RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #49 (Wes Unseld)

Vote 1 - Willis Reed

Vote 2 - Bob Lanier

Reasoning: viewtopic.php?p=58629578#p58629578

Another runoff bites the dust for reed… i’ll see if I have time to add some additional support for him, but making sure I get my vote in for now.

Post #3 » by **penbeast0** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 3:39 pm

90s have been picked through pretty well except for the oddity that is Dennis Rodman; GOAT rebounder in regular season, but big dropoffs in the postseason or I'd probably be looking at him here. 00s we have Mutombo's defense (okay, 90s and 00s), Ray Allen's scoring, and Manu Ginobili, the Bobby Jones of the modern era. Current stars like Westbrook, Harden, etc. could get into the conversation as well.

80s, Sidney Moncrief had a short career but every time I saw him he was brutally effective, particularly defensively. Bobby Jones is another great two way player with limited time (not length of career for him but minutes per game). On the other end, Adrian Dantley is probably the next great scorer over Nique (and King/Aguirre/Marques/etc.). To paraphrase LA Bird, the only real argument for Nique over English is style over substance; they scored roughly equivalent amounts but English was more efficient, a clearly superior defender, and he scored them in the context of the Nuggets offense without having to have isos run for him. No one left is as offensively impressive to me as English and Dantley except for the shorter modern careers like Westbrook and Harden.

60s guys, I am looking at Sam Jones, Hal Greer, Dave Debusschere, and Nate Thurmond, maybe Chet Walker. Thurmond is hurt by his offense and his team winning a title just after trading him for Cliff Ray. 70s there are a bunch of guys who are impressive Daniels, Cowens, Unseld, Hayes, McAdoo just among big men. Of these, I'd rather have Dave Cowens though the stats don't always back me up but having watched them a lot, he was Alonzo Mourning's attitude with stretch the floor midrange shooting. 50s guys, Arizin and Cousy are the best after Pettit and Schayes. Neil Johnston is the Amare of the 50s, great looking numbers overrate his impact.

Vote: Alex English
Alternate: Adrian Dantley

Post #4 » by **trex_8063** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 5:36 pm

Robert Parish...... (some old arguments, and a few new ones)

Let's start with some broad strokes indicating just how productive he was (and for how long):
*Parish is 32nd all-time (in NBA/ABA combined) in career rs pts scored, 9th in rebounds, 11th in blocks. He's 26th all-time in rs WS.
**Playoffs is nearly identical: he's 32nd all-time in career playoff pts, 9th in rebounds, 6th in blocks, and 35th all-time in playoff WS.

If you look at his career in terms of PER, WS/48, BPM, remind yourself that you're looking at numbers that span an ayfkm 21 seasons. If we look at some of the other candidates with some traction (or recently voted in), note their careers were all 13 [or a little over] seasons.
Parish, by the end of his 13th season, had a career PER of 20.0, .163 WS/48, +2.4 BPM in 31.0 mpg (which doesn't compare too unfavorably vs them, except maybe a little bit vs Iverson). Parish would have two more All-Star seasons AFTER that, though, as well as a handful of years of usefulness besides.

SUMMARY TIMELINE POINTS (to outline the longevity):
*Parish came into the league as an above average [role] player in his rookie season (19.3 PER, .167 WS/48, +1.5 BPM in 18.0 mpg).
**By his third season he was at least a borderline All-Star calibre player going for 17.2 ppg (though league-average shooting efficiency) with 12.1 rpg and 2.9 bpg (in just 31.7 mpg, too). He had the league's BEST DREB% while simultaneously averaging 3.2 blocks/36 min, had the league's best individual DRtg while anchoring a top 5 defense (-1.8 rDRTG).
***He would then consistently be more or less All-Star calibre (occasionally All-NBA, once finishing 4th in MVP vote, 7th another year) every year thru his 15th (or arguably his 16th?) season.
****He was a consistent starter thru his 18th season, and clearly an above average per minute player (on >27 mpg) as late as his 17th season.

And he was there for his team night after night, on average missing LESS THAN 4 game games per year for two solid decades.

And let's also consider when this occurred: his rookie year was the first season after the merger. The bulk of his prime came in the relatively talent-dense 80's and early 90's (and he played the majority of his career in the clear tougher conference, too), and retired just as the league was going into a slightly expansion-diluted stretch.
If you were going to outline a 21-year stretch in NBA history, you can hardly find a tougher [collectively] 21-year era.

Parish was a two-way player. Offensively, he was one of the best transition running centers in the game (watch some early 80's Celtics games if you doubt this statement), could clean up easy hoops inside, but also had a deadly accurate spot-up from <14 ft or turn-around jumper from <12 ft (and made FT's at 72% for his career). His turn-around was not a fade-away, fwiw, but rather would turn squared up and fire this unique high-arcing shot that was somewhat difficult to block.

At the end of his 15th season he still had a career average of 16.5 ppg @ 57.7% TS while having been a consistent rebounding anchor (career 10.1 rpg at that point), as well as a reasonable rim protector (career 1.7 bpg at that point). He had anchored a top-5 defense in '79 while averaging 2.9 bpg (3.2 blk/36 min) and still maintaining the league's best DREB%......he led the league in individual DRtg that year, fwiw.

He was arguably/likely the 2nd-best player for a title team ('81 Celtics), probably about a 2b for another title team ('84 Celtics), and the fairly clear 3rd-best player for another title team; was either 2nd or 3rd best for multiple other contenders, too.

"But he was never the top dog for a good team" or "He was only any good on offense due to Bird's passing".....
These are critical statements I've heard in the past. Fortunately, we need look no further than the '89 Celtics to dispel them as false. In '89 Bird was injured and missed basically the entire year. It was a 35-yr-old Robert Parish who filled much of the void. I bold the age to emphasize this isn't even Parish in his physical prime.
Parish nonetheless led the team in ORebs, DRebs and TRebs (by handy margins on all accounts): he was actually 3rd in the whole league in rpg that year (behind only Hakeem and Barkley, and he actually had a higher reb/36 min than Barkley), and also led the entire league in TREB%. He also led the team in bpg, and averaged 18.6 ppg (2nd on the team, and +4.3 from '88), and still on a very elite 60.7% TS [again: without Bird].

He had the team's best PER at 21.6 (2nd was McHale's 20.3), the team's best WS/48 at .177 (2nd was McHale's .168, not counting Ed Pinckney's .176 which came on <700 total minutes), and the team's best BPM at +4.2 (2nd was McHale's +2.1, not counting Pinckney's +3.0). And there's not enough difference between McHale and Parish in mpg to account for Parish's edge in everything (36.9 mpg for McHale, 35.5 mpg for Parish, who missed two fewer games as well).

In short, he was the top dog on this team that managed a 42-40 record in a tough Eastern Conference (+1.26 SRS); and this was after turning 35 years old before the season even started.

He was a 9-time All-Star, 1-time All-NBA 2nd Team, 1-time All-NBA 3rd Team, and has four total NBA titles to his credit--->playing during one of the toughest eras in the history of the league, too.
He figured into the MVP vote FIVE seasons, twice in the top 10, once as high as 4th.

To me, this is a fairly stellar career easily deserving of top 50 recognition.

For my alternate, I'm either going with a guy who's longevity is lacking (though still better than Willis Reed, fwiw) though has a monstrous peak......or a guy with pretty good longevity and consistently, peak probably oversold by the presence of an MVP: Russell Westbrook or Allen Iverson. Will try to decide in the next day and edit it in.
Guys like Hayes, McGrady, Lanier, perhaps even Billups or Wilkins feel reasonable to me around now, as well.

1st vote: Robert Parish
2nd vote: tentatively Russell Westbrook

Post #5 » by **trex_8063** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 5:43 pm

Clyde Frazier wrote:Vote 1 - Willis Reed

Vote 2 - Bob Lanier

Reasoning: viewtopic.php?p=58629578#p58629578

Another runoff bites the dust for reed… i’ll see if I have time to add some additional support for him, but making sure I get my vote in for now.

I don't really disagree with anything you wrote about Reed in the linked post (I feel much the same about him). How do you feel about other relatively short-career players on the table (particularly Westbrook is the one I'm thinking of) vs him?

EDIT: Or how about Sidney Moncrief?

Also where do feel Dave Cowens lies in relation to Reed on an all-time list?

Post #6 » by **penbeast0** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 7:30 pm

Lanier seems an odd choice. He was not a good defensive player either by eye test (me) or by looking at his team's defensive ratings throughout his prime (Detroit was below average to poor every year but 1974 where for some unknown reason they were very good and Lanier got props). In Milwaukee he was platooned for defense with Lanier for offense (he is and always was a fine offensive player). His teams were decent, with good players, but never elite level. He was consistently rated by his peers behind Reed, Cowens, Unseld, Hayes, etc. by his contemporaries and never made an All-NBA team.

Compare to Dave Cowens who played during the same period but was an MVP candidate, or Reed, or Hayes.

THKNKG · Post #7 » by **THKNKG** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 9:26 pm

Vote: Dikembe Mutombo
Alt: Nate Thurmond (possibly)

micahclay wrote:Okay, now for me to go back to the nitty gritty - at the beginning, I defined certain axioms that are central to my analysis of basketball greatness. I want to post these again for the sake of reference, and they will help explain my thinking.

Defense - The value of a defensive big man (4/5) is higher than the value of a defensive perimeter player (1/2/3).

Offense - The value of an offensive perimeter player is higher than the value of an offensive big man. Again, this can be demonstrated a couple of ways.

Offense vs defense – Offensive players have a higher capacity to affect the game (or at least do so more frequently), but the scarcity of defenders who can produce at that level makes those defenders at least equally valuable (aka scarcity theory).

Playstyle – Except for situations where a team is so weak it needs a player to “carry them,” a team-friendly playstyle is most preferred.

Longevity/peak – Unless there is a clear advantage in peak, assuming levels similar to one another, the player with more effective longevity is more highly valued.

Intangibles – Intangibles clearly affect a player/team, so they must be considered when analyzing the greatness of a player, for better or worse.

Era – The player must be considered in the context of the era in which they played, and any “era translation” must be done consistently in all directions in context as well.

Some thoughts on some of these to add on, before I continue:

1. Axioms 1/2/3 are why I value ATG defensive anchors so much, and axiom 4 is why I view inefficiency as less valuable by default. In my first post on the project, I made the following distinctions (assuming equal levels of talent - obviously the hierarchy is not used in the instance of a GOAT level player) -

off-ball > ball-dominant playmakers > ball-dominant scorers

2. The scarcity of an ELITE defensive 4 / 5, combined with the intrinsically additive nature of defense to a team, means that for me to overlook a high impact, GOAT tier defender, that other player better have some rock solid reasoning.

Alright, next, I also mentioned the concepts of gravity/creation, and anti-gravity/disruption. Gravity meaning the amount of distortion put on the defense by a player, and anti-gravity meaning the amount of distortion put on the offense. Creation meaning a combination of scoring/playmaking, and disruption being actually disrupting a play - jumping passing lanes, steals, blocks, rim protection, etc. Those are fundamental concepts to our understanding of basketball, and they’re important for our discussions here.

I wrote in a separate thread a few weeks ago (that I can’t search for right now for some reason), that on a PPP basis, unless a player is at Steph level 3 pt. % and beyond, shots in the lane are more valuable. Midrange shots would require a LOT of increase to be as valuable - they’re just bad shots to take by willing choice, which is why the league has evolved as it has.

So, shots in the lane are the most effective. Studies have also shown that 3 point defense and midrange defense (ITO percentage at least) tend to be close to random. Meanwhile, rim protectors tend to be consistent from year to year.
sources: https://fansided.com/2017/01/12/nylon-calculus-shot-defense-metrics-actions/
https://fansided.com/2015/02/09/defending-the-three-pointer-mean-avoiding-three-pointer/

Therefore IF shots in the lane are most effective, and IF they are the shots that demonstrably CAN be altered, it follows that players who can alter shots the most effectively are HIGHLY valuable.

The best rim protectors of the past 4 years or so have altered the oppFG% <5 ft. by between 10-15% (sometimes more). The average fg% for teams in that range was roughly 60%. 60% gives a rate of 1.2ppp, which is the same efficacy as a 40% 3 pt. shooter. This means that the best rim protectors of the last few years have shifted the ppp of shots at the rim from 1.2ppp to anywhere from 0.9-1.0ppp.

This means the most elite rim protectors make shots at the rim nearly as inefficient as midrange shots.

Now, imagine the players who were even better rim protectors than Gobert - Russell, Robinson, Hakeem, Mutombo - and then all of a sudden, the massive RAPM scores of Deke start to make a lot of sense. Could Deke have altered oppFG% by near 20%, and thus made shots at the rim LESS efficient than midrange shots? Quite possibly, as there have been some players over the last few years who have been in the high teens. Deke exhibited massive anti-gravity, and accompanied it with arguably GOAT level rim protection.

iggymcfrack · Post #8 » by **iggymcfrack** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 10:09 pm

Ok, time for everyone to get on the Westbrook train. The whole construct of the NBA is set up to favor elite production due to the maximum salary. Therefore, a player who's worth $20MM/year is just providing fair market value to his team, but a player who's worth $60MM/year gives huge excess value to his team in comparison to what he's paid giving him much much more added value in terms of what it might take to win a championship.

Even beyond that, asking who is the best in my opinion should be on some level about who refined their skills the most and got them to the highest level. Westbrook's no flash in the pan. His 3-year peak holds up with anyone and I think at this point, it's safe to say he's not a fluke. In swimming or track, who would you consider to be better? The athlete who won a Olympic gold and set a world record or the one who consistently got a bunch of 3rds and 4ths over more years? You'd go for the person that reached the highest peak, no questions asked, right?

Well Westbrook's reached an incredibly high peak. Had the best BPM season ever last year while winning the MVP. Became one of 8 players to put up a PER over 30.5 in NBA history. Led the league in postseason BPM as well with his team outscoring the Rockets when he was on the floor despite little help. And it's not just last season. Each of the last 3 years, he's been at an elite level in both the regular season and postseason.

If you're comparing him to Willis Reed, Westbrook's already played more games and actually has a much longer peak as Reed was only really good for 4 or 5 years tops while Westbrook's played at a high level for 6 or 7. Not to mention that Reed played in one of the weakest eras in NBA history with 7 of his 10 years coming while the ABA was competing with the NBA and diluting the talent pool, and his entire career being played before the salaries raised enough to make everyone that had the talent to be an NBAer even want to play.

If you look at portability, I think a 6'9" post scorer like Reed would struggle to have the same impact today, and would maybe at best be a Zach Randolph type while if you take Westbrook back in time, he's a better, faster, more explosive Oscar Robertson. He'd be utterly unstoppable in the 60s and doesn't even really have the caveat of most modern perimeter players that he'd struggle without the 3-point line as that's really a weakness of his game anyway. I don't have a vote but I think the case for Westbrook is pretty clear here and I wanted to lay it out. Personally, I would have had him going much, much higher, Top 20 for sure.

pandrade83 · Post #9 » by **pandrade83** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 10:20 pm

1st choice: Wes Unseld
Honorable Mention: Russell Westbrook

In general it seems like we're drifting towards longevity giants right now.

If you're not giving Unseld a look, you're missing a gem. You're getting a guy who was a high performer by advanced metrics (VORP, BPM), was selected to be an MVP, was a strong playoff performer & enjoyed strong team success.

Advanced Metrics

Unseld hit 5+ scores for both BPM 3 times & VORP twice - that we know of - one of which didn't come in a double digit WS year. If we make the reasonably safe assumption that he hit those scores in ALL of his double digit WS year, that gives him 6 years of a BPM Score of 5+ and 5 years of a VORP Score of 5+ and It's highly likely that if we had RAPM, the metric would've loved him as well.

What's so impressive about that? It's more than any of our run-off candidates from last round - if we assume Reed got there in all double digit WS Seasons.
MVP Season

In the '68-'69 season, Unseld was selected MVP over guys who are already in like Wilt, Russell, West, Baylor, Frazier & Hondo. He is clearly well respected by his peers. People have said that Unseld's MVP was a little weak - and I get that - but remember you're voting for slot #49 here - we're almost out of the Top 50! It's noteworthy that Unseld's arrival coincided with a 21 win improvement without a change in the team's core, or a change in the coach. Washington went from 36 to 57 wins and finished with the best record in the league - that's why he won MVP - he had a major impact on winning. A team with Unseld & Monroe as it's two best players beat out Wilt/West, Russell/Hondo, Frazier/Reed, which is pretty impressive.

Strong playoff performer

In the playoffs, he maintains his strong performance - averaging 10/15/4/with 1.8 TOs (on fairly limited data) which is right on par with his career averages.

The most infamous defeat one of his teams suffer isn't really on him (the '75 Finals). He does his thing - 12-17-4 on 54% TS. That's who he was. Hayes crippled the team offensively - yes, he scored 20 PPG but he shot a miserable TS% of just 46% and that kills your offensive efficiency.

Strong Team Success

Unseld was the team playoff leader in WS and then VORP/BPM for 4 Finals Teams* as he was vital to his teams' playoff success as mentioned by his strong playoff numbers above. Unseld only misses the playoffs once in a strong 13 year career that sees him pace his team in every year but 2# in VORP & BPM - and before that in WS.

* - Hayes outpaced Unseld in Playoff VORP; Unseld outpaced Hayes in Playoff BPM as well as regular season VORP and BPM during their title year of '78.
# - ('74 - injuries & '81 - injuries + final year)

Unseld would make a fantastic addition to our List. You're getting an MVP who is recognized as a high impact performer by advanced metrics, who had decent longevity, was a strong playoff performer and was the highest impact player for a consistent winner.

You just don't see guys who achieved that much this late; there's guys left who achieved higher peaks, but had much worse longevity - Unseld brings very high impact years over a sustained run as a winner; the really high peak players remaining (Westbrook, Tmac, McAdoo, Walton) can't say that. Of our remaining MVP's who didn't play in a segregated era, Unseld has the most quality years and I don't think that's debateable.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I loved watching Allen Iverson play. His style, his determination & his explosiveness were all captivating. The man had a relentless motor. He's on my all-time "favorite guys to watch" team - but he's not in my Top 50.

Watching him play, you can kind of tell, deep down in a place you don't totally want to admit that your ceiling is capped with him because of efficiency issues.

But what if, you could capture the competitive fire, never say die attitude, motor at max 100% of the time, reckless abandonment & "I can't wait to see this guy play" factor in a sabermetric friendly version? I present to you Russell Westbrook (full disclosure: my favorite player to watch in the league).

The advanced metrics actually love him

One of the biggest knocks on Westbrook is going to be around efficiency - his detractors are going to say that he wasn't an efficient player and that they have stylistic concerns about him. Some (but not all) of these metrics I'm going to present will somewhat over-state his impact. The point isn't to say he had the best season ever (like VORP will) - rather this is to illustrate that all the sabermetrics actually recognize his impact - and should dispel some efficiency concerns.

RAPM - he finished 4th in ESPN's RPM Wins each of the last 2 years, 7th in '15, and 13th in RPM in '14 and a strong "pre-prime" of being 21st in the chained RAPM from '08-'11.
VORP - Last year Russell Westbrook posted the highest single season VORP Score EVER.
BPM - Westbrook has finished 1st in this metric twice ('15 & '17) and holds 2 of the Top 10 scores EVER.
WS - FWIW, he already has more career Win Shares than Willis Reed - who has been in the last several run-offs. He's hit 13 WS + twice - of our remaining candidates from last round, Reed got there twice, Gasol once & Mutombo never.
PER - last time he broke the 30 barrier. That's relevant because here is your list of guys who also have:

Steph Curry
Anthony Davis
Lebron James
Dwayne Wade
Tracy McGrady
Shaq
David Robinson
MJ
Chamberlain

That's an impressive group. Everyone else is in but Tmac & AD.

An ability to perform well against other elite guards when it matters

In his lone encounter against Paul in the playoffs
Westbrook - 28/9/6 - 61% TS
Paul - 23/12/4 - 61% TS

vs. Steph in the playoffs:

Westbrook - 27/11/7 - 51.2% TS
Steph - 28/6/6 - 61.3% TS

vs. Wade in the '12 Finals:

Westbrook - 27/7/6 - 51% TS
Wade - 23/6/5 - 51% TS

vs. Harden in LY Playoffs:

Westbrook - 34/10/10 * not technically a triple double - rounding here - 51% TS
Harden - 32/7/6 - 57% TS - so much flopping - worse FG & 3PT%'s than Westbrook :noway:

Westbrook doesn't necessarily win all these matchups (2 are wins; 1's a draw & 1's a loss; but in EVERY matchup he competes and acquits himself well) - say what you will about Westbrook but you'll never see anything like this shameful performance:

Watch on YouTube

Elephant in the room: Stylistics & KD

I'll tackle the KD thing - why did he leave? I'll put it in KD's own words:

"he didn't like the organization or playing for Billy Donovan. His roster wasn't that good, it was just him and russ."

"imagine taking russ off that team, see how bad they were. Kd can't win a championship with those cats."

This wasn't a Westbrook issue - this is an org & Billy Donovan issue.

As for stylistics - I know Westbrook took a lot of flack for the style he played last year. But look at the mess Westbrook still got 10 apg with:

Watch on YouTube

Then you have Oladipo - who is basically a homeless man's Westbrook - who somehow managed to shoot a worse TS% than Westbrook last year - as did Sabonis. You're only real offensive weapon - Enes Kanter - can't stay on the floor in the playoffs because of things like this:

Watch on YouTube

I know Adams was there - but I feel like Adams usage rate was probably optimized last year. I want him scoring in the 12-15 PPG range on a high TS%. And that's sort of the point - in that situation, Westbrook probably optimized OKC's chances of winning.

This is a guy who is a strong playoff performer and is a very high efficiency guy who has had an incredibly high peak and already turned in 6 very high quality seasons & he hasn't had a BAD season yet. It's time for him to get some support.

Post #10 » by **trex_8063** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 10:55 pm

penbeast0 wrote:Lanier seems an odd choice. He was not a good defensive player either by eye test (me) or by looking at his team's defensive ratings throughout his prime (Detroit was below average to poor every year but 1974 where for some unknown reason they were very good and Lanier got props). In Milwaukee he was platooned for defense with Lanier for offense (he is and always was a fine offensive player). His teams were decent, with good players, but never elite level. He was consistently rated by his peers behind Reed, Cowens, Unseld, Hayes, etc. by his contemporaries and never made an All-NBA team.

Compare to Dave Cowens who played during the same period but was an MVP candidate, or Reed, or Hayes.

He's got a relevant longevity edge on Cowens, and even larger one on Reed; about even with Unseld on that front. Everyone is behind Hayes in that regard. Hayes has his intangible "issues", and while is a clearly better defensive player, he's also clearly worse offensively. I still tentatively have Hayes slightly ahead of Lanier personally.

But defensive criticisms of Lanier aside, he seems to have had a considerable impact on his team's success based on my limited WOWY study (haven't looked at SRS shift, or coinciding injuries yet; but still....). This is AFTER his presumed peak ('74); he only missed one game that year, and only four total games in his first four seasons COMBINED. But after that, we begin having substantial sample sizes to scrutinize:

With-Without record/Wins added per season (pro-rated to 82 games)
‘75: 39-37 (.513) with Lanier, 1-5 (.167) without him/+28.4 wins
‘76: 30-34 (.469) with Lanier, 6-12 (.333) without him/+11.1 wins
‘77: 38-26 (.594) with Lanier, 6-12 (.333) without him/+21.4 wins
‘78: 31-32 (.492) with Lanier, 7-12 (.368) without him/+10.2 wins
‘79: 21-32 (396) with Lanier, 9-20 (.310) without him/+7.1 wins
*‘81: *48/49-18/19 with Lanier, *11/12-3/4 without him
*he actually played 67 games, but game log data on bbref only shows 66 of them, with a 48-18 record on those 66 (team went 60-22 overall); is possible [likely] they won the other game he played in, making the with record 49-18 (.731) and 11-4 (.733) without. Would be -0.1 wins in that instance.
‘82: 53-21 (.716) with Lanier, 2-6 (.250) without him/+38.2 wins

It's not a complete analysis, for reasons I mentioned at the onset. But there's no denying that a pattern is sort of emerging.

iggymcfrack · Post #11 » by **iggymcfrack** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 11:37 pm

I think it's interesting that in your WOWY data for Lanier, you left off possibly the most compelling data of all, the 79/80 season where he was traded from the Pistons to the Bucks. In that season, the Bucks were 29-27 before Lanier joined the team and 20-6 after while the Pistons who were 9-28 with Lanier went 7-38 without him. I think it's clear that he was a major impact player and one of the best of his era even if that era was rather weak.

iggymcfrack · Post #12 » by **iggymcfrack** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 11:48 pm

Now with all that said, I think with Lanier never reaching an NBA Finals or making an all-NBA team in one of the weakest eras in NBA history, he would be a stretch above an all-time great like Westbrook who's been at least 2nd-team all-NBA in each of his last 6 healthy seasons, but it does look like Lanier was likely underrated throughout his career due to the lack of help he received, and he'll be interesting to revisit later.

Post #13 » by **Outside** » Wed Oct 4, 2017 11:59 pm

trex_8063 wrote:
penbeast0 wrote:Lanier seems an odd choice. He was not a good defensive player either by eye test (me) or by looking at his team's defensive ratings throughout his prime (Detroit was below average to poor every year but 1974 where for some unknown reason they were very good and Lanier got props). In Milwaukee he was platooned for defense with Lanier for offense (he is and always was a fine offensive player). His teams were decent, with good players, but never elite level. He was consistently rated by his peers behind Reed, Cowens, Unseld, Hayes, etc. by his contemporaries and never made an All-NBA team.

Compare to Dave Cowens who played during the same period but was an MVP candidate, or Reed, or Hayes.

He's got a relevant longevity edge on Cowens, and even larger one on Reed; about even with Unseld on that front. Everyone is behind Hayes in that regard. Hayes has his intangible "issues", and while is a clearly better defensive player, he's also clearly worse offensively. I still tentatively have Hayes slightly ahead of Lanier personally.

But defensive criticisms of Lanier aside, he seems to have had a considerable impact on his team's success based on my limited WOWY study (haven't looked at SRS shift, or coinciding injuries yet; but still....). This is AFTER his presumed peak ('74); he only missed one game that year, and only four total games in his first four seasons COMBINED. But after that, we begin having substantial sample sizes to scrutinize:

With-Without record/Wins added per season (pro-rated to 82 games)
‘75: 39-37 (.513) with Lanier, 1-5 (.167) without him/+28.4 wins
‘76: 30-34 (.469) with Lanier, 6-12 (.333) without him/+11.1 wins
‘77: 38-26 (.594) with Lanier, 6-12 (.333) without him/+21.4 wins
‘78: 31-32 (.492) with Lanier, 7-12 (.368) without him/+10.2 wins
‘79: 21-32 (396) with Lanier, 9-20 (.310) without him/+7.1 wins
*‘81: *48/49-18/19 with Lanier, *11/12-3/4 without him
*he actually played 67 games, but game log data on bbref only shows 66 of them, with a 48-18 record on those 66 (team went 60-22 overall); is possible [likely] they won the other game he played in, making the with record 49-18 (.731) and 11-4 (.733) without. Would be -0.1 wins in that instance.
‘82: 53-21 (.716) with Lanier, 2-6 (.250) without him/+38.2 wins

It's not a complete analysis, for reasons I mentioned at the onset. But there's no denying that a pattern is sort of emerging.

This is an example of trouble I have with a metric like WOWY, or perhaps with how it's used.

What is the WOWY data supposed to mean? For the Detroit years, what I get out of that is that Lanier was significantly better than the continually rotating list of no-name backup centers in Detroit and that the Pistons did better when Lanier played. That's it.

For the two Milwaukee years listed, several different factors were at play :

-- Lanier's minutes were significantly reduced -- 26.2 and 26.8 MPG when he did play, a total of 3,739 out of a possible 7,912 minutes. They played more minutes with him off the court than on.

-- The Bucks roster was much deeper than those in Detroit. Detroit was a collection of guys built around Lanier with M.L Carr maybe the best of the bunch. In contrast, Milwaukee had a solid roster (Sidney Moncrief, Marques Johnson, Brian Winters, Junior Bridgeman, etc.) where Lanier played a lesser role.

-- The Bucks had much better backup centers -- Len Elmore, Alton Lister, plus a little Pat Cummings thrown in.

So from a game-level WOWY perspective, it's no surprise that Milwaukee handled Lanier being out pretty well while Detroit fell apart.

WOWY might have more utility looking at the impact within games, but even that might say more about the rest of the roster or how a team is built in many cases. You could argue that Westbrook's and LeBron's WOWY for last season show how exceptional they are and how significant their impact is, which is certainly true. But it also puts yellow highlighter on the fact that nobody else on the OKC roster could reliably score or create or that a Cavs roster and system built to run on LeBron dominating the show suddenly sputters when you take him out.

As far as Lanier goes, he was a really good scorer, a good but not great rebounder, and his assist numbers are pretty good. He was good, but I've got several other centers before him -- Thurmond, Reed, Unseld, and Parish. Maybe Cowens, but I'm having trouble figuring where to put him.

Lanier's not up for me just yet. I like him, he was really good, but I'll always look on his career with a touch of sadness about what might have been if he hadn't wrecked his knee in the NCAAs his senior season at St Bonny and all the recurring injuries in the NBA.

iggymcfrack · Post #14 » by **iggymcfrack** » Thu Oct 5, 2017 1:15 am

Lanier was also much, much older in Milwaukee. His first season there at age 31, he had a major impact as they went from close to .500 before he was traded there to a 63-win pace with him. And even combining his age 32 and age 33 seasons, the Bucks were still significantly better with him. But it does make sense his impact would go down at those ages.

dhsilv2 · Post #15 » by **dhsilv2** » Thu Oct 5, 2017 2:16 am

Vote Reed - Reed remains the best career of an MVP here, slightly pushing out Cowen and Iverson. A big man who was an above average defender, had a solid jump shot, and was considered a high intangibles guy on two title teams. Sure you only get 6 maybe 7 stand out seasons from him, but his career carried with it some rather iconic moments.

Alt Iverson Of the volume scorers that are getting traction, the best season/playoff run imo is strongly in favor of Iverson. Iverson was given a rather odd career, it wasn't until he was older that he had his first legit "star" level co player in Melo, but Melo as we all know was hardly the right mix for Iverson. Iverson gave his body to the game, he was wearing what looked like battle armor by the end. I tend to think Iverson was also a better play maker than he's given credit for. If influence on the game matters to you, Iverson would have been in ages ago. For all the coach issue he had, I have to pause and point out Larry Brown was known as a tough coach to play for, and yet somehow they had a pretty good run together.

HM - Manu Ginobili. 992 games played, longevity is there without much debate despite joining the league well over the normal rookie age and being held back by pop. The burn here is that he's averaged 25.8 minutes a game for his career, by far the lowest here. His 349 starts however is fairly comparable to McHale who we already put in and Manu has him beat in titles and tied in all nba selections. And with this we begin the Manu playoff story.

Manu is one of the greatest playoff performers in NBA history.

Games played 213 (9th)
Minutes played 5968 (27th)
Field Goal 941 (35th)
Free Throws 809 (17th)
TRB 859 (66th)
AST 811 (24th)
STL 285 (11th)
PTS 3009 (25th)
PER 19.4 (62nd)
WS 20.6 (20th)
WS/48 .1657 (44th)
BPM 5.24 (25th)
VORP 10.87 (17th)

I get that the playoffs are longer and that a lot of this is a function of playing with Duncan and being in the Spurs system, we don't need to go there, but there are very few players who weren't with other great players and who didn't have strong coaches who we rank this highly. I want to however point out how darn good those playoff stats are, and in a 213 game sample. That's nearly 3 seasons for those who miss games and still 2.6 82 game seasons. Manu averaged 28 minutes a game in the playoffs and during the title era (03-13) he was just a hair under 30 a game.

For those who are fans of RAPM, well Manu he was the top guy in 05, 3rd in 06, 3rd in 07, and 2nd in 08. But he doesn't start? Well during that 4 year span he started 189 out of 288 regular season games and played 29 minutes a game in the regular season.

His 10 year RAPM from 02-11 (he didn't play in 02) ranks 4th.

He is a 7 time top 10 BPM guy, with 4 3rd place finishes. He was top 10 in VORP 4 times (peaking at 4th). 5 top 10 WS/48 seasons peaking at 2nd. 75th all time in WS and 35th all time in VORP.

For every reason that Manu is too high here (other MVP's on the board, bench player, minutes played, etc) there is a reason he should be here. Manu has flat out been one of the most impactful players in the NBA for over decade. There is zero negative baggage on him as a locker room guy. He has had injury issue, even in the playoffs, but has more than made up for that.

If you're skeptical of the 70's MVPs left, not a fan of the 80's and 90's volume scorers, or aren't ready for defensive only big men. I present you Manu. Manu truly needs to be somewhere in the 50's. I don't expect him to get traction for a bit, but he absolutely needs to be somewhere in the 50's. For me manu is perhaps the best player, I'm pretty sure couldn't have been the number 1 guy on a team, but as a number 2 he was just so special.

iggymcfrack · Post #16 » by **iggymcfrack** » Thu Oct 5, 2017 3:40 am

If you're looking at MVPs, what exactly is the case for Willis Reed over Russell Westbrook again?

(Best seasons in parenthesis)
Willis Reed: 650 GP, 18.7 PPG (21.7), 18.6 PER (21.4), 74.9 WS (14.7), .156 WS/48 (.227)

Russell Westbrook: 668 GP, 22.7 PPG (31.6), 23.8 PER (30.6), 80.1 WS (14.0), .169 WS/48 (.245)

FWIW, if you compare playoff stats instead of regular season stats, the differences are only more pronounced.

Westbrook beats him easily in every category, and he compiled his stats in the most competitive era in NBA history while Reed compiled his in one of the weakest. Yeah, the Finals MVPs are cool, but in his iconic Game 7, Reed scored 4 points and had 3 rebounds, and when he got his second Finals MVP, he was close to a league average player getting the award by default with no one standing out, putting up a line of 16/9/3. Just seems like the overall gap in quality is much too large to be undone by a couple memorable moments.

Post #17 » by **Outside** » Thu Oct 5, 2017 5:42 am

iggymcfrack wrote:If you're looking at MVPs, what exactly is the case for Willis Reed over Russell Westbrook again?

(Best seasons in parenthesis)
Willis Reed: 650 GP, 18.7 PPG (21.7), 18.6 PER (21.4), 74.9 WS (14.7), .156 WS/48 (.227)

Russell Westbrook: 668 GP, 22.7 PPG (31.6), 23.8 PER (30.6), 80.1 WS (14.0), .169 WS/48 (.245)

FWIW, if you compare playoff stats instead of regular season stats, the differences are only more pronounced.

Westbrook beats him easily in every category, and he compiled his stats in the most competitive era in NBA history while Reed compiled his in one of the weakest. Yeah, the Finals MVPs are cool, but in his iconic Game 7, Reed scored 4 points and had 3 rebounds, and when he got his second Finals MVP, he was close to a league average player getting the award by default with no one standing out, putting up a line of 16/9/3. Just seems like the overall gap in quality is much too large to be undone by a couple memorable moments.

I can think of several areas where Reed has an advantage.

First is defense. Reed was very good. Westbrook isn't.

If you use titles as a barometer, Reed obviously has that. For me, titles aren't a huge factor in themselves, but I consider the player demonstrating that he was capable of being integral to a championship team as sort of bonus points. Performing on the highest stage counts. I consider Westbrook capable of being that type of player, so there's not much edge here for Reed, but It's an edge.

I can also make an argument that Reed was the better teammate and leader. Westbrook's fierce competitiveness and motor are big pluses, but the flip side is that Angry Russ is a prickly guy to play with because he's Angry Russ all the time, even with his teammates. It's not a big negative in my view of Westbrook, but considering Reed is an exemplar in the leadership and chemistry area, it's a plus for Reed.

I understand you could make counterarguments to all these points, but these are valid arguments. Defense is the biggest one for me.

dhsilv2 · Post #18 » by **dhsilv2** » Thu Oct 5, 2017 11:30 am

iggymcfrack wrote:If you're looking at MVPs, what exactly is the case for Willis Reed over Russell Westbrook again?

(Best seasons in parenthesis)
Willis Reed: 650 GP, 18.7 PPG (21.7), 18.6 PER (21.4), 74.9 WS (14.7), .156 WS/48 (.227)

Russell Westbrook: 668 GP, 22.7 PPG (31.6), 23.8 PER (30.6), 80.1 WS (14.0), .169 WS/48 (.245)

FWIW, if you compare playoff stats instead of regular season stats, the differences are only more pronounced.

Westbrook beats him easily in every category, and he compiled his stats in the most competitive era in NBA history while Reed compiled his in one of the weakest. Yeah, the Finals MVPs are cool, but in his iconic Game 7, Reed scored 4 points and had 3 rebounds, and when he got his second Finals MVP, he was close to a league average player getting the award by default with no one standing out, putting up a line of 16/9/3. Just seems like the overall gap in quality is much too large to be undone by a couple memorable moments.

Leadership. Teamwork. Portability (Reed was a big man with a very good mid range jump shot, and likely if he played today could have turned it into a stretch 4/5 type skill), and of course defense.

As the number 2 guy when the thunder were in their title runs, Russ always came off as poor leader and not really a good locker room guy. I don't he's terrible here but there are a lot of just far better choices around here. Reed on the other hand is spoken of extremely highly in this area so while that might not be a huge knock against Russ, when compared to Reed it is a very sizable difference.

For me I think I'm looking at Russ somewhere after Reed, Iverson, Manu, Cowens, and Unseld. But ahead of the volume scorers like Wilkens, English, etc.

Post #19 » by **Clyde Frazier** » Thu Oct 5, 2017 2:43 pm

trex_8063 wrote:
Clyde Frazier wrote:Vote 1 - Willis Reed

Vote 2 - Bob Lanier

Reasoning: viewtopic.php?p=58629578#p58629578

Another runoff bites the dust for reed… i’ll see if I have time to add some additional support for him, but making sure I get my vote in for now.

I don't really disagree with anything you wrote about Reed in the linked post (I feel much the same about him). How do you feel about other relatively short-career players on the table (particularly Westbrook is the one I'm thinking of) vs him?

EDIT: Or how about Sidney Moncrief?

Also where do feel Dave Cowens lies in relation to Reed on an all-time list?

Probably a good spot to refer to my criteria. Reed as I said comes off as an impact beyond the box score guy (effect on team defense, ability to guard star bigs well, leadership on and off the court), so I don’t knock him as much as I would the average player for his weak longevity.

With westbrook, I can see an argument for him, but also think he’s been on another level say the last 3 seasons. I want to do a deeper dive into his overall career. Cowens would be coming up soon after reed for me. Not married to lanier with my second vote, but do think he was underrated. All these 70s bigs (hayes included) are just pretty close depending on what you value.

As for moncrief, I do knock him down a notch for his short prime. He was voted in at 66 in the 2014 project, which I think is more reasonable than this range.

My Criteria

To start, i value context very highly. We can't take a player's accomplishments or numbers at face value without digging deeper and looking at the entire picture.

Basketball is a team game, so while winning is most important, some players are more fortunate than others to play with great teammates. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to players who weren't in great situations.

I value longevity and durability highly. Of course it isn't just number of games played, but post prime impact seasons make a difference to me, especially when 2 players are close. During prime seasons, being able to stay on the court matters. Just because you played 55 games and you still made a deep playoff run doesn't mean the missed games should be ignored. That player was fortunate enough to have teammates around him to keep the team above water.

I spent much of the 2014 project researching players throughout history to make the best conclusions I could. The more information the better as far as I'm concerned. In coming to my conclusions, i look at scouting reports, public opinion at the time, box score stats, impact stats, and of course watching footage. I hope to spend more time watching full games in this project as i've already done the preliminary research on many of the older players in 2014.

I feel like i'm stating the obvious for most of the voting pool, but i'll say it anyway: there's no reason to think eye test vs. analytics is a thing. We should look at all this information as tools in a tool box, and use them to come to conclusions. There are unfortunately analytics people out there who don't watch enough footage, and they give the majority who do a bad name.

I do value offense over defense to an extent. This is more targeted towards players like ben wallace, rodman, etc. who weren't a threat to score at all (i realize rodman was with detroit). I'm much higher on a player like mutombo whose impact defensively was excellent, but could still be relied on offensively when necessary.

And quickly going back to longevity, if a player only has average longevity, but i feel they had an extraordinary career in that span (jordan, magic, bird come to mind), I won't knock them down a notch for it. These guys will pop up few and far between. I'm still tackling how to rate the currys of the world as I really consider a full career to be in the 10 season range. I'll at least have some time to figure that out.

I don't really try to do the time machine method hypothetically inserting players into different eras. I judge them based on how successful they were in their era, and weigh that against how strong I consider their era. As for playoffs vs. regular season, this again goes back to context. I do think performing better in the playoffs is impressive, as the competition does get tougher. However, If a player performed as well as reasonably expected in a playoff year, that's fine by me. I'm not going to disregard a great regular season because playoff production was underwhelming, and vice versa.

Oh, and lastly, sample size, sample size, sample size. Tiny sample sizes with lots of noise should be ignored. The larger the sample size the better.

Post #20 » by **trex_8063** » Thu Oct 5, 2017 4:52 pm

Quoting iggy and pen in this too, as they were part of this discussion as well.

penbeast0 wrote:.

iggymcfrack wrote:.

Outside wrote:This is an example of trouble I have with a metric like WOWY, or perhaps with how it's used.

What is the WOWY data supposed to mean?

Clipping your reply short, but you do ask a valid question and made some good points wrt interpreting this information.

I've said elsewhere (mostly wrt RAPM, though it applies to any impact metric) that they [impact metrics] are not specifically measuring "player goodness"......they're measuring player goodness + role/fit/circumstance; and in some instances the latter can perhaps even be the bigger contributor to how good [or bad] one's impact metric(s) look.

That said, there's a few generalities which I think are reasonable to assume (i.e. you generally wouldn’t be wrong to assume these are true) when loking at WOWY data:
1) It’s “easier” to add wins to a poor team than it is to a good team. This mostly relates to the theory of redundancy. If a star player joins an already excellent team, chances are that whatever he brings to the table, this team already has a fair bit of (that’s why they’re excellent). You can’t reasonably expect a star joining a team that won 62 games without him to be able to add 10+ wins in that circumstance.
Bad teams, otoh, can more easily be improved upon because, well…..they have so much more room for improvement.
2) A good [maybe even very good] role player (someone who, at his peak, was considered no better than a borderline All-Star [at best]) will not---under ANY circumstance---be capable of individually [independent of other mitigating factors] providing a boost of 18-20 wins (or more). No matter how perfect the fit is, how well his teammates compliment him and allow him to maximize his skillset; he’s just not a good enough player to individually provide that kind of lift. I’m thinking of players like Shane Battier, Jerome Kersey…..maybe someone like Hersey Hawkins toward the high end of this spectrum, someone like Nick Collison near the bottom of this spectrum.
3) If trends in the WOWY data appear to be consistent across several years in multiple situations/coaches/casts, I think it’s fair to infer some relevance about the player that goes beyond how he was utilized or how favorable/unfavorable his circumstances were.

Circling back to the discussion of Lanier, here's the more complete data (I included a couple different methods for '80) from '75-'82 (I ignored previous years because the sample size is so irrelevant):

With/Without Records/Wins added per season (pro-rated to 82 games)
‘75: 39-37 (.513) with Lanier, 1-5 (.167) without him/+28.4 wins
‘76: 30-34 (.469) with Lanier, 6-12 (.333) without him/+11.1 wins
‘77: 38-26 (.594) with Lanier, 6-12 (.333) without him/+21.4 wins
‘78: 31-32 (.492) with Lanier, 7-12 (.368) without him/+10.2 wins
‘79: 21-32 (396) with Lanier, 9-20 (.310) without him/+7.1 wins
‘80 Pistons: 9-28 (.243) with Lanier, 5-12 (.294) without
‘80 Pistons overall before trade (for Kent Benson): 14-40 (.259)
‘80 Pistons after trade: 2-26 (.071)
‘80 Bucks before obtaining Lanier: 29-27 (.518)
‘80 Bucks after obtaining Lanier: 20-6 (.769) (Lanier played all 26 games)
*‘81: 48/49-18/19 with Lanier, *11/12-3/4 without him
*he actually played 67 games, but game log data only recording 66 (48-18); is possible [likely] they won they other game he played in, making the with record 49-18 (.731) and 11-4 (.733) without. Would be -0.1 wins in that instance.
‘82: 53-21 (.716) with Lanier, 2-6 (.250) without him/+38.2 wins

*The above data spans eight years, SIX different head coaches, and a fair amount of supporting cast turnover.*

I'll leave it to the readers of this to deduce what they will from it.