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PG: Tony Parker and Mookie Blaylock are the two I'm looking at. Parker for how much he contributed to the greatest run of this century so far; Blaylock for his defense and 3 point shooting (a skill much underestimated in his day)

Forwards: Marques Johnson and Chris Mullin would be the main scorers; maybe Carmelo Anthony though between his season of discontent in Denver and his playoff numbers, I'd have to be persuaded. Defensive stars would include Shawn Marion and Rasheed Wallace with my clear preference for Marion.


Bigs: Mel Daniels has 2 MVPs and 3 rings, albeit in a weaker league; similarly Neil Johnston has the best raw numbers in an even weaker league than Daniels. Amare Stoudamire and Jerry Lucas bring great numbers but defensive questions (Johnston is defensively questionable too); Ben Wallace is the best defender; Bill Walton has the highest peak (though that's it for true career value -- 1 year and 1 year as a reserve role player).

There are a lot of other good players but as we are into the last quarter, that's my short list.

I would rather have had peak Shawn Marion than either Tony Parker, Rasheed Wallace, Carmelo, Chris Webber, or Amare. Marion's defense is very valuable (despite having no all-D teams) and his off ball attacking is as good as any player I've seen which makes up for his lesser on ball skills. Add outstanding rebounding for a 3 and the ability to guard 1-4 and he's a great asset.

Chris Mullin v. Marques Johnson; Mel Daniels v. Neil Johnston; Tony Parker v. Mookie Blaylock; Jerry Lucas v. Chris Webber; those are the other comps I am looking at and would love feedback on.

Vote Shawn Marion

Beginning quite awhile back I’d spent way too much time crafting and revising/massaging (as well as harvesting the data for) a formula which attempts to quantify greatness and legacy. It’s impossible, of course, but I thought some may be interested in the results anyway.

Some overview on what is included in the formula….
Career rs production, efficiency, and general in-era dominance is assessed primarily using PER and WS/48 (admit PER is factored in to slightly higher degree), weighted against mpg, win%, seasons played, and strength of era----this based somewhat on subjective assessment, fwiw, though I went into a lot of detail to create year-by-year era ratings. Career WS were also utilized, and to a lesser degree some raw stats (pts, reb, ast) were used (again: weighted against era rating).

Playoff production and efficiency is similarly assessed (though weighted against playoff games played instead of seasons played).

Additional measures used to assess in-era dominance were MVP Award shares (weighted against era rating), and point system to valuate awards/honors (though this latter is not weighted very heavily in my most current version). This was in part put in place to give better recognition of defensive stars (as defensive honors/awards have value associated). Obv the guys who get short-changed by this factor are those who played before the MVP or defensive awards were doled out. Also: “award points” were weighted against a “positional era rating” (similar to general era rating, but specific to Guards, Forwards, or Centers).

Relative DRtg (relative to league average) was also utilized to a small degree to better recognize defenders (didn’t make big use of it because I think it’s a highly-flawed stat). For players who played before individual DRtg was calculated, I based an individual's DRtg on his team’s DRtg, adjusting slightly up and down somewhat arbitrarily where I saw appropriate (e.g. I think it’s safe to assume Russell’s individual DRtg was a little better than the Celtics team DRtg); I didn’t veer too far from the team DRtg, though.

Also attempted to account for impact by including with/without team records.

Peak was included by use of the single-season with the best product of WS/48*PER*mpg.
And finally a small amount of value was assigned titles, finals appearances, and finals MVP (weighted against era rating).

Anyway, for whoever is interested, I’ll share the top 160 players of all-time by this formula (their score in parentheses) in the spoiler below. And I’ve run enough players thru that I’m pretty confident these ARE the top 160 by this formula.
This formula is perhaps somewhat hard on low-minutes guys (though hopefully not overly so: take note of Manu’s rank, for instance), and looks very favorably on good longevity (though hopefully not overly so: take note of KJ’s rank for example); and yes it does assign value to awards/honors (but hopefully not overshadowing other factors: again, take note of KJ and Manu’s rank---both guys who were undercredited by awards/honors). Anyway, here it is (I'll bold the players still on the table):



I also have a simpler formula which attempts to assess total career value over a replacement-level player, as measured by PER and WS/48. For “replacement-level player” I assumed 10% below league average (that is: PER 13.5 and WS/48 of .090). I applied modifiers such that a league average (or league avg +10%, or +20%) PER would be worth the same as a league avg (or avg +10%, or +20%) WS/48. I then added the two values and multiplied by career rs minutes played to get at total career value over replacement.

I wanted to do the same for career playoff VOR, but noted that the typical player’s PER and WS/48 fall in the post-season. I did a brief study, semi-randomly picking forty-some players of varying levels, roles and eras…..and compared their career rs PER and WS/48 to their career playoff PER and WS/48. The average of the 40+ guys I looked at was a PER drop of ~7% or so in the playoffs, and a WS/48 drop of just over 12%. So I used PER 12.5 and WS/48 of .078 as representation of our typical “replacement level player” in the playoffs; otherwise same basic equation…...except playoff minutes were weighted at 3.25x the value of rs minutes. Playoff and rs scores were then added together to yield totals shown in spoiler below (I’ve only run the 139 players listed thru this formula so far; and note this formula makes no attempt to rate era strength):



Not that I suggest to put a ton of stock in either of these, but just some additional measures to scrutinize......

trex, that's awesome! I've got a similar "all-encompassing" metric called Weighted Prime Win Shares Per Game which has helped me to place guys into rough tiers. I can share the details and rankings if anyone's interested.

FWIW, the next 10 guys by my preferred version of this metric are:

37 Ed Macauley
38 Neil Johnston
45 Dan Issel
48 Horace Grant
53 Cliff Hagan
54 Walt Bellamy
56 Bill Sharman
57 Zelmo Beaty
58 Chet Walker
59 Shawn Marion

Looks like it's favoring older players...

The guy in all this who is a particular surprise is Zelmo Beaty. In both of my formulas, as well as yours, there he is well within the top 100 (and sometimes in the top 60!); and yet he's someone who typically doesn't even get name-dropped in a top 100 discussion. Is he an anomaly, or just criminally underrated?

So... Tony Parker. Seems like a decent candidate at this point.

12 year reg-season Prime averaging : 18 / 6apg on 50%FG / 55%TS.
Was a pretty consistent reg-season guy who didn't have any real outliersh Peak stretches.

Has an 11 year Playoff Prime averaging : 20 / 5.6apg on 47%FG / 52%TS.
His consistency in the playoffs wasn't that great and his efficiency in general was disappointing.
Only had two runs in his career with nice efficiency and only one extended run.
Still the production was there and he had some big series.
Plus he is a guy who usually kept within the team offense.
In his defense he only shot unacceptably bad (below 52-53%TS) in 3/11 playoff runs after 2003.
He also only shot unacceptably bad in 1/6 extended runs during that time (11g+).

Tony Parker performance in elimination series (something I value).

2003 : Was pretty horrid in the Finals.
2004 : Was pretty horrid in the 2nd round against LAL.
2005 : Was pretty bad against Detroit in the Finals.
2006 : Had a pretty mediocre series against Dallas in the 2nd round.
2007 : Had a pretty good series against Cleveland in the Finals.
2008 : Had an "ok" series against LAL in the CFinals.
2009 : Had a pretty good series against Dallas in the 1st round.
2010 : Had a pretty good serie against Phoenix in the 2nd round though in a h2h sense an old Nash destroyed him.
2011 : Mediocre series against Memphis in the 1st round.
2012 : Had a pretty weak series against OKC in the CFinals.
2013 : Pretty mediocre series against Miami in the Finals.
2014 : Pretty good series against Miami in the Finals.

So... Tony was a pretty weak performer in elimination series.

7/12 - mediocre/poor/terrible series
4/12 - good series
1/12 - ok series

I am gonna look at some other candidates.

Not that high on Marion.
I mean he was a great elite roleplayer who at his best in a perfect team situation probably had All-Star level impact but outside of his Nash SSOL years he generally wasn't a good or efficient scorer.
His numbers dropped in the playoffs and were generally putrid outside of his Nash years.

Great defender and rebounder in his Prime but not that great offensively even if he is easy to utilize due to his willingness to play the garbage man role.

Only had a 7 or 8 year Prime before he began to fall off.

Thoughts on Allan Houston making the list?

10 year Prime : 18 / 3 / 3 on 55%TS
Playoff stats : 19 / 3/ 2 on 55%TS

I am guessing he won't make the cut.

Another guy to look.
David "Skywalker" Thompson.

6 year reg-season Prime : 25 / 5 / 3.6apg on 57%TS

Negatives
Not very proven as a playoff performer : 35 total playoff games (during his Prime) with only two extended (13g) runs.
Lacks longevity : 6 good years total basically.
Prime Playoff stats : 26 / 5 / 3.6apg on 55%TS

*Note : I included his one ABA year.

RayBan-Sematra wrote:Thoughts on Allan Houston making the list?

10 year Prime : 18 / 3 / 3 on 55%TS
Playoff stats : 19 / 3/ 2 on 55%TS

I am guessing he won't make the cut.

I'd love that, but nah, aside from being a great shooter, he doesn't really do enough else. Fantastic player in the triple-threat position. Used the jab step well.

I think I'm trying to decide between Webber, Brand, Marion, and Sheed. Also feeling Penny Hardaway. Best peak left that matters.

I haven't been too enamored with the candidates in the last 2 threads, and haven't had enough time to push for someone else, so i've sat them out.

I will make one comment on ben wallace. He did play 16 seasons, but really only had a 6 year prime. Seemed longer to me, but that does fall in line with detroit’s finals / ECF runs. I’m not taking anything away from what he did in those 6 seasons, but it’s just an unusual career trajectory.

A few guys i’m looking at are billy cunningham, hal greer and carmelo.

Clyde Frazier wrote:I haven't been too enamored with the candidates in the last 2 threads, and haven't had enough time to push for someone else, so i've sat them out.

I will make one comment on ben wallace. He did play 16 seasons, but really only had a 6 year prime. Seemed longer to me, but that does fall in line with detroit’s finals / ECF runs. I’m not taking anything away from what he did in those 6 seasons, but it’s just an unusual career trajectory.

A few guys i’m looking at are billy cunningham, hal greer and carmelo.

Oh wow, great calls on Greer and Cunningham. Cunningham made All-NBA First team 3 straight seasons alongside Elgin Baylor, Hawkins, and Havlicec at the F position. I think Greer was better than Sam Jones. Greer was the second best player on the GOAT team.

RayBan-Sematra wrote:So... Tony Parker. Seems like a decent candidate at this point.

12 year reg-season Prime averaging : 18 / 6apg on 50%FG / 55%TS.
Was a pretty consistent reg-season guy who didn't have any real outliersh Peak stretches.

Has an 11 year Playoff Prime averaging : 20 / 5.6apg on 47%FG / 52%TS.
His consistency in the playoffs wasn't that great and his efficiency in general was disappointing.
Only had two runs in his career with nice efficiency and only one extended run.
Still the production was there and he had some big series.
Plus he is a guy who usually kept within the team offense.
In his defense he only shot unacceptably bad (below 52-53%TS) in 3/11 playoff runs after 2003.
He also only shot unacceptably bad in 1/6 extended runs during that time (11g+).

Tony Parker performance in elimination series (something I value).

2003 : Was pretty horrid in the Finals.
2004 : Was pretty horrid in the 2nd round against LAL.
2005 : Was pretty bad against Detroit in the Finals.
2006 : Had a pretty mediocre series against Dallas in the 2nd round.
2007 : Had a pretty good series against Cleveland in the Finals.
2008 : Had an "ok" series against LAL in the CFinals.
2009 : Had a pretty good series against Dallas in the 1st round.
2010 : Had a pretty good serie against Phoenix in the 2nd round though in a h2h sense an old Nash destroyed him.
2011 : Mediocre series against Memphis in the 1st round.
2012 : Had a pretty weak series against OKC in the CFinals.
2013 : Pretty mediocre series against Miami in the Finals.
2014 : Pretty good series against Miami in the Finals.

So... Tony was a pretty weak performer in elimination series.

7/12 - mediocre/poor/terrible series
4/12 - good series
1/12 - ok series

I am gonna look at some other candidates.

Not that high on Marion.
I mean he was a great elite roleplayer who at his best in a perfect team situation probably had All-Star level impact but outside of his Nash SSOL years he generally wasn't a good or efficient scorer.
His numbers dropped in the playoffs and were generally putrid outside of his Nash years.

Great defender and rebounder in his Prime but not that great offensively even if he is easy to utilize due to his willingness to play the garbage man role.

Only had a 7 or 8 year Prime before he began to fall off.

I could definitely get behind Tony Parker for this spot (in fact, he's probably my top candidate that I'd like to vote for; but I've been basing my vote on which of my top 2-3 has any support). At this point, probably my second-fav candidate would be Dan Issel (Webber falling back to 3rd or so). Just waiting to see where everyone's support is leaning.

Some good points on Marion: outside of three seasons with Nash, he does indeed appear to be a shrinking violet in the playoffs (though had a reasonably good one in '11). And outside of those 3.5 years with Nash, his scoring efficiency is actually pretty meh. All of this, imo, is indicator that on offense Marion---as a pretty strictly off-ball guy---is only as good as the guys around him; and it is a factor that holds him back for me, too.

Still, he does get you some fair-to-decent and semi-versatile off-ball scoring (can spread floor a little, great transition scorer, great cutter, offensive glass, etc), outstanding rebounder for a SF or SF/PF hybrid, versatile and effective defender, and has had very good longevity/durability, too (outside his prime, he's had a lot of really meaningful role player years). He's proven to be fairly portable, as well.

Looking at some impact data: his best 3-year and 5-year PI RAPM's are slightly better than that of Elton Brand, Chris Webber, or Tony Parker.....slightly worse than those of Chris Bosh. So he's holding his own with a lot of the other company we're looking at for this spot.
And given his rank in both of my formulas posted above (and Moonbeam's, too)......Overall, I still think he can sustain some of the above critiques and remain a viable candidate for this spot (I'm to a point where he's definitely among the top 5 I'd consider for this spot).

ronnymac2 wrote:I think I'm trying to decide between Webber, Brand, Marion, and Sheed.

Elton Brand...
Always thought he was a very good player when I watched him growing up.
Has a pretty nice reg-season Prime. Maybe the best for this stage of the list?
Prime reg-season stats (9 years) : 20 / 10 / 2.7 / 2.1bpg on 56%TS (22.7 PER)

My only big issue with Brand is how unproven he is as a playoff performer.
I know he had that great 06 run but outside of that he has literally nothing to show for himself in the playoffs.

Seems like a good candidate though if I can put aside his lack of playoff experience and give him the benefit of the doubt based on his one excellent Prime run.
I would probably take him over Webber I can say that much.

Another thing I would note about Brand in the playoffs back in 2006.
He had a great series against Phoenix (a run and gun team not known for their defense) but against Denver and Camby he only averaged 17.8ppg on 51%TS.
Overall I don't think it was a bad series or anything as he had only 2 games where he was really inefficient, had nice all around stats and good defense plus they won in five but it wasn't a great series either.

Also feeling Penny Hardaway. Best peak left that matters.

Walton?

RayBan-Sematra wrote:

Also feeling Penny Hardaway. Best peak left that matters.

Walton?

Not enough career value to matter to me.

Agreed about how great Brand was, but also agree regarding skepticism around his playoff performance. One round earlier, an average Laker team found success against a depleted Phoenix frontcourt by taking the ball out of the hands of one of the best offensive players ever in Kobe Bryant and instead force feeding Luke Walton, Kwame Brown, and Lamar Odom in the post. 30 PPG on 60 percent shooting from Brand is kind of expected at that point, no?

Consolidated comp between Parker, Thompson, Marion and Brand.
Might be helpful for some.

David Thompson

Reg-season : 25 / 5 / 3.6apg on 57%TS (20.6 PER)
Playoffs : 26 / 5 / 3.6apg on 55%TS (18.8 PER)
_________________________________

Tony Parker

Reg-season : 18 / 6apg on 50%FG / 55%TS (19.7 PER)
Playoffs : 20 / 5.6apg on 47%FG / 52%TS (18.0 PER)
_________________________________

Brand

Reg-season : 20 / 10 / 2.7 / 2.1bpg on 56%TS (22.7 PER)
Playoffs : 25 / 10 / 4 / 2.6bpg on 59%TS (26.4 PER)
_________________________________

Marion

Reg-season : 19 / 10 / 2 / 2spg / 1.4bpg on 55%TS (21.0 PER)
09-14 (6 years) : 12 / 7 / 1.8 on 53%TS (15.7 PER)
---------------------
Pre-Nash (01-04) : 19 / 10 / 2.3 / 2spg / 1.2bpg on .525%TS (20.5 PER)

Playoffs : 18 / 11 / 1.5 / 1.6spg / 1.5bpg on 54%TS (18.7 PER)
------------
Pre-Nash (01 + 03) : 17 / 10 / 1.5 / 1.7 spg + bpg on 45%TS (15.2 PER)

--------------------------------------------------

Longevity :
Tony : 12 Prime years ---------(11 Prime playoff runs)
Brand : 9 Prime years --------- (1 Prime playoff run)
Marion : 8 Prime years ------- (5 Prime playoff runs)
Thompson : 6 Prime years --- (4 Prime playoff runs)

Consistency (reg-season + playoffs) :
Brand > Thompson > Parker/Marion

*Brand gets unfair edge in the playoffs due to low sample size.
*Thompson & Marion have the same advantage over Parker.

Vote - Elton Brand

I also considered voting for Bill Walton (as I've said before, I realize it would be inconsistent, considering that I usually put a lot of emphasis on longevity, but Walton's peak was amazing, so far ahead of everyone else at this point, that I said to myself - "when I won't be able to decide who I should vote for, I'll make an exception and vote for Walton", but Elton Brand's peak is IMO the second highest after Walton, and he had a much longer prime).

So - what was that Brand brought to the table, that makes him my top candidate here? He was basically a really good (at his peak, even great) all-around player who didn't have any obvious weaknesses in his game. He had a nice 8-year prime, averaged 20.3 points (55.8% TS), 10.2 rebounds (15.5% TRB), 2.7 assists (13.6% AST), with 2.5 turnovers (12.2% TOV), and his defense normally hovered from above average to very good - also averaged 2.1 blocks, 4.0% BLK, but he was also a good 1 on 1 defender because of his great lower body strength, wide body and long arms).

His advanced numbers were very good, too - 22.7 PER, 16.8 WS/48, 4.0 BPM, and usually good RAPM ratings.

He also had three more solid seasons in Philly (especially the 2010-11 season, when he put up borderline All-Star numbers).

One thing that Brand definitely lacks is playoff success - he played only 12 games in the postseason during his prime, but he played very well - that was in his best season, in '06. If the 2005-06 season wasn't so stacked in terms of the top level talent, Brand would've been a top 3/5 player in the league. 25/10/2.5 over 26 PER, 23 WS/48, 5.5 BPM. 5.9 VORP, 58% TS - that's a superstar right there, IMO a top 10 peak of all-time at the power forward position (Duncan, Garnett, Nowitzki, Malone, Barkley, Pettit - these are the only guys who were clearly better than him - I can see a good case for Brand over anyone else, even McHale).

Anyway, Brand's lack of playoff success (or rather, playoff appearances) wasn't his fault. He just played on weak teams during his prime, like many other stars of the 2000s (KG, Pierce, T-Mac, Carter would be the most notable examples, as far as the early/mid 2000s players - Brand is in the same category).

Vote: Brand

Could go either way between him and Marion, but I buy into Brand's (02-07) prime as a bigger needle mover than anything Marion ever did. No one aspect is exceptional but the metrics (at least boxscore wise, don't know about others) seem to be concert that through that spell he was having a high level of impact. Because his numbers don't come from any one thing (but generally being above average, and playing good D too) he seems portable to me, too.

RayBan-Sematra wrote:Thoughts on Allan Houston making the list?

10 year Prime : 18 / 3 / 3 on 55%TS
Playoff stats : 19 / 3/ 2 on 55%TS

I am guessing he won't make the cut.

Houston, career PER: 14.9; .094 WS/48 (similar in playoffs).

Not saying those numbers are everything but when you're only a league average player by the boxscore you need some pretty strong intangiable/non-boxscore contributions. And in his Detroit days his defensive performance was heavily panned (and, in htat vein, it was suggested if +/- were kept he'd do very poorly, -which at a cursory glance at the data now available seems generally somewhat true, in part because of level performance being bad, plus sometimes not being on court with Dumars (though Joe D sometimes played PG at this time) but even versus teammates -e.g. he's amongst the less productive group of teammates in '94 (per minute the worst plus minuses on the team are Houston -0.202764977; Elliott -0.212951432; Polynice -0.228148148; Thomas -0.233142857; Anderson -0.237068966; Hunter, Mills, Dumars and Wood all have separation from this pack); in '96 though he's 2nd in minutes (on a good team) the +/- overall is lower than Thorpe's, way down on Dumars' in 800 less minutes.

Anyway yeah, average boxscore, unremarkable peak and bad scouting reports on D mean Houston is nowhere close to my top 100 radar.

Owly wrote:

RayBan-Sematra wrote:Thoughts on Allan Houston making the list?

10 year Prime : 18 / 3 / 3 on 55%TS
Playoff stats : 19 / 3/ 2 on 55%TS

I am guessing he won't make the cut.

Houston, career PER: 14.9; .094 WS/48 (similar in playoffs).

Not saying those numbers are everything but when you're only a league average player by the boxscore you need some pretty strong intangiable/non-boxscore contributions. And in his Detroit days his defensive performance was heavily panned (and, in htat vein, it was suggested if +/- were kept he'd do very poorly, -which at a cursory glance at the data now available seems generally somewhat true, in part because of level performance being bad, plus sometimes not being on court with Dumars (though Joe D sometimes played PG at this time) but even versus teammates -e.g. he's amongst the less productive group of teammates in '94 (per minute the worst plus minuses on the team are Houston -0.202764977; Elliott -0.212951432; Polynice -0.228148148; Thomas -0.233142857; Anderson -0.237068966; Hunter, Mills, Dumars and Wood all have separation from this pack); in '96 though he's 2nd in minutes (on a good team) the +/- overall is lower than Thorpe's, way down on Dumars' in 800 less minutes.

Anyway yeah, average boxscore, unremarkable peak and bad scouting reports on D mean Houston is nowhere close to my top 100 radar.

Completely agree. I doubt Houston makes my top 200, actually. I just don't think he even has a particularly decent case over wings like Hersey Hawkins, Dan Majerle, Andre Iguodala, and John Drew.....much less the crowd we're talking about for the top 100.

trex_8063 wrote:Completely agree. I doubt Houston makes my top 200, actually. I just don't think he even has a particularly decent case over wings like Hersey Hawkins, Dan Majerle, Andre Iguodala, and John Drew.....much less the crowd we're talking about for the top 100.

Well I am a big Houstan fan so you can excuse my homerism for him.
Career wise I think I would rank him over Iggy & Marje in large part due to their lesser longevity.

Hawkins probably has a case over Allan.
Not sure about John (a player I am not very familiar with).
He doesn't have much of a playoff resume.

I am pretty sure Houstan would make a Top 200 list and maybe even a 150 list.
I realize he won't and shouldn't make the 100 but once you get much past that the talent you would be comparing him to would fall off considerably.
I see people calling him very average and going by advanced stats that is true however I wouldn't say his box score stats are "average" perse.
I mean 19 / 3 on good efficiency while playing through the tough early 00's era doesn't sound like what you'd get from an "average" player and I do think he had some positive intangibles.