#34 Highest Peak of All Time (Frazier '72 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

McHale '87 has been enshrined. We move on.

[JordansBulls]

He led the Hawks to more of an elite record. However 1986 Nique was higher in MVP voting and led the league in scoring.

Vote: 1987 Dominique Wilkins.

[Doctor MJ]

Hopefully we'll see more discussion with this thread as we've effected completed a tier of enshrinees.

I'm not opposed to voting for Pettit in the next thread. I read a good point on how he adjusted to the higher efficiency of the league as it was going up. Based on footage, I actually have a lot of respect for his skills and think he had the ability to adjust his game to find a way to be efficient as league-wide numbers rose. Don't really know what people thought of him on defense though. Keep in mind this is a two time MVP winner and best player on championship team type of guy in his era.

Next dozen guys are going to be really tough to separate. Just to throw names out there: Zo, Drexler, Frazier, Hill, Pierce, Kidd, Isiah, Stockton, Cowens, Payton, with KJ, Price being right in the mix of those PGs too imo. After Zo, I have Lanier and Thurmond as the next centers (maybe Reed too but need to hear arguments for him). Ginobili, Hondo, Vince are some other wings to look at. I have McAdoo around 45-50, kind of feel like I'm really underrating him though.

I think Pettit definitely requires serious consideration. I don't know if I'll side with him here or not, but as I said before, the choice between Pettit & Baylor is easily Pettit, and with McHale gone I don't think there's any other big out there who makes me think, "I just can't expect Pettit to be able to pull that off". If you voted for Baylor, I don't know how you can justify not voting for Pettit very soon.

Also on my mind: Reed & Frazier, I'd like to see debate on them. The various point guards in the mix in addition to Frazier - Stockton, Payton, Isiah, and definitely KJ. Seems like Bernard King has to be in the mix now. Waiting to hear someone make a case on Cowens.

But right now, I'll put Artis Gilmore's name out there for people think about. First I'll direct your attention to his rookie year ('71-72). Obviously the stats their are amazing, but you of course you have to question who weak the ABA was that year.

As a baseline though, remember that Rick Barry was in the ABA that year too. While earlier ABA Barry had put up obscene efficiencies, by this point his efficiency had fallen almost back down to what it had been his last year in the NBA ('67) which had only been his 2nd year as a pro. Simply put then: It's not that obvious to me that Gilmore's accomplishments should be looked at as all that inflated.

So, Gilmore's rookie year, his team goes through a huge transformation and becomes an ultra-dominant team. He wins the MVP over Barry and others easily. However, his Colonels then get upset in the playoffs by Barry's Nets. For that reason it's pretty debatable whether this is truly his best season. His team had more playoff success in other years, so if you wanted to side with his '75 season for example, I could understand that.

However, I think it's first and foremost important to get in your mind what you think happened with Gilmore's shotblocking. The rest of Gilmore's stats stay pretty similar after his rookie year, but his shotblocking numbers were never the same. Being a 3 block per game guy is nice, but what really grabbed people's attention his rookie year was unheard of shotblocking which was tallied at 5 blocks per game.

To that specific number, Gilmore's rookie performance is the oldest blocking performance on record. I don't know the full story, but clearly because of how much he stood out, he was getting tracked with this while the rest of the ABA (and the NBA) were not. So if by chance you think 5 BPG wasn't that impressive back then, know that it was impressive enough that everyone was noticing him.

Artis Gilmore was incredibly agile and was just an amazing shot blocker. In fact, I've had him on my radio show a couple times, and I think that he stopped blocking some of the shots because they were calling goaltending on him. I don't think that anybody had ever seen anything like that and they figured that he had to be goaltending, that you can't possibly block somebody's jump shot.

As always, take quote from one guy with a grain of salt, but every source I've read agree Gilmore did get an insane amount of goaltending calls his rookie year. It's hard to imagine how a player can seem that out of sync with everyone's expectations for what's possible unless he truly is doing stuff no one has seen before. And of course, all this is said realizing that Wilt Chamberlain was around, and that Barry knew exactly what Wilt could do. Take that for what you will, but I think it is clear that if Gilmore was clearly less of a physical outlier than Wilt, he wouldn't have generated this response.

So my inclination is to say that Gilmore's athleticism basically peaked right as he was entering the pros, and his blend-in nature meant that even though he played smart basketball his whole career, he never really took that big-time step forward on offense to make up for the loss of athleticism.

[thizznation]

Anyone think 89' Clyde Drexler belongs anywhere in the next 5 slots or so?

[ElGee]

Vote: 1972 Walt Frazier

As I said before, I was leaning heavily toward Reed or Frazier. In writing this, that distinction has become pretty clear as I don't think Reed ever got to the height Frazier did...

In 1964, The Knicks are a -6 SRS team. Reed and Jim Barnes join the team as rookies, and Bob Boozer goes from a half season to a full season. Their 4th leading scorer in another rookie (Howard Komives), yet they improve to -3 SRS despite a midstream coaching change, Reed averaging 20-15 and appearing to have positive impact out of the gate. (Reed was an AS)

In 1967 Reed's efficiency and scoring jumped way up to 54% TS (he was an all-nba player this year). With a similar team as the year before (Bellamy, Barnett, Komives, Van Arsdale), the Knicks jumped again posted a -3 SRS.

Everything changed in 1968, not just with Clyde Frazier but with the arrival of Red Holzman. In the first 37 games, the Knicks were a 0.1 SRS team. Then Holzman took over, finishing the year as a 3.2 SRS team (+4.0 after losing his first 3 games). Frazier payed 21 mpg and averaged 9-4-4 off the bench. The team had great health. But also there was Reed, averaging 21-13 on 54% TS. The DRtg on that team jumped 4 points -- New York had typically been a doormat defensively, and now they were average.

By 1969, with Holzman and co. in place, the Knicks posted a -2.6 defense. But that was a tale of two seasons. Before the DeBusschere trade, New York was barely average (0.9 SRS), a falloff from Frazier's rookie year despite his noticeable improvement and Cazzie Russell growing a year older. The trade synergized everything, as the Knicks won their first 8 games and played 9.0 SRS ball the rest of the way.

These results are multipolar at their heart and should be confusing. It's part of the reason why, despite such great teams, Reed has barely had a sniff at this point in the project. What I find compelling is that Knicks were a solidly +2 to +3 ORtg team, seemingly behind Reed's offense, from 1966 to 1969. And with the Frazier-Holmaz-DeBusschere structure in place, they are very clearly a stout defensive team with Reed in the middle. He does show strong team defense on the film I've watched during these years, always rebounding well and challenging shots. It's not much to go on but it certainly looks like solid, or good defense.

In 69 Reed finished second in the MVP voting and then won the award the next year. While this is no doubt narrative driven, it's compelling that only Frazier received 4 votes in those 2 years -- others seemed to consider Reed the most important Knick. And that 70 Knicks team was a monster defensively, and posted an 8.4 overall SRS.

An interesting data point is in 1972, when Reed plays all but 11 games and the Knicks drop to a 2 SRS team...but drop from a -5.8 to a -2.8 defensive team. It's possible some of this is linked to the play of teammates, but then in 73 the defense returns to the -5.7 level with Reed back. Again, I think we're looking at an above average defensive player.

So Reed wasn't a defensive monster but he wasn't a slouch either. And his offensive results, with good mid-range jumper, speak fairly well. I think this guy's comfortably in the +4 to +4.5 type impact player, with probably average portability. Frazier exceeds that.

There are many surrounding seasons to focus on, but since I've presented the Knicks from 65-72 above, let's look at what happened when Reed missed the year. Frazier led the Knicks to a 2.3 SRS in the RS with Frazier having BY FAR his best year shooting and scoring the ball, with an increased role and without Willis. Obviously speaks well to a guy with a big-game reputation. Then he dragged the Knicks past the Celtics in 5 (1), stole G1 from the 72 Lakers and took them OT in another game. In the available footage I've see from that series, he looks like LeBron to the Cavs against the 07 Spurs (except Frazier held up and played very well in defeat). New York's PS SRS for 16 games was around +9.

Most players improve their offense as their defense declines, and even if Walt's was prematurely on the decline, I think that was the height of his offensive skill. And while I don't view him as a transcendent offensive player, I think we can all agree he was GOAT-level defense guard, looking like a human wrecking ball at times with ball pressure, using his size/strength, and rebounding well.
--

Nate Thurmond: One of the GOAT players of value and in 1967 he finished with 15 first-place votes in MVP to Wilt Chamberlain...who was voted 4th on this list. Probably my next vote, with Artis also being in the debate. I have Grant Hill and Payton on my immediate radar as well, although I find Payton hard to rank these days.

[ardee]

Vote: 1984 Bernard King

Unbelievable efficiency for a perimeter player with very little help on his team. Looking more into it Cartwright had a monster year but besides that this was an offensive feat that should be considered on par with '06 Kobe taking that Laker squad to a top 7-8 SRS in the league.

People like to point out that '84 and '85 were probably the all-time high in league wide efficiency, but even by those standards King was blowing the rest of the league out the water: his TS% was +12.5 over league average eFG%: that's at least as good as what we saw from West or Oscar who got voted in MUCH earlier!

He had this absurd 11 game stretch in Jan and Feb where we averaged 34.1 ppg on 65% TS! The Knicks went 10-1 in that stretch if anyone was wondering, he was THAT good.

Then they played a fledging Pistons team that would come to dominate the NBA later in the decade, with Laimbeer, Thomas, Tripucka and Vinnie Johnson. Bernard torched them to a degree we haven't even seen from Jordan: 42.6 ppg on 64.4% TS! He scored 36 in game 1, and then scored 40+ for the next 4 games! The Knicks needed every last point considering only 1 game was decided by more then 8 points.

Then he played the eventual champion Celtics, looked a prime Bird in the eye and matched him blow for blow. This is like Drexler coming into the United Center in '92 and giving Jordan the hardest series of his life. King was a warrior that year and is criminally underrated. Top 20 peak for me, hope he doesn't slip further.

[Doctor MJ]

As I said before, I was leaning heavily toward Reed or Frazier. In writing this, that distinction has become pretty clear as I don't think Reed ever got to the height Frazier did...

Agreed. I had my mind open about Reed vs Frazier here since my preference for Frazier in general is clinched by Reed's injury issues, but the more I look at it, the more it's Frazier. The team really transformed around Frazier not Reed. One can argue that neither deserve to get in yet because the Knicks were much more than even the sum of these two, but the first member of Red Holzman' golden Knicks should be Frazier.

[ElGee]

Vote: 1984 Bernard King

Unbelievable efficiency for a perimeter player with very little help on his team. Looking more into it Cartwright had a monster year but besides that this was an offensive feat that should be considered on par with '06 Kobe taking that Laker squad to a top 7-8 SRS in the league.

People like to point out that '84 and '85 were probably the all-time high in league wide efficiency, but even by those standards King was blowing the rest of the league out the water: his TS% was +12.5 over league average eFG%: that's at least as good as what we saw from West or Oscar who got voted in MUCH earlier!

He had this absurd 11 game stretch in Jan and Feb where we averaged 34.1 ppg on 65% TS! The Knicks went 10-1 in that stretch if anyone was wondering, he was THAT good.

Then they played a fledging Pistons team that would come to dominate the NBA later in the decade, with Laimbeer, Thomas, Tripucka and Vinnie Johnson. Bernard torched them to a degree we haven't even seen from Jordan: 42.6 ppg on 64.4% TS! He scored 36 in game 1, and then scored 40+ for the next 4 games! The Knicks needed every last point considering only 1 game was decided by more then 8 points.

Then he played the eventual champion Celtics, looked a prime Bird in the eye and matched him blow for blow. This is like Drexler coming into the United Center in '92 and giving Jordan the hardest series of his life. King was a warrior that year and is criminally underrated. Top 20 peak for me, hope he doesn't slip further.

I used to think this way, truly. But I don't think it's the whole story -- first, scoring is generally overrated, because there's only one ball. Second, this result is possible because of the team circumstance. And while the tendency is to say "well Dennis Rodman couldn't carry the 84 Knicks like King" (100% true), I'd counter by saying the 96-97 Bulls would be better off with Rodman's completely resilient and unique, almost linear offensive rebounding role to help an offense. And if your inclination is then to say "well what about other teams," that's exactly what I've tried to do with studying portability and win probability (which again, is why it matters more how you perform on better teams -- because those weak teams that need one obvious, large role filled aren't often winning titles, if ever).

So when I look at Bernard, I see a fairly one-dimensional scorer. A FANTASTIC one -- this is not a guy who stalled with the ball like Dantley or was the world's worst defender and fell in love with iso's like Anthony. He was truly, at that point in time, white hot. But that doesn't mean, de facto, that his scoring makes him better than players who impact the offense GLOBALLY (creation, passing, spacing + own scoring).

I used to have King top-20 because of the reasons you stated. When I consider how to win -- aka how to build a team -- and all the factors I've discussed, without changing my evaluation of Bernard, I have him around 40, and I think a great debate is Pierce vs. King. Pierce can play point forward -- he's a solid and willing creator. He gets to the line like crazy. He's a borderline GREAT shooter for spacing, and when he wants he rebounds and defends incredibly well. That's a monster piece on a high-level team, and we saw late-prime Pierce play on 9-10 SRS type teams in exactly that role quite well in 08 and 09. King is more of a question mark, but it's hard to see any template (can you find one?) of such a player boosting a team to such heights with that kind of offense. Comparing him to Michael Jordan or even West or Oscar as an offensive player is totally missing the mark about how these players impact offense.

PS High-scoring high-efficiency runs:

Dwyane Wade, 2009 G 55 to 65: 38.3 ppg 65.4% TS.

The only difference of course is Wade was a creation/global offense monster for his anemic team (8 apg), as well as a defensive dynamo. Food for thought since you seem to have them so close together...

PPS Do you also think it's a tragedy that Bob McAdoo, Tiny Archibald haven't got their due yet?

[C-izMe]

first, scoring is generally overrated, because there's only one ball.

Terrible argument. Offense is clearly more impactful than defense (excluding Russell). Super efficent high volume scoring is great especially if it doesn't interfer with teammates in any negative way.

[therealbig3]

I'm looking at Frazier, Pettit, Drexler, and Gilmore here, with Drexler and Gilmore a bit on the outside looking in.

ElGee and Doctor MJ, how do you feel about Frazier vs Pettit specifically? Great breakdowns of Frazier vs Reed, and Pettit vs Baylor, but what about them vs each other?

I'll give a very tentative vote now though, since I might not be here for the next couple of days due to Hurricane Sandy.

Vote: 72 Frazier

[Doctor MJ]

first, scoring is generally overrated, because there's only one ball.

Terrible argument. Offense is clearly more impactful than defense (excluding Russell). Super efficent high volume scoring is great especially if it doesn't interfer with teammates in any negative way.

It's actually not an argument, it's a fact. If you listen to a lot of sports radio and other basketball fans you can hear how their thinking is warped. People think that if you just add a 20 PPG scorer to a team, he'll add roughly 20 points to your team. When a 20 PPG scorer goes down, you can actually hear people say, "Where are they going get 20 more points?" without anyone ever mentioning that the team is going to be able to replace the vast majority of those points simply because they'll have someone else take that guys shots.

Now though, this isn't so much an argument agains the Kings of the world though in my mind, as it is an argument against the secondary scorers or inefficient volume scorers. You're quite right that an efficient volume scorer who does it in the flow of the team's offense will have considerable impact.

On the other hand, when you talk about offense being bigger than defense, even if I grant that your Russell reference is meant to indicate you're only talking about the importance of star players in more modern eras, the dominant offensive player for the past decade imho was Nash...who doesn't score that much, and typically gets underrated by the common fan.

[C-izMe]

first, scoring is generally overrated, because there's only one ball.

Terrible argument. Offense is clearly more impactful than defense (excluding Russell). Super efficent high volume scoring is great especially if it doesn't interfer with teammates in any negative way.

It's actually not an argument, it's a fact. If you listen to a lot of sports radio and other basketball fans you can hear how their thinking is warped. People think that if you just add a 20 PPG scorer to a team, he'll add roughly 20 points to your team. When a 20 PPG scorer goes down, you can actually hear people say, "Where are they going get 20 more points?" without anyone ever mentioning that the team is going to be able to replace the vast majority of those points simply because they'll have someone else take that guys shots.

Now though, this isn't so much an argument agains the Kings of the world though in my mind, as it is an argument against the secondary scorers or inefficient volume scorers. You're quite right that an efficient volume scorer who does it in the flow of the team's offense will have considerable impact.

On the other hand, when you talk about offense being bigger than defense, even if I grant that your Russell reference is meant to indicate you're only talking about the importance of star players in more modern eras, the dominant offensive player for the past decade imho was Nash...who doesn't score that much, and typically gets underrated by the common fan.

I understand your not exactly arguing my statement (we seem to both think the argument is bad for King, and even though I didn't state it it's true when it comes to the Rudy Gays of the world) but I think the skill that separated Nash from the pack was that he could average 23-25 on 60TS if he felt like it. This goes for almost every playmakers we've discussed so far, they've all been top 10 scorers in the seasons we've picked (Nash, Penny, Magic, Paul, etc.). Scoring is the one skill EVERY good offensive player must have. Playmaking is the "over the hump" skill but scoring opens the door.

[Doctor MJ]

ElGee and Doctor MJ, how do you feel about Frazier vs Pettit specifically? Great breakdowns of Frazier vs Reed, and Pettit vs Baylor, but what about them vs each other?

It's tough as always to compare different types of players, and in particular these guys are tough to compare to players who aren't contemporaries (which they aren't of each other).

Frazier played in Red's system of beautiful passing on offense, and with Red's ridiculously effective defensive adjustments. Both of which Frazier was absolutely crucial too, and so he deserve lots of credit, but when you watch the team play, the first thing you notice isn't Frazier, or Willis, but that the Knicks are behaving distinctly from other teams and that it's working very well. That's Red being ahead of his time. Now, unlike that other Red (Auerbach), Holzmann didn't seem to be able to continue to be one step ahead of the competition for decades, just during this brief Golden window which coincided with Frazier and other talent so take that for what you will, but when I watch that team, it's hard for me to believe that Frazier isn't getting a legacy due to fortunate circumstances.

So I look at Frazier compared to the KJs of the world and it's not so clear cut to me. I'll give Frazier the nod over Isiah or Payton because I think those guys would really struggle in a system where they had to be more reactive to team flow (Payton already showed how clueless he was, and Isiah continues to show that he has no ability to understand how to put a team together while displaying a ginormous ego that insists he was Jordans equal), and that says a lot, but it's still not necessarily looking at Frazier as a guy who would be MVP level.

With Pettit, I think offensively you've got to give the man props now that the hyper-scoring big men are off the books. Pettit's efficiency as a guy who came of age in the '50s had already reached levels by the end of his career that Tim Duncan would call prime-worthy, and it just seems to me pretty clear that kind of adjustment only happens if you're able to have the global awareness to realize that something that used to be acceptable isn't any more because new options have emerged. I think Pettit would be a better offensive player than Duncan today.

Defense is always more iffy for me. You can absolutely find people praising his defense, which to me says at the very least this was a smart guy who gave it his all. That's still a pretty far cry from guys who are true game changers here. So I'm imagining Pettit as Duncan-ish on offense, and Dirk-ish on defense with a bit stronger nose for the glass. Such a guy is not an MVP level player today either.

Gah, I don't how to choose between them. All my analysis pegs them in the same ballpark at their peak.

[Dr Positivity]

Vote 2008 Paul Pierce

Probably going to have to change my vote, but wth...

First Q: Why 2008 when he's not nearly as spectacular as his 25ppg years? Well, this is clearly a result of team context and the Celtics not needing him to score at a higher volume. In 07 he was at 26.2ppg before his injury and did 26.8ppg in 06. Before 08 he'd only played about 26,000 total minutes (regular season/playoffs) when most stars last till 35k-40k total minutes before slowing down, and 2008 was his 10th season which players are usually still in their prime in. KG for example had played 38,000 minutes and was heading into his 13th season,there's much more evidence real decline than Pierce at the time. Pierce was 30 but has a style of game that should age gracefully. He lost basically nothing the following 2 seasons (09, 10) and very little in '11, whereas players who are declining because of age show a steep downward path after the first sign of slippage. All in all, I see just about no reason to believe Pierce's drop-off as a scorer from the 06 and 07 seasons to 08, had anything to do with aging or natural causes, or that he wouldn't have kept his 25-26ppg+ pace up if the KG/Allen acquisitions didn't happen. I think 2008 Pierce compared to his earlier years was a more experienced and intelligent player, passing it better, he peaked in 3pt shooting from 2006 onward, this was his defensive peak. He was Finals MVP and integral to the Celtics making it out of the 2nd rd in the CLE G7. I also like Pierce at SF more than SG because of spacing. Elite 3pt shooting and spacing at the SF position is a lot more rare than at SG.

I think the gap between Pierce and Barry has been overstated for a while. Skillset wise they do a lot of the same things. Shoot, pass, drive decently despite not being elite athletes. Barry has the gaudy PPG numbers, but mainly because he wanted to shoot that much. I think Pierce is roughly as good as Rick Barry. Pierce to me is a wing almost without flaws. His scoring talent/array of skills, passing, spacing and overall intelligence make him a legitimate offensive anchor, he holds his own defensively, and this year proves his games translates extremely well with other stars. I can't put my finger on exactly why Pierce was underrated historically as a scorer for most of his career, I guess it's because he plays in slow motion. But his scoring career was basically been step for step with his 98 draft-mate Dirk Nowitzki until 08 (when Pierce's volume dropped) both in volume and efficiency, and he's going to finish in the top 10-15 all time in points - he's a legitimate MONSTER scorer.

Pierce vs the other wings - I like Pierce over Drexler because Pierce is a more valuable halfcourt scorer and Drexler a more valuable transition one. In the playoffs the games are slower and I value halfcourt play and skill level more. Likewise I value Pierce's scoring skillset over Dominique's, sort of in a Hakeem vs Robinson type of way - In the regular season Dominique's scoring may have more valuable, but in the playoff series when defenses are better I prefer that advanced skill level. Pierce vs VC (who I'm surprised has so little traction) - 2001 Vince is a lot more dynamic athletically than 08 Pierce, but also less trustworthy in the savvy and skilled department, which I value in a long playoff run. 2005 Vince is a pretty similar player to Pierce but I don't trust him mentally (nor the 2001 version a whole lot either). King vs Pierce is a tough call. I'm sure King has a better chance of getting in now than Pierce anyways, but it comes down to whether King's impact could be felt the same on a more balanced team. 03 Tracy McGrady feels like a player that can translate due to his passing, scoring, defensive potential, but with King if he's not getting fed constantly in that way, I'd be concerned. I'll take Pierce's all around game

[fatal9]

Won't have any time till Wednesday or Tuesday night at the earliest so can't contribute till then, so will be relying on what people write here to swing my vote. Right now I'm considering voting for Pettit though, but it's more of a "feels like the right place for him" vote than "I firmly think he is better than these players".

As far as wings are concerned I have Drexler, Pierce and Hill as the next three followed probably by Manu. I have Frazier as the next one for PGs followed by Kidd...after that it's really uncertain for me. I will say that I'm strongly considering Price over Stockton (Price was clearly better offensively) and I'll try to explain why in detail later. Price is ahead of KJ for me too. Isiah is always tough to judge, hoping we can dissect his impact in detail. Same with Payton because there are offensive portability concerns with him as has been mentioned in the past here. I'm thinking for the next couple of rounds we should extend the deadline by a day because we've entered a new group of players now and imo there's a big discussion to be had about the PGs coming up.

I'm also not a fan of Gilmore. Have Lanier, Zo, Cowens and Thurmond over him comfortably. Again, will try to explain why when I have time later in the week.

[colts18]

I'm surprised no one has talked about Bernard King in any of the past few threads.

[C-izMe]

I might skip my vote this thread. I honestly have no idea of who to pick.

[ElGee]

Hopefully we'll see more discussion with this thread as we've effected completed a tier of enshrinees.

I'm not opposed to voting for Pettit in the next thread. I read a good point on how he adjusted to the higher efficiency of the league as it was going up. Based on footage, I actually have a lot of respect for his skills and think he had the ability to adjust his game to find a way to be efficient as league-wide numbers rose. Don't really know what people thought of him on defense though. Keep in mind this is a two time MVP winner and best player on championship team type of guy in his era.

Next dozen guys are going to be really tough to separate. Just to throw names out there: Zo, Drexler, Frazier, Hill, Pierce, Kidd, Isiah, Stockton, Cowens, Payton, with KJ, Price being right in the mix of those PGs too imo. After Zo, I have Lanier and Thurmond as the next centers (maybe Reed too but need to hear arguments for him). Ginobili, Hondo, Vince are some other wings to look at. I have McAdoo around 45-50, kind of feel like I'm really underrating him though.

I think Pettit definitely requires serious consideration. I don't know if I'll side with him here or not, but as I said before, the choice between Pettit & Baylor is easily Pettit, and with McHale gone I don't think there's any other big out there who makes me think, "I just can't expect Pettit to be able to pull that off". If you voted for Baylor, I don't know how you can justify not voting for Pettit very soon.

There is some force that doesn't want me to post about Bob Pettit. This is the fourth time I've tried to write about him...

-we're in the dark ages, we have to guess, be less sure, and it's harder to have a sense of impact
-I like the stats, the stories, and the film, but that doesn't auto-default to much of anything (eg +3 and +6 are two every different things)
-No one shows much outlying impact from about the early 50's to the mid 60's other than Bill Russell's Celtics. (In 1950 Mikan's team was 8.5 SRS)

In 55 there is a small jump from -4.5 to -2.5 when Pettit joins the Hawks. The 56 team is better, at -1.4 SRS, with Pettit going from by far the best Hawk as a rookie (20-11) to MVP of the league. He beat out Cousy and Arizin with a plurality win (0.43 share).

In 57 they add Ed Macauley from the Celtics, a rookie named Cliff Hagan, boast an average offense and an average defense, finish under .500, but no one notices because they take the Celtics to the brink. Pettit is second in MVP and averages 25-15. St Louis also moves from one great coach -- Holzman -- to another in Alex Hannum. In 58 they have almost the exact same results...

59 is the season to look at. Macauley takes over as coach and they go 43-19 under him (final SRS of 3, all of it, estimated, coming from offense). Cliff Hagan is now a 24-11 sidekick next to Pettit, with Clyde Lovellette showing prominence and many of the same players from the team since Pettit arrived.

So unless something very weird is happening with the impact of the coaches, guys like Hagan being deceptive from his stats (which was the opposite conclusion the remaining RPOY panel had for these seasons), and so on, it seems impossible to credit Pettit for taking a -4.5 team to +3. Such a feat would place him much higher on the list than 34th, of course, so the question is how much credit can be given to Pettit for the movement of this team?

Well, the FIRST jump in the his tenure over .500 -- and again, he didn't join a -10 SRS but more like a -4 one -- is in 1959 after a few years of roster continuity, the addition of Lovellette and the significant growth of Hagan, you have a +3 team. This just seems unlikely to me that Pettit, despite his 29-16-3 52% TS line in 1959 (and MVP), was having the +5 kind of impact of the players I'm looking at, and that the other changes had almost no impact (1-2 SRS points total?). Technically, he never played on a team that was above 3 SRS.

Kevin Love comes to mind, not as a comparison per se, but as an analogy. He's skilled. He has great stats. He's a good rebounder, smart and talented offensive player, and marginal defender. As such, his global impact on offense is darn good and his value on defense is marginal, at best.

It's not to say it's impossible or even highly unlikely that Pettit was having bigger impact and there were team dynamics that were making the results look less impressive...but it's just hard for me to see the evidence for that without assuming it, which is something I'm not comfortable doing. I mean, he won MVP in 1959, but I don't think he's in the same stratosphere as Bill Russell in 1959, so getting too excited about that to me is like getting excited about Wes Unseld's MVP 10 years later.

[Dr Positivity]

Kevin Love might be a top 30 peak player on that note though. I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt until the Ws at least reasonably show up, but it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up in the top 25 on the next version of this list despite not surpassing the stats he did last year. I'd personally feel more comfortable voting Love at this point than Pettit.

[Dipper 13]

I might skip my vote this thread. I honestly have no idea of who to pick.

How about Chet Walker? In 1967 (based on 2008-09 adjustment) his ORtg was 122, equal to LeBron, and ahead of Kobe, Wade, & Nash. Chris Paul was slightly ahead (124). A fine post by Neil Paine below.



http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=2938

One thing that's interesting to me about the 1970s Bulls is the presence of a guy named Chet Walker. Walker has to rank as one of the most underrated players in league history, and I can't for the life of me understand why -- the man was a 3-time NCAA All-American, a 7-time NBA All-Star, he was super durable (he played the max number of games 5 times and only missed 13 games between 1965 & 1974), he scored almost 20,000 career points and averaged 20.3 per 36 minutes, and was one of the league's most efficient scorers to boot (top 10 in TS% for 5 seasons, top 10 in FT% 6 years). If we convert his Basketball on Paper stats to the 2008-09 offensive environment of 108.3 points per 100 possessions, this is what you get:





Those efficiency numbers would have statheads drooling if Walker put them up nowadays. But for some reason, Walker is so underrated that his name doesn't even come up frequently in discussions of underrated players... He's even too underrated to appear on "all-underrated" lists!

The HOF process also rewards players who won championships, as well as those who made strong bids in the MVP award balloting. As we mentioned earlier, Walker's Bulls never won a title, and when he did get a ring, it was as a third banana (behind Wilt Chamberlain & Hal Greer on the 1967 76ers). Meanwhile, Walker's best showing in the MVP voting was a measly tie for 16th in 1975.

Don't let the reputation (or lack thereof) fool you, though: Walker was a terrific player, especially at his peak. His raw stats may be solid if unspectacular, but his advanced metrics -- his per-minute rates and his efficiency numbers -- are very impressive.