I'm going to dedicate the majority of this space to touting my alternate candidate because I'm candidly not sure he'll get in at all - and I think it would be worse if the alternate didn't get in than if my primary missed. By Spot #95, I'll flip this if Mookie isn't in by then because of the historical value of the latter player.
Primary: Mookie Blaylock
Alternate: Bill WaltonI think we all understand Bill Walton's peak. But it's another to see it.
Walton finished 13th in the most recent RGM Peaks project - the next 10 players behind him:
Julius Erving
Oscar Robertson
Dwayne Wade
Steph Curry
Dirk Nowitzki
Jerry West
Kevin Durant
Patrick Ewing
Tracy McGrady
Kobe Bryant
That's quite a list of people to be ahead of - and so we have to keep that value in mind.
The most common rebuttal I'm going to hear is "That's great, but it is just the one year."
But if you dig deeper, you see he offers more value than "just the one year". It's certainly problematic to my case that these years are not going to be consecutive, but let's look at years where I think he offered some meaningful value. I'm going to omit '77 from this because we're all familiar with it.
'76 - Portland goes 26-25 with; 11-20 without. Even though Walton isn't yet the defensive force he'd become, Portland is 6th in DRtg. Walton averages 16.1 pts-13.4 reb-4.3 assists + 1.6 blocks. He does this despite logging just 33 mpg. He was healthy at the end of the year so it's likely he could have played in the playoffs.
'78 - Portland goes 48-10 with; 10-14 without! That's the difference between a 68 win pace & a 34 win pace. Walton is the anchor of a super team - and this is after the merger. Walton wins MVP and the impact on winning is quite pronounced. Walton averages 19-13-5-2.5 blocks this year on 52% shooting. It's unfortunate that the injury robs him of what otherwise would have likely been a Portland title - but this year is impactful for the regular season.
In '84 & '85, Walton plays 75% of the games for the Clippers. It's not well remembered but he's still effective - even the limited clips we have of that time support it.
From a scouting standpoint, Walton still possesses stellar passing capabilities & excellent rim protection. You'll see that his ability to get up & down the court is diminished considerably - his quickness isn't as strong as the Portland tape, but he's still an effective player. The diminished mobility robs him of some defensive impact - but while on court he's impactful.
In '84 the Clippers are 23-32 with, 7-20 without - a 34 win pace with & 21 win pace without. Walton is a 12-9-3 player plus nearly 2 blocks per game in just 26 mpg with a TS% of 57%.
In '85 it's a similar story - the Clippers are a 33 win pace team with Walton & a 22 win pace team without.
Then in '86 he joins Boston and becomes a key member of one of the teams in the GOAT discussion.
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His playing time is limited - just 19 mpg - but the rate statistics are impressive: 14-13-4-2.5 blocks on 61% TS.
All told, he has what this board determines is the 13th best peak, plus 5 more strong impact - if limited minute years.
It's not just the magical '77 campaign.
I mentioned at the top if we get to slot 96 and Mookie isn't in that I'm going to flip it and here's why - and this is how I'll wrap up.
Pretend that you have a full business day to cover the history of professional basketball with an alien. What topics would you cover? What names would you mention?
Go through our list starting at around slot #65. Do those guys get covered? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I promise you that Bill Walton gets discussed.
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Blaylock is a special player , who in my opinion, suffers from a historical standpoint by playing for also-ran Hawks in the 90's. Because he isn't a strong scoring point guard, he's not thought of fondly. But he is one of few point guards who really moved the needle defensively and at the least has a credible argument in the GOAT Defensive PG discussion. In addition to stellar defense, he is an excellent all-around contributor who was a strong rebounder for his position, above average playmaker for others & in the years where he shot well, is a true threat. This is captured by very high VORP Scores that saw him place in the Top 10 in VORP 5 times.
NPI RAPM corroborates what the Box Score tells us - giving him excellent marks in his prime years that we have data for. My longer post about Blaylock is below.
From a regular season standpoint, Blaylock should have gone in some time ago - everything we know about impact loves him - both from a box score & RAPM standpoint.
In the Box Score-Blaylock leads a pair of 55 W+ Atlanta teams in WS, VORP & PER - PLUS he leads two more playoff teams in all of those metrics in both '95 & '96
-He finishes Top 10 in VORP an impressive 5 times and is Top 10 in DWS (very hard for a guard to do) 4 times.
-He has a pair of double digit WS years to his name including a relatively high peak of 12.5 in '97; this peak is higher than anything Carmelo Anthony achieved, for example.
Impact-NPI RAPM grades him as a Top 10 player the first two years we have data - it's likely that it would have seen him as having a comparable impact in '94-'96 as well based on how his metrics in the other years stack up.
-Even in '99 - when Blaylock is exiting his prime, RAPM still views him as a decisively high impact player in a wonky season (lock-out - only 50 games - some sample size issues)
-In '98 when he misses 12 games, the Hawks go 44-26 with (52 win pace) & 6-6 without (41 win pace)
The three knocks on him are longevity - he has 72 career WS which isn't great at this juncture - & a lack of memorable playoff moments along with weak shooting efficiency. The shooting efficiency is partially off-set by helping you win the possession battle - more steals than TOs, strong TO economy in general & strong positional rebounding.
WRT longevity, he does have 5 outstanding seasons of play ('94-'98) where it's more likely than not his overall impact is that of an all-star with a 2nd team All-NBA caliber play. His post/pre-prime seasons are a little short on impact & the prime duration is relatively short.
On playoffs - he is poor in '93, '99 & '95 - suffering steep drop-offs all 3 years. Career playoff #"s of 47% TS on 14 PPG is not great - I don't want to come off as letting him off the hook here. He does have some strong defensive performances - one I'll highlight specifically is his performance on Jordan in the '97 2nd round. Jordan was held to 3 PPG less than his rs average on a fairly soft 51% TS. The video clip below shows aggressive & strong defense - both man to man & help throughout the series.
He generally maintains his stealing prowess, rebounding & passing in the playoffs - the biggest hit is to his scoring & offensive efficiency. Although the video I post below does highlight robust defensive impact, you will see a horrible shot attempt at the 14 second mark - and that's one of the things I remember about him - poor judgment on shooting . . . which may be exhibited in his personal life as he is serving a 5 year prison sentence.
At any rate - most players being elected at this stage have fairly steep playoff drop-offs, so I don't view it as
comparatively damning, but it needs mentioned. I think if he played for a different franchise, he'd be in by now.
