RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #29

[trex_8063]

1. Michael Jordan
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Lebron James
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Magic Johnson
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Larry Bird
11. Kobe Bryant
12. Kevin Garnett
13. Oscar Robertson
14. Karl Malone
15. Jerry West
16. Julius Erving
17. Dirk Nowitzki
18. David Robinson
19. Charles Barkley
20. Moses Malone
21. John Stockton
22. Dwyane Wade
23. Chris Paul
24. Bob Pettit
25. George Mikan
26. Steve Nash
27. Patrick Ewing
28. Kevin Durant
29. ?????

Although Curry's had supporters for several threads now and did finish 2nd in the last, I still think this may turn into an interesting run-off between him and Scottie Pippen or perhaps another emerging candidate (Baylor???). I believe there are several not quite ready to support Curry on basis of short prime/career.
Anyway, GO!

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[penbeast0]

Like almost all the spots from here on, I am far from sure I am picking the right player . . . but pretty sure I am picking the best player left this time.

PG -- Curry is clearly the best peak, even 5 year prime he probably still has the edge. Frazier would be next in terms of prime for me, he is arguably the greatest defensive PG (Payton is the other ATG PG defender and probably the right choice in terms of consistent defense; Frazier was more like Jordan turning it on at key times and resting at others), his scoring was both efficient and able to take over games, his playmaking was excellent in the Chauncey Billups mode of efficiently running a spread offense rather than dominating the ball. His career is a bit short and Curry has a slight edge to me. I'd pick either over Payton or Kidd despite the greater longevity; superior efficiency, great playoff performances and winner's bias give them the edge.

SG -- Like the PGs, the guy with the best 5 year prime has a very short career (as short as Curry and unlike Curry, his knees left him a shadow of himself for his last few years). That would be Sidney Moncrief, the GOAT defensive 2 and a superefficient, 20ppg scorer on a spread the wealth offense (sensing a theme!). Longevity would favor Clyde Drexler though and they are probably close enough that Drexler should get the edge. Gervin's defense is a problem, Sam Jones isn't quite their level.

SF -- Pippen is probably the highest rated SF left for me as I didn't think Baylor's team results with Jerry West who I am super high on maximized his team results. Havlicek also has been mentioned but his scoring was inefficient for much of his career and while his motor was GOAT level, I don't think his defense and impact are quite PIppen's level.

PF -- What to do with Hayes, McHale, Webber, Amare, and Dennis Rodman. No one ready to be considered yet.

C -- The next C that I have is Artis Gilmore, outstanding defensive peaks though Gilmore's was in the ABA (not nearly as impressed by his post merger defense), superefficient but not aggressive scorer, mediocre passer. Similar to a significantly taller but shy Dwight Howard. I don't have Mel Daniels, Willis Reed, or Dave Cowens quite as high.


PICK: Stephen Curry

Alternate: Gilmore, McHale, Pippen, Drexler, or Frazier. It's pretty wide open. For now, I will throw my vote in for Scottie Pippen, warts and all, but willing to be pushed off of it.

[JordansBulls]

Vote: Clyde Drexler (led team to the finals twice as the man, was the leader of win shares on a team that won the title in 1995). Was on the Original Dream Team, 10x allstar

2nd Vote: Stephen Curry

[LA Bird]

Question to guys voting Curry, where do you rank Harden all time?

They have around the same longevity and while Curry's been better, I don't see the gap between them as large enough to justify one going in the top 30 while the other will probably be in the 60s.

[mischievous]

I'm curious as to why Pippen has gotten a lot of traction, but not Hondo? They seem to be similar caliber 2 way players who both won a ton as a 2nd option. But then Hondo has the better longevity. If Pippen is being mentioned then Hondo should be.

[penbeast0]

I'm curious as to why Pippen has gotten a lot of traction, but not Hondo? They seem to be similar caliber 2 way players who both won a ton as a 2nd option. But then Hondo has the better longevity. If Pippen is being mentioned then Hondo should be.

Efficiency is probably the main reason; Pippen was an efficient second option, Havlicek wasn't at first though he certainly improved into his 30s which is a rare and valuable thing.

[mischievous]

I'm curious as to why Pippen has gotten a lot of traction, but not Hondo? They seem to be similar caliber 2 way players who both won a ton as a 2nd option. But then Hondo has the better longevity. If Pippen is being mentioned then Hondo should be.

Efficiency is probably the main reason; Pippen was an efficient second option, Havlicek wasn't at first though he certainly improved into his 30s which is a rare and valuable thing.

I'd imagine you are taking about his scoring efficiency particularly ts%? I don't see a major difference when league average ts% is accounted for. And Pippen definitely had some real inefficient scoring playoff runs in there for example, 50.4 ts% in 93, 47.3% in 96 which is really bad and 50 % in 98.

From 91-98 in the playoffs, Pippen was a 19.2 ppg scorer on 52.1 ts%. That is not at all impressive for someone playing next to the consensus goat player.

[penbeast0]

Closer than I thought. Both less efficient than league average over their careers but while there is a significant gap regular season, you are correct that it closes up considerably in the postseason. I'm more impressed by Pippen's defense from what I saw of both; Havlicek has a great motor but otherwise is just solid, Pippen could shut people down more often. Both good playmakers, Pippen may have an edge rebounding, Havlicek has the durability edge though PIppen was no slouch.

[oldschooled]

Question to guys voting Curry, where do you rank Harden all time?

They have around the same longevity and while Curry's been better, I don't see the gap between them as large enough to justify one going in the top 30 while the other will probably be in the 60s.

One has arguably best peak all time, a 2-time MVP and champion, a handful of guys w/ multiple MVP and rings, arguably best offensive impact all time, insane gravity (along with Shaq) the other is not.

[Doctor MJ]

Question to guys voting Curry, where do you rank Harden all time?

They have around the same longevity and while Curry's been better, I don't see the gap between them as large enough to justify one going in the top 30 while the other will probably be in the 60s.

A good question to ponder.

I think it's important to start off by recognizing that at the very top of the talent totem, seemingly small differences have tremendous impact in how easy it is to actually win a championship built around each player.

I like Harden. Always have. He's from my school district. I know and have talked to one of his coaches from that time about him. I also loved how he played in OKC blending HS game around the two big stars.

But the only reason he's going to be in this Top 100 is his time in Houston, and while he's been great, to me he hasn't played in a way I'd really want to build around. It's taken me a while to admit this to myself, but seeing how good Houston played when Harden wasn't out there last year was a big deal to me. I don't think Harden should dominate the ball as he's been doing, and I don't think we can use the excuse that that's what his teammates need.

Additionally, while Harden has at times been a great facilitator, I feel like he's gotten sloppier and sloppier. He needs to clean it up.

What all this amounts to is that they way Harden has done the superstar thing so far I don't think really encourages his teammates to play all the way up to their potential. Add in to that that his only true outlier skill is his ability to get refs to call fouls on the defense, which they tend to just refuse to do at times, and I just don't feel like Hardens play to this point is going to get me chips.

By contrast, Currys game is a much simpler thing built around the GOAT shooting ability by a large margin which basically makes it easier for his teammates to take initiative. He gives them space and a target, and this basically as portable as you could ever hope for from a superstar talent.

So while production-wise you can argue Harden has had the better career, to me there's a qualitative difference in what it was they were actually accomplishing, and there's no question that Curry should be much higher.

But again I do like Harden. He's easily top 100 for me I spite of what I've said. Curry is just a very rare breed.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[SactoKingsFan]

I'm curious as to why Pippen has gotten a lot of traction, but not Hondo? They seem to be similar caliber 2 way players who both won a ton as a 2nd option. But then Hondo has the better longevity. If Pippen is being mentioned then Hondo should be.

He should be in the mix for top 30 but I have Pippen clearly higher. I consider Pippen a better version of Hondo with his playmaking and defense. The longevity edge goes to Hondo but it's not huge and he doesn't have that many more prime seasons.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Senior]

Question to guys voting Curry, where do you rank Harden all time?

They have around the same longevity and while Curry's been better, I don't see the gap between them as large enough to justify one going in the top 30 while the other will probably be in the 60s.

Comes down to Curry having a GOAT-level peak with 15-17 all in the same ballpark, Harden's never shown that level of play. Harden's longevity is actually a bit better than Curry's due to Steph's ankles ruining the first third of his career, but Curry's best kills Harden's best, especially considering Harden's huge drop against elite defenses. Steph's been no paragon of resiliency himself, but he's not Harden. It's really hard for me to take Harden's game seriously in the playoffs when teams don't fall for his ref-baiting garbage and he has no answers. Even his mentality seems questionable - he floats through games when he's not getting the calls and overall just seems too limited to be a championship level offensive anchor. You can't win a title taking 90% of your shots at the rim or from 3 (like what he did in the playoffs), and frankly his box-scores overstate his ability by quite a lot. Harden got tons of praise about his BBIQ/game management/etc and none of it mattered against the Spurs.

And because Harden's peak isn't GOAT-tier like Steph's, his weaker longevity starts to matter more so a lot of those guys in the 40s/50s might sneak ahead based on that longevity. We just had a thread about Manu vs Harden, and to me, it's not crazy to rank Manu ahead of Harden on an all-time list, even if Harden was/is a better player, because of that longevity. But I'd be hard pressed to rank Manu ahead of Curry.

[mischievous]

Question to guys voting Curry, where do you rank Harden all time?

They have around the same longevity and while Curry's been better, I don't see the gap between them as large enough to justify one going in the top 30 while the other will probably be in the 60s.

Yeah that big of a gap doesn't make sense to me either. I wouldn't have Curry in the top 30, maybe more like 35-40 range, while Harden is maybe a borderline top 50 guy at best.

[mikejames23]

It's interesting that Scottie Pippen is close to being out of the 20's. He's thought of as the ultimate beta there is. We're reaching a time where the all time list has 30 players who are thought of as #1 Alpha/Franchise Player Types. Significant stuff.

Drexler it feels is along the lines of what young Kobe was with Shaq.

Iceman deserves a mention with Kevin Durant in.

Sidney Moncrief sounds like one heck of a player to have. A top guard defender with an efficient 20ish a game is an interesting combination of skillset. Playing close to the basket as often as he did, though, might have helped his efficiency some as a scorer.

Gary Payton, Walt Frazier - Scottie Pippen? Who's better? I see them as being fairly close overall.

I would be casting Steph Curry in at this point. With this list, you'd just run with the last clear Alpha left. He's special on the level of "Let's change the way we do things", such as Shaq, etc.

We have an interesting up and coming 30's cast, I'd think. A great amount of 2 way players, Clyde the Glyde, Iceman's Volume Scoring greatness, etc.

[Dr Positivity]

If the list was just regular season value I would have Harden up there with Curry... But I have a hard time with how his teams catch up to his tricks in the playoffs

[Joao Saraiva]

I think Pippen or Curry will get my vote next. Still wondering about Gary Payton and Frazier. I'll think if I have Curry ahead of em all, since I think the other 3 are pretty close.

[oldschooled]

1st Vote: Curry
Alt: Hondo

I'll give the edge to Hondo over Pip for winning a chip w/o Russell. Too close to call.

[pandrade83]

Kind of a long post - guys are bunched together tightly at this point and I think stronger defenses will be required.


My Top 2 Point Guards left: Steph/Payton
My Top 2 wing/forwards left: After doing some more digging, I'm switching this up: Drexler/Pippen
My Top 2 Centers left: Artis/Dwight - as much as I hate watching the guy, he probably is next up of the Centers.



Steph: Has potential to hit the Top 10 Every metric that you'd want is there. He's the only multiple time MVP and best player on best team left (sorry Daniels, your Pacers weren't the best team in Pro Hoops, and you weren't the best player in Hoops those years either), he's also co-best player of arguably the GOAT Team. The case for Steph is pretty straight forward - and how you feel about him getting in here reflects how you feel about the importance of longevity. If the years aren't there, I can respect it.
-----------------------------------------

Wings/Forwards:

10 year prime RS
Drexler ('86-'95): 23-7-6/2 stl/1 block/55% TS
Pippen ('90-'99): 19-7-6/2 stl/1 block/54% TS
Gervin ('75-'84): 27-6-3/1 stl/1 block/57% TS
Hondo ('67-'76): 23-7-6/partial steal data hovering around 1.5 on the back half of prime, not much blocks/50% TS
Barry ('66-'76): 28-8-5/partial steal data - led league in '75, not blocking much/53% TS - some of those years were years where the ABA wasn't good

10 year prime Playoffs
Drexler: 22-7-7/2 stl/1 block/54% TS
Pippen: 19-8-6/2 stl/1 block/52% TS
Gervin: 29/7/3/1 stl/1 block/56% TS
Hondo: 24/7/5/steals in 1.5 range on back half of prime, not much blocks/52% TS
Barry: 29/7/4/led '75 playoffs in steals, not blocking much/52% TS

Accolades:
Drexler: 10 All-Star, 5 All NBA, 2nd best player on 1 Title Team, best player on 2 Finals Teams
Pippen: 7 All-Star, 7 All NBA, 6 All D, 2nd best player on 6 Title Teams
Gervin: 12 All-Star, 7 All NBA, 2 All ABA, 4 X Scoring Champ, teams never competed for titles
Hondo: 13 All-Star, 11 All NBA, 8 All D, best player on 1-3 title teams depending on interpretation, 2nd best player on several title teams, 3rd best player on 4 title teams.
Barry: 12 All-Star, 6 All NBA 4 ALL ABA, 1 X Scoring Champ, Finals MVP, carried a team that probably had no business winning a title to a title.

Adv. Metrics - take a lot of this with a healthy dose of salt.
Drexler: 7 years @ 10+ WS, peaking out @ 13.2, 3 years @ VORP +7, healthy box score metrics on both sides with prime BPM average of 6.6, RAPM indicates a productive post prime; hard to read too much into data.
Pippen: 6 years @ 10 + WS, peaking out @ 13.1, 2 years @ VORP +7, prime BPM average of 5.9, RAPM indicates he's still elite in '97, suspect impact in Portland years, but still very effective in '98 when he played.
Gervin: 7 years @ 10+ WS, peaking out @ 12, much lower VORP than the other 2 - never above 5 and peaking out @ 4.4, DBPM scores are pretty rough dragging his BPM data to +2.2
Hondo: 4 years @ 10+WS, peaking out @ 12.5, only 2 years of VORP Data in last 2 years of prime @ 3.7 & 3.6. BPM Data ranging from 1.3 to 2.6 - again, just 3 years of data.
Barry: 6 years @ 10 + WS, peaking out @ 14.0, VORP data not available all years but hit 5.7 & 6.0 in '75 & '76, BPM data indicates average impact on defense.

I'm flipping this to Drexler. He's the most capable of carrying a team and his playoff #'s are materially better than Pip's - enough to sway me. Additionally, all signs point to him being a very strong defender - he just didn't get the accolades which is too bad.

Pippen is next - I need Gervin to at least be decent at that end & anecdotes + data tell me he's below average. The difference between Pippen's offense & Gervin's offense is a lot closer than Pippen's Defense & Gervin's Defense.

Barry goes next - spent too much time in a weak ABA and I don't know what kind of stock to put in those monster #'s - the big thing keeping him in this for me is the carry job on the '75 W's - even though the NBA at that time is much weaker than anything Drexler/Pippen had to compete with, it's a hell of a carry job.

Gervin will go afterwards with Hondo in the back.

Why no Elgin? I feel he's very hard to build around and there's a good amount of years where you could argue his shooting volume is detrimental to the team. Including the shooting data was not helping his case for me - if anything it made it worse because I didn't feel like I was getting many great years.

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

GP (I'll be voting for him before Pippen & the A-Train): Very underrated, imo. I'll lead off with an outstanding elimination/closeout track record (which is far superior to Nash's).
22.8 PPG, 5.8 reb, 8.0 ast, 1.8 stl, 0.2 blk, 2.7 TO, 55.3% TS - all stats from '94-'03.
Had a knack for outplaying other strong point guards when it mattered because of his outstanding defensive presence and is one of very few point guards whose defensive impact is highlighted that he's the only one to win DPOY. A true all around player who averaged 21-8-5 during his prime while bringing elite defense and averaged 24-8-5 during the playoffs and had a tendency of showing up when it mattered. Has more Win Shares & VORP (the latter by a lot) vs. Nash even though one of Payton's best seasons ('99) was a lockout shortened one.

GP isn't getting any other sort of traction, so I should probably address the two issues likely to crop up:

1) The Denver series. There's no justification for it. It really is indefensible. 3 of those games are in my elimination/closeout records and his 2 worst performances in those types of games were in the Denver series (Games 3 & 5).
1A) The '95 LA Series. Van Exel out played him. Between '94 & '95 these were two years where a Title was in play for Seattle and they didn't just take a dump on the bed, they got up and smeared it on the wall as well

That said - those series did factor into the overall playoff and elimination record I showed above - and the overall track record is strong. It's unfortunate that he peaked later than a lot of other point guards did - and by the time he peaked the talent on him was not championship caliber to say the least; if you consider '99 or 2000 his peak, it was an outright dumpster fire situation.

2) His RPAM numbers are not as good as they could be. I'm not a huge fan of +/- stats but I can't ignore them either.

'97 & '98 are very strong - '99 for some reason isn't great - but I suspect team context (middling overall record, was out there for virtually all meaningful minutes - 2,010 minutes in a 50 game season is a ton) - even though 2000 bounces back. '01-'03 are basically flat even though WIn Shares & VORP remain at very high levels in '01 & '02 in particular. I don't think his '03 season has tremendous impact - and I think his defense was starting to slip in '01 & '02. It was probably still good - but not necessarily warranting the All D honors he received either.

I'm OK with this wart because I don't think RPAM stats do a great job of explaining elite players' impact who play huge minutes on basically .500 teams - it feels like a "blind spot" for the model - moreso in the years I'm referencing than some of the later years. The inconsistency from '99 to '00 in the metric is odd even though his other performance indicators are fairly comparable and I've read some of the multi-year work in this area - which makes me trust the '99 number less. I'm definitely aware of the flaws in the '97-'00 data vs. other years, but I do think it's important to at least speak to the wart.


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

1st choice: Steph Curry
Alternate Selection: Clyde Drexler

[penbeast0]

It's interesting that Scottie Pippen is close to being out of the 20's. He's thought of as the ultimate beta there is. We're reaching a time where the all time list has 30 players who are thought of as #1 Alpha/Franchise Player Types. Significant stuff.

Drexler it feels is along the lines of what young Kobe was with Shaq.

Iceman deserves a mention with Kevin Durant in.

Sidney Moncrief sounds like one heck of a player to have. A top guard defender with an efficient 20ish a game is an interesting combination of skillset. Playing close to the basket as often as he did, though, might have helped his efficiency some as a scorer.

Gary Payton, Walt Frazier - Scottie Pippen? Who's better? I see them as being fairly close overall.

I would be casting Steph Curry in at this point. With this list, you'd just run with the last clear Alpha left. He's special on the level of "Let's change the way we do things", such as Shaq, etc.

We have an interesting up and coming 30's cast, I'd think. A great amount of 2 way players, Clyde the Glyde, Iceman's Volume Scoring greatness, etc.

I'd say that at PG, prime Frazier is clearly better than prime Payton . . . more efficient scorer, ran a more efficient team (though the system nerfed assist totals), not as consistently relentless defensively as Payton but able to cause more disruption at key points. Similar argument v. Kidd except that Kidd is as good or better of a playmaker but his scoring was clearly worse than either. Frazier also has the two great finals which counts for something in my book, but played in the weakest era of the 3.

In terms of wings, Moncrief is the best during his prime. He's as or more efficient a scorer than either Drexler or Pippen, similar range, handles were good enough to play PG for the Bucks though not the playmaker than either Drexler or Pippen were, defensive impact is roughly equivalent to Pippen (better man, not as good off ball) and better than Drexler, bigger leadership role than Pippen who could be mentally fragile. Up and down offensively in playoffs but had some monster shut down jobs on the likes of Otis Birdsong and Dennis Johnson. Problem is, and the reason I will support both Drexler and Pippen over him is that his career was cut so short by his knee issues. It's Curry short and, while great, he's not in Curry's class in terms of dominance. Between the other two, I favor Pippen over Drexler. The defensive edge and, yes, the rings give him the advantage over the extra scoring and 2 points of playoff ts% that favor Drexler. I also admire the way he could work with Jordan who was at least as big a prima donna as LeBron but Pippen never did an Irving. I have Havlicek a level below similar player in Pippen; Gervin and Barry's lack of defensive intensity and questionable leadership skills put them below Havlicek for me; the only reason Barry is that high is 75.

Interested in a bigs analysis; I have Artis next but there are a lot of candidates (Howard, Cowens, McHale, Hayes, even Webber though my opinion of Webber is lower than most).

[pandrade83]

It's interesting that Scottie Pippen is close to being out of the 20's. He's thought of as the ultimate beta there is. We're reaching a time where the all time list has 30 players who are thought of as #1 Alpha/Franchise Player Types. Significant stuff.

Drexler it feels is along the lines of what young Kobe was with Shaq.

Iceman deserves a mention with Kevin Durant in.

Sidney Moncrief sounds like one heck of a player to have. A top guard defender with an efficient 20ish a game is an interesting combination of skillset. Playing close to the basket as often as he did, though, might have helped his efficiency some as a scorer.

Gary Payton, Walt Frazier - Scottie Pippen? Who's better? I see them as being fairly close overall.

I would be casting Steph Curry in at this point. With this list, you'd just run with the last clear Alpha left. He's special on the level of "Let's change the way we do things", such as Shaq, etc.

We have an interesting up and coming 30's cast, I'd think. A great amount of 2 way players, Clyde the Glyde, Iceman's Volume Scoring greatness, etc.

I'd say that at PG, prime Frazier is clearly better than prime Payton . . . more efficient scorer, ran a more efficient team (though the system nerfed assist totals), not as consistently relentless defensively as Payton but able to cause more disruption at key points. Similar argument v. Kidd except that Kidd is as good or better of a playmaker but his scoring was clearly worse than either. Frazier also has the two great finals which counts for something in my book, but played in the weakest era of the 3.

In terms of wings, Moncrief is the best during his prime. He's as or more efficient a scorer than either Drexler or Pippen, similar range, handles were good enough to play PG for the Bucks though not the playmaker than either Drexler or Pippen were, defensive impact is roughly equivalent to Pippen (better man, not as good off ball) and better than Drexler, bigger leadership role than Pippen who could be mentally fragile. Up and down offensively in playoffs but had some monster shut down jobs on the likes of Otis Birdsong and Dennis Johnson. Problem is, and the reason I will support both Drexler and Pippen over him is that his career was cut so short by his knee issues. It's Curry short and, while great, he's not in Curry's class in terms of dominance. Between the other two, I favor Pippen over Drexler. The defensive edge and, yes, the rings give him the advantage over the extra scoring and 2 points of playoff ts% that favor Drexler. I also admire the way he could work with Jordan who was at least as big a prima donna as LeBron but Pippen never did an Irving. I have Havlicek a level below similar player in Pippen; Gervin and Barry's lack of defensive intensity and questionable leadership skills put them below Havlicek for me; the only reason Barry is that high is 75.

Interested in a bigs analysis; I have Artis next but there are a lot of candidates (Howard, Cowens, McHale, Hayes, even Webber though my opinion of Webber is lower than most).

Curious - Do you not feel that if you swap Drexler in for Pippen that you still get 6 rings? Or do you feel that Pippen swapped for Drexler yields more? I really wrestle with the rings conversation with Pippen.