Is it time to rethink how great Doctor J actually was?

[iggymcfrack]

Many great posts are already written in this thread. I want to say that Julius can be ranked below top 15, but anything below top 20 is just unfair to him. He was really good player, MVP candidate for a full decade.

19 players have an average PER in the NBA playoffs which is higher than Dr. J’s career high. If he struggled so much adjusting to a higher level of competition in the 70s, what does that say for how he’d look today? He’s basically just a shorter, less athletic, less skilled Giannis. Big time transition scorer who was decent in the halfcourt. I don’t see much argument for him over any of my 16-21 guys (Dirk, Stockton, Kobe, Mailman, Barkley, Bird).

You again compare PER throughout the era which is meaningless.
He didn't struggle at all, he was second best player in the world in 1977-82 period.
He's not less athletic than Giannis and he was certainly more skilled than Giannis. Have you ever watched him in his prime?

I'm not surprised that you think he was less athletic than Giannis, you literally said that in 1987 finals nobody could dunk regulary.

No I didn’t. I said only a couple guys a team would dunk regularly. Like maybe the center and one other guy. Also, of all the stats to compare across eras, PER is probably the best since it’s normalized to the era you’re playing in. It’s the equivaent of ERA+ in baseball or something. Mikan and Wilt put up all-time PER numbers in the 50s and 60s so I don’t believe there’s anything specific about playing in the ‘70s that makes it too early to put up good playoff numbers.

[70sFan]

19 players have an average PER in the NBA playoffs which is higher than Dr. J’s career high. If he struggled so much adjusting to a higher level of competition in the 70s, what does that say for how he’d look today? He’s basically just a shorter, less athletic, less skilled Giannis. Big time transition scorer who was decent in the halfcourt. I don’t see much argument for him over any of my 16-21 guys (Dirk, Stockton, Kobe, Mailman, Barkley, Bird).

You again compare PER throughout the era which is meaningless.
He didn't struggle at all, he was second best player in the world in 1977-82 period.
He's not less athletic than Giannis and he was certainly more skilled than Giannis. Have you ever watched him in his prime?

I'm not surprised that you think he was less athletic than Giannis, you literally said that in 1987 finals nobody could dunk regulary.

No I didn’t. I said only a couple guys a team would dunk regularly. Like maybe the center and one other guy. Also, of all the stats to compare across eras, PER is probably the best since it’s normalized to the era you’re playing in. It’s the equivaent of ERA+ in baseball or something. Mikan and Wilt put up all-time PER numbers in the 50s and 60s so I don’t believe there’s anything specific about playing in the ‘70s that makes it too early to put up good playoff numbers.

In a team with Magic, Scott, Worthy, Cooper and Jabbar? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

In 1977-82 period 26 PER was surpassed only three times. Only last year we had 6 players with over 26 PER. So no, it's not comparable across the eras

[WarriorGM]

Dr. J was Jordan before Jordan. He was iconic in his time. He held his own against Kareem, Magic and Bird. He cannot be placed too far away from those guys.

[pandrade83]

Dr J is more or less a consensus top 15 player all time or at worst, right outside of it. Is this warranted based on actual ability or is there some folklore to this? I find it very hard to compare players from the 60s and 70s to more modern superstars. The best comparison for a modern day guy would probably be Giannis, but shorter and perhaps a bit lankier too. I can’t see any reason to believe that Dr J was close to Giannis in defensive impact, and while he could kind of shoot he’s no Kevin Durant shooting the ball.

He wasn’t a terrific playmaker, he was maybe a little better than someone like Paul Pierce as a passer though i could be underrating him but he never averaged more than 5.5 apg and that was in the ABA. He wasn’t Bird or Lebron as a passer that’s for sure.

1. So on offense, from the footage i’ve seen he’s an athletic high flyer that takes it to the hole a lot, he was really good at it but how well would this hold up against a zone defense, or against great rim defense?

2. I don’t know. How well would a Dr J clone translate in today’s league? He’s listed at 6’7, but was he perhaps an inch or 2 taller? Would he be like a worse defensive version of Giannis, but with better handles, a little better shooting and more craftiness around the rim?

Again I don’t know how to rate his defense, he only made one defensive team in his career, so he evidently wasn’t thought super highly of, definitely not Pippen or even Lebron level.

On the 1st bolded point - as best I can tell (and this is VERY subjective and not using the biggest sample size), the ABA had better spacing than the NBA did pre-merger and the NBA had most of the better centers. But even so, Dr J was one of the very best players most merger in an era where most of the good players were big guys and spacing was horrid.

On the 2nd bolded point - that shouldn't really impact your valuation of guys. Bill Russell - if playing under today's rules would have no shot at being even a Top 25 ATG - but he's #4 on my GOAT list. I don't really care about era portability.

As to the question at large:

I've got DR J at #15 and the players on his tier are:

Mailman
Kobe
Robinson
Dr J
Barkley
Dirk
KD
Oscar
West

Things pushing him up from an accomplishment standpoint - not delving into skill-sets here due to time

-Clear best player on 3 Finals Teams
-A defensible case to be the best player on one of the GOAT Teams (requires hindsight analysis; not how things were perceived at the time)
-ABA GOAT
-Superb longevity

Things pushing him down:

-I do de-value the ABA Titles a touch
-Never "the guy" on an NBA Title Team.
-Those chips were there for the taking when he 1st entered the NBA - particularly pre-Magic & Bird and he didn't capitalize on them. Watching some of the tape of those late 70's years, he left you wanting more.

Depending on how one feels about the ABA, that could de-value or improve his valuation over where I have him. I'd find it very hard to keep him out of the Top 20 & that case would rest on really devaluing his ABA work which would also de-value his superb longevity. OTOH, I think you'd really have to stretch to put him over Kobe.

On the defensive front, his teams were always near the top of the defensive metrics (in his prime) regardless of who else was on the team and although the steals/blocks # might over-state his impact, it's hard for me to think that he was worse than a "good" defender.

I grade his seasons as:

'72 - 3rd Team All-NBA Caliber
'73 - All-NBA Caliber
'74-'76 - MVP Caliber
'77 - All-NBA Caliber
'78 - All-Star Caliber
'79 - 3rd Team All-NBA
'80-'82 - Darkhorse MVP Caliber
'83-'84 - All-NBA Caliber
'85 - 3rd Team All-NBA Caliber
'86 & '87 - High Impact starter

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Not sure why you're just using PER. When contextualized his stats are the same thing as his ABA stats.

What about the ABA players who joined the NBA and were the same?

All I'm saying is his scoring volume is lacking in his NBA run. I realize that's because lesser minutes but I guess julius just needed load management during his NBA run playing only 33-35 minutes and his stats suffer because of it. So what was he during his NBA run? He was a player with the scoring volume of Scottie Pippen but much worse defense, ball handling, playmaking, so overall a poor man's Scottie Pippen.

Julius averaged 24 ppg in playoffs during 1977-82 run. Scottie's career high is lower than that. Also, Julius wasn't worse ball-handler at all.

Outside of Philly series, Kawhi didn't show anything Julius couldn't do as far as scoring.

Pippen is one of the goat athletes and Julius is one of the goat athletes. Both of them benefit from a fast pace league.

90s pace: ranging from 90-96
1970s pace: 101-106

That's a big gap! And julius still only scored a few more points per game than Pippen. You have to think julius points drop in 90s due to pace. Somebody like Giannis scoring would decline in the 90s as well because no fast breaks.

Also julius is equal to Pippen ball handling now? Come on! Pippen was a point forward and ran teams by himself (1994 bulls 2000 blazers). Pippen is like grant hill and LeBron in that sense. Julius simply isn't that.

[Dr Positivity]

Dr J at his prime is one of the most athletic and smartest wings of all time. So it wouldn't surprising to see him having success in other eras.

His NBA career is probably top 30 instead of top 20 caliber, but it depends how much you upgrade him for his ABA play

[TurinTurambar]

http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.com/2017/02/imagining-young-julius-erving-playing.html

I tend to agree with this assessment of what a young Doc would look like today. I think he could have been a 25 8 8 point forward type in a similar mold to Giannis, or a more athletic, pumped up Grant Hill.

He's also one of the smarter top 10-15 guys, and one of the all time great teammates. While it's pretty clear he had the skills the carry a team when he had to in his era like Michael Jordan, I think he recognized that both he and his team would be better off if the wealth was spread around more evenly.

[INKtastic]

His stats drop hard from NBA to ABA despite only being 26 years old and he was just Moses Malone's sidekick. Definitely not as physically imposing as Giannis. I would say in the modern NBA he would be a rich man's Shawn Marion.

He had knee tendonitis that limited him, when he fixed the issue a few years later, he won league MVP

[HBK_Kliq_33]

His stats drop hard from NBA to ABA despite only being 26 years old and he was just Moses Malone's sidekick. Definitely not as physically imposing as Giannis. I would say in the modern NBA he would be a rich man's Shawn Marion.

He had knee tendonitis that limited him, when he fixed the issue a few years later, he won league MVP

So he had 1 NBA mvp level year? Most all-time greats have 5+ MVP level years. That's a very small sample size.

[INKtastic]

His stats drop hard from NBA to ABA despite only being 26 years old and he was just Moses Malone's sidekick. Definitely not as physically imposing as Giannis. I would say in the modern NBA he would be a rich man's Shawn Marion.

He had knee tendonitis that limited him, when he fixed the issue a few years later, he won league MVP

So he had 1 NBA mvp level year? Most all-time greats have 5+ MVP level years. That's a very small sample size.

3 ABA MVPs, 1 NBA MVP, 1x 2nd place ABA MVP, 4x top 5 NBA MVP. #12 all time in MVP award share.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/nba_mvp_shares.html

It's not his fault there are two leagues his first 5 years. It his because of him the leagues merged.

[70sFan]

All I'm saying is his scoring volume is lacking in his NBA run. I realize that's because lesser minutes but I guess julius just needed load management during his NBA run playing only 33-35 minutes and his stats suffer because of it. So what was he during his NBA run? He was a player with the scoring volume of Scottie Pippen but much worse defense, ball handling, playmaking, so overall a poor man's Scottie Pippen.

Julius averaged 24 ppg in playoffs during 1977-82 run. Scottie's career high is lower than that. Also, Julius wasn't worse ball-handler at all.

Outside of Philly series, Kawhi didn't show anything Julius couldn't do as far as scoring.

Pippen is one of the goat athletes and Julius is one of the goat athletes. Both of them benefit from a fast pace league.

90s pace: ranging from 90-96
1970s pace: 101-106

That's a big gap! And julius still only scored a few more points per game than Pippen. You have to think julius points drop in 90s due to pace. Somebody like Giannis scoring would decline in the 90s as well because no fast breaks.

Also julius is equal to Pippen ball handling now? Come on! Pippen was a point forward and ran teams by himself (1994 bulls 2000 blazers). Pippen is like grant hill and LeBron in that sense. Julius simply isn't that.

That's like saying that Grant Hill would average more points than Kawhi today, because "it's only a few points more in faster league".

Julius wasn't like Giannis in halfcourt offense, nothing alike. His midrange game is more common to Wade than Giannis. He's also more natural passer and more active off-ball player. In short, he was better than Giannis in halfcourt offense.

Julius wasn't as good passer as Pippen, but he's at least equal as a ballhandler. I mean, Jordan also had better handles than Pippen even though Scottie was the point forward in Chicago team, not MJ.

[70sFan]

His stats drop hard from NBA to ABA despite only being 26 years old and he was just Moses Malone's sidekick. Definitely not as physically imposing as Giannis. I would say in the modern NBA he would be a rich man's Shawn Marion.

He had knee tendonitis that limited him, when he fixed the issue a few years later, he won league MVP

So he had 1 NBA mvp level year? Most all-time greats have 5+ MVP level years. That's a very small sample size.

He was MVP candidate in 1977 and 1980-82 (as well as all years in ABA). That's more than Kawhi who has only one MVP candidate RS so far.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

He had knee tendonitis that limited him, when he fixed the issue a few years later, he won league MVP

So he had 1 NBA mvp level year? Most all-time greats have 5+ MVP level years. That's a very small sample size.

He was MVP candidate in 1977 and 1980-82 (as well as all years in ABA). That's more than Kawhi who has only one MVP candidate RS so far.

Leonard has had two MVP level regular seasons at 28 years old. 2016 he was the best player on a 67 win team.

Julius has 1 MVP level NBA season. My posts are regarding his NBA run and have nothing to do with his ABA run.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Julius averaged 24 ppg in playoffs during 1977-82 run. Scottie's career high is lower than that. Also, Julius wasn't worse ball-handler at all.

Outside of Philly series, Kawhi didn't show anything Julius couldn't do as far as scoring.

Pippen is one of the goat athletes and Julius is one of the goat athletes. Both of them benefit from a fast pace league.

90s pace: ranging from 90-96
1970s pace: 101-106

That's a big gap! And julius still only scored a few more points per game than Pippen. You have to think julius points drop in 90s due to pace. Somebody like Giannis scoring would decline in the 90s as well because no fast breaks.

Also julius is equal to Pippen ball handling now? Come on! Pippen was a point forward and ran teams by himself (1994 bulls 2000 blazers). Pippen is like grant hill and LeBron in that sense. Julius simply isn't that.

That's like saying that Grant Hill would average more points than Kawhi today, because "it's only a few points more in faster league".

Julius wasn't like Giannis in halfcourt offense, nothing alike. His midrange game is more common to Wade than Giannis. He's also more natural passer and more active off-ball player. In short, he was better than Giannis in halfcourt offense.

Julius wasn't as good passer as Pippen, but he's at least equal as a ballhandler. I mean, Jordan also had better handles than Pippen even though Scottie was the point forward in Chicago team, not MJ.

Julius strikes me as somebody who relies on his athleticism heavily like Giannis, not Grant Hill. Grant Hill has great ball handling like Pippen. Giannis\Julius ball handling skills are questionable for a superstar wing player (if you consider Giannis a wing player in any era).

2000 Blazers had an elite offense with Scottie Pippen playing 82 games and running their offense. I don't see Julius ever being able to run an elite offense like that.

[RCM88x]

So he had 1 NBA mvp level year? Most all-time greats have 5+ MVP level years. That's a very small sample size.

He was MVP candidate in 1977 and 1980-82 (as well as all years in ABA). That's more than Kawhi who has only one MVP candidate RS so far.

Leonard has had two MVP level regular seasons at 28 years old. 2016 he was the best player on a 67 win team.

Julius has 1 MVP level NBA season. My posts are regarding his NBA run and have nothing to do with his ABA run.

Dude you need to do stand-up.

[LakerLegend]

His stats drop hard from NBA to ABA despite only being 26 years old and he was just Moses Malone's sidekick. Definitely not as physically imposing as Giannis. I would say in the modern NBA he would be a rich man's Shawn Marion.

He was on a much more stacked team when he got to the NBA, and he wasn't teammates with Moses for a few years.

[Sark]

It's probably better to stop thinking a time machine will ever be built, and to stop these cross era comparisons. You compare players relative to their own era, not future ones.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

He was MVP candidate in 1977 and 1980-82 (as well as all years in ABA). That's more than Kawhi who has only one MVP candidate RS so far.

Leonard has had two MVP level regular seasons at 28 years old. 2016 he was the best player on a 67 win team.

Julius has 1 MVP level NBA season. My posts are regarding his NBA run and have nothing to do with his ABA run.

Dude you need to do stand-up.

Kawhi leonard in 2015-16

21 PPG 61% TS, best defender in the NBA, 13.7 win shares, 8.3 BPM. Best player on a 67 win team with 39 year old duncan, washed up Parker-Manu.

That's an mvp level season for sure man, he was pretty much 1994 Scottie Pippen level overall by that time.

[clyde21]

So he had 1 NBA mvp level year? Most all-time greats have 5+ MVP level years. That's a very small sample size.

He was MVP candidate in 1977 and 1980-82 (as well as all years in ABA). That's more than Kawhi who has only one MVP candidate RS so far.

Leonard has had two MVP level regular seasons at 28 years old. 2016 he was the best player on a 67 win team.

Julius has 1 MVP level NBA season. My posts are regarding his NBA run and have nothing to do with his ABA run.

One.

he was not an MVP candidate this year missing 20+ games.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

He was MVP candidate in 1977 and 1980-82 (as well as all years in ABA). That's more than Kawhi who has only one MVP candidate RS so far.

Leonard has had two MVP level regular seasons at 28 years old. 2016 he was the best player on a 67 win team.

Julius has 1 MVP level NBA season. My posts are regarding his NBA run and have nothing to do with his ABA run.

One.

he was not an MVP candidate this year missing 20+ games.

Kawhi leonard in 2015-16 was not MVP level?

21 PPG 61% TS, best defender in the NBA, 13.7 win shares, 8.3 BPM. Best player on a 67 win team with 39 year old duncan, washed up Parker-Manu.

That's an mvp level season for sure man, he was pretty much 1994 Scottie Pippen level overall by that time. Better than every Julius NBA season besides his MVP year.