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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. Stephen Curry
30. Scottie Pippen
31. John Havlicek
32. ????

Go!

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Vote: Baylor
Alternate: Barry

Next up: Frazier and Thurmond.

Interesting that Havlicek, the ultimate complementary player, got in before Baylor, who was better as a number 1 player and (to me) was the superior player. I think the drumbeat about Baylor's supposed negatives is continuing to have an effect, but I hope he can finally overcome that in this thread and get in.

About Baylor:

RS career averages of 27.4 points (3rd all time), 13.5 rebounds (10th), 4.3 assists
PS career averages of 27.0 points (7th), 12.9 rebounds (13th), 4.0 assists
RS career totals of 23,149 points (34th), 11,463 rebounds (27th, 1st among SFs), 3650 assists in 846 games
Had two postseasons when he averaged over 38 PPG (4th and 5th)
Holds the finals records for points in a game -- 61
10th all time in career finals PPG -- 26.4
17 50-point RS games (4th)
Played in 44 finals games (11th)
Averaged 19.8 rebounds in 1960-61 -- only five players have done better (Wilt, Russell, Thurmond, Pettit, Lucas)

There isn't anyone left who can match Baylor's combination of peak, impact, all-around game, career production, longevity, and PS resume. Some beat him in a particular category but come up short in multiple others. Barry is the guy who I think comes closest in terms of peak and impact, and he does have that 1975 title run, but closer examination of his career shows multiple seasons of significantly reduced production.

Recommended viewing:



I'm going with Rick Barry as my alternate due to great scoring and playmaking plus leading a team to a championship as a the clear number 1 guy.

Some thoughts on Elgin Baylor.....

His critics seem to make an assumption that his impact must be minimal due to mediocre shooting efficiency (though was above league average most years; never by a huge margin, though peaked at +3.09% rTS one year and has FOUR seasons >+2.5% rTS). But we have some pretty tangible indicators of noteworthy impact (which at times seems more on the DEFENSIVE side of the floor; perhaps his astounding rebounding from the SF position really helped their DREB%???).
The places where his impact is most notable are looking at the Lakers immediately before and after his arrival, and then also looking at '62. I'll do so below, and also look at the contextual details of the two years in between.


In '58, the Lakers went 19-53 (.264) and were a -5.78 SRS. Then they acquired rookie Elgin Baylor (who was the only major roster change from '58 to '59).
The '59 Lakers went 33-39 (+14 wins) and were a -1.42 SRS (+4.36 improvement). They then OVER-achieved in the playoffs by making it to the finals, stunning a +2.89 SRS defending champ Hawks team in six games along the way (Baylor went for 28.3 ppg @ +8.55% rTS in that series).
Their rORTG had improved by 1.4 (from -0.8 in '58 to +0.6 in '59). Their rDRTG had improved by 2.8 (from +4.5 in '58----8th/8 in the league and +2.0 from the second-worst defensive team----to +1.7 [6th/8] in '59).

That seems like a pretty substantial amount of impact for a rookie. fwiw (lolsamplesize), they were 33-37 with Baylor, 0-2 without him that year.


In '60, Vern Mikkelsen has retired, and Larry Foust is being marginalized. Much of their frontcourt production is being replaced by a rookie Rudy LaRusso (who would eventually become pretty good, but is pretty inefficient as a rookie). They otherwise trade away SG Garmaker in a midseason trade for a little more defensive presence in the middle with Ray Felix (though he too is pretty poor offensively). They are also giving more playing time and offensive primacy to two horrendously inefficient guards: Hot Rod Hundley (is 2nd on the team in TSA/game while shooting -5.3% rTS; Slick Leonard also takes a relevant number of shots while shooting -9.0% rTS!). Their defense improves a bit to a respectable +0.1 rDRTG, but their offense falls off a cliff this year. They finish 25-50 (23-47 (.329) with Baylor, 2-3 (.400) in the games he missed).


In '61, they get a rookie Jerry West (not yet a superstar); but perhaps just as important are the following changes:
*they've marginalized Slick Leonard's role.
**Hot Rod Hundley goes from being 2nd on the team in TSA/game to 4th on the team
***2nd year LaRusso is much-improved in his efficiency and output.
The team improves both offensively and a little defensively, is a near-neutral -0.11 SRS, and goes 36-43 (.456): 34-39 (.466) with Baylor, 2-4 (.333) without him.


In '62, 2nd-year West emerges as a superstar, Rudy LaRusso is better still, Slick Leonard is gone, and they're beginning to marginalize Hundley somewhat. All of these generally good things for the team. The one bad thing: Baylor has military service which not only hinders his ability to practice/train (particularly WITH the team--->that basically doesn't happen at all), but also limits how many games he gets to dress for.
This team goes 54-26, and for anyone wondering whether Baylor made much imprint, note they were 37-11 (.771) in the 48 games he played (on pace for about 62 wins in an 80-game season); they were 17-15 (.531) [on pace for 42-43 wins] in the 32 games he missed. And fwiw, that drop-off cannot be blamed on other coinciding injuries: Jerry West missed just 5 games all season, and no one else in their regular rotation missed more than 2 games all year.
This team would also go to the NBA Finals, and take Russell's Celtics to a game 7 (which they only lost by 3 pts). Baylor delivering 41 in G7, also delivered 61 pts in the Lakers G5 win. Overall he averaged 40.6 ppg, 17.9 rpg, 3.7 apg @ +3.11% rTS facing Russell's defense in the finals that year.


Anyway, I'm gonna have to stop there so I can tend to real life stuff, though I'll throw in this final bit pertaining to Baylor's "ancillary value":

“.....Fans specifically came to see him [Baylor]. When he was on military duty and playing sporadically, they called the box office before games to ask if he would be appearing. The Lakers front office had run figures calculating Baylor’s ability to sell tickets, and they determined that in games when he did not play, the Lakers drew an average of 2,000 fewer fans. That amounted to approximately $6,000 per game, or $200,000 over the course of a season….”
----John Taylor, from The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball (p.206-207)

Have sort of stated my arguments for Jason Kidd previously, but to recap some:
*One of the giants of longevity, who played 19 [durable] seasons, and was a useful positive impact player every single one of them, in multiple different roles/situations, too.
**Peaked as 5th in the league in RAPM for three consecutive seasons (6th another year), while finishing 2nd in the MVP vote at least once, and being the clear leader on a Nets team that went to the finals two years in a row.


wrt to Elgin Baylor, I'd stated part of my arguments in my previous post. Before I fall off the grid for part of the next week, going to get my picks in:

1st vote: Jason Kidd
2nd vote: Elgin Baylor
HM's: Clyde Drexler, Artis Gilmore, Gary Payton

Here's what I just posted a few hours ago in thread #31:

drza wrote:I'm on the hustle right now. Vote is the same as last thread:

Vote: Elgin Baylor
2nd: Jason Kidd

While doing that Baylor vs West post, I convinced myself that at the very least, Baylor was making an impact on the order of prime West for his first five years in the NBA before his major knee injuries. The injuries robbed him of some of his athleticism, which likely made itself felt through his ability to rebound, defend and explode on offense. Even so, he was still able to contribute at a high level for another half-decade-ish plus. When looking deeper into the team situation, with a bit of context, I don't buy at all that Baylor's play in the second half of his career deserves to be docked due to perceived ways to maximize his impact. Thus, for me, the math is 5 years of mega elite + knee injuries that would be much lesser deals in other eras with better medicine + a complete decade of still high level play. Deserves to go in at this point.

Vote: Elgin Baylor
2nd: Jason Kidd

PG -- Frazier has traditionally been my top choice among the remaining PGs. He's the guy I want shooting it, he ran an offense well known for doing all the right things ("It's Clyde's ball, he just lets us play with it," Willis Reed), he was great in the only two titles in Knicks history, and of course I grew up hating him. But, looking at the impact of Jason Kidd who consistently ran below average offenses until the very end of his career as a 3 and D player around Dirk Nowitzki, I was really surprised to see how much better the Gary Payton led offenses in Seattle were than Frazier's in NY (and of course than Kidd's in Phoenix and NJ which were weak). Frazier's offenses were in the top half of the league, Payton's were better with good shooting wings, Shawn Kemp (for better and for worse), and mediocre center play. During the 6 years he played for George Karl, a reasonable facsimile of Payton's prime, the offenses he led (and their is no doubt that Payton was always Seattle's leader) averaged 5 points better offensively than the league . . . finishing 2nd in the league twice, 3rd twice, 5th once, and 8th once.

Add to that Payton's defensive rep, his longer prime), and Frazier's playing much of his career in the relatively weak era of the 70s and I think I have to switch to the Glove or be inconsistent in my analysis and criteria. His scoring blows away the likes of Jason Kidd too (though not Frazier). Especially for PGs, team offense matters and the personnel isn't grossly in Payton's favor but the results are. I am looking at the Detroit pair of Thomas and Billups over Kidd too.

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, Reggie Miller and Sam Jones are also worth considering, maybe Ray Allen too. Lots of scorers here.

SF -- Baylor is the clear best SF left. Probably after him would be Alex English or even Adrian Dantley (who I feel gets an unfair rap at times). Could be Rick Barry but his crappy attitude is a problem and his defense is Gervinesque; however his 1975 run is legendary so he does get some consideration here.

PF -- What to do with Hayes, McHale, Webber, Amare, and Dennis Rodman. I think some of these guys compare to the current candidates, particularly McHale. No sure I'd have him higher but I think it's a comparison worth looking into.

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. Gilmore's 75 run would have been at least as legendary as Barry's, especially since it was arguably the worst year of Dan Issel's long career, but the big name writers generally didn't watch the outlaw league. I don't have Mel Daniels, Willis Reed, or Dave Cowens quite as high.


PICK: THE GLOVE

Alternate: The A-Train mainly for his ABA years.

trex_8063 wrote:Some thoughts on Elgin Baylor.....

His critics seem to make an assumption that his impact must be minimal due to mediocre shooting efficiency (though was above league average most years; never by a huge margin, though peaked at +3.09% rTS one year and has FOUR seasons >+2.5% rTS). But we have some pretty tangible indicators of noteworthy impact (which at times seems more on the DEFENSIVE side of the floor; perhaps his astounding rebounding from the SF position really helped their DREB%???).
The places where his impact is most notable are looking at the Lakers immediately before and after his arrival, and then also looking at '62. I'll do so below, and also look at the contextual details of the two years in between.


In '58, the Lakers went 19-53 (.264) and were a -5.78 SRS. Then they acquired rookie Elgin Baylor (who was the only major roster change from '58 to '59).
The '59 Lakers went 33-39 (+14 wins) and were a -1.42 SRS (+4.36 improvement). They then OVER-achieved in the playoffs by making it to the finals, stunning a +2.89 SRS defending champ Hawks team in six games along the way (Baylor went for 28.3 ppg @ +8.55% rTS in that series).
Their rORTG had improved by 1.4 (from -0.8 in '58 to +0.6 in '59). Their rDRTG had improved by 2.8 (from +4.5 in '58----8th/8 in the league and +2.0 from the second-worst defensive team----to +1.7 [6th/8] in '59).

That seems like a pretty substantial amount of impact for a rookie. fwiw (lolsamplesize), they were 33-37 with Baylor, 0-2 without him that year.


In '60, Vern Mikkelsen has retired, and Larry Foust is being marginalized. Much of their frontcourt production is being replaced by a rookie Rudy LaRusso (who would eventually become pretty good, but is pretty inefficient as a rookie). They otherwise trade away SG Garmaker in a midseason trade for a little more defensive presence in the middle with Ray Felix (though he too is pretty poor offensively). They are also giving more playing time and offensive primacy to two horrendously inefficient guards: Hot Rod Hundley (is 2nd on the team in TSA/game while shooting -5.3% rTS; Slick Leonard also takes a relevant number of shots while shooting -9.0% rTS!). Their defense improves a bit to a respectable +0.1 rDRTG, but their offense falls off a cliff this year. They finish 25-50 (23-47 (.329) with Baylor, 2-3 (.400) in the games he missed).


In '61, they get a rookie Jerry West (not yet a superstar); but perhaps just as important are the following changes:
*they've marginalized Slick Leonard's role.
**Hot Rod Hundley goes from being 2nd on the team in TSA/game to 4th on the team
***2nd year LaRusso is much-improved in his efficiency and output.
The team improves both offensively and a little defensively, is a near-neutral -0.11 SRS, and goes 36-43 (.456): 34-39 (.466) with Baylor, 2-4 (.333) without him.


In '62, 2nd-year West emerges as a superstar, Rudy LaRusso is better still, Slick Leonard is gone, and they're beginning to marginalize Hundley somewhat. All of these generally good things for the team. The one bad thing: Baylor has military service which not only hinders his ability to practice/train (particularly WITH the team--->that basically doesn't happen at all), but also limits how many games he gets to dress for.
This team goes 54-26, and for anyone wondering whether Baylor made much imprint, note they were 37-11 (.771) in the 48 games he played (on pace for about 62 wins in an 80-game season); they were 17-15 (.531) [on pace for 42-43 wins] in the 32 games he missed. And fwiw, that drop-off cannot be blamed on other coinciding injuries: Jerry West missed just 5 games all season, and no one else in their regular rotation missed more than 2 games all year.
This team would also go to the NBA Finals, and take Russell's Celtics to a game 7 (which they only lost by 3 pts). Baylor delivering 41 in G7, also delivered 61 pts in the Lakers G5 win. Overall he averaged 40.6 ppg, 17.9 rpg, 3.7 apg @ +3.11% rTS facing Russell's defense in the finals that year.


Anyway, I'm gonna have to stop there so I can tend to real life stuff, though I'll throw in this final bit pertaining to Baylor's "ancillary value":

“.....Fans specifically came to see him [Baylor]. When he was on military duty and playing sporadically, they called the box office before games to ask if he would be appearing. The Lakers front office had run figures calculating Baylor’s ability to sell tickets, and they determined that in games when he did not play, the Lakers drew an average of 2,000 fewer fans. That amounted to approximately $6,000 per game, or $200,000 over the course of a season….”
----John Taylor, from The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball (p.206-207)

I kinda wanna stop talking about Baylor because I think I've said plenty, and if it hasn't resonated with others, oh well, that's how it goes.

I want to be clear though that I'm not making tons of assumptions just based on TS%. The on/off data we have backs up the assertion that West's influence was much, much bigger than Baylor's. West's was outlier good, Baylor's was pretty pedestrian.

trex is good to point out that the team appeared to be significantly better with Baylor than without, but he doesn't point out that even without Baylor they were better than they were in any of the previous Baylor seasons. It's great that with Baylor at his best he could help make the Lakers better (and worth stating that on/off data like this is very coarse and conflates the player as if he's the same throughout his career), but it's still really something that we have every reason to think that Baylor could have missed the whole season and the team would have been better than what he had led them to previously.

And yes that's got a lot to do with Jerry West's growth in play...but this is the '60s. Players didn't come in as 19 year olds. West's rival came in and in his rookie year year was instantly the best offensively player in the league. West on the other hand could be argued to have become the 2nd best offensive player in the league in his 2nd year, after seeming nothing like it his first year, and the major change to context was that the team had to develop without Baylor. Coincidence? Probably not in my humble opinion.

I suppose I'll add for clarification:

I've been working under the assumption that we are judging this based on how impressive and effective players' play was. Turns out the criteria is more open than that, but I'm not going to be including influence, popularity, etc here. To me those are part of different questions. Worthy questions for which lists are worth making, but they aren't a part of my list here.

Doctor MJ wrote:I kinda wanna stop talking about Baylor because I think I've said plenty, and if it hasn't resonated with others, oh well, that's how it goes...

A question for you -- where do you put Baylor on your list?

(My apologies if you've already said this, but I've only been around sporadically the past several weeks.)

Outside wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:I kinda wanna stop talking about Baylor because I think I've said plenty, and if it hasn't resonated with others, oh well, that's how it goes...

A question for you -- where do you put Baylor on your list?

(My apologies if you've already said this, but I've only been around sporadically the past several weeks.)

Y'know the reality is that I don't tend to keep extended lists. Once we get deep in a project my opinions are too variable for me to feel like it's beneficial to stick with a given list. That's not all that helpful though, so I'll say that I tend to think of Baylor similarly to other players known for volume scoring as their main attribute but who really shouldn't have been shooting so much, and really should have been figuring out how to play a more well-rounded game that could have blended in better with others. Melo, AI, Nique, and Barry in his early years (beat mentioned about how much Barry's legacy is shaped by his later team success, and one can argue that I cut him way too much slack for earlier play). Baylor fairs better than most of those guys because I do think it was harder back then to figure out the right way to play, but that's a sorting within type rather than a tier difference. The reality is that there will always be guys who never figure out how to blend in more with a team despite needing to, and I tend to put them in a bucket together.

I think the thing about me grouping Baylor with those guys that's potentially unfair is based on seeing him primarily as a scorer when he was also celebrated for his rebounding, and capable of nice passes when he correctly identified that he should not shoot. To the extent that gives him a boost I'm fine with that, but I don't feel comfortable treating him like a rebounding specialist who could also score because such specialists are supposed to have the attribute that they don't get in the way of scoring teammates. For better or for worse, Baylor played the game as a star, and I tend to group him with other guys who did that and were handicapped in impact due to taking on too much primacy.

I think me writing all this brings up a question:

So Doc, is there a point on your list where you'd expect to see a run of these guys? If so, where? If not, what does that mean?

Because I don't tend to make lists that go so, so deep, and because I rate these guys lower than most, I actually tend not to be in a position where I place them at all in GOAT context. That's not an excuse, it's just a reality. I prefer instead to focus on hierarchies of lists. By decade, or by draft year, etc.

Melo in the 2003 draft I rate 4th. After Bosh, but before Korver - and I know I sound crazy here, but I don't see Melo over Korver as a given. It means a lot to me a player actually playing in a manner that doesn't get in the way of team optimality.

AI in the 1996 draft I rate 5th. After Ben Wallace (not drafted, but this is when he would have been drafted), but before Jermaine O'Neal. I see the choice of Wallace over AI pretty easy. AI over Jermaine requires more thought.

I don't expect many people to see it like I do, but to the extent I have the time and inclination, I say my piece.

Doctor MJ wrote:...

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Not that I agree with your point of view, but that helps me understand it better.

This is almost copied & pasted verbatim. I think my defense of why I have Baylor low on the list is very credible/defensible - I can also respect/understand why he will probably go in here. I intend to not get into further Baylor debate for the remainder of the thread - I've articulated my stance; others disagree - it is what it is. I've also said my opinion on Cousy at this point and I would personally like to see both Schayes & Arizin get in before him but it is what it is.

A very long post - guys are bunched together tightly at this point and I think stronger defenses will be required. This list of guys I have listed will carry me through #39 at minimum - potentially into the 40's depending on how things go or don't go.


My Top Point Guards left (in order): Payton/Kidd/Frazier
My Top Wings left (in order): Drexler/Barry/Gervin/Baylor
My Top Center left: Artis


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

Wings/Forwards:

10 year prime RS
Drexler ('86-'95): 23-7-6/2 stl/1 block/55% TS
Gervin ('75-'84): 27-6-3/1 stl/1 block/57% 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
Baylor ('59-'68): 28-14-4/49% TS

10 year prime Playoffs
Drexler: 22-7-7/2 stl/1 block/54% 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
Baylor: 31/14/4 - 50% TS

Accolades:
Drexler: 10 All-Star, 5 All NBA, 2nd best player on 1 Title Team, best player on 2 Finals Teams
Gervin: 12 All-Star, 7 All NBA, 2 All ABA, 4 X Scoring Champ, teams never competed for titles
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.
Baylor: 11 All-Star, 10 All NBA, best player on no more than 1-2 Finals Teams depending on perspective, 2nd best player on 3 Finals Teams, 3rd best player on 2 more title teams.

Adv. Metrics - take a lot of this with a healthy dose of salt for some of the guys.
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 in regards to his prime/peak impact.
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
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.
Baylor: 3 years @ 10WS peaking out @ a very impressive 14.4. No other data available.

I'm going with 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 doesn't have the accolades but he's pretty strong on that end.

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 had to compete with, it's a hell of a carry job, even though he only won the title because the NBA/ABA weren't merged (Kentucky was probably better) and Kareem broke his hand punching a basket and his dumpster fire of a team went 3-14 without him. So, there's kind of an asterisk with that title but it still happened.

Gervin will go afterwards; he's clearly the best offensive wing/forward left and I don't feel it's that close. But his defense really holds him back and he's pretty clearly the worst defensive player in this pack.

After the last thread, I need to speak to Elgin more - he was probably the most discussed player, so if I'm going to rate him lowly, I need more of an explanation. I've spoke to his TS% and the fact that I think it's hard to build around him, etc.

Let's go deeper.

1) Stockton & Malone vs. West & Baylor.

This group ranked Malone 14th, Stockton 21st & West 15th. For Baylor to be ranked pretty highly, I need him to contribute to winning at the same rate. From '62-'68 LA won 58.8% of their regular season games. That's a 48 win season. Stockton & Malone won 67% of their games from '88-'01 - that's a 55 win season. Unless you assume that the 60's was a lot harder, or that Stockton & Malone had appreciably better supporting casts, that says that the gap of Baylor to Stockton is about 7 wins per year. If we look at some of Stockton's contemporaries who just got in or are being discussed now (Drexler, Ewing, Pippen, Glove, Kidd), I don't see those guys as with 7 less wins per season.

Is it possible we have West ranked too highly and/or Stockton/Malone ranked too lowly? Maybe. But the gap is tough to reconcile for me at least.

2) What happens when Elgin is my best player?

We actually have a decent sample size of what happens when Elgin has to be "the man" due to his 1st two years not having West around and then various injuries at other times.

'59 - Baylor comes into a still very segregated league - there will be 5 African American players getting 25 + MPG. The Lakers were a mess the prior year at 19-53. The Lakers make a big improvement to 33-39 and finish 6th in SRS at -1.42 - a big improvement over last year. Baylor leads team in points, rebounds, assists, & TS%.

'60 - The Lakers dip down to 25-50. In combination of the two years, Baylor wins just 39% of his games.

However, there's other times where West missed time - let's see how the Lakers held up.

'68 - the Lakers go 19-12 without West - very nice carry job by Baylor here.
'63 - the Lakers go just 11-14 without West - this is mentioned as one of Baylor's peak years so to see the Lakers lose over 1/2 their games without West is a little disappointing to me.
'69 - the Lakers go 12-9 without West - that looks pretty good until you realize that the Lakers had Wilt at the time, who was decisively more valuable than Elgin.


On the flip-side, in '62, the Lakers go 17-15 without Baylor, .500 without him in '66, and 17-11 without him in '70 - we all know what happened in '71-'73 & in '65 West takes the Lakers to the finals by himself in the playoffs.

Ultimately, if Baylor's my best player, I just don't know where I'm going. It's unfortunate that we didn't get to see Baylor in situations where he was the best player over a multi-year run with strong supporting casts unlike Hondo, Drexler, Payton & Frazier. Maybe good things would've happened - but we just don't know; '63 is really all we have to go on.
Given that Baylor starts to slow down shortly thereafter, that suggests a pretty short run and other guys getting support have a bit longer of runs. We do know that with him as the 2nd best player the Lakers had a TON of near misses at the title but maybe they shouldn't have . . .

3) The Lakers might have been romanticized in terms of their "near misses" at titles.

For argument's sake, let's say that Hondo & Frazier are each getting in the Top 35 and no other players form the 60's are.

'61 - Russell & Wilt both in the East, Robertson & Pettit in the West. Lakers lose to St Louis
'62 - Russell & Wilt in the East, Robertson & Pettit in the West. Lakers make finals.
'63 - Russell, Hondo (rookie year), Robertson in the East. Wilt, Pettit in the West. Lakers make finals.
'64 - Russell, Hondo, Robertson in the East. Wilt, Pettit (final year). Lakers lose to St. Louis in 1st round.
'65 - Russell, Hondo & Wilt are all in the East. Lakers make Finals - West by himself.
'66 - Russell, Hondo & Wilt all in the East. Lakers make Finals.
'67 - Russell, Hondo & Wilt all in the East. Lakers go 36-45?! and are swept in 1st round.
'68 - Again - Russell, Hondo & Wilt all in the East. Lakers make Finals.

My point is that the Lakers didn't have a whole lot of elite top tier competition to go through in route to those Finals from '65-68. If the distribution of talent in those years was a little bit more even, are the Lakers stuck with two Finals appearances with just those guys? I don't know - but it's a little bit like Lebron's run of Finals appearances.

It's possible I'm being too harsh on Baylor. He'll get in without my support fairly soon I think anyway - so it probably doesn't matter - but I did feel I needed to explain it.

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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 (for example) even though one of Payton's best seasons ('99) was a lockout shortened one. His playoff prime #'s are actually understated because he didn't get to play as many games at his peak due to playing on some garbage teams.

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.

I take Payton over Kidd (by a nose) due to a stronger peak & stronger playoff performances - particularly in closeout/elimination settings. I take both over Frazier because Frazier has a material amount of fewer strong years.
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At this point, Artis is the best center left and it's not really close. No one else left matches his combination of peak + longevity.

I've watched some game tapes of him and it's not the most exciting thing to watch. You're just watching a big guy play who (in some years) moves with less agility than my 61 year old Dad and you can't help thinking "why didn't he do more" "why didn't he win more titles"? He was a turnover machine to boot and after '77 his defensive impact gets questionable. I get it. Set that aside for a second.

10 year prime: 21-15-3 blocks/60% TS. Is it troubling that his team lost 50 + 3 straight years in what should have been his prime? Of course. Is it troubling that Chicago finished in the bottom third of the league 3 straight times in defensive efficiency with someone who's calling card is defensive impact? Absolutely - although to be fair, those teams were a mess.

But he still has a robust post prime where he played a key role on some strong Spurs teams and that post prime includes 3 all-star squads. There's a few guys I need to see in before he will get some serious traction from me but we're in range where I don't think you're crazy if you're giving him support.

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

Pick: Clyde Drexler
Alternate: Gary Payton

32. Elgin Baylor

33. Isiah Thomas

I. Among remaining players, Baylor is 2nd in all-time postseason production (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks). (Tony Parker is first.) This is in spite of the fact that when he played there were fewer rounds and fewer games per round. Simply put, he is the best (career) postseason performer remaining - especially when we consider that for his entire career, blocks and steals were not recorded.

II. Elgin Baylor is first among remaining players in my Honors and Awards metric. He was a Top 5 MVP candidate 7 times - compare that to 1 for Pippen and 2 for Curry.

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III. Isiah Thomas was the best player on two championship teams. No other remaining player holds that distinction.

I have these two at 27th and 28th.

Here are some excerpts of mine from an old thread on Isiah Thomas:

Isiah is not overrated, unless someone is rating him in the top 20. The simple version - which obviously the media and public at large prefer - is that he was the best player on two championship teams, as well as the best or second best on a team that probably lost a third Finals because he twisted his ankle. He was also the best player on an NCAA champ. Only Jordan, Bird, and Magic made more All-NBA teams in the 80's. All of this is hard to dispute.

The more complex version hinges first and foremost on his elevating his play in the postseason. The post containing his all-time rankings in postseason improvement over the regular season should not be casually glossed over. The vast majority of players decrease their productivity in the playoffs, while the elite of the elite consistently increase it. Thomas' increases are historically high.

Secondly, the complex version states that he led and orchestrated top offenses for nearly his entire career, rather than relied on great defenses. There were four or five seasons when his team's OR even exceeded its DR.

A third point in the complex version is that Thomas was the galvanizing/uniting/driving leader behind the Pistons for all of the 80's. To illustrate, a player from the '88 team team has stated on record that when he and his teammates saw Isiah's heroic fourth quarter performance in game 6 of the 1988 Finals, they finally understood the depth of his determination, and they knew that even if he couldn't contribute in game 7 (he couldn't), they would come back the following year and win it all. Anyone who was paying close attention in 2014 should understand that the Spurs didn't win that year simply because of their system or their talent. The system was perfected and the talent was maximized over the course of nearly one hundred games because of the collective determination and focus that sprang from the agony of Ray Allen's miraculous shot in game 6 of the '13 Finals. Isiah's ankle injury in '88 played the same role as Allen's corner three in '13. If Isiah hadn't had the character, will, and desire that enabled him to excel on virtually one leg, his teammates might have lost a measure of confidence in their leader, and we might be looking at extra championships for Magic, Michael, or Clyde Drexler.

The people who say, "Show me where it says "character," "will," or "desire" on the stat sheet!" and accuse others of being simple-minded or narrative-dominated in their thinking are in fact the ones who fail to see the subtleties in the difference between winning and losing. No one person sees all the subtleties, but we must acknowledge their existence. As an example, when Dwight Howard, in a particularly tense moment in the playoffs, calls out his teammates even when they're doing their best, simply because he thinks he's looked bad on a particular possession, team cohesiveness is damaged as those players realize Dwight cares more about his own image than building up his teammates for the sake of collective success. Then Dwight leaves the court in the next timeout, and those players, still on the court, are trying to regain the focus and flow that Dwight's outburst cost them. Their play diminishes slightly, and Dwight's on/off numbers go up - or the quality of his "supporting cast" appears weaker. The stat sheet is lying - every part of it except the win/loss column. A hundred related scenarios occur in every game, and more occur on the practice court and in the locker room. More can occur in comments made to the media. Heck, this type of stuff has probably even happened in strip clubs.

A person who tries to sell you on a player based solely on stats without a narrative context is like someone who'll tell you he has a great marriage because he lasts a long time in bed with his wife - and then tells you exactly how long, down to the second.

I'm not one to echo Vince Lombardi's "winning is the only thing" quote. (That, too, would ignore context.) Karl Malone, in my opinion, had twice as good of a career as Isiah Thomas. But Thomas is a top 25 player [Top 28 now] because winning is the one "stat" that tells us what all the other stats never could. Winning is a coordinate on an imaginary graph: where a player's talent meets his daily determination to maximize it.

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"I don't know man, I can't really get behind motivation and leadership being this huge of a factor into deciding who is greater. But we'll get to that."

I just can't help but what wonder what kind of life experiences a person has had so say something like "motivation and leadership are not huge factors in deciding who is greater." Like, have you ever had a job? Ever worked with other people? Maybe on a project with a bad leader? Or a great one? Ever notice the difference between the two - the difference in the results produced? Ever tried hard? Ever slacked off? Ever noticed the difference in the results between the two?

I can't force you to see things how I see them, but I watched last night's Game 2 and I saw a Cavs team that was more motivated than the Warriors team. It was obvious that Lebron and Dellavadova were working harder than anyone on the court - and this lead to multiple key offensive rebounds, not to mention loose balls that were saved or tipped - even one of which could have been the difference in the game. I'm not implying that actually making shots is irrelevant or that some of the things I've mentioned don't show up in the box score - that's a straw man - I'm just saying some things exist outside of the box score. The game is much more subtle and complex than the numbers alone can account for.

"Elevating play in the postseason is a great thing, but it's relevant only so far as to what level that increase actually leads to. If you're starting from a much smaller base than someone who doesn't improve as much, does it really matter if your increase is bigger if you still end up below them? The fact that the vast majority of players don't improve is irrelevant, because we aren't comparing Isiah to the vast majority of players here."

I agree with you. Only the end results matter in evaluating someone's greatness. I've just seen others on these boards highlight improvements and drops in playoff performance so many times that I guess it thought it might be relevant to this discussion.

Lest you be confused by my saying only the end results matter, then going on about process and narrative, my point in writing about process and narrative has never been that either is grounds for my rankings. They emphatically are not - my list is at least 99% results-driven. It depends almost exclusively on results that any objective observer could agree actually happened. The point I've been trying to make is that team success is one such result. Process and narrative only come into the discussion when they become useful in explaining why team success can be attributed to great players' actions that don't appear in the box score.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call them great. Outside of the 1st place finish in 84, the Pistons while Isiah was an all-star level player were never a top 5 offense. And the defense being below average might have something to do with Isiah himself no? And the Pistons didn't make the conference finals until 87, the year their defense first replaced the offense as the better unit. So until the Pistons began "relying" on great defenses, they had basically no postseason success."

Perhaps they weren't great offenses. At least not plural. At least not when he was an "All-Star level player." As to below average defenses having something to do with Isiah, would you say the same about the Clippers defense and Chris Paul? It's generally acknowledged that point guard is the position that can have the least impact on a team's defense. Still, I happen to think all five players are important on both sides of the ball, so yes, he had something to do with it, and he also had something to do with the "great defenses" that came after. My original intent was just to dispel the myth that he never led a great offense.


"I can't get behind this. There's really no way to tell how much, if any at all, the drive of a player impacts the players around him. It's impossible, and always will be."

There's only one way: did the team do enough to get the job done? This is the same way leaders are evaluated in every walk of life.

"Saying Ray Allen's shot was the basis of the Spur's title run the next year is just so out there. It'd be like me saying the reason Duncan became a hall of fame player was because of the hurricane that destroyed the olympic swimming pool in his hometown that forced him to focus on basketball."

No, it's more like Duncan himself saying, "Me and my community were so devastated by that hurricane that I decided to do everything in my power to rise above it and make millions of dollars playing basketball to show that neither me nor my community could be bowed by the whims of fate." What you say has nothing to do with it. That's why I pointed out that a Pistons player actually said Isiah's determination drove them the entire following year. The Spurs players have said they were hoping to face the Heat. You can bet that desire was there from the moment game 7 of the '13 Finals ended, and you can bet the Spurs would not have been quite as focused against another team in the Finals. (They still would have won, obviously. They were too good by that time.) I never meant to imply that without Allen's shot, the Spurs don't win the championship. I did mean to imply, though, that it was a factor. Probably a very big factor.

"Every event is connected in the journey, as you say. But the way you tell it, it was Isiah's game 6 performance that was the most important moment of their 89 title run. That's ridiculous. It'd be way down on the list, waaaaaaaaaaay behind the level of play of the individual Pistons players during the actual season, which is what everyone else is using as the primary evaluator to make their all time list. Changes in confidence play a part, but not anywhere near THAT much. Having confidence in your leader isn't suddenly going to change you from a run of the mill playoff team into a champion. If I were to evaluate the 89 Pistons, I'd say their title was due to the emergence of Rodman and Dumars and the trade of Dantley making their team better and more cohesive, the way the rest of the Pistons played, the Celtics getting worse, the Lakers being injured, any amount of refereeing and injury randomness, how their other playoff opponents played, general randomness that's associated with all competitive sports (shots not falling etc.) and a whole bunch of other stuff. I can't see how looking at Isiah's leadership is going to come even close to having the impact those things do."

Again, it wasn't the way I told it. If it was just me making up a story, it would lose a lot of credence. It's there in the Bad Boys documentary. The players felt that way. Everything you mention was undoubtedly a factor. Just as in life, when a team has to work together on any common goal or project, everything that happens is a factor, and dozens of individual occurrences might each be the difference between success and failure. Many of these might be random. But what is the unifying concept throughout? The way the group responds to these occurrences. And what drives these responses? Leadership.

Again, I'm not saying that that previous paragraph explains why I rate Isiah where I do. What explains why I rate him where I do is the simple fact that he lead his teams to ultimate victory and near-ultimate victory four times in his career, three in the NBA and one in college. That previous paragraph was just to say that leadership is a real thing and it exists and it makes a difference in outcomes.

"First off, I don't really see anyone having an attitude like that. And I don't get the comparison to Dwight, because I don't think anyone here is calling Dwight a top 25 player either. And if Dwight's teammates are really that affected by a random "you guys suck" comment (and making an assumption that this has any impact on their play at all is a BIG assumption), they probably shouldn't be in the NBA in the first place. NBA players are getting heckled by fans, the media, and their teams ALL the time."

Correct, Dwight is not a top 25 player, but he may have more talent than Isiah. Most would probably say he does. Which is exactly my point. Talented players are often separated by "intangibles." Stating that human beings are affected by random "you suck" comments is not an assumption. It's common knowledge. And these random "you suck" comments tend to be more affecting when they come from people close to us or people on a higher level than us, and when they happen in public - all of which would describe Dwight in relation to someone like Ariza or Brewer, calling guys out on TV in the playoffs

I don't know how to save this and I need to go to work soon, but when you're talking about players getting heckled: a straw man. Dwight didn't heckle anybody in my example. Also, the fans and media are not in positions of leadership or in intimate relationships with the players. Also, there is a difference between making fun of someone and calling them out - and as I said, there is a difference in whether it is done to save Dwight's own face or to build up the cohesion of the team. Human relationships.

"The people you'd be comparing Isiah to if you think he's top 25 are guys like the usual suspects (MJ, Magic, Bird, Russell, Duncan, Kareem etc.) or more guys like Dirk, KG, Havlicek, Baylor, Barkley, Wade etc. Are we somehow going to argue that Isiah is a better leader than them? Or had more determination than them? How would we even go about that? We already have too much to look at with their respective basketball abilities and the circumstances in which they displayed those abilities."

We'd go about it by looking at wins. Determination, etc., do not appear on my ATG list. Winning does. If we're talking about how I evaluate players, then we're talking about stats, wins, and consensus - nothing else.

"Determination, like I said with the playoff thing earlier, is only relevant in how it affects your ability to play basketball. It's the starting from the lower base thing again. When compared with a guy who never meets his potential (like, say, Shaq) does it matter that Isiah had more determination if even with that determination Shaq was still in another stratosphere as a player?"

No, it doesn't matter. Shaq is higher than Isiah because he produced better results.

"Winning is a coordinate on a graph where a player's talent meets his daily determination to maximize it... AND where said player's teammates' talent meets their daily drive, AND where said player's opponents' talent meets their daily drive, AND where said player's coaches abilities to manage said talent, AND how lucky your team gets with injuries, AND how lucky your opponents get with injuries, AND how lucky your team gets with refereeing, AND a whole bunch of other things."

True, all of that factors in, but all of that also factors in to every other stat besides winning. So why would we decide other stats are more relevant than winning in evaluating players? Winning is the goal of the game. To ignore it or even minimize it is something I have a hard time understanding.

"The common thing here is talent. The talent and ability is the most important thing. And Isiah just didn't have enough talent and ability to be ranked where the consensus has him. The winning was just as much or more due to those other factors as it was to Isiah himself."

Talent Is Overrated. It's a good book. Check it out. As for Isiah's responsibility or lack thereof in his team's successes, I take the position that people often create their own opportunities and luck: when we consistently find a person in successful positions, in spite of all the other factors that might have been at play, the common thread is the person himself. I therefore give credit to that person.

I know you're done talking about Baylor, but I did want to respond to one point (which has been stated previously, too).....

Doctor MJ wrote:
I want to be clear though that I'm not making tons of assumptions just based on TS%. The on/off data we have backs up the assertion that West's influence was much, much bigger than Baylor's....

.....And West has been voted in; almost 20 places ago. So what you say can be true [is true], but doesn't necessarily mean it's not about time for Baylor to be scribed in.

scrabbarista wrote:

33. Isiah Thomas...the complex version states that he led and orchestrated great offenses, rather than relied on great defenses. As another post pointed out in very simple terms: his defenses were in fact below average, while his offenses were above average....

A long and interesting read, and I too admit to winner's bias. I rate Kobe Bryant at or close to the top 10, without the Gasol championships, I think he's closer to 20. Rick Barry wouldn't be in my top 50 without 1975. I look for why a team won and often reevaluate based on that. Winning matters.

That said, the above quote makes me wonder. In the two championship years, the Pistons defense was the 2nd and 3rd most efficient in the league. Their offense was 18th and 17th (or below average NBA offenses for the math challenged). The quote seems on face value to be dead wrong.

Vote: Elgin Baylor
Alternate: Clyde Drexler

Baylor is simply the best remaining talent imo for reasons already stated, namely a sustained prime especially pre-injury where he was both an underrated play maker and was viewed by his contemporaries as among the best behind Russ/Wilt/West. Holds the Finals record for points in a game in the 62 Finals where his Lakers were unlucky to have not won it all against the hated Celtics finally.

trex_8063 wrote:I know you're done talking about Baylor, but I did want to respond to one point (which has been stated previously, too).....

Doctor MJ wrote:
I want to be clear though that I'm not making tons of assumptions just based on TS%. The on/off data we have backs up the assertion that West's influence was much, much bigger than Baylor's....

.....And West has been voted in; almost 20 places ago. So what you say can be true [is true], but doesn't necessarily mean it's not about time for Baylor to be scribed in.

My point being that it's not just the TS% that points us into a certain direction.

If you want to acknowledge the weakness and then speak to why you think he's X good any way that's cool, but you built up a straw men that needed to be taken down.

Beyond that though, it seems like I've been misguided in linking Baylor to West so much in my arguments, because I think a lot of people see it as you do. "Okay West was better, he's in, now he's irrelevant." I had thought it would resonate differently because to me it's a red flag to see someone shoot a ton when we know another guy on the team is the best scoring option, but clearly I'm more skeptical of volume scorers than others are here (or almost anywhere else).

To me there's a natural rhythm to an offense where only the most effective scorers are worth the drain predictably going to them often, and what that means is that big time scorers like that tend to fall from "very effective" to "hurting the team" without a lot of falloff in their volume production and thus they tend to get rewarded long after they deserve it in a way not coincidentally analogous to guys keep getting named to All-D long after they stopped deserving it.

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: Gary Payton

Vote 1 - Walt “Clyde” Frazier

Vote 2 - Clyde Drexler

[Heh, look at that — 2 Clydes]

Frazier in the Finals

70 (7 games): ~17.6 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 10 APG, 54% FG, 76% FT, 5.9 FTAs per game

(yes, i'm aware of the potentially faulty assist count in game 7…)

72 (5 games): ~23 PPG, 8 RPG, 8 APG, 59% FG, 70% FT, 5.4 FTAs per game

73 (5 games): ~16.6 PPG, 7 RPG, 5 APG, 48% FG, 65% FT, 4 FTAs per game

While the knicks would lose in 5 games to the lakers in 72, this was without reed, so they didn't have much of a chance. That said, Clyde stepped up in his absence as evidenced by his impressive all around play. Overall, he was a great performer in the finals. He really had a solid case for finals MVP in 73, but the "big bias" of the time essentially put reed over the top. In addition, his historic game 7 in the 70 finals put the knicks over the top, some of which can be watched here:



It's also worth noting the knicks nearly went to 4 finals in a row if not for a 2 pt game 7 loss to the bullets in the 71 ECF. Frazier led some truly great teams during that stretch.

Frazier embodied just about all you could ask from a star player. He was a versatile playmaker with great decision making, rarely deterred by defensive pressure. On the other side of the ball, he's widely considered one of the best defensive guards of all time. He had the unique ability to lull a player into an "easy" drive to the basket, and then tapping the ball from behind for a steal and fast break bucket. He was also great in passing lanes, and had the size and speed to guard both the 1 and 2.

From a more intangible standpoint, clyde fit in seamlessly with one of the most balanced scoring teams in NBA history. Team chemistry was huge, and he valued the importance of his teammates highly. Per Page 2 interview via ESPN:

The story of that night is that Reed's presence really inspired your team and really rattled the Lakers …

Frazier: Oh, unequivocally. If Willis didn't come out, I would not have had that game.

Is that right?

Frazier: Absolutely. He gave us the confidence we needed. The crowd ... the crowd propelled us to that win, man. They never shut up. They had us doing things we never thought we could do.

The knicks routinely ran an "option-less" offense, where "hit the open man" was the basic game plan. Clyde would further his ability to adapt to playing with other star players when his conference rival Earl Monroe was traded to NY. 2 of the best guards in the game with only 1 ball to go around were expected to clash, but instead their styles of play complemented each other quite well.

Albert pointed out that Frazier, too, had to make accommodations. ''They both subjugated their game,'' he said. But, after playing so intensely against one another, Albert said: ''They both were so in tune with one another and what needed to be done. So it worked.''

- - - - -

But for basketball fans, Monroe's career was a tutorial in winning. ''By enthusiastically adopting the Knicks' philosophy,'' Bradley said, ''Earl helped to show that no one can accomplish alone as much as all of us can accomplish together.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/sports/backtalk-when-stars-collide-in-new-york.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A9%22%7D

Doctor MJ wrote:To me there's a natural rhythm to an offense where only the most effective scorers are worth the drain predictably going to them often, and what that means is that big time scorers like that tend to fall from "very effective" to "hurting the team" without a lot of falloff in their volume production and thus they tend to get rewarded long after they deserve it in a way not coincidentally analogous to guys keep getting named to All-D long after they stopped deserving it.

Have you given consideration to the data presented that counters this argument?

-- West's season with the highest FGAs coincided with Baylor's season with the highest FGAs (1961-62).

-- As Baylor's FGAs dropped over the following seasons (-4.7, -10.3, -7.4 relative to his 61-62 peak), West's also fell, going down a max of -2.7 from his peak.

-- In 1965-66, the season following Baylor's knee surgery, Baylor's FGAs dropped to 15.9, which was -9.8 compared to the previous season and -17.4 compared to his 61-62 peak. Yet rather than going up to compensate, West's FGAs actually went down -0.5 compared to the previous season.

-- In the 1965 playoffs, when Baylor played only five minutes before hurting his knee, West took 31.9 FGAs in the postseason and scored 40.6 PPG, both easily career highs, but he shot only 44.2 FG% and 53.4 TS%, both easily career lows until his last three seasons.

My analysis of that information leads me to the following conclusions:

-- West was most comfortable taking 21-23 shots per game, that he wasn't comfortable taking more than that or perhaps knew that was his "sweet spot," where he was most efficient.

-- That when West and Baylor both played, the number of shots Baylor took had little or no bearing on the number of shots West took.

-- That Baylor taking fewer shots would not have resulted in West taking more shots.

I'd like to think that argument is persuasive. Is it?