RealGM

PG: Tony Parker, Penny Hardaway, Tim Hardaway, and Mark Price are worth a look. I'd throw Mookie Blaylock into the mix; he never got the offensive credit in his day for his 3 point shooting but he was a very good 2 way threat with nasty defense.

Comparing 4 guys known as scoring 3's: Carmelo Anthony, Billy Cunningham, Marques Johnson, James Worthy; Chris Mullin and Glen Rice should also be in the mix somewhere.



Defensive stalwarts: Ben Wallace, Bobby Jones, Shawn Marion, Horace Grant, and Rasheed Wallace





Best bigs left: My favorite is Mel Daniels with his 2 ABA MVPs and 3 rings (2 as clearly the best player) -- played like Alonzo Mourning offensively and Moses defensively -- but his weaknesses (and the weakness of the early ABA) are problematic. Bill Walton and Connie Hawkins are super short, super peak guys. Neil Johnston, Amare, Dan Issel, Jerry Lucas, and Spencer Haywood have offensive creds but bigs who don't play good defense are problematic for me. Even Zelmo Beaty, Elton Brand, Chris Bosh, Chris Webber, and Yao Ming are on my radar.

Jerry Lucas, Mel Daniels, Bobby Jones, and Shawn Marion are the main guys on my list right now. Lucas was a great rebounder, outstanding secondary scorer with stretch the floor range and good passing skills. Not a good defender though willing; did a good job post prime taking over for injured Willis Reed and playing most of the center minutes on the Knicks second title team. Daniels is a 2 time ABA MVP; I'd take him over the flashier numbers of Neil Johnston and the 50s bigs because even though the early ABA isn't strong, it was better than the 50s NBA, super warrior type, short career arc. Jones is a great glue guy who gave up minutes and starting roles to help his team, still is the all-time record holder with the most 1st team All-Def awards, very efficient high energy, good passing, nice midrange . . . was the best player on the best team in 1975 ABA without great help (Denver had a better record than either Erving's Nets or Gilmore's Colonels) who made Larry Brown's jump and switch defense into a winner, limited minutes player is his main weakness (and not a good rebounder for a 4). Marion has a long career as one of the great offball slashers and wing rebounders of all time, versatile, was clearly the second best player (better than Amare who got all the awards) on those Nash led Sun teams -- Suns didn't miss a beat when Amare went down; and did a great job on LeBron in Dallas's title run.

Vote Bobby Jones for his versatility, willingness to sacrifice glory for team, and just being the epitome of what basketball should be about. If it's about winning rather than stats, Jones is your poster boy.

Vote: James Worthy

One of the best finishers of all-time, excellent scorer (shot over 55% FG in his first four seasons in the league, including 20.0 PPG on 57.9% in 1986), pretty versatile (could throw it down in transition, knock down midrange jumpers, move very well off-ball as a cutter, or take his defender to the post, and spin to the basket, or make a baseline fadeaway jumper). His post game was really advanced for a small forward - he had drop steps, up and unders etc. Kinda like a poor man's version of Kevin McHale.

Not really a great rebounder or passer, but adequate in both areas. Solid defender. Great playoff performer (his stats all went up in the playoffs - points, rebounds, assists, PER, TS%, WS/48 - you rarely see that).

Nicknamed "Big Game" James for his clutch performances, including that famous triple double in game 7 of the 1988 finals (it was a very close game, and if not for Worthy's 36 points on 15/22 shooting, Pistons likely would've won it).

Decent longevity (6 seasons with more than 19 PPG, one more with over 17), and I would like to say that his decline shouldn't be correlated with Magic's retirement - Worthy already declined in the 1990-91 season (his TS% went down by more than 5%, to just 53.1%) - it was because of ankle and knee injuries.

I'm not sure if there's anything else, other than longevity, that separates Worthy from Dominique Wilkins. Nique scored on a much higher volume, but also much worse efficiency, and Worthy was a MUCH better playoff performer (plus he was a better defender than Nique).

I'm going with Chris Webber since he's my top candidate. Although he's often criticized for maturity issues during his pre-Sacto years, poor durability, falling in love with his elbow jumper and avoiding contact, Webber was still a legit MVP candidate, a very talented player with a versatile offensive skill-set and a solid/underrated defender. I think Webber's peak, prime and overall skill-set are enough to make him one of the top 70-75 candidates, and his issues at this point in the project don't look so bad since all the remaining candidates have significant weaknesses.

94 ROY
5x All-Star
1x All-NBA 1st Team
3x All-NBA 2nd Team
1x All-NBA 3rd Team
5x Top 10 in MVP voting

10 Year Prime (94-03):
22.1 PER, .526 TS%, 14.7 TRB%, 20.4 AST%, 72.3 WS, .152 WS/48, 106 ORtg, 100 DRtg

10 Year Prime (94-03) Per 100:
29.2 PTS, 13.5 TRB, 5.8 AST, 2 STL, 2.2 BLK, 3.9 TOV

GOAT level passing big:

Webber was capable of making all the passes and you could run the offense through him without missing a beat. His 20.2 career AST% is exceptional for a big. The only other PF/C with a career AST% >= 20 is Alvan Adams.

One of only 10 players with 17,000 PTS, 8000 REB, 3500 AST and a career PER above 20:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... tats::none

The other 9 players with at least 17,000 PTS, 8000 REB, 3500 AST and a career PER >=20 are Kareem, Wilt, Karl Malone, Duncan, KG, Dr J, Barkley, Bird and Baylor. Webber obviously doesn't belong in the same class as any of these legends, but I think it at least shows how talented and skilled he was.

Vote: Chris Webber

The top guys I could be content supporting (or at least wouldn't feel disingenuous in supporting) for this spot, by position....

PG: Really Tony Parker is the only one. Tim Hardaway and Dennis Johnson are somewhat on my radar, though I cannot see myself supporting them for at least 6-10 spots further, and certainly not prior to Tony Parker getting in. Price and Penny are worth a mention, but ultimately are just hurt too much by poor longevity to get my consideration yet.

SG: Hal Greer. This is the guy who made a rookie Walt Frazier cry by torching him so bad. And with Sam Jones already voted in, it's worth noting that in the 60's there seemed to be some question as to who was the better SG.

SF: Carmelo Anthony, Shawn Marion, James Worthy.

PF: Chris Webber at the top of this list, followed by Chris Bosh and Jerry Lucas. And actually you guys are wearing me down on Bobby Jones, too. EDIT: Also Horace Grant.

C: Dan Issel is the front-runner at center position. I rate him similar to Amar'e Stoudemire (excellent scorer/offensive player, decent rebounder, not so good defender), but with significantly better longevity. The fact that he'd likely not play C today isn't an issue to me. Frankly I think the option of playing a stretch-4 suits him better anyway. Even in the 70's/early 80's he had excellent range for a big, and his poor-ish defense is even less an issue if playing PF as apposed to C.


The two guys I'd most like to support: either Chris Webber or Tony Parker. I'll make my decision shortly and cast the official vote.

trex_8063 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:I think it's really easy to overrate the offensive rebounding of Grant based on his time in Chicago. This was a team, after all, that saw it's offensive rebounding rank improve AFTER Grant left BEFORE Rodman got there at a time when the club's top offensive rebounder only played 20 MPG.

This is a somewhat misleading statement, imo. For one, their league rank in ORebs improved only from the year immediately before (but were ranked worse in some OReb categories than any season in recent memory with Grant in a Bull uniform). Secondly, while their league rank mysteriously improves, their OReb numbers (by any and all means you choose to measure) were worse in '95 than in any of the previous four seasons. I'll show what I mean.....

Below I'll list (by year) Chicago's ORebs (league rank)/OREB% (league rank)/% of missed TSA's claimed by OReb:
'91: 1148 (13th/27)/34.7% (4th/27)/30.90%
'92: 1173 (12th/27)/35.1% (5th/27)/31.16%
'93: 1290 (3rd/27)/36.3% (1st/27)/32.58%
'94: 1143 (13th/27)/33.8% (11th/27)/29.99%
'95 (no Grant, no Rodman): 1106 (7th/27)/32.9% (6th/27)/29.36%
'96: 1247 (3rd/29)/36.9% (1st/29)/32.62%

So let's get this straight here:

Your response to "Grant left, and they got better at offensive rebounding without him" is "Actually they got ever so slightly worse".

I don't really have a problem with that. I don't think Grant was literally making their offensive rebounding worse, I'm just saying that there's a very serious danger in using the following logic:

Jordan's Bulls were incredibly successful in part because of their offensive rebounding being the strength of the offense.
Grant was getting offensive rebounds for them.
Therefore Grant should get a ton of credit because he's associated with the strength of that offense.

Whenever we talk about impact, we have to talk in terms of replaceability. And when we talk about offensive rebounding and the Bulls, to me there's only one guy who we can clearly say "That was THE guy for the Bulls to get in that role.", and that's Rodman. Grant by contrast was simply a very nice player in the right place at the right time on this front.

trex_8063 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote: You talk about turnovers, and try to equate the roles of the 2 guys, but when the guy with more turnovers also has more assists, he's obviously being asked to do a considerably more intensive playmaking role.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say "considerably more intensive role" as a playmaker. Jones is averaging 4.5 ast/100 poss vs. 3.4 for Grant. It's more, yes, but the verbiage used seems to imply Jones had to shoulder a ton of facilitating (which isn't precisely the case). Further, I'm not sure getting +1.1 ast/100 possessions at expense of 1.6 additional turnovers per 100 possessions is a nice exchange, regardless of role.

Longevity's another significant consideration when comparing the two, fwiw.

When people are using Jones' turnovers against him, the fact that he also got more assists has to be brought up, because there's obviously a connection. Fine to argue that there's enough more turnovers that either 1) Jones shouldn't have been playmaking like he did, or 2) there's something else going on, but you absolutely cannot emphasize the turnovers while praising Grant's playmaking without also talking about the fact that Jones was racking up more assists than Grant.

And yes, longevity is a fine thing to bring up.

SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:r
With Bobby Jones I am not sure if he really should have been 1st all defensive team all those years. One of those years Bird was 2nd team all defensive team. I normally tell people that Bird was a perfectly good defender as long as he was defending power forwards but I don't think Bird should have been 2nd team all defensive team. I am not sure what power forward should have been ahead of Bird and Jones but I suspect somebody was overlooked.

Bird and Jones were white. Being white should not be held against them but I hope it did not help them with awards. Bird got a lot of steals as a help defender using high Baskeball IQ to decide when to jump in and take a swipe at the ball and when to jump into a passing lane. Bobby Jones racked up the steal and block stats. I read the Jones was doing a lot off help defense.

I don't remember Jones having defensive success against Maxwell or Bird but that is me thinking of Jones as a man to man defender rather than as a help defender.

Seeing film of Jones recently I realize that I had forgotten how athletic Jones was (but that was highlight films).

Jones' rebounding numbers in the NBA are not that good. Was Jones's paying a price on his man to man defense and rebounding for his attention to help defense?

On the plus minus stats and defensive and offensive ratings with the Philadelphia statistician as as the source I noticed some strange year to year variation with Dr J and Steve Mix and others. viewtopic.php?t=1343246&start=140
I don't know what to make of it.

The stats in general rate Bobby Jones higher than my memory does. The stats do not rate Caldwell Jones as highly as my memory does.
In 1980 Bobby Jones has the best offensive rating on the team and the second worst defensive rating on the team while having the best plus minus. I interpret that as Bobby Jones and Mix coming off the bench playing at a faster pace than the starters play.

I am voting for the Archibald in this round though I may be underating Bobby Jones.

So clearly you're not alone in being unconvinced on Jones so I don't mean to single you out. But you spoke a bit here on him in a way that's a bit different, so I'll respond a bit.

So first, the connection with Bird. To me, watching early Bird (HA!), it doesn't seem weird at all that people thought he was All-D worthy. Also appropriately: He stopped getting the awards as he aged and changed his style. Frankly he seems to me to be the rare legend who seems accurately captured by All-D metrics because typically once a guy starts getting the award, he gets it by default long after he ceases to deserve it.

Anyway: Show me a guy with outstanding motor and high defensive IQ, and to me it's pretty clear that guy is going to be quite impactful on defense relative to others at his position. Typically the reason why people get confused on this front is that they mistake a flash of seeming genius with consistent genius. Bird though to my mind has probably the highest reactive basketball intelligence we've ever seen - and by that I mean, he read the floor and reacted for the brilliant play of the moment.

So yeah, linking Jones to Bird on defense with the recognition that he didn't see his game have to adjust so dramatically to me should be something for Jones' proponents to do, not his skeptics.

Re: Jones' rebounding numbers. I think I went over this before in this project: When Jones went to Philadelphia, in a trade that saw a big-rebound guy go to his old team, Philly's rebounding improved. It's crucial to understand how problematic it is to judge defensive rebounding based on individual rebounding numbers. Team do defensive rebounding as a team, and that means many players focused on boxing out rather than rebounding the ball - an attitude that it certainly makes sense to say Jones was wiser about than McGinnis.

Re: 1980 +/-. I'm not sure what you mean by Jones having the 2nd worst defensive numbers on the team because that's not what I see. I see him looking underwhelming compared to Cheeks that year, but still solid. And then of course in 1981 his defensive numbers look fantastic. To me that just reminds that these are not numbers without noise. When I look at them I look only for the most general of trends. And yeah, generally speaking, Jones looks fantastic with these numbers.

To be honest, it's fascinating to me how hard it seems to convince people in this project of Jones' greatness. We've been in the same tier in which Jones was always voted in before, and this time we have the benefit of +/- stats confirming what many (like Lorak) doubted before. I though he might see a significant jump in this project. That he hasn't really tells me that the voter pool right now has had a lot of turnover compared to prior projects. And that's fine, to be clear, just something I wasn't expecting.

Re: Faster pace. Well ORtg & DRtg adjust for pace, so there's no particular reason to think that pace would explain this.

RE: doesn't match memories. I'm not going to try to tell you your memories are wrong. It's entirely possible something will be revealed in future analysis that backs up something you're saying. I just try to play it as it lies.

Vote: Bobby Jones

As stated before, he's a "table" guy. Does a lot of good things for your team, stuff you don't even realize he's doing. There aren't a lot of those guys out there who have good numbers, but give indications they are considerably better than that.

Doctor MJ wrote:

trex_8063 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:I think it's really easy to overrate the offensive rebounding of Grant based on his time in Chicago. This was a team, after all, that saw it's offensive rebounding rank improve AFTER Grant left BEFORE Rodman got there at a time when the club's top offensive rebounder only played 20 MPG.

This is a somewhat misleading statement, imo. For one, their league rank in ORebs improved only from the year immediately before (but were ranked worse in some OReb categories than any season in recent memory with Grant in a Bull uniform). Secondly, while their league rank mysteriously improves, their OReb numbers (by any and all means you choose to measure) were worse in '95 than in any of the previous four seasons. I'll show what I mean.....

Below I'll list (by year) Chicago's ORebs (league rank)/OREB% (league rank)/% of missed TSA's claimed by OReb:
'91: 1148 (13th/27)/34.7% (4th/27)/30.90%
'92: 1173 (12th/27)/35.1% (5th/27)/31.16%
'93: 1290 (3rd/27)/36.3% (1st/27)/32.58%
'94: 1143 (13th/27)/33.8% (11th/27)/29.99%
'95 (no Grant, no Rodman): 1106 (7th/27)/32.9% (6th/27)/29.36%
'96: 1247 (3rd/29)/36.9% (1st/29)/32.62%

So let's get this straight here:

Your response to "Grant left, and they got better at offensive rebounding without him" is "Actually they got ever so slightly worse".

I'm sensing a smirk in your tone.
But yes, that is exactly what I'm saying, because I think there's a fair bit of disparity between "they got better" and "they got slightly worse". Had you said "they got slightly better without Grant", then perhaps the difference I was pointing out would be relatively trivial. I'd still probably call you out on that it because I tend to stickler on points like that. But since you didn't use that particular adverb to modify your statement, it left the degree to which they "got better" vague, and certainly seemed to imply that it was by a significant margin......which, as I stated, I find misleading.

Doctor MJ wrote:Whenever we talk about impact, we have to talk in terms of replaceability. And when we talk about offensive rebounding and the Bulls, to me there's only one guy who we can clearly say "That was THE guy for the Bulls to get in that role.", and that's Rodman. Grant by contrast was simply a very nice player in the right place at the right time on this front.

Fair point about replaceability, and perhaps Jones's talents are somewhat more "irreplaceable". Though I somewhat resent the implication that Grant was merely a "right place at the right time" guy, and little more. In defense of this I'd point out that his numbers during his first three prime years in Orlando are very very similar to his previous four seasons in Chicago (so maybe he's a guy who can be "right" in many different places and times?? I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in this regard).

And wrt "impact", his impact data looks pretty good, even though we largely only have it for POST-prime Horace Grant.

Non-scaled PI RAPM by year:
'97: +3.25 (NPI; *30th in league, and just ahead of Dennis Rodman, fwiw)
'98 (this is early post-prime): +2.26
'99: +1.17
'00: +0.56
'01: +2.0 (NPI; *tied for 38th in league)
'02: +2.9 (33rd in league)
----my source has withdrawn data from '03' thru '06.

Judging by his impact while past his prime, I tend to suspect it was pretty solid during his prime. EDIT: And this raw +/- that's recently brought up supports that notion (though I'm not sure how excited I should get about it; more on that in later post)......

Horace's league rank in raw +/- by year:
'94: 30th (colts18 ran a regression to obtain RAPM data; Grant ranked 20th in league by that)
'95: 6th (behind only DRob, K.Malone, Penny, Shaq, and Stockton; 11th by colts18's RAPM data)
'96: 18th (10th by colts18's RAPM)

Doctor MJ wrote:

trex_8063 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote: You talk about turnovers, and try to equate the roles of the 2 guys, but when the guy with more turnovers also has more assists, he's obviously being asked to do a considerably more intensive playmaking role.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say "considerably more intensive role" as a playmaker. Jones is averaging 4.5 ast/100 poss vs. 3.4 for Grant. It's more, yes, but the verbiage used seems to imply Jones had to shoulder a ton of facilitating (which isn't precisely the case). Further, I'm not sure getting +1.1 ast/100 possessions at expense of 1.6 additional turnovers per 100 possessions is a nice exchange, regardless of role.

Longevity's another significant consideration when comparing the two, fwiw.

When people are using Jones' turnovers against him, the fact that he also got more assists has to be brought up, because there's obviously a connection. Fine to argue that there's enough more turnovers that either 1) Jones shouldn't have been playmaking like he did, or 2) there's something else going on, but you absolutely cannot emphasize the turnovers while praising Grant's playmaking without also talking about the fact that Jones was racking up more assists than Grant.

And yes, longevity is a fine thing to bring up.

fwiw, I never "praised" Grant's playmaking; and I wasn't the one who brought the topic up (the person whom you were originally responding to on this front). I'm merely stating that I don't think noting him racking up more assists is sufficient argument to claim that Jones was a superior (or perhaps even equal) playmaker given 1) he's not racking up too many more assists, while 2) also racking up quite a few more turnovers (at ratios which are not at all flattering, especially when compared to Grant).

Sorry I missed the last vote! Got wrapped up in the Blake Griffin episode, and now I feel old.

Going with James Worthy still.

Clearly he was never the most important player on any of the Lakers' teams while Magic was around, but what an awesome piece he was nonetheless - very skilled, dangerous scorer who elevated his game when the moment called for it, not just in the playoffs, but in the regular season, too.

In head-to-head comparisons of against other leading 80s small forwards (Bird, Erving, Dantley, English, Aguirre, King, Marques Johnson, Nique), here are some summary stats taken from this spreadsheet:

131 wins, 64 losses on +1.47 SRS above expectations (ranks #1 out of 9)
Relative PPG up 1.23, opponent relative PPG down 1.25 (net -4.03 PPG vs. opponent, rank #9 of 9)
Relative RPG up 0.20, opponent relative RPG up 0.27 (only available from 1986 on, net -0.29 RPG vs. opponent)
Relative APG up 0.20, opponent relative APG down 0.38 (only available from 1986 on, net -0.24 APG vs. opponent)
TS down 0.05%, opponent TS down 0.38% (net +2.59% TS vs. opponent, rank #2 of 9)

So while Worthy tended to be outscored by big-time SFs (though he had a sizable edge in efficiency), he increased his scoring output and his opponents saw a dip in their output and efficiency, and there was no real difference in rebounds or assists. It appears that "Big Game James" had a notable bump in his production and a notable decrease in that of his opponents, even during the regular season.

Win shares aren't overly kind of Worthy in comparison to others - he's got a career WS/48 of 0.130, with about 63% coming on the offensive end. I did a comparison of offensive win shares for the 80s small forwards here, investigating whether they were perhaps poaching them from teammates, or rather providing lift. Well, in Worthy's case, his teammates seemed to generally far outperform their expectations with respect to offensive win shares. A lot of that credit should go to Magic, obviously, but Worthy's deadly scoring was a key part of their offense's success, I feel.



As a playoff performer, there are few who have raised their games quite like Worthy. I think in the playoffs, he became a legitimate top 10 player in the league for several years. He produced a playoff O+ from 1985 onward of 8.07 (12.05 from 1985-89) on a Score+ of 2.072 (3.338 from 1985-89), and those are obviously big sample sizes, and those career numbers are likely to go up if we include his 1984 season.

Re: Bobby Jones

The minutes thing is the only thing holding me back, but the impact data could sway me somewhat. Could someone give me a link to it?

For what it's worth, Jones' scoring seems to have been a decent boon for his teams. His Score+ of 2.646 ranks 34th all-time. Of course minutes are an important consideration here - hence his peak pace adjusted net PPG ranks 118th.

Moonbeam wrote:Re: Bobby Jones

The minutes thing is the only thing holding me back, but the impact data could sway me somewhat. Could someone give me a link to it?

For what it's worth, Jones' scoring seems to have been a decent boon for his teams. His Score+ of 2.646 ranks 34th all-time. Of course minutes are an important consideration here - hence his peak pace adjusted net PPG ranks 118th.

I believe this is what you're referring to, from post 148 on there's info regarding Bobby Jones' plus minus data and interpretations thereof
viewtopic.php?t=1343246&start=140

Doctor MJ wrote: and this time we have the benefit of +/- stats confirming what many (like Lorak) doubted before.

But I'm not doubting anymore! However, I wonder if those stats changed your perception of Erving, because he looks much worse than expected, so if we use +/- stats to support Jones' value, then at the same time we should re-evaluate Dr J and rank him lower.

lorak wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote: and this time we have the benefit of +/- stats confirming what many (like Lorak) doubted before.

But I'm not doubting anymore! However, I wonder if those stats changed your perception of Erving, because he looks much worse than expected, so if we use +/- stats to support Jones' value, then at the same time we should re-evaluate Dr J and rank him lower.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I really admired how when you saw the data you responded saying, "My previous objection no longer holds. I rate him higher now."

Re: Erving. The effects there are going to be a little longer term in their impact on me because we got them after Erving was already voted in. It certainly doesn't help though.

I'm going to post the best remaining candidates by win shares

22. Dan Issel 157.82
35. Walt Bellamy 130.05
40. Shawn Marion 124.40
42. Chauncey Billups 120.78
44. Buck Williams 120.09
46. Horace Grant 118.23
47. Dominque Wilkins 117.47
48. Chet Walker 117.35
49. Bob Lanier 117.11
53. Bailey Howell 114.82
56. Jack Sikma

Can anyone give me a short run down of the bolded guys and what made then great and what would limit them now

Since he's got a little additional support, I'm going to backtrack and vote for Chris Webber.

I'll use some of the statistical qualifiers I'd cited before, but with the added criteria of "for a 55+ win team", because it's separates out the chaff a bit, as it's entirely different imo to put up a huge year for a team with elite win% vs. a mediocre or perhaps godawful team (ahem: '62 Walt Bellamy).

Chris Webber is.......

*1 of only 5 players to ever average more than 20 pts, 10 reb, and 5 ast in the same season for a team that won 55+ games. The others are Wilt, Legend, Barkley, Baylor (3 of the other 4 are top 20 all-time players, the other is a top 35 guy--->and he's obviously only qualifying due to pace-inflated numbers).

**1 of only 8 players to ever average more than 24 pts, 10 reb, 4.5 ast on >/= 54.0% ts in the same season, for a team that won 55+ games. The others are Wilt, Kareem, Larry, Garnett, Barkley, Baylor, DRob (6 of the other 7 are top 20 guys, the other top 35).

***1 of 5 players to ever average more than 25 pts, 11 reb, and 4 ast in the same season for a team that won 55+ games. The others are Wilt, Kareem, Larry, Barkley (all top 20 players).

****1 of only 4 players to---within the same season---A) average >10 reb, B) >4.5 ast, C) >1.4 blk, while D) also qualifying for the steals leaderboard and E) also shooting >/= 53.0% ts.....all for a team that won 55+ games. The others are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Garnett, and David Robinson (all consensus top 20 guys).


His combined RAPM data looks better than that of Pau Gasol (voted in at #53), and is pretty similar in quality to the likes of Ben Wallace, Tony Parker, and Kevin Durant (slightly better than Parker and Durant, slightly lesser to Wallace).

Can I slightly side-track the discussion just to gain some clarity on how excited (or not excited) I should be regarding the raw on/off stats recently linked to itt.....

It was my understanding that raw on/off could be pretty noisy, and could often reflect line-up trends more than the individual in question; which was why RAPM is a better product--->more refined picture of what the individual alone is contributing.

RAPM data appears very very flattering to Kevin Garnett (as Doc was intent on pointing out in the very early stages of this project: he's nearly GOAT-level of the databall era in this metric, likely close #2 to Lebron). He still looks very good in raw +/-, but no longer a clear top 2.

RAPM was a big part of the argument of Steve Nash's earliest supporters, too, because he looks like top 5 or 6 by combined RAPM, and potential GOAT in offensive impact. But by raw offensive +/- data, he apparently doesn't have a single season that's even in the top 14 (even behind a year of Jason Kidd and Stephon Marbury!), and is just inside the top 20 in combined net +/-:

colts18 wrote:Using Lorak's spreadsheet, I created a spreadsheet of career plus/minus from 94-14.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 8PFCQ/edit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Top 20 in Net Plus/Minus (Min. 5000 MP):
Rank Player Net
1 Dirk Nowitzki 12.9
2 LeBron James 12.6
3 David Robinson 12.5
4 Kevin Garnett 12.3
5 Mookie Blaylock 11.3
6 John Stockton 10.8
7 Tim Duncan 10.6
8 Karl Malone 10.5
9 Vince Carter 10.4
10 Shaquille O'Neal 10.0
11 Damian Lillard 9.9
12 Chris Paul 9.6
13 LaMarcus Aldridge 9.0
14 Michael Jordan 8.9
15 Alonzo Mourning 8.8
16 Dwyane Wade 8.6
17 Manu Ginobili 8.6
18 Steve Nash 8.5
19 Dikembe Mutombo 8.5
20 Blake Griffin 8.4

lorak wrote:

colts18 wrote:Can anyone confirm if Moses +18.8 Net O rating in 1985 is the best we have recorded? The best I've seen so far is Steve Nash in 2005 with a +17.3 Net O rating. Moses offensive numbers confirm what we know of him. It also shows that the Houston offensive dropoff without him was no fluke.

Using the same method to calculate net ortg there are several players since '01 with better result than Moses:

Code: Select all

ORTG   MIN   SEASON   PLAYER
24,2   3277   2005-06   Kobe Bryant
24,1   2793   2009-10   Dwyane Wade
22,3   2949   2002-03   Tracy McGrady
21,4   3295   2004-05   Stephon Marbury
20,9   3048   2008-09   Dwyane Wade
20,0   2942   2006-07   Gilbert Arenas
20,0   3239   2009-10   Kevin Durant
19,8   3006   2007-08   Chris Paul
19,6   3385   2005-06   Gilbert Arenas
19,4   3002   2008-09   Chris Paul
19,0   2846   2013-14   Stephen Curry
19,0   2975   2005-06   Jason Kidd

So I guess what I'm wondering is: if RAPM is the hogwash and this raw +/- is the shizzle, was it unjust to use it as such a huge chunk of the arguments for guys like Garnett and Nash (among others)?
Or if RAPM is indeed an excellent metric, and it's the raw that's severely flawed, then why are we getting so excited about this data wrt to Bobby Jones, Mo Cheeks, Moses, Dr. J, etc?

Deciding amongst Chris Webber, James Worthy, Bobby Jones, and Hassan Whiteside. BRB, Will vote later today when I get some perspective.

Would first ballot Marion or Brand for a combination high career value added (by the boxscore) plus strong D. But as I couldn't decide and it would likely be irrelevent (and if not, then in any case probably unhelpful, because if my choice did get through it probably means a 4 way runoff).

trex_8063 wrote:So I guess what I'm wondering is: if RAPM is the hogwash and this raw +/- is the shizzle, was it unjust to use it as such a huge chunk of the arguments for guys like Garnett and Nash (among others)?
Or if RAPM is indeed an excellent metric, and it's the raw that's severely flawed, then why are we getting so excited about this data wrt to Bobby Jones, Mo Cheeks, Moses, Dr. J, etc?

Quick response from someone not super into +/- stuff because (small part because of noise, large part because I haven't looked into it enough to feel confident I understand it).

Because it's data we've got. We don't have the play-by-play data to regress to discount for opponent-on-court quality and suchforth.

And though you'll get good +/- s on a good team, (1) Jones tends to look the best on the good team and (2) the net on off makes it harder to stand out on a good team - yet Jones sort of does. And this isn't with scrubs filling in, the forward rotation would typically be something like Erving, Jones, Mix, whichever of Jones and Dawkins you consider PF when both are on court . I guess his low minutes could allow him to play more all-out that other players, still ...

So whilst perhaps you'd like better data, there's some form of plus/minus stuff which helps to reaffirm/enhance an already solid case based on per minute boxscore production and defensive and intangiable reputation.

RSCD3_ wrote:I'm going to post the best remaining candidates by win shares

22. Dan Issel 157.82
35. Walt Bellamy 130.05
40. Shawn Marion 124.40
42. Chauncey Billups 120.78
44. Buck Williams 120.09
46. Horace Grant 118.23
47. Dominque Wilkins 117.47
48. Chet Walker 117.35
49. Bob Lanier 117.11
53. Bailey Howell 114.82
56. Jack Sikma

Can anyone give me a short run down of the bolded guys and what made then great and what would limit them now

Issel was a pure jumpshooter who just happened to be center sized. He lived to shoot, everything else was secondary though he wasn't stupid or lazy. With him at center, Denver was always rated very poorly defensively; when he was replaced by Wayne Cooper, Danny Schayes (and even some Blair Rasmussen), the team's defensive efficiency improved.

Buck Williams was a banger, super guy, good defense. His numbers accurately reflect his value.

Chet Walker was a solid 2 way forward. Heard one of his peers say once that if you let him go 1 on 1, he was the best offense/defense guy in the league. Good in Philly, better in Chicago, though contemporaries gave Bob Love more defensive love.

Bailey Howell was Boston's main post up threat in the late Russell years. Good post moves, able to guard the 3 as well as the 4 though not physically up to handling centers. I had always heard he wasn't much on defense but last time we talked about him, there were several quotes to the contrary.