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1. Michael Jordan
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Lebron James
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Magic Johnson
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Larry Bird
11. Kobe Bryant
12. Kevin Garnett
13. Oscar Robertson
14. Karl Malone
15. Jerry West
16. Julius Erving
17. Dirk Nowitzki
18. David Robinson
19. Charles Barkley
20. Moses Malone
21. John Stockton
22. Dwyane Wade
23. Chris Paul
24. Bob Pettit
25. George Mikan
26. Steve Nash
27. Patrick Ewing
28. Kevin Durant
29. Stephen Curry
30. Scottie Pippen
31. John Havlicek
32. 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. Bob Lanier
58. Allen Iverson
59. Adrian Dantley
60. Dave Cowens
61. Elvin Hayes
62. Dominique Wilkins
63. Vince Carter
64. Alex English
65. Tracy McGrady
66. James Harden
67. Nate Thurmond
68. Sam Jones
69. Kevin Johnson
70. Bob McAdoo
71. Sidney Moncrief
72. Paul Arizin
73. Grant Hill
74. Bobby Jones
75. Chris Bosh
76. Tony Parker
77. Shawn Marion
78. Hal Greer
79. Ben Wallace
80. Dan Issel
81. Larry Nance
82. James Worthy
83. Chris Webber
84. Rasheed Wallace
85. Dennis Rodman
86. Horace Grant
87. Elton Brand
88. Terry Porter
89. Maurice Cheeks
90. Carmelo Anthony
91. Tim Hardaway
92. Jack Sikma
93. Billy Cunningham
94. Mookie Blaylock
95. Chet Walker
96. Kawhi Leonard
97. Vlade Divac
98. Bill Walton
99. Connie Hawkins
100. ????

Last one. Go.

On Walt Bellamy's biggest weakness (edited [again])....

I was watching a bit of the following game from the '71 season the other day......

.....mostly scrutinizing Bellamy on the defensive end, and watching for any other noteworthy tendencies.

I want to point out some plays, but first a preface: bear in mind this isn't even prime Walt Bellamy; this is Bellamy at age 31 and on the down-slope of his career, in his 10th season----having missed just 5 games in the 9+ seasons to this point (which he more than made up for playing 6 extra games in '69, the season of 88 rs games)----while averaging about 38 mpg in his career. jsia: 31 years, and a lotta miles on those legs, and we're looking at a post-prime version (though he would go on to have a somewhat rejuvenated [statistically] season in '72).

Few things I noted just based on this game.....
1) He seems like a very good outlet passer. Not sure if this was the case his whole career, or something he picked up on a later, but it's partially on display in the very first Hawk possession: PHX wins the tip and has a semi-transition opportunity. Bellamy snares the rebound and immediately sees Maravich cherry-pickin', throws a nice outlet catching Pete in stride at half-court.
He has another superb outlet on the defensive rebound at 11:47.
This appears consistent throughout the game (even when he begins to look fatigued); even if he doesn't have an outlet to throw, you see him swivel his head around to look after each and every defensive rebound.
EDIT (again!): He also makes one really nice assist from the high-post to a cutting teammate (Bridges, iirc; early in the 3rd quarter, I think) on the baseline. It's one of those narrow window plays where if he doesn't make the pass quickly [and on the money] the defense will have time to recover and either bat the pass away or at least be able to smother and make difficult the lay-up attempt. But Bellamy hits him square immediately, leading to a minimally contested lay-up.

2) Rebounding -- He boxes out.....fairly consistently. I like that in a big. I don't like the ones who chase the rebounding angles/bounces, potentially just poaching a rebound from a teammate while leaving their man without a body on him. Bellamy's boxing out pretty consistently in the first half; a little less consistently in the second half.

3) Defensively -- I'm not happy with the quality of his post defense on display in this game: he never really bumps as his man comes across the lane or otherwise pushes him off his spot. Granted, they don't seem to allow as much off-ball contact to my eye as they do today, so he may be trying to avoid the whistle. That said, on games I've scouted of Willis Reed, I see Reed fairly consistently pushing guys off their spot. Bellamy more or less lets Neal Walk set up where ever he wants. He's then not quite as physical bodying up as I'd like once Walk receives the pass either. I've not looked at H2H data, but I'd not be surprised to find many centers did better against Bellamy than they did against the rest of the field.
However, his help defense is often pretty good in this game. Some examples:

2:54 - Bellamy sees the play developing, rotates at the ideal moment and blocks the shot on the help D, keeping it in play and igniting the fast break===>in which he hustles down the court on the break (showing pretty good foot-speed for a 31-yr-old high-mileage big man who's supposedly "eaten his way to mediocrity") beating most of the field downcourt and being the recipient of the fast-break pass (gets fouled, goes to line, though misses both iirc).

4:59 - So-so help on Dick Van Arsdale (Pete's man--->Pete does not look good defensively, fwiw; his man is frequently breaking free, scored on the previous play, in fact); could have been better, but does force him into a difficult behind-the-backboard reverse along the baseline, and appears ready to have swatted a more "conventional" shot attempt on the strong-side.

5:20 - OK, he didn't box out well on the first shot----although to be fair, is it necessarily a good idea to box a guy out 9 feet from the rim (someone else can easily slip inside your boxout when you're that far from the rim)----and Connie Hawkins gets the offensive rebound for PHX. But then Bellamy swats the lay-up attempt away (again keeping it in play: PHX recovers), challenges and severely effects the follow-up shot, and secures the defensive rebound. And then again note he's immediately looking up-court (with the ball above his head, ready to whip an outlet pass if available; they actually do get sort of a semi-transition opportunity, ultimately).

6:48 - Does a good job cutting off the drive by Dick Van Arsdale. Cuts off a second drive by Arsdale a few second later. And though he seems a little slow to recover and contest his man (who receives the pass from DVA), the play really makes Bill Bridges look bad: Bridges has Neal Walk in his field of vision as the play develops but makes no move at all to rotate; he's just sort of standing there defending no one.

8:50 - shades the drive decently on the help.

9:50 - a bit slow/inattentive on the transition D (certainly are a few merely "average" defensive possessions, but this was the first truly "poor" defensive possession I noted in this game).

Anyway, I'll stop there with the detailed reporting. I will admit that his defense seems to slide a little bit later in the game (fatigue becoming a factor???).....just some instances where he's a little slow on the rotation and whatnot. He still does make some nice plays later in the game, though: is one instance early in the 3rd quarter where he anticipates and picks off the entry pass to Walk.
There's another instance (approx middle of the 3rd quarter) where he rotates and makes a good contest on a driving Dick Van Arsdale (*who had burned Maravich again), forcing a miss; Bellamy's man (Walk) then gets the put-back, but you can't put that on Bellamy: if he'd not rotated, DVA would have had an utterly uncontested lay-up.

*Side-note: I know it's just his rookie season, but Pete Maravich is putrid defensively in this game.
By halfway thru the 3rd quarter, I've lost count of the number of times (it is literally 7-8 times minimum)
that Pete has either lost his man off-ball or been burned on the dribble leading to his man getting a clean look, a foul, or otherwise forcing a defensive break-down like the one described above. It's almost shockingly bad, the kind of defense that would make James Harden look like a defensive stud. Bellamy (or anyone else in Bellamy's shoes) has his plate pretty full trying to cover/erase Maravich's errors.

Anyway, small sample reported here, but the ratio of good to bad plays here doesn't well-fit the narrative of a guy who is categorically bad defensively (at least not Enes Kanter bad), even if his post defense does look soft. His help defense appears respectable, and his overall performance in this game is adequate. And again: defense is the single biggest criticism of him as a player.

Piggy-backing on post #2 above.....

1st vote: Walt Bellamy
Leaves something to be desired defensively (though as alluded to in post above, perhaps not quite as poor as sometimes indicated), but a heckuva offensive man in the middle and entirely decent rebounder. And he provided that for a good long stretch, as he was more or less an ironman: missed just five games TOTAL in his first ELEVEN seasons, despite playing >35 mpg in 9 of those 11 seasons (>40 mpg in 5 of them); including one season in which (due to a mid-season trade) managed to play 88 rs games (a record I’ll wager will never be broken unless they change the length of the rs). Even in his 12th season he was still playing 37.9 mpg (missed an acceptable 8 games that year), and was still playing 31.7 mpg in his 13th season (was still a 15.2 PER, .107 WS/48, +0.3 BPM player in that 13th season, too).

Pen has in the past remarked that Bellamy “ate his way to mediocrity”, or something to that effect. I’ve never been clear on whether that was his choice of words, or quoting someone (nor have I seen a photo where he looks remotely obese, or even as big as guys like Bob Lanier and DeMarcus Cousins). But when a guy is still----statistically, per minute----an above average player in nearly 32 mpg in his 13th season (at age 34), and had a near All-Star caliber 11th season at age 32, and basically never missed games in his whole career…….idk, it’s collectively not very supportive of this “lazy” or “didn’t take care of himself” narrative.

Bells, in 1,043 career rs games averaged 37.3 mpg (nearly 39,000 career minutes--->42nd all-time in NBA/ABA history) while averaging an estimated 22.2 pts/100 possessions @ +5.91% rTS, 15.1 reb and 2.7 ast per 100 possessions. 19.8 PER and .160 WS/48 over those 13+ big-minute seasons.

fwiw, wrt impact: his prime regressed WOWY is +2.9 (+2.7 for career), which is very respectable.

COME ON! It’s hard to not give him serious consideration at this point, no? That kind of offensive game and rebounding for that long and consistently.....


2nd vote: Dave DeBusschere
Statistically, DeBusschere’s fairly underwhelming. He was a pinch too willing to pop up those mid-range jumpers for my taste, though that was to no small degree a by-product of era. He’s got range, for sure (have seen him fire away out to ~20 feet or so, even a quick release curling off a screen at the top of the key), and given he was usually playing the PF, that does provide a positive spacing effect; likely would fit better in a 3pt era. I’d be more comfortable with him (likely would have supported him earlier), if he were just a bit more accurate/efficient as a scorer (his FT% could be better, too).
But with DeBusschere, obviously his defense [and rebounding] is where the lion’s share of his value comes from. Widely credited with being one of the very best defensive forwards of his generation, he appears to exhibit versatility, physical play, and decent rebounding for a PF/combo forward.
Closest modern comparison is Draymond Green (but without the playmaking). Dave did his thing for 10 fairly consistent seasons, too (plus one irrelevant injury-hit season), and oddly seemed to hang up his sneakers at the height of game (his final season is one of his very best). Not sure if there was an off-season injury that went into that decision or what.

WOWY data (looking only at W/L column) is a bit inconsistent, though the huge jump the Knicks make in trading Bellamy and Komives for him is certainly in his favour:
WOWY
‘63: 34-46 (.425) with
‘64: 4-11 (.267) with, 19-46 (.292) without
‘65: 31-48 (.392) with, 0-1 without
‘66: 22-57 (.278) with, 0-1 without
‘67: 30-48 (.385) with, 0-3 without
‘68: 38-42 (.475) with, 2-0 without
‘69: Pistons were 11-18 (.379) [DeBusschere played in all 29] prior to trading him for Bellamy and Komives, 21-32 (.396) after the trade. Knicks were 18-17 (.514) before the trade, 36-11 (.766) after obtaining DeBusschere (he played in all 47).
‘70: 57-22 (.722) with, 3-0 without
‘71: 52-29 (.642) with, 0-1 without
‘72: 47-33 (.588) with, 1-1 (.500) without
‘73: 52-25 (.675) with, 5-0 without
‘74: 41-30 (.577) with, 8-3 (.727) with

Elgee’s regressed WOWY (looking at pt differential) rates him as an elite +5.9 for his prime (+5.5 for career).

Vote: Mel Daniels
Alternate: Bill Sharman (Jerry Lucas, Marques Johnson, Anthony Davis?)

Why Mel Daniels? It may be winner's bias, but when I see a team win multiple championships, I tend to look more closely at the makeup of the teams to see WHY they are winning. I don't automatically value big minute contributors to championships, I have been down on Bob Cousy's role on those Celtic titles for example. However, I do value the championships a lot and how a team got there. Indiana was the Boston Celtics of the ABA. They didn't have nearly the big name stars of Kentucky (Gilmore, Issel, Dampier), New York (Erving, Kenon), or even San Antonio (Gervin, Silas, Paultz) but they won the most and the most consistently. Breaking those teams down, Slick Leonard was a competent coach but had little success elsewhere and wasn't that highly regarded for either his game management or his player development. Their guards were pretty weak. Freddie Lewis a below average PG, not much of a distributor and only an average shooter and defender, while their 2 guards changed regularly and were unimpressive. Roger Brown at SF was a nice scorer with good range, great handles, and enough variety that his nickname was "the man of a thousand moves." He was definitely a key factor but he didn't play much defense or add much rebounding or playmaking. The PF were Bob Netolicky (the self proclaimed Joe Namath of the ABA) who was another excellent scorer and decent rebounder with no interest in defense then they replaced him with George McGinnis, another volume scorer (less efficient) and a great rebounder who generated a lot of assists, and turnovers. But for me, looking at this franchise's success, it was all built around Mel Daniels in the middle. A good scorer (consistently close to 20 a game on above average efficiency), great rebounder (usually among top in league), and powerful defender (better positionally than in help defense) who set the tone of the team and acted as their enforcer. His career was short and corresponds almost exactly with the rise and fall of the Pacers as a force in the ABA (his rookie year, he apparently shot a lot of long jump shots and had poor efficiency for Minnesota, which Leonard immediately banned when he came to Indiana).


Mel Daniels is certainly the only multiple MVP winner left. Nobody else changed or dominanted on both ends to the same degree for more than 1-1.5 years (Walton, Hawkins). Daniels was the best player on two championship teams plus a willing support role on a third championship though in a weak league (probably better than the pre-Russell 50s though). I tend to value defense, particularly for big men, and Mel was basically the original Alonzo Mourning with more rebounding but less shotblocking or, to use dhsilv2's comp, Moses Malone (without the longevity of course). He was a 1st round NBA pick (the first to sign with the ABA) and in the NBA would probably have been one of the best centers as well, not in the Jabbar league, but contending with Unseld/Cowens for the rebounding leaderboard and 2nd team All-Defense with good scoring (but poor playmaking). The two MVPs show he was valued above his box scores.

Vote 100) Anthony Davis incredible peak, 1 all star season and 3 mvp seasons

Vote 1 - Tiny Archibald

Vote 2 - Mel Daniels

- 13 year career
- 5x All NBA (3 1st, 2 2nd)
- 2 top 5 and 3 top 10 MVP finishes
- Only player to ever lead league in scoring and assists (per 100 he still measures as elite, especially for his era)

His ability to get to the line was pretty special for someone his size. He has a career FT rate of .456 with 5 seasons over .500. His prime basically lasted 6 seasons, but he was highly productive and efficient:

Per game: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/architi01.html#1972-1977-sum:per_game

Advanced: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/architi01.html#1972-1977-sum:advanced

The lack of playoff success before Boston leaves something to be desired, but he wasn’t exactly on teams rich with talent, either. He was an important piece for the celtics for a few seasons, and played a big role in their 81 title run. His transition into that role post prime / injury is impressive to me.

Even though we should take anecdotal commentary on players with a grain of salt, i always find it rewarding to look back at them for players before my time. In clips from the Sports Illustrated article below, we see a dominant guard who was a precursor to the plethora of drive and kick PGs we see in the NBA today.

Archibald was one of the smallest players to come into the NBA in years, being listed at a bit over six feet and weighing about 150 pounds. He had speed, but the trend was to big guards. The first time that Cincinnati Coach Bob Cousy and General Manager Joe Axel-son met Archibald at a Memphis motel they mistook him for a bellboy. Now Cousy says he might quit the Kings—the team was renamed upon being shifted to Kansas City-Omaha last year—if he ever were to lose Archibald.

- - - - -

[Former teammate Norm Van Lier] “The brother's mean, man. He comes to play every day and he does it to death. I don't believe there is anything he can't do, and his moves are inexhaustible. He'll stand out there 25 to 30 feet away from the basket dribbling. It looks so easy to go up and take the ball away, right? Wrong. Nate's just baiting you. He wants you to make a move for the ball because when you do, you're all his."

"Nate's one of the most unselfish players in the game," says Chicago's Bob Love. "I've seen him go a whole quarter without shooting, and he still killed us whistling those passes in underneath. The fact he led the league in assists explains his unselfishness. If anything, he's underrated."

- - - - -

Archibald's style has altered the order of the NBA. Once the behemoths were the intimidators; now they find themselves helpless as Archibald bears in on them. "I feel like I can draw a foul most every time," he says. "You would think that the big man has an advantage, but I would say I have it, because he has his arms up high and he has to come down on you. I get shots blocked, but not very often, because I don't just shoot a layup. I go right at the big man and make him commit himself, then I make my move." Nowadays many of the league's top teams have a small guard.

"Nate has added an extra dimension to the game," says Portland Guard Charlie Davis. "Cousy and them could clear out the ball, pass it, but there's never been one like Nate who could set those dudes up, score and pass." Says Jerry West, "He looks like a high school kid and plays like a superstar. One step and he's at full speed and gone." When asked if Archibald's "dominance" of the ball could hurt Kansas City, Oscar Robertson looked incredulous, then responded drily, "The only way his style could hurt them is if he played against them.”

https://www.si.com/vault/1973/10/15/618390/tiny-does-very-big-things

Highlights (music NSFW):

Anthony Davis super efficient scoring makes me think he is a Karl Malone level talent on offense - perhaps a more reliable scorer if but much worse playmaker. Davis has 3 top ten seasons, and 1 season where he was top 3-5 in 2015. By 2017 a lot of his defensive woes were fixed up to the point where he wasn't a liability.

I value peak play highly, so 3 top ten seasons is quite important to me. He wasn't half bad his first 2 seasons either. I'm not sure if there is someone who can give the high volume scoring, double digit rebounding, stretch shooting and shot blocking that Davis can give you.

My vote goes to Anthony Davis.
My alternate vote goes to Walt Bellamy

Vote: Mel Daniels
Alternate: Tiny Archibald

Clyde Frazier said this in the prior thread:

Clyde Frazier wrote:i've stressed longevity with the majority of my votes in the project. Towards the end i've weighed higher peaks/primes with shorter careers vs. longer ones with less of a curve. With mullin specifically, I just as well could have been voting for him the last few threads. There simply aren't enough spots left to give support to all of these deserving players.

That's also where I'm at, going for more notable peaks as the project winds down as opposed to good but not great longevity.

I figured that as we approached the end, I'd be less enthusiastic about who gets in and who doesn't since we're deciding between a collection of guys who were second tier during their time. However, now that we're down to it, I'm wishing there were 20 more spots to get in guys who deserve recognition. Besides the guys I'm voting for, I've felt all along that Joe Dumars and Walt Bellamy deserve a spot. Buck Williams was a quality player who I feel could've been a key contributor on championship teams. Gus Johnson, Lou Hudson, Dave DeBusschere, Chris Mullin, Gus Williams... there are a lot of guys worthy of this last spot. Everyone's resume is flawed at this point, but there are a bunch of guys who are good enough to get in at this point.

I'm going with Mel Daniels for this last spot based on his peak. I have concerns about the quality of the ABA at that time, but there's no question that he performed and did so in a way that led his team to titles versus the competition that was in front of them. That's all he could do. His stats during that short peak are impressive. From a peak standpoint, he stands above the crowd.

HeartBreakKid wrote:Anthony Davis super efficient scoring makes me think he is a Karl Malone level talent on offense - perhaps a more reliable scorer if but much worse playmaker. Davis has 3 top ten seasons, and 1 season where he was top 3-5 in 2015. By 2017 a lot of his defensive woes were fixed up to the point where he wasn't a liability.

I value peak play highly, so 3 top ten seasons is quite important to me. He wasn't half bad his first 2 seasons either. I'm not sure if there is someone who can give the high volume scoring, double digit rebounding, stretch shooting and shot blocking that Davis can give you.

My vote goes to Anthony Davis.
My alternate vote goes to Walt Bellamy

3 top 10 seasons? Other than 15, I see no metric that ranks Davis out as a top 10 player any other year. I guess WS/48 liked 14. Well PER likes him, but I haven't seen anyone champion PER by itself as the top 10 metric.

dhsilv2 wrote:

HeartBreakKid wrote:Anthony Davis super efficient scoring makes me think he is a Karl Malone level talent on offense - perhaps a more reliable scorer if but much worse playmaker. Davis has 3 top ten seasons, and 1 season where he was top 3-5 in 2015. By 2017 a lot of his defensive woes were fixed up to the point where he wasn't a liability.

I value peak play highly, so 3 top ten seasons is quite important to me. He wasn't half bad his first 2 seasons either. I'm not sure if there is someone who can give the high volume scoring, double digit rebounding, stretch shooting and shot blocking that Davis can give you.

My vote goes to Anthony Davis.
My alternate vote goes to Walt Bellamy

3 top 10 seasons? Other than 15, I see no metric that ranks Davis out as a top 10 player any other year. I guess WS/48 liked 14. Well PER likes him, but I haven't seen anyone champion PER by itself as the top 10 metric.

You literally answer your own question ... 4th, 1st, 9th, 4th by PER.
In WS/48 it's 7th, 2nd, _, 18th. And Davis is taking an (undue) pounding in WS/48 due to a crummy team, whilst not benefitting so much as some limited big men from it's overrating of efficiency (DeAndre, Valancuinus, Kanter rank above him some years). That 18th includes a number of guys playing over 500 minutes less (Conley, Lowry, Paul, Jokic, Durant), and there's guys who are a further off Davis' PER than he is from their WS/48 (Hayward and Jordan more than 5 PER off him, Lowry 4.6, Conley 4.3). This is a somewhat sympathetic view and there are minutes questions for other years.

I wouldn't go for '16 but theres an argument for 3, and that's without debating the quality of competition (the league's pretty loaded with top end talent right now).

And trusting WS that much probably means that even relative to his league (diluted by expansion and the ABA) Tiny was rate-wise never elite, peaking at 9th in WS/48. And if you don't do it relative to league, his failure to break .200 WS/48 (474 player seasons with over 1000 minutes had topped that mark up to the end of last season - Archibald's top season ranks between 621 and 640 - non-specific because bkb-ref only goes to 3 decimal places then alphabetical order - Davis' '15 ranks 36). So other metrics do pull down Davis but then they might put the kibosh on Archibald as a historically elite player (whilst positing peak-year Davis as an all-time centrepiece).

1. Walt Bellamy
A highly efficient big man with good longevity. From the limited footage of the 60s, Bellamy looked pretty well in terms of his fluidity on offense and passing. His pace-adjusted production outside the first 4 seasons was fairly consistent throughout his career which to me suggests his statistical declines may have more to do with the lane widening in 1965 and the increased competition at the center position from the mid 60s onward rather than from him getting lazy and overweight (like Shawn Kemp). It's quite worrying Bellamy was on trash defensive teams almost every year of the 60s as he moved from team to team but even with a negative defense, I think his offensive production was long enough to justify a vote here. His career box score stats is probably the best of anybody left and his WOWYR is solid.

2. Jeff Hornacek
One of the best shooters in history with the playmaking ability to play point guard if necessary. Maintains his offensive production pretty well in the playoffs and was consistently on great playoff teams even though he never won a title.

Owly wrote:

dhsilv2 wrote:

HeartBreakKid wrote:Anthony Davis super efficient scoring makes me think he is a Karl Malone level talent on offense - perhaps a more reliable scorer if but much worse playmaker. Davis has 3 top ten seasons, and 1 season where he was top 3-5 in 2015. By 2017 a lot of his defensive woes were fixed up to the point where he wasn't a liability.

I value peak play highly, so 3 top ten seasons is quite important to me. He wasn't half bad his first 2 seasons either. I'm not sure if there is someone who can give the high volume scoring, double digit rebounding, stretch shooting and shot blocking that Davis can give you.

My vote goes to Anthony Davis.
My alternate vote goes to Walt Bellamy

3 top 10 seasons? Other than 15, I see no metric that ranks Davis out as a top 10 player any other year. I guess WS/48 liked 14. Well PER likes him, but I haven't seen anyone champion PER by itself as the top 10 metric.

You literally answer your own question ... 4th, 1st, 9th, 4th by PER.
In WS/48 it's 7th, 2nd, _, 18th. And Davis is taking an (undue) pounding in WS/48 due to a crummy team, whilst not benefitting so much as some limited big men from it's overrating of efficiency (DeAndre, Valancuinus, Kanter rank above him some years). That 18th includes a number of guys playing over 500 minutes less (Conley, Lowry, Paul, Jokic, Durant), and there's guys who are a further off Davis' PER than he is from their WS/48 (Hayward and Jordan more than 5 PER off him, Lowry 4.6, Conley 4.3). This is a somewhat sympathetic view and there are minutes questions for other years.

I wouldn't go for '16 but theres an argument for 3, and that's without debating the quality of competition (the league's pretty loaded with top end talent right now).

And trusting WS that much probably means that even relative to his league (diluted by expansion and the ABA) Tiny was rate-wise never elite, peaking at 9th in WS/48. And if you don't do it relative to league, his failure to break .200 WS/48 (474 player seasons with over 1000 minutes had topped that mark up to the end of last season - Archibald's top season ranks between 621 and 640 - non-specific because bkb-ref only goes to 3 decimal places then alphabetical order - Davis' '15 ranks 36). So other metrics do pull down Davis but then they might put the kibosh on Archibald as a historically elite player (whilst positing peak-year Davis as an all-time centrepiece).

I looked at BPM, VORP, RPM, and WINS. WS likes him MORE than most metrics, PER being the only exception and not generally the more favorable metric.

We might have a Bellamy vs Daniels run off so I'll copy this from last thread:

The lack of a successful NBA transition is important because we know the early ABA was pretty weak and the only way to quantify the level of competition is to see how the ABA stars perform in the NBA. Burden of proof is on Daniels to show he stacks up against the other good centers in the NBA but he declined even in the ABA just as it was catching up to the other league. There are many other ABA pioneers who all faded away fairly quickly in the mid 70s as the league improved and I think this is an indictment of the poor quality of the early ABA and the inability of many of their players to adjust to a better league, not just a sign of weak longevity for the players involved.

The same criticism applies somewhat to the 50s and Mikan in terms of proving himself in the post shot clock, integrated league but at least he destroyed everybody else in dominant fashion - Daniels didn't. In the early ABA, a new player would join every season and own the league temporarily (Hawkins in 68, Hawkins/Barry in 69, Haywood in 70, Beaty in 71, Gilmore in 72) but Daniels had never been that top guy. At his peak, he was outplayed by a 31 year old Zelmo Beaty who was at best the #5 center in the NBA. Not only did he not prove himself in the NBA, Daniels was not dominant enough in the ABA to earn the benefit of doubt that I would give to somebody like Mikan who absolutely crushed a weaker league.

If we look at Daniels career step by step

1. Was he a dominant individual player in terms of statistics?
Outside of rebounding, no and this is a bit concerning since the early ABA players that succeeded in the NBA were dropping ridiculous stats that were much better than Daniels'. A comparison between Beaty and Daniels' peak year is not even close:
Beaty: 25.2 PER, 0.264 WS/48
Daniels: 21.9 PER, 0.173 WS/48

2. Were his teams dominant?
By SRS, his championship teams were only alright at 2.7, 2.7 and 2.0. Playoffs MOV has 1970 as great (+7.1) but 1972 (+1.1) and 1973 (+2.0) as among the worst in championship winning teams. He anchored a -4.6 defense in his rookie season in Minnesota but the team defense in his 6 years in Indiana was only -1.7 on average. Pacers peaked at 5.6 SRS in 71 but were topped by the Stars' 6.6 SRS in Beaty's first season in the ABA.

3. Was he surrounded by poor teammates which prevented his team from being dominant?
No. He had 3 separate teammates win playoffs MVP the years they won the championship. Roger Brown was All-ABA 1st team multiple times and is the clear ABA all time leader in playoff WS. McGinnis won ABA MVP right after Daniels left and also outrebounded him in the 72+73 Finals when rebounding was his specialty. The Pacers were 11-8 in games Daniels missed throughout his career there (47.5 win rate without him vs 50.3 win rate with).

In summary, we have a guy with weak longevity who was not particularly dominant individually, had one great (and two mediocre) championship run while surrounded by good supporting cast and failed to prove himself to be better than a center from the NBA who has yet to be voted in on this list. I don't see a case for Daniels ahead of Beaty and since Bellamy is usually ranked ahead of Beaty, I think Bellamy should be ahead of Daniels as well.

dhsilv2 wrote:

Owly wrote:

dhsilv2 wrote:
3 top 10 seasons? Other than 15, I see no metric that ranks Davis out as a top 10 player any other year. I guess WS/48 liked 14. Well PER likes him, but I haven't seen anyone champion PER by itself as the top 10 metric.

You literally answer your own question ... 4th, 1st, 9th, 4th by PER.
In WS/48 it's 7th, 2nd, _, 18th. And Davis is taking an (undue) pounding in WS/48 due to a crummy team, whilst not benefitting so much as some limited big men from it's overrating of efficiency (DeAndre, Valancuinus, Kanter rank above him some years). That 18th includes a number of guys playing over 500 minutes less (Conley, Lowry, Paul, Jokic, Durant), and there's guys who are a further off Davis' PER than he is from their WS/48 (Hayward and Jordan more than 5 PER off him, Lowry 4.6, Conley 4.3). This is a somewhat sympathetic view and there are minutes questions for other years.

I wouldn't go for '16 but theres an argument for 3, and that's without debating the quality of competition (the league's pretty loaded with top end talent right now).

And trusting WS that much probably means that even relative to his league (diluted by expansion and the ABA) Tiny was rate-wise never elite, peaking at 9th in WS/48. And if you don't do it relative to league, his failure to break .200 WS/48 (474 player seasons with over 1000 minutes had topped that mark up to the end of last season - Archibald's top season ranks between 621 and 640 - non-specific because bkb-ref only goes to 3 decimal places then alphabetical order - Davis' '15 ranks 36). So other metrics do pull down Davis but then they might put the kibosh on Archibald as a historically elite player (whilst positing peak-year Davis as an all-time centrepiece).

I looked at BPM, VORP, RPM, and WINS. WS likes him MORE than most metrics, PER being the only exception and not generally the more favorable metric.

Wins isn't a player metric. BPM and VORP aren't cross-comprabale with Tiny's (but fwiw, again what's left doesn't favour Tiny it has him as slightly below average player in the years available, i.e. from '74 on) but even here ...
'14: 13/14th (Do you count 46 games Westbrook). There's Kawhi playing more than 400 minutes less. Cousins, Griffin and George are all marginal edges and there's a fair case that the boxscore has overrated Cousins and Griffin.
etc

It doesn't seem implausible to me that aggregating the boxscore-ish metrics you come out with one historically super-elite year and two that are arguably around the back end of pretty deep top 10 (particularly as pointing out "not top 10 in" X metric doesn't mean not top 10 in aggregate because it can be different players ranking above in different metrics).

You're heavily weighting wins by counting wins themselves then metrics that themselves significantly feature points diff (Win Share version, BPM and VORP - I hope you're not counting VORP distinctly rather than just a cumulative BPM above replacement). That seems odd for a guy riding the Tiny bandwagon. You could literally just be disagreeing with HBK's specific point, but doing so does rather highlight ... Tiny's teams weren't ever much good. Doesn't bother me so much as I don't think much of the teams either had around them (WoWY does make about van Arsdale) but if it does to you ... hard to see Tiny here. Apart from '75 , and in a league where most teams were clustered around the middle, Tiny never played on a team with an SRS better than -2 until the 80s and Bird era Boston. I can't see this not being a bigger problem for Archibald than for Davis.

Owly wrote:

dhsilv2 wrote:

Owly wrote:You literally answer your own question ... 4th, 1st, 9th, 4th by PER.
In WS/48 it's 7th, 2nd, _, 18th. And Davis is taking an (undue) pounding in WS/48 due to a crummy team, whilst not benefitting so much as some limited big men from it's overrating of efficiency (DeAndre, Valancuinus, Kanter rank above him some years). That 18th includes a number of guys playing over 500 minutes less (Conley, Lowry, Paul, Jokic, Durant), and there's guys who are a further off Davis' PER than he is from their WS/48 (Hayward and Jordan more than 5 PER off him, Lowry 4.6, Conley 4.3). This is a somewhat sympathetic view and there are minutes questions for other years.

I wouldn't go for '16 but theres an argument for 3, and that's without debating the quality of competition (the league's pretty loaded with top end talent right now).

And trusting WS that much probably means that even relative to his league (diluted by expansion and the ABA) Tiny was rate-wise never elite, peaking at 9th in WS/48. And if you don't do it relative to league, his failure to break .200 WS/48 (474 player seasons with over 1000 minutes had topped that mark up to the end of last season - Archibald's top season ranks between 621 and 640 - non-specific because bkb-ref only goes to 3 decimal places then alphabetical order - Davis' '15 ranks 36). So other metrics do pull down Davis but then they might put the kibosh on Archibald as a historically elite player (whilst positing peak-year Davis as an all-time centrepiece).

I looked at BPM, VORP, RPM, and WINS. WS likes him MORE than most metrics, PER being the only exception and not generally the more favorable metric.

Wins isn't a player metric. BPM and VORP aren't cross-comprabale with Tiny's (but fwiw, again what's left doesn't favour Tiny it has him as slightly below average player in the years available, i.e. from '74 on) but even here ...
'14: 13/14th (Do you count 46 games Westbrook). There's Kawhi playing more than 400 minutes less. Cousins, Griffin and George are all marginal edges and there's a fair case that the boxscore has overrated Cousins and Griffin.
etc

It doesn't seem implausible to me that aggregating the boxscore-ish metrics you come out with one historically super-elite year and two that are arguably around the back end of pretty deep top 10 (particularly as pointing out "not top 10 in" X metric doesn't mean not top 10 in aggregate because it can be different players ranking above in different metrics).

You're heavily weighting wins by counting wins themselves then metrics that themselves significantly feature points diff (Win Share version, BPM and VORP - I hope you're not counting VORP distinctly rather than just a cumulative BPM above replacement). That seems odd for a guy riding the Tiny bandwagon. You could literally just be disagreeing with HBK's specific point, but doing so does rather highlight ... Tiny's teams weren't ever much good. Doesn't bother me so much as I don't think much of the teams either had around them (WoWY does make about van Arsdale) but if it does to you ... hard to see Tiny here. Apart from '75 , and in a league where most teams were clustered around the middle, Tiny never played on a team with an SRS better than -2 until the 80s and Bird era Boston. I can't see this not being a bigger problem for Archibald than for Davis.

How is WINS not a player metric? Not "Wins" but WINS.

My comments are directly to the question of if AD was a top 10 player. If there's a legit case he has 3 top 10 season (which I don't see) then I would be more forgiving and interested in the idea of taking AD here. Digging even further AD only had two all nba selections, both were 1st team (so favorable) so that could be used to support two top 10 seasons, but still not 3, an frankly last year is rather debatable in my view he wasn't top 10 thatyear.

As for the Tiny comments, I will try and address that more directly in my vote for him. But WS has him peaking at 3rd in the league with 2 additional 6th place finishes. we don't have good VORP data going back, but he finished 9th in 75 and one would assume his 72 and 75 seasons would have been as good or better finishes. PER would give him 4 top 10 seasons if we were to look at that as it brings in 76. Now I understand that ABA factor here but it's pretty reasonable to ague Tiny had 3 top 10 seasons, and was bordering on top 5 in those years.

While I would not be opposed to the idea that AD's last 4 years top Tiny's 72,73,75, and 76 seasons (AD's career WS if only 2.5 larger than just those 4 seasons for Tiny), I do not see a meaningful gap between the two. This is where what AD did on Boston where he was seen as an allstar and even all nba guy despite poor numbers and he was a key starter on a title team. Even if I didn't place much weight on that, it should still be enough to move Tiny firmly ahead of AD unless someone really can make the case that AD has 3 legit top 10 seasons in this, a better era. If AD had 3 years at the level of his 2015 season, that would a huge difference for him imo.

Reading through the other votes, I can tell that my candidates don't have a shot. This is going to come down to Bellamy, Tiny, or Daniels.

I'm personally not a fan of any of these guys.

Daniels peaked in a pretty soft league - got progressively worse as the competition got better - and doesn't have great longevity.
Tiny also peaked pre-merger. He had one special year where he had the 33/11 + led the league's best offense. Beyond that, he doesn't lead a single team to even league average offensive efficiency, has poor longevity himself, missing all of '77-'79 and most of '74. For all the "salary cap/availability" arguments that got used to Walton, it seems strange to see any of those people supporting Tiny.
Bellamy was a center who "anchored" 3 last place defenses ('66-'68 Knicks) and then when traded for Dave D saw his new team get worse. TRex's video is from a period where Bellamy was the 2nd-4th best player (depending on year) on a mediocre team in a very diluted league.

If you're not a fan of these candidates, I offer you 1) The candidate with by far the highest peak left - the only player on the board to achieve a 30+ PER post-merger - and had a monster playoff series to boot. If longevity is more your thing, I offer you Buck Williams - the candidate with arguably the best quality longevity as he has the most career WS Post merger remaining.

Williams led (along with Michael Ray ) an upset of the '84 Sixers, was the defensive leader of several New Jersey Nets playoff teams & was an effective role player in Portland where the team improved significantly upon his arrival and had a sustained run of success.

Primary: Anthony Davis
Alternate: Buck Williams

Vote Tiny

I wish I had more time and game tape to dig into Tiny's defense. While there's zero debate Tiny was a poor defender, some metrics seem to be excessively condemning on his defense, and I honestly am not sure I buy that. Bad yes, but some of the metrics would paint an almost all time bad level. Anyway Tiny is the best peak left on the board, no disrespect for the AD supporters. Part of the problem for Tiny is that I think people have lost sight of how bad his teammates were during his 4 best seasons.



Looking at the top 8 players on his team in terms of minutes played during those 4 years. He just once had a teammate hit a PER over 16 and it was the 6th man in terms of minutes and it was 16.1. Only 6 players hit a PER of 15 over 4 seasons. WS/48 paints a bit better picture showing 8 WS/48 scores over 0.1 though again I'll note most were for guys playing more like bench level minutes.

AD in 2015 had 4 guys with PER's over 15 including Evans at 17.7 and Holiday (limited minutes, 7th on the team) at 18.8. WS/48 paints a less favorable possition but still Anderson, Aski and Holiday hit that mark. In short AD has had more talent around him though certainly he hasn't had a lot either.

Tiny's best year is a year in which yes his team missed the playoffs, but without a single other player with a 15 PER (while top end PER is not a reliable measure imo year to year, the 15 average is built into the formula so that as baseline metric, especially for offense, is a good one) he managed to lead the league in assist, points, and lead his team to the best offense in the league. The more I look at the team he dragged that year the more impressive it looks.

Even if your take is that AD's 4 year prime is ahead of Tiny's 4 year prime (I'm ignoring his 2 30 game seasons a bit here), Tiny then provided what people at the time considered all star level play, even an all nba year, and helped the Celtics win a championship. Even if you stick with the metrics and I would agree that those were not allstar years, they were still quality minutes at the point guard spot for the era and are meaningful here. If you voted for Walton citing his celtic's play, I can't see how that same doesn't apply for Tiny's celtic play.

Alt Joe Dumars

I'll stick with Joe here. There are some other quality considerations, but right now nobody jumps out and his defense and role on those piston teams deserves a nod imo.

I don't participate in the project since nearly the beginning but I have to ask - why guys like Hornacek and Dumars over Cliff Hagan? Cliff was one of the best second options ever for a contender (including NBA champions team). He was great all-around player who could score, pass and defend against any forward. He didn't have bad longevity either (not his strong suit though) and his 1968 season in ABA is also quite impressive.

trex_8063 wrote:On Walt Bellamy's biggest weakness (edited [again])....

I was watching a bit of the following game from the '71 season the other day......

Watch on YouTube

.....mostly scrutinizing Bellamy on the defensive end, and watching for any other noteworthy tendencies.

I want to point out some plays, but first a preface: bear in mind this isn't even prime Walt Bellamy; this is Bellamy at age 31 and on the down-slope of his career, in his 10th season----having missed just 5 games in the 9+ seasons to this point (which he more than made up for playing 6 extra games in '69, the season of 88 rs games)----while averaging about 38 mpg in his career. jsia: 31 years, and a lotta miles on those legs, and we're looking at a post-prime version (though he would go on to have a somewhat rejuvenated [statistically] season in '72).

Few things I noted just based on this game.....
1) He seems like a very good outlet passer. Not sure if this was the case his whole career, or something he picked up on a later, but it's partially on display in the very first Hawk possession: PHX wins the tip and has a semi-transition opportunity. Bellamy snares the rebound and immediately sees Maravich cherry-pickin', throws a nice outlet catching Pete in stride at half-court.
He has another superb outlet on the defensive rebound at 11:47.
This appears consistent throughout the game (even when he begins to look fatigued); even if he doesn't have an outlet to throw, you see him swivel his head around to look after each and every defensive rebound.
EDIT (again!): He also makes one really nice assist from the high-post to a cutting teammate (Bridges, iirc; early in the 3rd quarter, I think) on the baseline. It's one of those narrow window plays where if he doesn't make the pass quickly [and on the money] the defense will have time to recover and either bat the pass away or at least be able to smother and make difficult the lay-up attempt. But Bellamy hits him square immediately, leading to a minimally contested lay-up.

2) Rebounding -- He boxes out.....fairly consistently. I like that in a big. I don't like the ones who chase the rebounding angles/bounces, potentially just poaching a rebound from a teammate while leaving their man without a body on him. Bellamy's boxing out pretty consistently in the first half; a little less consistently in the second half.

3) Defensively -- I'm not happy with the quality of his post defense on display in this game: he never really bumps as his man comes across the lane or otherwise pushes him off his spot. Granted, they don't seem to allow as much off-ball contact to my eye as they do today, so he may be trying to avoid the whistle. That said, on games I've scouted of Willis Reed, I see Reed fairly consistently pushing guys off their spot. Bellamy more or less lets Neal Walk set up where ever he wants. He's then not quite as physical bodying up as I'd like once Walk receives the pass either. I've not looked at H2H data, but I'd not be surprised to find many centers did better against Bellamy than they did against the rest of the field.
However, his help defense is often pretty good in this game. Some examples:

2:54 - Bellamy sees the play developing, rotates at the ideal moment and blocks the shot on the help D, keeping it in play and igniting the fast break===>in which he hustles down the court on the break (showing pretty good foot-speed for a 31-yr-old high-mileage big man who's supposedly "eaten his way to mediocrity") beating most of the field downcourt and being the recipient of the fast-break pass (gets fouled, goes to line, though misses both iirc).

4:59 - So-so help on Dick Van Arsdale (Pete's man--->Pete does not look good defensively, fwiw; his man is frequently breaking free, scored on the previous play, in fact); could have been better, but does force him into a difficult behind-the-backboard reverse along the baseline, and appears ready to have swatted a more "conventional" shot attempt on the strong-side.

5:20 - OK, he didn't box out well on the first shot----although to be fair, is it necessarily a good idea to box a guy out 9 feet from the rim (someone else can easily slip inside your boxout when you're that far from the rim)----and Connie Hawkins gets the offensive rebound for PHX. But then Bellamy swats the lay-up attempt away (again keeping it in play: PHX recovers), challenges and severely effects the follow-up shot, and secures the defensive rebound. And then again note he's immediately looking up-court (with the ball above his head, ready to whip an outlet pass if available; they actually do get sort of a semi-transition opportunity, ultimately).

6:48 - Does a good job cutting off the drive by Dick Van Arsdale. Cuts off a second drive by Arsdale a few second later. And though he seems a little slow to recover and contest his man (who receives the pass from DVA), the play really makes Bill Bridges look bad: Bridges has Neal Walk in his field of vision as the play develops but makes no move at all to rotate; he's just sort of standing there defending no one.

8:50 - shades the drive decently on the help.

9:50 - a bit slow/inattentive on the transition D (certainly are a few merely "average" defensive possessions, but this was the first truly "poor" defensive possession I noted in this game).

Anyway, I'll stop there with the detailed reporting. I will admit that his defense seems to slide a little bit later in the game (fatigue becoming a factor???).....just some instances where he's a little slow on the rotation and whatnot. He still does make some nice plays later in the game, though: is one instance early in the 3rd quarter where he anticipates and picks off the entry pass to Walk.
There's another instance (approx middle of the 3rd quarter) where he rotates and makes a good contest on a driving Dick Van Arsdale (*who had burned Maravich again), forcing a miss; Bellamy's man (Walk) then gets the put-back, but you can't put that on Bellamy: if he'd not rotated, DVA would have had an utterly uncontested lay-up.

*Side-note: I know it's just his rookie season, but Pete Maravich is putrid defensively in this game.
By halfway thru the 3rd quarter, I've lost count of the number of times (it is literally 7-8 times minimum)
that Pete has either lost his man off-ball or been burned on the dribble leading to his man getting a clean look, a foul, or otherwise forcing a defensive break-down like the one described above. It's almost shockingly bad, the kind of defense that would make James Harden look like a defensive stud. Bellamy (or anyone else in Bellamy's shoes) has his plate pretty full trying to cover/erase Maravich's errors.

Anyway, small sample reported here, but the ratio of good to bad plays here doesn't well-fit the narrative of a guy who is categorically bad defensively (at least not Enes Kanter bad), even if his post defense does look soft. His help defense appears respectable, and his overall performance in this game is adequate. And again: defense is the single biggest criticism of him as a player.

Very good post. If you didn't see it yet, watch this one - prime Bellamy in the Knicks:

70sFan wrote:I don't participate in the project since nearly the beginning but I have to ask - why guys like Hornacek and Dumars over Cliff Hagan? Cliff was one of the best second options ever for a contender (including NBA champions team). He was great all-around player who could score, pass and defend against any forward. He didn't have bad longevity either (not his strong suit though) and his 1968 season in ABA is also quite impressive.

VS Dumars basically the same career WS despite playing in a weaker era. I'll take Joe's 2 titles over any title in the 50's. Joe does also have the extra all nba. I wouldn't say Cliff is unreasonable here, but for me I think we have a lot of quality candidates who would look better here.