RealGM

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. Elgin Baylor
33. Clyde Drexler
34. Rick Barry
35. Gary Payton
36. Artis Gilmore
37. Jason Kidd
38. Walt Frazier
39. Isiah Thomas
40. Kevin McHale
41. George Gervin
42. Reggie Miller
43. Paul Pierce
44. Dwight Howard
45. Dolph Schayes
46. Bob Cousy
47. Ray Allen
48. Pau Gasol
49. Wes Unseld
50. Robert Parish
51. Russell Westbrook
52. Alonzo Mourning
53. Dikembe Mutombo
54. Manu Ginobili
55. Chauncey Billups
56. Willis Reed
57. ????

Go!

1st vote: Bob Lanier
2nd vote: Allen Iverson

^^^^Again, I could consider flip-flopping these two. Have been mentally going back and forth (arguments for both below). About the only other players [who are left on the table] I can see myself considering in ahead of these two are Dominique, Hayes, or TMac.

My biggest reservation about Lanier has been his defense. I was recently watching Game 6 of the '76 WCSF (Pistons '76/Warriors)---which is a fabulous game, btw, available on YouTube---and my impression of Lanier's defense was.......that's it's sporadic. I would see some lazy defensive possessions intermingled with some brilliant defensive plays (like his two blocks in a row at the end of regulation).
However, Owly assuaged my concerns somewhat last thread with these details:

Owly wrote:Team level D might be held against him but his Drtg (hardly perfect, but I think sufficient for the point/claim being made) in '74 when he played 81 games led the league.

A concern might be that he missed quite a few games, including playing (just) less than 65 games and 2500 minutes for three of his five short prime/extended peak years ('76, '77 and '78 of '74-'78). Still for that 5 year span he looks like the 2nd or 3rd best player in the league (even after minutes are factored in) and he lasted much better than McAdoo.
cf:
The five year span in question http://bkref.com/tiny/64BQL" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The 70s: http://bkref.com/tiny/0DbJe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Reviews on D

The 1975 Pro Basketball Handbook from 1974 wrote:Lanier is the big difference. He played only when in the mood before last season. He concentrated more on stopping other teams from penetrating and fourth in blocked shots with 247.

[individual bio]
Called "Moses" by his teammates ... For leading them out of the wilderness ...... trimmer last season ...... Defense was his biggest improvement

The 1977 Pro Basketball Handbook from 1976 wrote:Depending on who's in there, the Pistons can make you work. When one of the "whos" is either Trapp or Howard Porter, the opponents can relax a bit. But Rowe, Ford, Mengelt, Kevin Porter, Money and Lanier will get down and play some defense. Lanier, in fact often surprises people by jumping out to pick up guards or forwards. He also clogs the middle nicely.
[individual bio]
Has become a very intimidating defensive player who, like Dave Cowens, is not afraid to switch out on unsuspecting forwards and guards.

The 1978 Pro Basketball Handbook from 1977 wrote:Somewhat confusing. Lanier is a mammoth figure to try and get around [and some other decent players but the Porters are bad and the bench "woefully weak" ... comunication and fouling called a problem, perhaps coaching semi-implied as a problem based on that?]
[individual bio]
Can rebound, block shots, play defense, do everything but clean the kitchen floor ...... [unrelated but I've touched on this] Injuries have been a problem, though, but he has always played hurt

The 1979 Pro Basketball Handbook from 1978 wrote:[Vitale will be looking to emphasize D] Lanier gives him a head start. That is the advantage of having a big center. Lanier seals off the middle and is tough and aggressive.

The 1980 Pro Basketball Handbook from 1979 wrote:[individual bio]Devensively he can be as imposing as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Bill Walton or Artis Gilmore

Depending on how much you allow hypotheticals, you might also consider that Detroit rushed him back in his rookie year which may have been detrimental to his long term health.

I know it's subjective/anecdotal, but still better than nothing. And the guy was an outstanding offensive big.
And though I didn't quote it here to keep the length down, Owly also presented some data pertaining to Lanier's impact. I'll present my own [more coarse] findings in WOWY (with a few different means of looking at '80):

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 added 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.

So one way are another, Lanier's impact appears to have been pretty consistently substantial in nature (and was so across multiple settings). And while Lanier's lack of All-NBA honors will work against him for some people, I'd caution against thinking that this means he was scarcely ever a top 5-10 player: he finished 3rd in the MVP vote in '74, 4th in '77 (POST-merger), and had TWO other top 10 finishes, and received at least slight MVP consideration in a total SEVEN seasons.



wrt Iverson:

Here's some WOWY findings from '99-'06.....
AVERAGE effect of having Iverson vs. not having him over these years:
NOT weighted for games played/missed
+7.3 ppg
+1.1% TS%
+2.3 ORtg
+4.61 SRS
WEIGHTED for games played
+7.4 ppg
+1.2% TS%
+2.5 ORtg
+4.21 SRS
Weighted for games missed
+7.1 ppg
+0.8% TS%
+1.4 ORtg
+2.90 SRS
39-59 record (.398) without, 251-193 record (.565) with (avg of +13.7 wins per 82-game season).

And again: '04 was a definitive outlier within this time period; he was playing banged up and performing well below his usual standard. If I can cherry-pick a little and remove that year from consideration.....
AVERAGE effect of having Iverson vs. not having him during '99-'02, '05 and '06:
NOT weighted for # of games played in each season
+7.8 ppg
+1.4% TS%
+3.0 ORtg
+5.49 SRS
WEIGHTED for games played
+7.7 ppg
+1.4% TS%
+3.0 ORtg
+4.81 SRS
WEIGHTED for games missed
+8.3 ppg
+1.5% TS%
+3.2 ORtg
+4.82 SRS
25-39 record (.391) without, 232-164 record (.586) with: avg of +16 wins per 82-game season.
^^^^Granted, these teams were built around/for him; but still, this isn't the result of a cherry-picked season or two; this is the AVERAGE of SIX different seasons. And I think particularly interesting is the shift in TEAM TS% and ORtg (things critics assume he can't have had much positive impact upon, because his individual shooting efficiency is so pedestrian).


In terms of rate metrics, Iverson often isn't quite an apples to apples comparison to some other players, due to the extreme mpg he was typically playing. Just as a few for instances, looking at best 9-year spans:

Alex English ('81-'89): 21.5 PER, .139 WS/48, +2.3 BPM in 36.6 mpg
Dominique Wilkins ('86-'94): 23.2 PER, .173 WS/48, +3.5 BPM in 37.4 mpg
Manu Ginobili ('04-'12): 22.4 PER, .222 WS/48, ~+6.4 BPM in 28.7 mpg---->just want to point out that fatigue or pacing one's self is almost never an issue in these kinds of minutes for a conditioned NBA athlete.
Allen Iverson ('98-'06): 22.1 PER, .139 WS/48, +3.7 BPM in 41.9 mpg---->fatigue would become a nightly significant issue for most players (especially while shouldering his kind of usage), which would effect their rate metrics. His rate metrics are still slightly better than those of English, and only slightly behind those of Wilkins. Significantly behind those of Manu, though again there's more than an entire quarter of play difference in their respective playing times, so it's a bit hard to make the straight up comparison.

Manu soundly trumps all in terms of impact metrics, though I'll say again: impact is not player quality. It's player quality + role/fit/circumstance......and I do think Manu got the best of the latter category among pretty much everyone else on the table at this time. I must confess to worrying about his health/longevity in other settings, too, fwiw.
Impact measures are also rate metrics, too, don't forget (again referring to his limited minute role).

Vote Alex English
Alt Dave Cowens

Alex English v. James Harden and Tracy McGrady.

There comes a time when you have to give a player credit for being an outstanding reliable player who gives you good effort every day and that every day is every day for over a decade. This is English, it is not either James Harden or Tracy McGrady.

All were good scorers, Harden and TMac peaked higher in terms of volume but in short peaks where they dominated the ball to an extreme degree. English had no year where he matched the sheer volume of Harden's 17 season or TMac's 03 but he was a consistent high volume scorer averaging almost 25ppg for a full decade. And, he did it within the confines of a spread, passing offense similar to what Golden State has had such success with.

And, in addition to English's highly efficient, high scoring, consistent offense that he produced for himself, he produced career years for a number of other players around him. Not just Lever and Issel (accounting for ABA/NBA differential) but Michael Adams was a marginal reserve when he came to Denver, playing in an offense that let him spam threes. Kiki Vandeweghe and Calvin Natt, two very different combo forwards, had career years playing next to English because he was able to provide the post up interior scoring that Vandeweghe lacked and the range to spread the floor that Natt lacked (when I saw Natt, he was most comfortable as an Adrian Dantley type post up combo forward). The Nuggests could play TR Dunn (think Andre Roberson with less range and more rebounding), they got career years out of journeymen centers like Wayne Cooper and Danny Schayes, very different stylistic centers. How? (a) an offense that spread the wealth and allowed each player to do what they did best and (b) English's ability to adapt different roles to cover the areas of the offense that those players were less adept at and still produce efficient offenses. I'm not implying that this is a Shaq effect case where English had gravity that warped defenses; but that his versatility extends his value beyond his admittedly outstanding numbers.

Further, English was one of the players universally acknowledged as a great teammate. He won the Walter Kennedy award for citizenship. In addition to his offense, he gave consistent effort on defense as well. Compare that to Harden, practically a byword for lazy defense in today's NBA, TMac, known for lazy practice habits and inconsistency that matched his brilliance, they are more in the Allen Iverson mode. I admire what Harden has accomplished (and actually love his ability to draw fouls as well as shoot threes, a great combination) but cringe every time I see him dog it on defense. Tmac had all the tools to be a top 20 player in NBA history but what bothered me about him is that he would only seem to be fully engaged and playing his best when his best teammates like Yao (or for his one truly great year, Grant Hill) were injured. Then he would suddenly turn himself into superman and carry his team singlehandedly but he never really seemed to get the whole team concept. English did; and made himself the consumate team player . . . outscoring the likes of Larry Bird, Dominique Wilkins, or James Worthy for the decade of the 80s while remaining unselfish and as close to ego free as any superstar I have ever seen. He deserves to be in before Harden (at least at this point in Harden's career) and Tmac.

Lanier is a similar case to English. Classy individual who was often slightly in terms of accolades due to the deep level of competition from other players on more talented teams and who was dominant for a decade. I prefer English because his effort was more consistent and he showed more in terms of teammates playing their best ball which speaks to English's leadership and versatility. Cowens was consistently rated ahead of him when they played despite Lanier having better numbers because defense matters, particularly for a big.

Iverson also was good for a longer stretch than TMac or Harden but if I criticized them for less than consistent defensive effort and poor practice habits, that goes at least as strongly for Iverson who also had some teammate issues as well as needing to have isos run for him to be effective. Even in Denver, the offense was basically Iverson and Carmelo trading isolation attacks; neither Philly nor Denver lost a beat when they traded Iverson for a less talented PG (Andre Miller and Chauncey Billup) and Billups took them further in the playoffs.

Still out of country so this is a straight copy/paste with no discussion on penbeast's post (next time)

Have limited time so this won't be as long as some other posts - this has still held true but I'm gradually modifying it.

1st Choice: James Harden
2nd Choice: Tracy McGrady


I think everyone knows the arguments for Harden - this is a recent player so unless you're not paying attention to current basketball, you understand the case for. I'll tackle the case against instead.

Longevity - he has 7 high impact years; so there's a solid base there and his impact in Houston has been a very strong peak/prime - imo, the best left.

Defense - He sucks at this and I'm not going to try and defend it. The only thing I will say is that it's already baked into the team performance and in spite of this he was able to . . .

Lead a Team - Your supporting cast doesn't suck just because you don't play with another all-star. But Harden is the straw that stirs the drink for that team. He allows those 3 point shooters to shoot at a high rate, he allows Capela & Harrell to get the looks they get & he allowed Beverly to be Beverly last year. The team's depth is (imo) why the RAPM data looks the way it does, & I felt that the way he was able to lead the team last year & a couple years back when they made the WCF was very impressive.

Playoff performance - I ding him all time time about his game 6 v Spurs & the '12 Finals. Let's look at those runs in fuller context:
Last year he averaged 29-9-6 58% TS in the playoffs. The 5 TO per game is a bit alarming - but still - pretty strong.

Let's look at '12:

16-5-3 on 61% TS. And as bad as he was in the Finals, I think he was their 2nd best player against the Spurs in the WCF that year.

When we take into consideration the massive peak, and that he has a few years on the same order of magnitude - just not as high - I'm comfortable putting him in here.

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

I'm out of the country so this is going to be quick for T-mac. The arguments for are pretty straight forward - the massive peak, the outstanding 8 year run, leading league in OBPM twice, etc.

The elephant in the room - the only reason he's not in right now is the first round thing.

Here's what his playoff #'s look like during his Orlando/Houston time:

30-7-6. I know the TS% isn't ideal (52%) but still - look at that again. Were some of the series winnable? Of course. That's why he's not in the Top 50. But it's time. With 30-7-6, it's time to give him a real look.

To use another player who I think gets extremely underrated, would you really rather have Harden than Sidney Moncrief for each of their 5 year prime. Moncrief is roughly as efficient as Harden (especially for their era when coaches didn't like the 3), scores 20ppg in a share the wealth offense v. 25-30 in a feature the star offense, doesn't get the assists but also avoids the turnovers, and . . . of course Moncrief is arguably the greatest perimeter defender of all time while Harden is poor. In terms of team performance, Milwaukee turned into a top 3 defense in the league while Moncrief led the team despite a revolving door of bigs and he was unquestionably the leader of that small ball defense and a good offense as well; Harden made the D'antoni system offense work magnificently. I'd take Moncrief first for his 5 great years ahead of Harden with his even though outside of the top 5 years, Harden has a bit more value. Both faced ridiculous competition in the playoffs, Sid facing the Bird/McHale/Parish superteam as well as the Moses/Erving/Cheeks superteam; Harden facing the buzzsaw that is today's Western conference.

Same goes for TMac, btw. I want the guy who plays all out hustle game while still being a terrific offensive player over the guy who only turns it on sometimes even if Tmac, when working hard, could dominate a game more.

I've looked at him. I'd give him more serious consideration if he had just 1 or 2 more high impact seasons. There's a lot to like - just not enough of it.

Harden has higher regular season peak than some of the other options here like Lanier, English, Carter, etc. but I am concerned his game gets gameplanned more in the postseason, which lowers the difference between them and him. When added to longevity I think I prefer some of the other players.

I still think Lanier has a really good resume. Every measure except All-NBA has him peaking as a top 3 player. He has a 3rd place in MVP, multiple 2nd/3rds in PER, a 3rd place in WS, and has a 1st in VORP. The 70s are a weaker era but that's still impressive. He is a tremendous offensive center when you consider spacing, passing and mid 20s scoring on good %. I'm not ready to blame him for weak defense when he has good shotblocking numbers and the Bucks were great on D when he was there.

Vote Bob Lanier

2nd Vince Carter

penbeast0 wrote: ...

Somewhat in re Moncrief ... (If you don't mind) Where do you stand on the weighting of playoff performance?

Owly wrote:

penbeast0 wrote: ...

Somewhat in re Moncrief ... (If you don't mind) Where do you stand on the weighting of playoff performance?

It depends. One difference between Moncrief and Harden is that in addition to being up and down offensively, Moncrief had some outstanding defensive playoff series. He completely took Otis Birdsong out of one series with New Jersey and made Dennis Johnson look pretty bad against Boston. One of the advantages of being a two way player. But yes, Moncrief had some poor shooting series as well as some outstanding ones for an inconsistent playoff record. It's one reason I have Cowens over him although Harden v. Moncrief is much more an apples to apples comp than either to Cowens.

Dr Positivity wrote:Harden has higher regular season peak than some of the other options here like Lanier, English, Carter, etc. but I am concerned his game gets gameplanned more in the postseason, which lowers the difference between them and him. When added to longevity I think I prefer some of the other players.

I still think Lanier has a really good resume. Every measure except All-NBA has him peaking as a top 3 player. He has a 3rd place in MVP, multiple 2nd/3rds in PER, a 3rd place in WS, and has a 1st in VORP. The 70s are a weaker era but that's still impressive. He is a tremendous offensive center when you consider spacing, passing and mid 20s scoring on good %. I'm not ready to blame him for weak defense when he has good shotblocking numbers and the Bucks were great on D when he was there.

Vote Bob Lanier

2nd Vince Carter

By the time the Lanier went to the Bucks he was no longer mobile (knees and possibly weight). Still a good offensive player but Don Nelson would platoon him offense/defense with guys like Harvey Catchings. The Bucks played a very aggressive zone (even though it was illegal; Nelson famously had them set up in a zone when the opps were bringing the ball up just daring the refs to call it) based on their high energy active wings and point guards led by Moncrief and, when Sid went down, Pressey.

penbeast0 wrote:

Owly wrote:

penbeast0 wrote: ...

Somewhat in re Moncrief ... (If you don't mind) Where do you stand on the weighting of playoff performance?

It depends. One difference between Moncrief and Harden is that in addition to being up and down offensively, Moncrief had some outstanding defensive playoff series. He completely took Otis Birdsong out of one series with New Jersey and made Dennis Johnson look pretty bad against Boston. One of the advantages of being a two way player. But yes, Moncrief had some poor shooting series as well as some outstanding ones for an inconsistent playoff record. It's one reason I have Cowens over him although Harden v. Moncrief is much more an apples to apples comp than either to Cowens.

My meaning was more methodological/meta as where you see yourself in terms of a "low", "moderate" or "high" rating (for whatever those labels mean) in terms of weighing playoff importance. I mentally had you roughly (at least) where conventional wisdom, based on where I thought you were on Isiah (checked for this, I think it's from you being okay with Isiah where he eventually went in the last project). But that's me guessing.

As outlined above this wasn't a suggestion Moncrief shouldn't be in consideration here. For me, a low playoff weighter, Moncrief might make sense around here (this entirely otoh). But the point of it pertaining to Moncrief is indeed that he's a playoff "drop off" guy. Whilst I would agree that defense (perhaps especially non-boxscore) isn't always accounted for (and Moncrief was likely as strong as ever in this regard) the impression of Moncrief's (prime) productivity isn't sometimes up sometimes down, it's down (which isn't to say, as you note specific aspects weren't sometimes up).

82-86 his metrics go from strong in the RS to ordinary in the PS. Win Shares could perhaps be ignored, given it factors in team performance and suddenly, as you noted, a large chunk of his games are coming versus Boston or Philly). But PER drops substantially too (20.5 to 16.3) and I think that leaves a fair size difference between star production with superb non-boxscore D to slightly above (playoff) average player with superb non-boxscore D (this assuming he maintained his standards). It doesn't seem to come particularly from shooting so much as an across the board dip. His TS% drop by two "percent", his usage is down from 22.6% to 20.8, his turnover percentage goes up from 12.7 to 15.1, assists, rebounds and steals (all by percentage) are also slightly down (blocks slightly up). Cumulatively these small drops add up to something significant, and so I would think that Moncrief is right amongst (if not the) leading players who would suffer by a heavy weighting of playoff performance.

I'm not trying to catch you out here, I'm just wondering where you are on this (the floating of Moncrief here made me curious).

As far as I can tell, I weight the playoffs a bit less than most here, possibly because I form impressions of players from watching them a lot and it takes a fairly substantial change to impact my opinions. For this reason I tend to also be behind the curve sometimes evaluating modern players so I have tried to be sensitive to that in this project. Didn't get the feeling you were looking for a gotcha moment and don't have Moncrief here (short prime, some playoff issues) but I have him ahead of Harden and wanted to throw it out there because you are comparing two short career 2 guards so it's an easier comparison to make.

penbeast0 wrote:
Vote Alex English
Alt Dave Cowens

Alex English v. James Harden and Tracy McGrady.

There comes a time when you have to give a player credit for being an outstanding reliable player who gives you good effort every day and that every day is every day for over a decade. This is English, it is not either James Harden or Tracy McGrady.

All were good scorers, Harden and TMac peaked higher in terms of volume but in short peaks where they dominated the ball to an extreme degree. English had no year where he matched the sheer volume of Harden's 17 season or TMac's 03 but he was a consistent high volume scorer averaging almost 25ppg for a full decade. And, he did it within the confines of a spread, passing offense similar to what Golden State has had such success with.

And, in addition to English's highly efficient, high scoring, consistent offense that he produced for himself, he produced career years for a number of other players around him. Not just Lever and Issel (accounting for ABA/NBA differential) but Michael Adams was a marginal reserve when he came to Denver, playing in an offense that let him spam threes. Kiki Vandeweghe and Calvin Natt, two very different combo forwards, had career years playing next to English because he was able to provide the post up interior scoring that Vandeweghe lacked and the range to spread the floor that Natt lacked (when I saw Natt, he was most comfortable as an Adrian Dantley type post up combo forward). The Nuggests could play TR Dunn (think Andre Roberson with less range and more rebounding), they got career years out of journeymen centers like Wayne Cooper and Danny Schayes, very different stylistic centers. How? (a) an offense that spread the wealth and allowed each player to do what they did best and (b) English's ability to adapt different roles to cover the areas of the offense that those players were less adept at and still produce efficient offenses. I'm not implying that this is a Shaq effect case where English had gravity that warped defenses; but that his versatility extends his value beyond his admittedly outstanding numbers.

Further, English was one of the players universally acknowledged as a great teammate. He won the Walter Kennedy award for citizenship. In addition to his offense, he gave consistent effort on defense as well. Compare that to Harden, practically a byword for lazy defense in today's NBA, TMac, known for lazy practice habits and inconsistency that matched his brilliance, they are more in the Allen Iverson mode. I admire what Harden has accomplished (and actually love his ability to draw fouls as well as shoot threes, a great combination) but cringe every time I see him dog it on defense. Tmac had all the tools to be a top 20 player in NBA history but what bothered me about him is that he would only seem to be fully engaged and playing his best when his best teammates like Yao (or for his one truly great year, Grant Hill) were injured. Then he would suddenly turn himself into superman and carry his team singlehandedly but he never really seemed to get the whole team concept. English did; and made himself the consumate team player . . . outscoring the likes of Larry Bird, Dominique Wilkins, or James Worthy for the decade of the 80s while remaining unselfish and as close to ego free as any superstar I have ever seen. He deserves to be in before Harden (at least at this point in Harden's career) and Tmac.

Lanier is a similar case to English. Classy individual who was often slightly in terms of accolades due to the deep level of competition from other players on more talented teams and who was dominant for a decade. I prefer English because his effort was more consistent and he showed more in terms of teammates playing their best ball which speaks to English's leadership and versatility. Cowens was consistently rated ahead of him when they played despite Lanier having better numbers because defense matters, particularly for a big.

Iverson also was good for a longer stretch than TMac or Harden but if I criticized them for less than consistent defensive effort and poor practice habits, that goes at least as strongly for Iverson who also had some teammate issues as well as needing to have isos run for him to be effective. Even in Denver, the offense was basically Iverson and Carmelo trading isolation attacks; neither Philly nor Denver lost a beat when they traded Iverson for a less talented PG (Andre Miller and Chauncey Billup) and Billups took them further in the playoffs.

The more I look at English, the players you reference and their ages, I'm more convinced that the #'s bump they received has more to do with the pace than English.

Natt was 28 and while he sets a career high in scoring, his TS% falls.
Kiki maintains comparable efficiency when going to Portland until his injury; he has better volume in Denver, but that seems to be a byproduct of the pace/system.
Adams hits year 3 his 1st year in Denver but doesn't really peak until English is a non-factor.
Cooper has his best year in blocks (by a lot) in Denver, so I wonder if the other improvements aren't correlated.
Danny Schayes spent almost his entire prime years in Denver (Year 2-9, 23-30); it makes sense that he was at his peak in Denver.

Then I look at the team success - good - but not great - in the decisively weaker conference.

He's clearly very good and he has strong longevity compared to most remaining. If he's my 2nd best player, I feel good about my team. But there's guys left who are real needle movers in terms of their peaks. There's still guys left with WS +15 seasons, VORP +7, PER +30, best player on Title Teams, etc.

I need to have those guys go off the board for me personally.

penbeast0 wrote:As far as I can tell, I weight the playoffs a bit less than most here....

Slight derail, but I do too. This is largely due to the inherent massive difference in sample size; but also I feel we are (or should be) evaluating players relative to their professional peers (that is: ALL of their professional peers.....not just the better/best ones).

That's not to say that I don't value, for example, a 7-game playoff sample significantly heavier than a rs sample of 7 games (I do). But I'd swear I've seen people imply more emphasis on a 13-game playoff sample (2nd round exit, for example) than on the 75-80 rs games played that season. THAT, I just cannot do.

penbeast0 wrote:possibly because I form impressions of players from watching them a lot and it takes a fairly substantial change to impact my opinions. For this reason I tend to also be behind the curve sometimes evaluating modern players so I have tried to be sensitive to that in this project. Didn't get the feeling you were looking for a gotcha moment and don't have Moncrief here (short prime, some playoff issues) but I have him ahead of Harden and wanted to throw it out there because you are comparing two short career 2 guards so it's an easier comparison to make.

It's really close; tentatively I have Harden 3-4 places ahead of Sid (in the circa-70 range), which is certainly close enough that I'm willing to be convinced to shuffle that a bit.
Sid's a hard one because [presumably] a lot of his on-court value is of the off-the-boxscore variety, but we don't have the impact data to verify that. I've got some minimal WOWY data tabulated for him, but just in team records; haven't taken it down to a somewhat more granular level (I'll try to do so somewhere in the next week). The bare bones WOWY is okay, but not transcendent.

Anybody got some links for full or partial games (not just highlights---which tend to be offense only) of early/mid-80s Bucks to recommend? I remember I watched most of Bucks/Celtics game from the '86 playoffs a year or so ago, and I know I've watched a highlight reel or two, but otherwise what little memory of I have of Moncrief is from his post-injury career (and I was a kid anyway).
I see there's at least one full game from the '85 playoffs against Chicago on YT. Anyone know of others? If I could get a little better handle on just how good his perimeter defense was, I'd feel more comfortable about my placement of things.

Both characters have a hard time cracking my top 65 or so, because of my heavy emphasis on longevity, though.

Thru post #14:

Bob Lanier - 2 (trex_8063, Dr Positivity)
James Harden - 1 (pandrade83)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)


We’ll be heading to runoff one way or another in about 17-18 hours.

On playoffs vs regular season, I can't ignore a finals run. To me we can make a case that we should at least give that half a reason of value, if not more. But as with another thread recently and the one issue I have with Moses, how can a guy who carries a team in teh playoffs have losing regular seasons? I can give him all kinds of credit for the playoffs, but I have to ding him for the regular season. At the same time, I'm then left wondering if luck just got him great matchups, he was rock and just kept getting scissors.

By contrast I think Manu rightfully got credit for his playoff play, which far more meaningful in terms of games and minutes than most careers.

We're about to have a lot of guys who had little playoff success or just had that one season or two. I'll be interested to see how strongly people feel about what may be 10 or 15 games vs a full 1000 game body of work.

We are going to however in a few years really have to deal with a LOT of contenders resting players be it through minute reduction or games sat out, and the difference in a playoff/contender's career and a non contender could VERY well look vastly different.

1. Vince Carter
Carter has a clear longevity advantage against McGrady and Harden who peaked higher. Against volume scorers with similar longevity, Carter's 3pt shot spaces the floor better and he is a better passer than Wilkins, a better defensive player than Iverson.
A great all round player who wasn't far off from Pierce (who was voted in 15 places ago BTW) during their primes. Somewhat questionable intangibles early on especially in how he left Toronto but turned into a great teammate towards the end of his career. FWIW, I have Carter ranked as 2nd best sixth man in the league in his first season off the bench with the Mavs and it's not often you see a star of his caliber transition into a bench role this successfully.

2. Nate Thurmond
Also considering Kevin Johnson and Elvin Hayes for this spot but none of these 3 are getting any votes anyway...

I put this out there with sadly less data than I'd wanted as it's late and I don't have time to really dig into this one.

Volume scorers over the years have gotten over valued, but outside of the clear cut "WOW" guys, I'm not sure fans have ever gotten comfortable with what is a good shot from a volume scorer. The modern theory of 3's and layups only is still jarring for a lot of fans, but the more we look at the data, the more it seems right.

So I bring you Allen Iverson and James Harden, two extremely similar players who are playing in two very different eras despite people like myself you are old enough to have seen both of their careers from start to finish who really hate the idea that we've seen multiple eras of basketball (this makes me feel old). Now I wanted to sprinkle in RAPM data here and look at it, but I can't seem to ever remember to save any of these google docs and the most important basketball stats around are google doc only (we as a community need to get better about this!).

Anyway, I'll open with I think both guys get some weird RAPM numbers and I don't think either is fairly judge by RAPM. Or I should say accurately. Now I have brought up fouls and where the fouls occur before, getting a foul on your man or the rotation guy on a 3 has value in that play (3 free throw) and I think we capture that. A foul against a big man leading to said big man being benched, that has value I don't think we can measure.

Trex brought this up before and I recall Lowe writing some about it before on Grantland, Harden is the modern day test of analytic. Those drives to the basket that he does, despite him finishing somewhat not superstar like on them, they were getting offensive rebounded at high rates. The rockets have slowly declined each year from 14 on offensive rebound rates, Howard leaving/injured, and oddly enough the general RAPM for Harden as I recall (I have no idea his 14 RAPM) has been declining a bit despite box score improvements from 15 to current. What I think I'm seeing is a rather soft and not clear example that drives to the basket even misses have a value, and that value increases with strong offensive rebounders. 2014 the rockets had an offensive rebound rate of 27.4 which was exceptional. When Iverson took the 76ers to the finals he 76ers had an offensive rebound rate of 31.2%.

Again I don't have the data or time to REALLY dig into this, but I believe there's a strong and valid value add in getting to the rim miss, score, or free throws. Guys who can get there over and over and over again have a huge value and it may or maybe not get captured for a number of reasons.

Now we can see that Harden's game is far more "modern" and advanced in that sense. The guy barely takes any shots 16-3P while Iverson took too many. And more importantly he didn't take the awful 10-16 shot which is for a guard the no mans land. But with these rankings I tend to not hold too much against players for not understanding modern theory.

Anyway long rambling, but Iverson was attacking the rim drawing fouls on big men and when he missed a very high rate of his shots were getting rebounded.

Just for color 04 was a bad year and he played under 50 games so lets throw that out.

02 39.8% FG Team ORB% 31.7
99 41.2% FG Team ORB% 34.2
03 41.4% FG Team ORB% 30.3
97 41.6% FG Team ORB% 34.1

Now I know offensive rebounding was more popular in the past, but I feel like there's a real trend here. Now sadly I don't have Iverson's shot offensive rebound rate data, but I think there's something here.

Allen Iverson

An MVP who took a franchise that has been a mess since pretty much the mid 80's till today, to a finals. Iverson has massive impact culturally, league wide, and he was without a doubt one of the most interesting players we've seen. A part of me wants to be critical of all of that I just said, but another part of me is left thinking if I have a crappy team, is there anyone I'd rather over on that team than Iverson? I tend to value guys who can win me a title over guys who raise the floor, but we're outside the top 50, we're past most of the high quality team additions. Despite my disagreements we've even got Reggie Miller, Mutombo, Ray Allen, Billups....all those quality long career types who you might think, "well that guy with so and so might win a lot of rings". Those kinds of by real GM standards "role players" are mostly gone, so now the floor raisers become more interesting. Iverson to me was the ultimate floor raiser in this context. I'm not sure I want Iverson on my title contender ever, but of those left he might be by far the guy I want a 15 win team to turn them into a watchable and possibly playoff team.

Alt

Dave Cowens

I'm open to changing this one. Looking at Wilkens, Tmac, Sam Jones, Arzin, Thurmond, DeBusschere, Greer, and Hayes. Maybe Carter too, Harden is going to get in ahead of some of these for me, but I can't see him getting my alt just yet. Oh McAdoo is another guy I could consider around here.

LA Bird wrote:1. Vince Carter
Carter has a clear longevity advantage against McGrady and Harden who peaked higher. Against volume scorers with similar longevity, Carter's 3pt shot spaces the floor better and he is a better passer than Wilkins, a better defensive player than Iverson.
A great all round player who wasn't far off from Pierce (who was voted in 15 places ago BTW) during their primes. Somewhat questionable intangibles early on especially in how he left Toronto but turned into a great teammate towards the end of his career. FWIW, I have Carter ranked as 2nd best sixth man in the league in his first season off the bench with the Mavs and it's not often you see a star of his caliber transition into a bench role this successfully.

2. Nate Thurmond
Also considering Kevin Johnson and Elvin Hayes for this spot but none of these 3 are getting any votes anyway...

With Carter the fact that he was such a problem in his best years seems rough. Now I admit a part of me feels he got a bum rap. For example, what do we think about him attending his graduation between playoff games? He made it to the game, I can't recall the game....which is why I think people who love to talk about "seeing it live" are being silly because I know I did watch that game live and recall all the talk about it. Anyway the point is he was not seen at his apex as being serious about basketball, and I don't think that is an incorrect opinion.

If however games played is a key driver for you, Kevin Willis, Clifford Robinson, and Jasson Terry are still on the board. Hayes is as well if you value minutes over games, and Hayes is the guy I think is best to argue as being closest if not better than Carter if anyone is debating Carter here. hayes has the better resume, more all nba, more allstars, more defensive team (made a defensive team), and a title. They have nearly identical career WS numbers. 121 vs 122. Nearly identical number of playoff games. Of course hayes was around for a bit different playoff format. Hayes does come out ahead of playoff WS 11.7 vs 7.4. This gap btw is enough to take their WS playoff + regular season from a mild Carter edge to a mild Hayes edge. This is wider of course if you think playoffs > regular season.

I really like Carter and really like his quality bench play the last few years, but if you value longevity and production...I think Hayes has a better resume and case here.