RealGM

Point Guards:

1. Jason Kidd
2. Walt Frazier
3. Gary Payton
4. Dennis Johnson
5. Jerry West
6. John Stockton
7. Chris Paul
8. Mookie Blaylock
9. Nate McMillan
10. Mo Cheeks

Shooting Guards:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Sidney Moncrief
3. Tony Allen
4. Michael Cooper
5. Alvin Robertson
6. Eddie Jones
7. Jerry Sloan
8. Joe Dumars
9. Danny Green
10. Don Chaney


Small Forwards:

1. Scottie Pippen
2. Ron Artest
3. Lebron James
4. Andre Iguodala
5. Shane Battier
6. John Havlicek
7. Bruce Bowen
8. Shawn Marion
9. Luol Deng
10. Kawhi Leonard


Power Forwards:

1. Tim Duncan
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Bobby Jones
4. Dennis Rodman
5. Elvin Hayes
6. Dave DeBusschere
7. Draymond Green

And this is where it started
Idea


THE CANDIDATES
Larry Nance
Bo Outlaw
Rasheed Wallace
Gus Johnson
Kevin McHale
Horace Grant
Paul Millsap
Anthony Mason
Buck Williams
Maurice Lucas
Karl Malone
Paul Silas
PJ Brown
Charles Oakley
Dan Roundfield
Jermaine O'Neal
Josh Smith
Serge Ibaka
Bob Love
AC Green
Maurice Stokes
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Lonnie Shelton
Clifford Robinson
Bill Bridges
Rudy LaRusso
[/b]



Hi guys
[/quote]

Well, the field is wide open now. Thinking about Kevin McHale and Paul Silas, but not sure. Very interested to see what arguments everyone makes for various candidates.

My current top 4 are Silas, McHale, Wallace, and Nance; but also leaving some wiggle room to listen.

I'm leaning towards Sheed, but making a case for Jermaine O'Neal to be in the conversation for one of the last spots

- He is one of the best rim protectors of the remaining candidates with 9 seasons in a row over 2/game and several seasons in the 2.6-2.8 range, while also being athletic and able to switch. Some people have noted that power forwards that play like centers have an advantage.

- Never making all-defense team is inexplicable, he was definitely considered an elite defender and anchored a strong Pacers era on D. He finished 3rd in MVP voting in 04 in part due to the respect for his D

- DRAPM is very good. From 02-09 he puts up 1.4, 1.6, 2.9, 2, 1.3, 3.2, 3.5, 1.3. On the 02-11 RAPM list, he averages 2.6 DRAPM to Sheed's 1.9. His longevity as a defender is a little better than as an offensive player

Like Hayes I dislike his offensive game, but is legit on defense

It's between Kevin McHale, Horace Grant and Rasheed Wallace for me.

Sheed when locked in was a tremendous defensive player, similar in presence to KG. I don't think he has the defensive IQ of the other 2 though and he also had attitude issues at times which hampered his consistency. Also a decidedly average rebounder for his size.

Horace is one of the first guys I think of when I think of a pure PF defender. He's smart, strong, great rim protector, good on switches, great team defender, never takes a possession off. You could argue he was the defensive anchor of the first Bulls three-peat, before Rodman joined. Played a very similar role to Draymond Green. He was a system player on offense who played the high post a lot and anchor on defense who's effort allowed the Bulls to aggressively trap and still defend the rim.

McHale though I think is overall the best of the three. He has a very similar skillset to Horace except he is a better shot blocker (especially considering he was forced to guard SF's quite a bit especially later in his career after injuries to Bird). I think McHale is the better man defender of the 3, and as good of a post defender. He also had the biggest offensive load and still always gave great effort on defense. I think all the post moves he had made him understand how to be a better post defender. And he was so unselfish despite being such a talented player. On a team that wasn't as stacked I'm 100% positive he could have averaged over 30ppg for his peak. I know that doesn't seem to correlate to defense specifically but the ability of a star player to fit into a system is something that is far more important than the amount it gets brought up in discussions. It speaks to McHale's tremendous value as a teammate, which affects both offense and defense.

I'm leaning toward McHale over Sheed, my next two choices. 6x all-NBA defense, great post moves/footwork, had unnaturally long arms that aided greatly with rim protection and shot blocking. He was equally adept defending the low post and playing man to man defense straight up. He was a good defensive rebounder as well. He didn't have any issues with guarding quicker SF's, and could even take on the role of center if needed--he could defend 3 through 5, though his best work was in the low post. His ability to take some defensive load off of Bird was a great help to those Celtic teams. Only players I really remember giving him problems down low were Moses and Barkley, but no shame there as they gave everyone problems.

Vote: McHale.

Dr Positivity wrote:I'm leaning towards Sheed, but making a case for Jermaine O'Neal to be in the conversation for one of the last spots

I don't know why I forgot about O'Neal, but he's a solid mention, and arguably a good inclusion on the list. I'll be presenting some data on him (and PJ Brown) later today.

NOTE: Edited the following since #7 thread to include Jermaine O'Neal and PJ Brown.

I’m once again going to provide some categorical ranked comparisons of 18 different candidates (well, 18 including those who’ve already been voted in).

The DVOR (Defensive Value Over Replacement) cited below is NOT to be confused with DVORP (as in something derived from the VORP numbers on bbref). DVOR utilizes DRAPM and minutes played, and attempts to illuminate the defensive value above a replacement level player [set at -0.75 DRAPM] per season in best years, per game in best years, per career, as so forth as indicated in headers.
However, DRAPM only exists for ‘97 and after. I utilized rs APM [on/off stat] combined with shutupandjam’s Estimated Impact [a box-derived figure] defensive split to make an “educated estimate” for DRAPM for ‘94-’96. And then I just used straight Estimated Impact defensive split for years prior to ‘94. I know this isn’t ideal or true apples to apples, but I wanted a means to include older players in all these broad categories.
I’ve looked at a lot of these now, and fwiw I get the feeling the EI defensive split will UNDER-estimate more often than over-estimating. I get the feeling it rated Elvin Hayes pretty fairly, but for many of these players (like Dave DeBusschere, Gus Johnson, Dennis Rodman, or Buck Williams as examples), the splits just don’t look quite right. We even have some supportive evidence to suggest this is the case for player whose career span into the RAPM era [e.g. Buck Williams]. I think for several of these guys EI basically just “evens things out”--->marginally over-rating their offensive imprint while UNDER-rating them defensively. Bobby Jones likely underrated in general by the EI metric, at least based on the early 80's on/off numbers he had for Sixers.
Anyway, bear that grain of salt in mind with the following.
Also…..
*All box-derived metrics are excluding the current ‘19 season.
**ALL seasons have been pro-rated to full 82-game season (for both DVOR and DWS).

All-Defensive Honors “Points” (awarding 1.5 pts for each All-D 1st Team, 1.0 for All-D 2nd)
Tim Duncan - 19.0
Kevin Garnett - 16.5
Bobby Jones - 16.0
Dennis Rodman - 11.5
Dave DeBusschere - 9.0 (*not awarded his first six seasons)
Kevin McHale - 7.5
Paul Silas - 6.0
Karl Malone - 5.5
Draymond Green - 5.5
Buck Williams - 5.0
Horace Grant - 4.0
Larry Nance - 3.5
Gus Johnson - 3.0 (*not awarded his first five seasons)
PJ Brown - 3.0
Charles Oakley - 2.5
Elvin Hayes - 2.0
Paul Millsap - 1.0
Rasheed Wallace - 0
Bo Outlaw - 0
Jermaine O'Neal - 0

DPOY shares
Draymond Green - 2.047
Dennis Rodman - 2.038
Kevin Garnett - 1.638
Tim Duncan - 1.025
Bobby Jones - 0.146 (*only awarded his final four seasons)
Kevin McHale - 0.064
Bo Outlaw - 0.051
Buck Williams - 0.043 (*not awarded his rookie year)
Horace Grant - 0.037
Paul Millsap - 0.032
Charles Oakley - 0.030
Larry Nance - 0.026 (*not awarded his rookie year)
Rasheed Wallace - 0.022
Jermaine O'Neal - 0.017
Karl Malone - 0.010
PJ Brown - 0.002
***Not awarded during the careers of DeBusschere, Johnson, Silas, or any except the final two seasons of Hayes

DWS
Tim Duncan - 106.3
Karl Malone - 92.4
Kevin Garnett - 91.5
Elvin Hayes - 83.7
Charles Oakley - 63.3
Buck Williams - 61.8
Rasheed Wallace - 57.1
Dennis Rodman - 54.5
Paul Silas - 51.8
Horace Grant - 49.3
PJ Brown - 48.5
Dave DeBusschere - 48.0
Jermaine O'Neal - 46.1
Larry Nance - 44.6
Bobby Jones - 43.2
Paul Millsap - 39.4
Kevin McHale - 37.1
Bo Outlaw - 29.3
Gus Johnson - 25.4
Draymond Green - 24.5

Career rDRTG
Tim Duncan: -9.5
Dennis Rodman: -7.0
Draymond Green: -7.0
Kevin Garnett: -6.6
Bobby Jones: -5.8
Elvin Hayes: -5.5(*missing his first five seasons)
Jermaine O'Neal: -5.5
Karl Malone: -5.2
Dave DeBusschere: -4.7 (*only available for his final season, though in DD’s case, it’s likely a fairly accurate representation of his career mark)
Rasheed Wallace: -4.5
Charles Oakley: -4.4
Paul Millsap: -4.0
Paul Silas: -3.5 (*only available for his last seven seasons)
Larry Nance: -3.5
PJ Brown: -3.4
Bo Outlaw: -3.4
Buck Williams: -3.3
Horace Grant: -2.0
Kevin McHale: -1.4
**Not available for Gus Johnson’s career

Career DBPM
Tim Duncan: +4.0
Bo Outlaw: +4.0
Draymond Green: +3.8
Kevin Garnett: +3.3
Bobby Jones: +2.9
Dennis Rodman: +2.8
Charles Oakley: +2.3
Larry Nance: +2.3
PJ Brown: +2.3
Paul Millsap: +2.2
Jermaine O'Neal: +2.0
Karl Malone: +1.8
Horace Grant: +1.8
Dave DeBusschere: +1.6 (*only available for his final season, though in DD’s case, it’s likely a fairly accurate representation of his career mark)
Rasheed Wallace: +1.5
Elvin Hayes: +1.3 (*missing his first five seasons)
Paul Silas: +1.3 (*only available his last seven seasons)
Buck Williams: +1.3
Kevin McHale: +0.3
**Not available for Gus Johnson’s career

Career Cumulative DVOR
Kevin Garnett - 197,104.8
Tim Duncan - 179,675.5
Rasheed Wallace - 110,512.8
Elvin Hayes - 102,458.6
Horace Grant - 74,632.9
Jermaine O'Neal - 74,392.5
Bo Outlaw - 72,806.7
Karl Malone - 70,363.5
Charles Oakley - 67,043.8
Buck Williams - 63,293.4
Larry Nance - 56,202.55
PJ Brown - 55,021.8
Dennis Rodman - 50,665.3
Paul Millsap - 50,556.3
Draymond Green - 49,402.7
Bobby Jones - 48,353.1
Dave DeBusschere - 48,191.2
Paul Silas - 43,313.2
Kevin McHale - 28,238.4
Gus Johnson - 21,446.2

Avg DVOR per season (full career)
Tim Duncan - 9,456.6
Kevin Garnett - 9,385.9
Draymond Green - 8,233.8
Rasheed Wallace - 6,950.5
Elvin Hayes - 6,403.7
Bo Outlaw - 4,853.8 (NOTE: his avg is hurt by lingering multiple seasons while barely playing)
Horace Grant - 4,390.2
Larry Nance - 4,323.3
Paul Millsap - 4,213.0
Jermaine O'Neal - 4,132.9
Bobby Jones - 4,029.4
Dave DeBusschere - 4,015.9
PJ Brown - 3,821.0
Dennis Rodman - 3,808.7
Buck Williams - 3,723.1
Charles Oakley - 3,704.1
Karl Malone - 3,703.3
Paul Silas - 2,707.1
Kevin McHale - 2,172.2
Gus Johnson - 2,144.6

Avg DVOR per season in Best 5 Years
Kevin Garnett - 14,732.0
Tim Duncan - 12,925.1
Rasheed Wallace - 11,628.5
Bo Outlaw - 10,040.2
Draymond Green - 9,721.4
Elvin Hayes - 9,327.8
Jermaine O'Neal - 8,415.9
Horace Grant - 7,394.9
PJ Brown - 7,200.45
Paul Millsap - 6,396.0
Karl Malone - 6,376.6
Charles Oakley - 6,284.0
Larry Nance - 6,208.4
Dennis Rodman - 5,978.6
Dave DeBusschere - 5,755.6
Buck Williams - 5,612.8
Bobby Jones - 5,347.15
Paul Silas - 4,603.9
Gus Johnson - 3,575.95
Kevin McHale - 3,562.7

Avg DVOR per game in Best 5 years (this category neutralizes any “bias” based on missed games)
Kevin Garnett - 190.3
Tim Duncan - 170.5
Rasheed Wallace - 151.6
Bo Outlaw - 132.5
Draymond Green - 125.3
Jermaine O'Neal - 123.8
Elvin Hayes - 114.6
PJ Brown - 98.9
Horace Grant - 97.3
Paul Millsap - 84.2
Dennis Rodman - 81.0
Larry Nance - 78.6
Karl Malone - 78.1
Charles Oakley - 77.4
Dave DeBusschere - 74.2
Buck Williams - 68.8
Bobby Jones - 67.5
Paul Silas - 57.0
Gus Johnson - 53.7
Kevin McHale - 45.6

Peak season DVOR
Tim Duncan - 16,346.1
Kevin Garnett - 15,993.45
Draymond Green - 15,022.8
Rasheed Wallace - 14,623.3
Bo Outlaw - 13,095.4
Elvin Hayes - 11,954.25
Jermaine O'Neal - 10,176.2
PJ Brown - 9,771.8
Horace Grant - 9,670.35
Karl Malone - 8,488.95
Larry Nance - 8,304.9
Dennis Rodman - 7,757.35
Paul Millsap - 7,684.75
Bobby Jones - 7,619.85
Charles Oakley - 6,882.5
Dave DeBusschere - 6,436.15
Buck Williams - 6,366.15
Paul Silas - 5,890.5
Gus Johnson - 5,108.25
Kevin McHale - 4,081.0

To me, I was looking at Sheed and McHale. Thanks to the statistical breakdown that trex_8063 provided, I couldn't help but notice the advantage Sheed had in multiple categories. Based on that, my vote is for Rasheed Wallace.

Yeah, despite the lack of accolades (they get 'em flat wrong sometimes), I'm going to tentatively place a vote for Rasheed Wallace.
As I mentioned in last thread, he was as solid low-post defender, good pnr defender, provided some decent rim protection (career 2.2 blk/100 poss, peaking at 3.0 when allowed to play C), AND had solid longevity among remaining candidates (>36k rs minutes).

Was a key piece in a ridiculous -12.0 rDRTG (90.9 DRtg, in raw terms) for a partial season--->that was the '04 Piston DRtg after the trade to obtain him. Yes, they were "anchored" by Big Ben, but consider that they were a merely "really good" -3.8 rDRTG prior to the trade (already had Big Ben)......and then the wtf -12.0 after the trade (in an admittedly small sample).
Key piece of a -4.9 rDRTG the following year, and in three Detroit seasons WITHOUT Ben Wallace, the team defenses were -2.3, -4.6, -0.3, respectively.

As illustrated in my post above, he's got the best overall impact profile of all remaining candidates.

Vote McHale
A very smart defender with perfect foot work and rediculously long arms.
He defended Dominque Wilkins because Bird could not defend Wilkins. Barkley called McHale the best defender that he ever faced.

The Barkley quote that I found now was, Barkley said of McHale, “Kevin McHale’s the best player I played against because he was unstoppable offensively, and he gave me nightmares on defense.”

I'm still stumped. This is hard. Rasheed has the best case as far as impact numbers go, even after I've tried to look at a variety of sources which don't underrate McHale like the DVOR numbers do, but McHale was more respected by his peers and more recognized as an elite, every-possession defender while he was playing. They both played on great defenses. Leaning towards McHale, but I don't know.

I feel like O'Neal fit the mold more of a real anchor - he was in that power forward, but he kinda fits like a center spot that big Timmy and older Garnett fit. Jermaine was a fantastic athlete and could keep up with smaller players like Sheed and McHale but defeated them soundly on rim protection and on boards.

Also, crazy how Sheed and O'Neal have no all defense selections...really shows how much of a joke that award is.

My vote goes to Jermaine O'Neal

I still have problems with Sheed's consistency and attitude, I will put in a vote for Kevin McHale

cecilthesheep wrote:I'm still stumped. This is hard. Rasheed has the best case as far as impact numbers go, even after I've tried to look at a variety of sources which don't underrate McHale like the DVOR numbers do, but McHale was more respected by his peers and more recognized as an elite, every-possession defender while he was playing. They both played on great defenses. Leaning towards McHale, but I don't know.

McHale is pre 1997. I don't know how the pre 1997 DVOR numbers work but they are box score numbers not plus minus.
You have McHale spending half his defensive minutes guarding small forwards because he can guard small forwards better than Bird can but guarding on the perimeter hurts box score based stats. Box score stats like Centers more than other positions because Centers get more rebounds.

McHale has as many rebounds per 100 possessions as Rasheed Wallace and Nance and more than Bobby Jones. If McHale had not had to guard small forwards he would have more rebounds than Wallace instead of being equal to Wallace. Maybe McHale needed some more blocks to make DVOR like him. Win share needs a players team to win and needs the player to dominate his team's box score before fore Win Share likes them. I wonder if Bird gobbling up all the defensive rebounds hurts McHale's "advanced" defensive stats.. Is it like you see which team was good defensively and then you attribute that success to the players that had the most stats?


McHale was the Celtics defensive MVP.

trex_8063 wrote:Yeah, despite the lack of accolades (they get 'em flat wrong sometimes), I'm going to tentatively place a vote for Rasheed Wallace.
As I mentioned in last thread, he was as solid low-post defender, good pnr defender, provided some decent rim protection (career 2.2 blk/100 poss, peaking at 3.0 when allowed to play C), AND had solid longevity among remaining candidates (>36k rs minutes).

Was a key piece in a ridiculous -12.0 rDRTG (90.9 DRtg, in raw terms) for a partial season--->that was the '04 Piston DRtg after the trade to obtain him. Yes, they were "anchored" by Big Ben, but consider that they were a merely "really good" -3.8 rDRTG prior to the trade (already had Big Ben)......and then the wtf -12.0 after the trade (in an admittedly small sample).
Key piece of a -4.9 rDRTG the following year, and in three Detroit seasons WITHOUT Ben Wallace, the team defenses were -2.3, -4.6, -0.3, respectively.

As illustrated in my post above, he's got the best overall impact profile of all remaining candidates.

Rasheed has a major upward spike in blocks per 100 minutes during his partial season when traded to the Pistons. Box score based stats will love those blocks.

Can you calculate Rasheed Wallaces's DVOR the state based way so we can see how that compare to Rasheed Wallaces plus minus based DVOR?

SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:

cecilthesheep wrote:I'm still stumped. This is hard. Rasheed has the best case as far as impact numbers go, even after I've tried to look at a variety of sources which don't underrate McHale like the DVOR numbers do, but McHale was more respected by his peers and more recognized as an elite, every-possession defender while he was playing. They both played on great defenses. Leaning towards McHale, but I don't know.

McHale is pre 1997. I don't know how the pre 1997 DVOR numbers work but they are box score numbers not plus minus.
You have McHale spending half his defensive minutes guarding small forwards because he can guard small forwards better than Bird can but guarding on the perimeter hurts box score based stats. Box score stats like Centers more than other positions because Centers get more rebounds.

McHale has as many rebounds per 100 possessions as Rasheed Wallace and Nance and more than Bobby Jones. If McHale had not had to guard small forwards he would have more rebounds than Wallace instead of being equal to Wallace. Maybe McHale needed some more blocks to make DVOR like him. Win share needs a players team to win and needs the player to dominate his team's box score before fore Win Share likes them. I wonder if Bird gobbling up all the defensive rebounds hurts McHale's "advanced" defensive stats.. Is it like you see which team was good defensively and then you attribute that success to the players that had the most stats?

McHale was the Celtics defensive MVP.

Rasheed had more DEFENSIVE rebounds per 100 possessions [by a small, but I would say significant margin] than those mentioned (career 8.7 avg, vs 8.0 for Nance, 7.6 for McHale, 7.1 for Jones).

Anyway, penbeast had asked about this in the last thread, too, and I'd speculated much of the same stuff (which also applies to DBPM, rDRTG, and DWS):

trex_8063 wrote:

penbeast0 wrote:

trex_8063 wrote:...The DVOR (Defensive Value Over Replacement) cited below is NOT to be confused with DVORP (as in something derived from the VORP numbers on bbref). DVOR utilizes DRAPM and minutes played, and attempts to illuminate the defensive value above a replacement level player [set at -0.75 DRAPM] per season in best years, per game in best years, per career, as so forth as indicated in headers.
However, DRAPM only exists for ‘97 and after. I utilized rs APM [on/off stat] combined with shutupandjam’s Estimated Impact [a box-derived figure] defensive split to make an “educated estimate” for DRAPM for ‘94-’96. And then I just used straight Estimated Impact defensive split for years prior to ‘94. I know this isn’t ideal or true apples to apples, but I wanted a means to include older players in all these broad categories.

Interesting that Silas, Gus Johnson, and Kevin McHale all rate at the bottom of virtually every DVOR list (career, average, peak, etc.) while all three were excellent defenders (having watched them both as contemporaries, I was more impressed by Silas than Gus defensively although (a) Gus had more offensive responsibility and (b) Gus had suffered knee injuries by 1969). These are 3 very different types of players. Silas was the dirty work intimidator/banger who bodied everyone, set picks, boxed out, etc. . . sort of the prototype for guys like Maurice Lucas, Charles Oakley. Gus was the hyper-athlete who (if I remember) used to hold the record for most broken backboards when Darryl Dawkins shattered his famous one in Kansas City. McHale was sort of Tim Duncan light, mobile but not fluid defensively, vertical shotblocker type. What does the stat look for in these older players and why do you think it rates them so low?

I’m not sure, but I can take some guesses.
For one, the defensive split is “curved” toward the TEAM’s rDRTG. So take Silas or Johnson: Silas didn’t play for an elite defense in any of his first 8 seasons (and a few were poor team defenses); Johnson played for more bad defenses than good (and only one elite-level). This is going to hurt their broad/whole-career numbers. Non-coincidentally, Johnson has his three best defensive EI splits in ‘69-’71 (the three best team defenses of his career), and Silas has his single-best defensive EI split in ‘73 (the single-best team defense he played for).

It’s also box-derived. The author has attempted to estimate a player’s impact based on their box production and efficiency (sounds like using some guidance from more modern RAPM seasons, studying how RAPM scores correlate to box production), and then curved it toward the team’s offensive and defensive efficiency [as stated in last paragraph]. This will have the same short-comings box-production always does in predicting impact, and perhaps even more with older players where the box stats are incomplete: prior to ‘73, literally the ONLY “defensive” stat is rebounds (not even broken into offensive and defensive yet, but estimates could be made as to how many are defensive). It sounds like he uses proxies for steals and blocks for earlier years where they were not recorded (likely assists for steals--->neither Silas nor Johnson got a ton of assists) and rebounds for blocks.

Once blocks and steals WERE being recorded, this likely hurt Silas because---as you noted---he was more of the “dirty work” type defender. He was doing the non-sexy defensive work, but was extremely small in those particular counting stats.
Kevin McHale, for that matter, got a fair number of blocks (though not huge numbers), but near-negligible steal numbers. He also has relatively skimpy DReb numbers for a PF, though part of that, imo, is that he was more often tasked with guarding opposing SF’s, to allow Bird to guard the PF. These defensive assignments also probably limited the number of shots he had opportunity to block, for that matter. These factors would naturally hurt his defensive EI splits.

I’m not sure that simply allowing Bird to get burned a few extra times per game by opposing SF’s wouldn’t have been counter-balanced (or maybe even MORE THAN compensated for) by allowing McHale to play where his defensive talents could be better utilized [at PF]. But this again is the same thing we see with the All-D voting, particular pre-databall: the value [good or bad] of man defense is easier to notice and scrutinize than the value of help/team D. i.e. they recognized the damage of Bird getting burned more easily than they could see the added value of allowing McHale to play PF on defense.


So those are some theories. And as I mentioned in the section you quoted: for whatever unidentified reason, I sometimes felt that EI was giving some of these guys TOO MUCH credit on offense, but not enough on defense. Buck Williams is a good example of a guy whose career spans into the RAPM era and provides some evidence of this: his EI splits were almost exclusively a modest positive on offense and a modest (or at most, moderate) positive on defense. But then once RAPM becomes available in ‘97, we see an abrupt shift to a SIGNIFICANT positive defensively and a small negative offensively.

Again, it’s not apples to apples; I just wanted some means to include the older guys in the comparisons. But it really does require one kinda think about the grains of salt inherent.

I agree McHale is one where the defensive EI doesn't jive well with my eye-test, as well as reputation/honors/accolades. Looking at the roster, I suspect he may have been the primary anchor of their league-best -4.6 rDRTG in '86; fwiw, they were -4.7 in the 68 games he played and -4.0 rDRTG in the 14 he missed, despite Bill Walton playing 22.8 mpg in the games McHale was out (vs 18.7 mpg the rest of the season).

SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:

trex_8063 wrote:Yeah, despite the lack of accolades (they get 'em flat wrong sometimes), I'm going to tentatively place a vote for Rasheed Wallace.
As I mentioned in last thread, he was as solid low-post defender, good pnr defender, provided some decent rim protection (career 2.2 blk/100 poss, peaking at 3.0 when allowed to play C), AND had solid longevity among remaining candidates (>36k rs minutes).

Was a key piece in a ridiculous -12.0 rDRTG (90.9 DRtg, in raw terms) for a partial season--->that was the '04 Piston DRtg after the trade to obtain him. Yes, they were "anchored" by Big Ben, but consider that they were a merely "really good" -3.8 rDRTG prior to the trade (already had Big Ben)......and then the wtf -12.0 after the trade (in an admittedly small sample).
Key piece of a -4.9 rDRTG the following year, and in three Detroit seasons WITHOUT Ben Wallace, the team defenses were -2.3, -4.6, -0.3, respectively.

As illustrated in my post above, he's got the best overall impact profile of all remaining candidates.

Can you calculate Rasheed Wallaces's DVOR the state based way so we can see how that compare to Rasheed Wallaces plus minus based DVOR?

Actually no, I can't. That site (shutupandjam) has just [like in the last 48 hours or so] "expired" (the author stopped paying the rent, as it were). So it's no longer accessible, unless the author opts to renew his domain.

trex_8063 wrote:

I agree McHale is one where the defensive EI doesn't jive well with my eye-test, as well as reputation/honors/accolades. Looking at the roster, I suspect he may have been the primary anchor of their league-best -4.6 rDRTG in '86; fwiw, they were -4.7 in the 68 games he played and -4.0 rDRTG in the 14 he missed, despite Bill Walton playing 22.8 mpg in the games McHale was out (vs 18.7 mpg the rest of the season).

I think the late January to late February 1986 time with McHale injured is interesting.

It is Wedman that picks up the majority of McHale's minutes. Thirdkill also gets some minutes. There is one game where Wedman is also out with an injury and in that game Kite plays 31 minutes of center while Walton an Parush play power forward. Not a deep team.

Walton and Parish don't play much twin towers together. Mostly Bird plays 40 minutes per game at PF while Wedman and Thirdkill take the small forwards minutes.

When the team was healthy Wedman got minutes at off guard despite being slow for an off guard.

This absence of McHale is a chance to see Bird in a normal situation where he is the power forward and is playing with a real small forward. Wedman does not blow past people but he can shoot from the outside and can drive a bit if the defense makes a mistake. Thirdkill was just a defender and a pretty good defender at small forward.

Kevin McHale - 4 (kendogg, SkyHookFTW, SinceGatlingWasARookie, penbeast0)
Rasheed Wallace - 2 (Samurai, trex_8063)
Jermaine O'Neal - 1 (HeartBreakKid)

I think we're nearing the 48-hour mark.

Hi guys