9 season is worth 3 8's, 12, 7's if you will type growth. Because truly great seasons are hard to come by.
I'd refer you to this study by Elgee (I guess some of the nitty gritty methodology details are shown in the thread that's linked in the the OP there).
The images of lists/spreadsheets have apparently stopped working, but you get some idea of some relevant "longevity giants" within the other posts (check out post #6, for example). The gist is that you'll likely intuit is that 12 years of prime Reggie or Pierce would provide equal or [likely] greater championship odds [in a vacuum] than 4 years of prime Reed.
Well, I get that and I respect that. The issue is it's REALLY hard to win a title with a stockton level guy as your best player, who based on what we see was 29 on his list. You need a guy a tier above to WIN, and that's why I think these types of projections over value good player and under value stars. It is much like why I think WS is a great stat, but horrible for a top 50 list. VORP has some real flaws but at least it is scaled "better" for showing who was great and who was good. It just imo still under values greatness.
The fun of seeing how the 76ers were "rebuilding" is about this whole idea, that you need a franchise player to win, and you should tank until you have that guy to build around.
I don't think Miller or Pierce are guys you stop tanking once you get.
Moving back to that thread, I think the Malone numbers are a good example. Malone was a guy you can win a title with. I think the gap between Malone and Stockton is pretty huge.
Now again all this changes once we clear out those rare players who really moved things and we're getting close imo.
The only issue here imho is that you overrate Reed. Yes, the very top tier guys, even for a short time, can produce more odds of a championship than a Pierce or Allen over their entire career...but Reed really isn't one of those guys. He was a great player, but he was in an unbelievable situation in which there's a very good argument that many of us here believe that he got surpassed as the best player on his team DURING his MVP season.
Remember: Reed was the star who came first, and he played the glamour position of the era (center) as the team rose to prominence. However Frazier then rose up and became the better player by a lot of measurements in '69-70, and in the finals he was objectively the true Finals MVP, yet Reed still got the nod because of his great narrative.
We must also remember how innovative Red Holzmann's Knicks were. They took the game to a new level built around read & react offense and a smart, swarming defense - and of course Frazier has a great case to made for being the MVP on both sides of the ball for the Knicks.
What all of this means is that Reed getting seen as a championship bringer seems more the product of good timing than anything else.
By contrast, someone like Bill Walton really was an earth shaker. The team was far better than anyone else when he played and awful when he didn't. The team played a style that few, if any, players in history could pull off like Walton, and did all this with supporting talent that was solid but not off-the-charts good like Frazier/DeBusschere/Bradley/etc.
With Walton I'm very tempted to vote for him over far inferior players like Reggie & Pierce by the same rationale you use. If he had Reed's longevity it would be an easy choice but of course Walton's is far worse.
Reed though, I honestly don't know if I'd ever rank him ahead of Reggie & Pierce if his longevity was good.
VOTE: Pierce I have at GOAT #98 (ZERO 1st-Teams, 1 2nd-Teams) (I pick him by default, because of these three, he's the only one I have in my GOAT Top 100. Frankly, I can't believe he's going in before Cousy! I've seen a lot of lists of Celtics' GOAT players, Cousy's been on ALL of them, Pierce is ALWAYS 2nd-Team on them!).
Willis I have at GOAT #103 (ONE 1st-Teams, 4 2nd-Teams) Reggie I have at GOAT #139 (ZERO 1st-Teams, 3 2nd-Teams)
btw: Ray Ray I have at GOAT #124 (ZERO 1st-Teams, 1 2nd-Teams)
Why are these 3-4 so low on my GOAT list? Because of the players we have not yet voted in, there have been at least 56 other players with more 1st-Team and 2nd-Team selections than they got. (And my #1 criteria is dominating your own position during your own era as exemplified by ALL-League selections).
In my GOAT list "Points" system: Pierce 7.7 Points Reed 7.5 Points Ray 4.6 Points Reggie 3.9 Points
pandrade83 wrote:Before I cast my ballot, I'm going to briefly get on a soapbox.
I think that we're getting a bit too biased towards players that we remember personally, had decent to great longevity & had some team success - it happened w/ McHale & it's happening with Reggie. For the Reggie Miller/Ray Allen type - we literally saw the best outcome of what can happen if Miller is your best player from '94-'00 with an optimal or pretty close to it team built around him. If he's your best player and your team is built optimally, you'll get an average of 51 wins per season (their average) and win 1 or 2 playoff series (ironically enough, their average in that stretch was 1.5). There's nothing wrong with that per se. If your team has good talent, but is built sub-optimally (Chuck Person, young Smits, Fleming, Detlef Schrempf is not bad at all to support Miller as your best player) and he's your best player, you're going .500.
There's still too many players left who have done better in similar situations to get behind Reggie and I'm going to be continuing to support players who achieved that with any kind of respectable longevity before I start supporting guys like Miller.
I'm ruling out Reggie right off the bat because Pierce achieved comparable longevity with a fairly higher peak. That '02 carry job he pulled off is far more impressive than anything Miller did - he dragged a pretty awful team to the ECF; I'd rather have Miller's early 90's supporting cast than Walker, Anderson, Battie, Rodgers - and all Miller did with it was go .500. Pierce followed up the '02 performance with an upset of the Pacers in '03 to make it to the 2nd round.
I know he wouldn't have done it in the West but Miller doesn't have the team success that he enjoyed in the West either during the Pacers' peak - it cuts both ways. Pierce is just a more versatile player than Miller in general at the same position - better defender, rebounder & playmaker. I view his peak as more value add than Miller's & the longevity washes itself out.
So now it's Pierce & Reed. I take Reed's best two years ('69 & '70) over Pierce's peak - the back to back WS years of nearly 15 are very impressive as is the overall team success and the high team defensive metrics.
The problem for Reed of course, is longevity. After those two years, you have '02, '08 & '11 Pierce trumping '68 & '71 Reed for sure - with '09, '03, '05, '01 & '06 being of comparable quality to those seasons.
Ultimately, the volume of Pierce is too much for Reed to overcome for me.
Run-off Vote: Paul Pierce
I don't think we did see the ceiling of what you could build around Miller, but I will grant that if he's my best player winning titles is quite unlikely.
My issue is that you somehow think these other guys were any different. Both only won championships in absolutely ideal settings with great coaching, great teammates, and arguably a teammate superior to themselves (not arguable, a given, in Pierce's case).
I think you'd have a very different opinion about these two guys had things gone a little differently, and I think that in most re-rolls, neither gets a championship.
trex_8063 wrote: I'd refer you to this study by Elgee (I guess some of the nitty gritty methodology details are shown in the thread that's linked in the the OP there).
The images of lists/spreadsheets have apparently stopped working, but you get some idea of some relevant "longevity giants" within the other posts (check out post #6, for example). The gist is that you'll likely intuit is that 12 years of prime Reggie or Pierce would provide equal or [likely] greater championship odds [in a vacuum] than 4 years of prime Reed.
Well, I get that and I respect that. The issue is it's REALLY hard to win a title with a stockton level guy as your best player, who based on what we see was 29 on his list. You need a guy a tier above to WIN, and that's why I think these types of projections over value good player and under value stars. It is much like why I think WS is a great stat, but horrible for a top 50 list. VORP has some real flaws but at least it is scaled "better" for showing who was great and who was good. It just imo still under values greatness.
The fun of seeing how the 76ers were "rebuilding" is about this whole idea, that you need a franchise player to win, and you should tank until you have that guy to build around.
I don't think Miller or Pierce are guys you stop tanking once you get.
Moving back to that thread, I think the Malone numbers are a good example. Malone was a guy you can win a title with. I think the gap between Malone and Stockton is pretty huge.
Now again all this changes once we clear out those rare players who really moved things and we're getting close imo.
The only issue here imho is that you overrate Reed. Yes, the very top tier guys, even for a short time, can produce more odds of a championship than a Pierce or Allen over their entire career...but Reed really isn't one of those guys. He was a great player, but he was in an unbelievable situation in which there's a very good argument that many of us here believe that he got surpassed as the best player on his team DURING his MVP season.
Remember: Reed was the star who came first, and he played the glamour position of the era (center) as the team rose to prominence. However Frazier then rose up and became the better player by a lot of measurements in '69-70, and in the finals he was objectively the true Finals MVP, yet Reed still got the nod because of his great narrative.
We must also remember how innovative Red Holzmann's Knicks were. They took the game to a new level built around read & react offense and a smart, swarming defense - and of course Frazier has a great case to made for being the MVP on both sides of the ball for the Knicks.
What all of this means is that Reed getting seen as a championship bringer seems more the product of good timing than anything else.
By contrast, someone like Bill Walton really was an earth shaker. The team was far better than anyone else when he played and awful when he didn't. The team played a style that few, if any, players in history could pull off like Walton, and did all this with supporting talent that was solid but not off-the-charts good like Frazier/DeBusschere/Bradley/etc.
With Walton I'm very tempted to vote for him over far inferior players like Reggie & Pierce by the same rationale you use. If he had Reed's longevity it would be an easy choice but of course Walton's is far worse.
Reed though, I honestly don't know if I'd ever rank him ahead of Reggie & Pierce if his longevity was good.
vis-a-vis Walton, imo, IF he had had a normal-length top star playing career, he'd probably have been the GOAT - he was THAT GOOD. But he only got ONE 1st-Team and ONE 2nd-Team due to his terrible "wheels". I've got him my GOAT #99 - and may just give him my honorary permanent GOAT #100 spot (as soon as two more Centers pass him in ALL-League selections). Again, when he was healthy those LESS THAN TWO FULL PEAK SEASONS, he was THAT GOOD.
trex_8063 wrote: I'd refer you to this study by Elgee (I guess some of the nitty gritty methodology details are shown in the thread that's linked in the the OP there).
The images of lists/spreadsheets have apparently stopped working, but you get some idea of some relevant "longevity giants" within the other posts (check out post #6, for example). The gist is that you'll likely intuit is that 12 years of prime Reggie or Pierce would provide equal or [likely] greater championship odds [in a vacuum] than 4 years of prime Reed.
Well, I get that and I respect that. The issue is it's REALLY hard to win a title with a stockton level guy as your best player, who based on what we see was 29 on his list. You need a guy a tier above to WIN, and that's why I think these types of projections over value good player and under value stars. It is much like why I think WS is a great stat, but horrible for a top 50 list. VORP has some real flaws but at least it is scaled "better" for showing who was great and who was good. It just imo still under values greatness.
The fun of seeing how the 76ers were "rebuilding" is about this whole idea, that you need a franchise player to win, and you should tank until you have that guy to build around.
I don't think Miller or Pierce are guys you stop tanking once you get.
Moving back to that thread, I think the Malone numbers are a good example. Malone was a guy you can win a title with. I think the gap between Malone and Stockton is pretty huge.
Now again all this changes once we clear out those rare players who really moved things and we're getting close imo.
The only issue here imho is that you overrate Reed. Yes, the very top tier guys, even for a short time, can produce more odds of a championship than a Pierce or Allen over their entire career...but Reed really isn't one of those guys. He was a great player, but he was in an unbelievable situation in which there's a very good argument that many of us here believe that he got surpassed as the best player on his team DURING his MVP season.
Remember: Reed was the star who came first, and he played the glamour position of the era (center) as the team rose to prominence. However Frazier then rose up and became the better player by a lot of measurements in '69-70, and in the finals he was objectively the true Finals MVP, yet Reed still got the nod because of his great narrative.
We must also remember how innovative Red Holzmann's Knicks were. They took the game to a new level built around read & react offense and a smart, swarming defense - and of course Frazier has a great case to made for being the MVP on both sides of the ball for the Knicks.
What all of this means is that Reed getting seen as a championship bringer seems more the product of good timing than anything else.
By contrast, someone like Bill Walton really was an earth shaker. The team was far better than anyone else when he played and awful when he didn't. The team played a style that few, if any, players in history could pull off like Walton, and did all this with supporting talent that was solid but not off-the-charts good like Frazier/DeBusschere/Bradley/etc.
With Walton I'm very tempted to vote for him over far inferior players like Reggie & Pierce by the same rationale you use. If he had Reed's longevity it would be an easy choice but of course Walton's is far worse.
Reed though, I honestly don't know if I'd ever rank him ahead of Reggie & Pierce if his longevity was good.
Reed, Cowens, and a few others are all guys I would rank at the very bottom of the game changer list. The thing with that knicks team is I think they had two legit game changers in Frazier and Reed.
Perhaps I have some anti recency bias here, in that I saw most of millers career pretty first hand, well as best anyone with TNT and TBS access could in that era, and I saw a lot of pierce (though I admit there were some years in college at the start of his career...or was it drunk times after college?) through his prime and both guys are just to me in that group of number 2's who couldn't be the best player on a title team, even an 04 pistons style team. I like them both, but they are not at the top of that next tier.
I can understand fully why someone thinks Miller had more impact or that Pierce was a bit better. Sadly unlike some of you, I'm not a great writer. I'm a numbers guy (finance/accounting) but not a real math guy. So it's hard for me to put the difference here into words, a few less bourbons ago maybe I could have done better, but i doubt it.
Miller is imo the perfect second guy on a team without being able to be the best player on a title team. I could see having him over Stockton or over McHale for example. But not the legit MVP guys left who I had over the second tier guys I listed and voted against. Pierce is a bit more of guy I could move up, but he still wasn't the game changer.
I stand by we still have a handful of guys who to me moved the needle at the highest level that should get in before the guys who were great for a LONG time. I'm certainly open to arguments that a guy like Reed didn't actually do that, I admit I've lowed my view on him already in these talks. Meanwhile I'm really open on where to move Cowens in. I'm going to go low on walton as I just can't get past 1 or 1 and a half great years...3 years and I'd be singing a different tune.
I'd also add I do value intangibles. Miller and Pierce are ok to very good. I get the impression Reed was a great intangibles guy, just to add to why I think he was in that upper tier despite stats perhaps ranking him a bit lower.
We just put Ewing in a few rounds ago. IMO Miller over his career had a significantly better cast around him. Maybe even enough to start ranting about how much better it was. Now we had ewing in already, so the view here is he was better, but I feel Ewing's teams did a LOT better than Millers despite what I'd consider a pretty sure gap in talent around Ewing. Am I crazy here?
pandrade83 wrote: I don't think we did see the ceiling of what you could build around Miller, but I will grant that if he's my best player winning titles is quite unlikely.
My issue is that you somehow think these other guys were any different. Both only won championships in absolutely ideal settings with great coaching, great teammates, and arguably a teammate superior to themselves (not arguable, a given, in Pierce's case).
I think you'd have a very different opinion about these two guys had things gone a little differently, and I think that in most re-rolls, neither gets a championship.
It's not about the rings. I don't consider Reed or Pierce the best player on a title team; I apologize if I gave that impression. The rings didn't really factor into it for me.
I first compared Pierce vs. Miller; it's an easier comparison to make because they are both wings. I don't think Pierce was the best player on a team that had even a remotely optimal roster composition for his talents like Reggie did ('94-'00) or even good talent in a sub-optimal composition ('90-'93).
Nonetheless, with a roster that I consider pretty weak in '02 & then again in '03, Pierce makes the ECF in '02, winning 49 games - and then in '03 makes the 2nd round with more wins than Miller ever did with good talent in an iffy roster design situation. The rest of his prime, I consider pretty equal to Miller's prime and their longevities are pretty comparable - but I consider Pierce's peak > Miller's peak.
That's really it. I was always going to figure out the Pierce/Miller issue first because it's easier to compare them and then compare to Reed. I think Reed has the best peak of the 3 - but with his longevity issues, I can't take him over Pierce and I've typed out Reed over Miller, erased it, typed out MIller over Reed & erased that; I think that's a pretty close comparison that I'll figure out at a later date.
FWIW - even though I literally just said I think Reed had the best peak of the 3, my MVP vote for '70 would go: Kareem West Frazier Reed Unseld
I just think Reed brings more to the table in terms of winning than those guys at his peak.
We just put Ewing in a few rounds ago. IMO Miller over his career had a significantly better cast around him. Maybe even enough to start ranting about how much better it was. Now we had ewing in already, so the view here is he was better, but I feel Ewing's teams did a LOT better than Millers despite what I'd consider a pretty sure gap in talent around Ewing. Am I crazy here?
Surprisingly, no you're not. Looking closer at it...Miller being the undisputed offensive anchor for his Pacers team, you can't say that about Ewing (offensively or defensively, Starks/Oakley/Mason were all close to Ewing respectively). Only difference was on Ewing's peak 1990 where he clearly anchored his team on both ends.
Frank Dux wrote:
LeChosen One wrote:Doc is right. The Warriors shouldn't get any respect unless they repeat to be honest.
According to your logic, Tim Duncan doesn't deserve any respect.
Simple: Reggie is the second greatest off ball player. Effecient af and one of the most clutch players ever. One of the GOAT playoff performers and ceiling raisers ever. Reed is super overrated and gets to much credit for Knicks success (more should go to Frazier). I like Pierce but he shouldn't go until at least Reggie and T-Mac are off the board. Pierce was NEVER considered better than T-Mac and their primes overlapped cmon guys it should pretty clearly be T-Mac over Pierce. Vote: Reggie
smartyz456 wrote:Duncan would be a better defending jahlil okafor in todays nba
We just put Ewing in a few rounds ago. IMO Miller over his career had a significantly better cast around him. Maybe even enough to start ranting about how much better it was. Now we had ewing in already, so the view here is he was better, but I feel Ewing's teams did a LOT better than Millers despite what I'd consider a pretty sure gap in talent around Ewing. Am I crazy here?
Don't think Ewing is all that relevant to the current discussions which include Reggie as a top candidate. Ewing was voted in as borderline top 25. That's not just a few threads ago.
I think Artis sort of mysteriously went a little high there, and it opens the door to the next group of centers. But I think Nate is largely capped by Dwight Howard, who is a player working on a similar theory who was the dominant center of his day (and yes, I myself argue that's a least partially timing luck -- if he's drafted in 1991 he's just part of the 90s pack). And that's before we get to Reed, Unseld and Cowens, all in-era MVPs, or the offensively superior numbers of Lanier and Bellamy and McAdoo (another MVP). There's also Zo, who's career got cut short, but who really had a prime only a few years short of Nate, and was a stronger offensive player. And there's the Walton question, as he seemed to be another level guy who just never had a full career.
I do object to the recency bias of raising a guy like Deke before Nate, but there is a giant scrum for that next center spot, and while Nate has a chip there with his defense, the offense is a big drawback. Yeah, he could score a bit, but largely because he was in an era which demanded all centers shoot. Even guys who were going to only shoot 41%. He played a ton of minutes to get those numbers, a good thing for the horse anchoring your team, but again emphasizes that offensively he was not prolific. He carries a career 16.5 PER, and he continued his inefficient offense well into the 70s at a time when those sorts of shooting numbers were beginning to be winceworthy for bigs. In his last couple of All Star seasons in 72 and 73 his TS% was still .499 and .492 on pretty low volume (same observation would go for him vs. Cousy btw -- Cousy's low FG% were understandable for his era, and he came around 15 years before Nate).
I don't have a clear progression of all the remaining centers from that era. I do think that none of them have slam dunk resumes and there's a bit of mythology attached to some guys that the numbers struggle to justify.
The last part is where it's so hard to build a case for guys from that era because the stat-keeping was so rudimentary. It's doubly so for a guy like Thurmond who was a defense-first player -- difficult to properly gauge even with today's advanced metrics but laughably so with the lack of stats from the era -- and who scored at a decent clip and was considered a good (not great) offensive option at the time but now is frowned upon when viewed through the current lens that rewards efficiency above almost all else.
Then there's the fact that blocks weren't kept as a stat until his last couple of years. How differently would this panel view him if we had stats showing multiple seasons with averages of 7-8 blocks per game with lots of double-digit block games? (Mark Eaton has the highest BPG average in the stat-keeping era at 5.6.) Or other defensive metrics that just aren't available?
A guy like Russell can overcome that on the strength of reputation and championships. I guess Unseld will get in before Nate on the strength of his MVP even though Unseld was an average to poor defender. Other high-scoring but poor efficiency guys will get in because they are viewed as better scorers and their low efficiency is shrugged off because they have +/- or on/off metrics to bolster their case.
This seems to be Nate's fate. For guys from that era who made the top 15 of the ranking -- Kareem, Russell, Wilt, Oscar and West -- their greatness is acknowledged and their reputations are secure, even among fans who never saw them play. But a guy like Thurmond who was a great player but a notch below those guys seems destined to be forgotten and unappreciated.
I understand that we're in the midst of a tier of players that are very, very close, that the difference between 35 and 50 in the ranking is small, and that people will naturally make decisions based on the information they have. People who didn't see Nate play aren't going to just accept the statements of an avowed Thurmond fan. I guess I'll just forget about it until some semblance of consensus starts to build for him, because I don't want to annoy everyone who isn't going to consider him for another 30 threads.
From a benefit for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Front row (L-R): Samuel L. Jackson, George Lucas, Deborah and Carlos Santana Back row: four of the greatest centers of all time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Bill Walton, and Nate Thurmond
I actually don't think Thurmond is one of the forgotten stars, at least not on the PC board. Maybe underappreciated but not forgotten. He's usually mentioned as one of the all-time great defensive bigs and arguably the GOAT low post defender. I'll vote for him before top 50 is finished if I have time.
I see you don't think much of Unseld's defense. Why are you so low on him as a defender? I'm much higher on Unseld's defense even though he wasn't a shot blocker and see much of his impact coming from defense.
