RealGM

BAA/NBA/ABA playing careers only; we are not including college, Olympic, foreign, etc. You can select up to 10 players (you do not HAVE to fill out your list). They do not have to be in order. The 10 players with the most votes make the HOF. Voting will stay open as long as there is active interest. We take the top 10 votegetters, in case of a tie, I will go back and ask everyone to vote on just the tied players, ranking them in order with just 1st place votes counting, then 2nd if 1st ties again, etc.

Magic Johnson (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan, Narigo, worldjbfree, Dutchball9, Dr Positivity7, Doctor MJ)
Charles Barkley (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan, Narigo, worldjbfree, Dutchball97, Dr Positivity, Doctor MJ)
Clyde Drexler (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan, Narigo, worldjbfree, Dutchball97, Dr Positivity, Doctor MJ)
Dennis Rodman (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan, Narigo, worldjbfree, Dutchball97, Dr Positivity, Doctor MJ)
Robert Parish (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan, Narigo, Dutchball97, Dr Positivity, Doctor MJ)
Dominique Wilkins (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan, Narigo, Dutchball97, Dr Positivity, Doctor MJ)

Kevin Johnson (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, Narigo, worldjbfree, Dr Positivity, Doctor MJ)
Joe Dumars (penbeast0, trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, worldjbfree, Dutchball97, Dr Positivity)
Maurice Cheeks (trex_8063, Ryoga Hibiki, 70sFan, Narigo, Dutchball97, Doctor MJ)

Larry Nance (penbeast0, trex_8063, 70sFan, Narigo)

RealGM PC Board 2020 HOF

Retired 1960 or before

Retired 1965 or before

Retired 1970 or before

Retired 1975 or before

Retired 1980 or before

Retired 1985 or before

Retired 1990 or before

Retired 1995 or before

Some players to consider:

Larry Nance
Bernard King
Terry Cummings
Magic Johnson
Charles Barkley

Dominique Wilkens
Alvin Robertson
Mark Price
Dale Ellis
Robert Parish

Tom Chambers
Kevin Johnson
Joe Dumars
Clyde Drexler
Dennis Rodman

Who do we have now?
Top of my head, I guess the locks are
Magic (king of the class)
Barkley
Dumars
Parish
Drexler
Wilkins

Who else?

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Yes to Magic, Sir Charles, Nique, Parish, Drexler, Rodman

Not sure how I feel about Marion, and I feel like if I vote for Nance then I have to say yes to Marion.

My votes

Sure things:
Magic
Barkley
Rodman
Drexler

Voting for:
Parish
KJ
Dumars
Nique
Nance
King

Open to be convinced on:
Price
Jeff Hornacek (forgot him)

SHAQ32 wrote:Yes to Magic, Sir Charles, Nique, Parish, Drexler, Rodman

Not sure how I feel about Marion, and I feel like if I vote for Nance then I have to say yes to Marion.

I think I have Marion in the Hall if he's up against this year's class.

Magic, Barkley, Drexler, don’t even have to talk about it

Rodman - can’t leave the arguable best rebounder in history off, and he contributed to too many titles

Parish - He played too long and was part of great Celtics core

That leaves KJ, Dumars, Dominique, King, Nance, Cheeks, Price, and then guys like Haywood and Lenny Wilkens. Dominique should probably go over King as he has more consistent career.

Dr Positivity wrote:Magic, Barkley, Drexler, don’t even have to talk about it

Rodman - can’t leave the arguable best rebounder in history off, and he contributed to too many titles

Parish - He played too long and was part of great Celtics core

That leaves KJ, Dumars, Dominique, King, Nance, Cheeks, Price, and then guys like Haywood and Lenny Wilkens. Dominique should probably go over King as he has more consistent career.

I'd consider Larry Nance too, more valuable both offensively (great efficient finisher if not creator) and defensively (arguably greatest shotblocking forward ever, he and AK47, both of whom played both forward slots than Lenny Wilkens, I would argue gives you more on both ends than Maurice Cheeks too though I have Cheeks above Wilkens.

Nique probably goes over King but King's peak/prime are higher, just that Wilkins was very consistently a star for a long time. King v. KJ v. Price is an interesting debate.

Looking back on Price, I don't know. I don't mind the "lack" of accolades, because he played in one of those proverbial "golden eras" of point guards -- so really tough competition there. And he's got a nice little 6-yr run of all-league production. I just question whether he peaked high enough... I guess he did?

My "tentative" (quite possibly final) picks:

Magic Johnson (king of class)
Charles Barkley
Clyde Drexler
Robert Parish
Dominique Wilkins
Kevin Johnson
Dennis Rodman (I have such mixed feelings about Rodman, and I definitely think his defense is overrated outside of a mere less than a handful of years primarily in Detroit; but he was integral to multiple title teams, very much a cultural icon, so gotta include him)
Larry Nance (I'm gonna try to make a post about him later; such an underrated career. I'm sort of glad Laimbeer got in [he's probably on my short-list of most underrated all-time in the mainstream], but I rank Nance even higher [though Laimbeer maybe has more "historical relevance", being part of two title teams, one of the principle faces of the "Bad Boy Pistons"]. I feel like if even one of those Cavs teams had gotten over the hump, Nance would not be on the table at this point, though.)
Maurice Cheeks
*Joe Dumars

*Dumars is the only one I'm unsure about; I could see swapping him out for Jeff Hornacek (another short-list most underrated for me). And again Bellamy is around here, too, but I've given up on him as a lost cause.

Guys like Price and King just don't have the longevity for me (longevity being something I value in my ATL, as well as here). EDIT: Well, with King I guess it's not strictly his longevity so much as that he's got a couple of peak(ish) seasons that don't align really at all with the entire rest of his prime. Excellent peak, but his average "prime" year is actually not all that stellar compared to guys like Price, KJ, or Nique, imo. He also gives some impression of "empty stats", given he puts up massive volume for mostly bad teams; terrible turnover economy, too, fwiw.

I realize more and more that 2 guys per year are A LOT, I have to vote people that I thought originally shouldn't be in.

We have clear locks
Earvin Johnson
Barkley
Drexler

Guys who definitely should fit, considering their role in successfull teams and/or sustained individual brilliance
Dumars
Rodman
Parish
Wilkins

But then I must compromise vs my standards.
Guys like Price and KJ were absolute studs, but very short primes without reaching the MVP level of a Walton.
Bernard King shouldn't be there, too short prime and limited team success
Nace, Chambers? Not really. Sampsons? super short prime and not good enough. Nance? Not really sold

I would first go back on Cheeks
And then add
KJ
Price

These are my votes until better arguments come out, but these are all guys a "lived" most of their career.

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I'm waiting for trex post about Nance before making my list, but this class is very thin, probably the worst since 1960 one.

Right now I see 7 locks in Magic, Barkley, Drexler, Parish, Rodman, Dumars and Wilkins. After that it gets a bit murky. Price and KJ seem like decent candidates but I'm not sure yet on them. Alvin Robertson is also a guy I might consider. He lacks play-off success but that wasn't so much his fault since he always stepped up in the post-season. Maybe someone else can chime on him? I'll wait with filling out the last 3 slots till the previous round has finished since a couple of bubble guys would certainly be in the convo here again.

Do we have impact stats on Alvin? He always struck me as a guy who gambled too much trying for steals and highlight plays on offense rather than a guy who played with a high BBIQ but I could be wrong.

A couple of notes about some "locks" (that I voted for too):

(a) Dominique Wilkins was consistently less efficient and played worse defense than contemporaries like Alex English (or Worthy, King, Johnson, Aguirre, etc.) and English didn't make everyone's list last round. I value efficiency more and more as a greater and greater percentage of a player's value comes from their scoring volume. Nique is a poster boy for high volume, meh efficiency, weak defense . . . classy human being and super consistent for a long time but I'm far from sure he was as good as, say, Carmelo Anthony.

(b) Joe Dumars played for those ensemble Detroit teams but although he was a good shooter and had an excellent defensive rep, he's another guy like Alvin I'd like to see impact stats to back up. Unlike Alvin, he didn't gamble, in fact, he may be the worst rebounder, shotblocker, and steal generator of anyone we consider a potential HOF player. He just doesn't seem to have any hustle stats at all. For him, I always thought of him as a very high BBIQ player so I am giving him the benefit of the doubt but not sure how much is real and how much he's basically Avery Bradley.

penbeast0 wrote:Do we have impact stats on Alvin? He always struck me as a guy who gambled too much trying for steals and highlight plays on offense rather than a guy who played with a high BBIQ but I could be wrong.

Maybe Owly can chime in, but there was one of those annual "grading" publications that I believe did peg Robertson as a showy gambler on defense during multiple seasons.

fwiw, his prime WOWYR is +2.6, +1.9 for his career.

penbeast0 wrote:A couple of notes about some "locks" (that I voted for too):

(a) Dominique Wilkins was consistently less efficient and played worse defense than contemporaries like Alex English (or Worthy, King, Johnson, Aguirre, etc.) and English didn't make everyone's list last round. I value efficiency more and more as a greater and greater percentage of a player's value comes from their scoring volume. Nique is a poster boy for high volume, meh efficiency, weak defense . . . classy human being and super consistent for a long time but I'm far from sure he was as good as, say, Carmelo Anthony.

Couple things to note about Nique's playstyle (beyond just the shooting efficiency): he's the best offensive rebounding forward of the three of them (Nique/English/Melo), better defensive rebounder than English, too. In overall turnover economy he's a bit better than Melo [and just marginally worse than English].
EDIT: Nique also became at least a little adept/relevant as a 3pt shooter [something English never did], which provides a spacing effect English wouldn't match.

Beyond that, I think one should look at the results achieved with Nique at the helm of the offense.....
The Hawks had an above average offense every year of Nique's prime (9 years in Atlanta) except '92, when Nique missed 40 games: they were a +0.8 rORTG in the 42 games he played, but were -2.6 rORTG in the 40 he missed, and thus were below avg for the year as a whole.

The Hawks had a 5-year stretch ['87-'91] in which their offense was +3.0 rORTG or better every year [peaking at a fairly elite +4.9]:
‘87: +4.3 rORTG (4th/23)
‘88: +3.3 rORTG (5th/23)
‘89: +4.4 rORTG (4th/25)
‘90: +4.9 rORTG (4th/27)
‘91: +3.0 rORTG (8th/27)

And the supporting cast to produce that was not bad offensively, but not stellar either: in descending order of playing time, for that 5-year stretch.....
'87: Kevin Willis, Doc Rivers, Randy Wittman, Cliff Levingston, Tree Rollins, Jon Koncak
'88: Doc Rivers, Randy Wittman, Cliff Levingston, Kevin Willis, Tree Rollins, Antoine Carr, Spud Webb, John Battle
'89: [late prime/early post-prime] Moses Malone, Reggie Theus, Doc Rivers, Cliff Levingston, John Battle, Jon Koncak, Antoine Carr, Spud Webb
'90: Moses Malone (post-prime), Kevin Willis, Spud Webb, Cliff Levingston, Doc Rivers, John Battle
'91: Doc Rivers, Kevin Willis, Spud Webb, Jon Koncak, Moses Malone (35 yrs old, very post-prime), John Battle

Guys like Rollins and Koncak were relatively one-sided defensive role players. And someone like Randy Wittman is simply not someone you relish being 3rd of 4th on the team in playing time [John Battle either, for that matter], and speaks to how shallow their backcourt was some years.
But they still got the job done.

Nique was also the most electrically entertaining of the three, imo, and arguably the most "culturally relevant" (perhaps close with Melo), for whatever that's worth in a Hall of Fame selection. English is probably a distant 3rd in this.
And Nique, iirc, comes out first in terms of simple counting "in-era" measures such as MVP award shares and All-NBA nods.

penbeast0 wrote:(b) Joe Dumars played for those ensemble Detroit teams but although he was a good shooter and had an excellent defensive rep, he's another guy like Alvin I'd like to see impact stats to back up. Unlike Alvin, he didn't gamble, in fact, he may be the worst rebounder, shotblocker, and steal generator of anyone we consider a potential HOF player. He just doesn't seem to have any hustle stats at all. For him, I always thought of him as a very high BBIQ player so I am giving him the benefit of the doubt but not sure how much is real and how much he's basically Avery Bradley.

Dumars is one I struggle with too. I do think he's probably a bit overrated historically. Avery Bradley is the modern player he most reminds me of [though obviously Joe was at least a little bit better at pretty much everything offensively]. That's why if I'm going to cut anyone from my votes, it would probably be Joe.

wrt to impact stats.....
His prime WOWYR is +1.3, career WOWYR is +3.4

rs-only pseudo-APM model for '94-'96.....
'94: -0.46
'95: -1.79
'96: +1.36

Then we have RAPM.....
'97 (NPI): +1.85
'98: +0.9
'99: +1.45

^^^This would largely fall into the "good, but not great" category.

trex_8063 wrote:...
Maybe Owly can chime in, but there was one of those annual "grading" publications that I believe did peg Robertson as a showy gambler on defense during multiple seasons.

fwiw, his prime WOWYR is +2.6, +1.9 for his career.
...
Beyond that, I think one should look at the results achieved with Nique at the helm of the offense.....
The Hawks had an above average offense every year of Nique's prime (9 years in Atlanta) except '92, when Nique missed 40 games: they were a +0.8 rORTG in the 42 games he played, but were -2.6 rORTG in the 40 he missed, and thus were below avg for the year as a whole.
...
Nique was also the most electrically entertaining of the three, imo, and arguably the most "culturally relevant" (perhaps close with Melo), for whatever that's worth in a Hall of Fame selection. English is probably a distant 3rd in this.
And Nique, iirc, comes out first in terms of simple counting "in-era" measures such as MVP award shares and All-NBA nods.

...
Dumars is one I struggle with too. I do think he's probably a bit overrated historically. Avery Bradley is the modern player he most reminds me of [though obviously Joe was at least a little bit better at pretty much everything offensively]. That's why if I'm going to cut anyone from my votes, it would probably be Joe.

wrt to impact stats (cited).....would largely fall into the "good, but not great" category.

Thanks. That is good, about the reverse of what I expected from the two but in the ballpark. Note that I voted for both, I just didn't feel either were locks and I have Wilkins clearly a level below Alex English despite the accolades.

If I have time, I will do some serious looking at the playoff numbers of KJ, King (both of whom have strong "clutch" reputations) and Mark Price as well. One of the arguments against Nance I have heard is his playoff numbers where Dumars is another with multiple titles and a strong "clutch" reputation. Hopefully I can do that (or someone else can) and post it today so people can see it before voting.

Magic
Barkley
Parish
Rodman
Drexler
KJ
Wilkins

Are my locks for the class. Hornacek, Dumars, Price, and whichever guys miss out on the bottom of the last class (likely Cheeks, possibly others) are my 1st pass contenders for the last few spots. Nance/Robertson are not super serious contenders in my book.

Gonna do a brief post supporting another guy who I think at least deserves some token consideration [if not votes], someone typically overlooked [and underrated, imo]: Jeff Hornacek.


He's a 6'3" pure shooter with solid playmaking and excellent ball-control [mostly by playing within his game moreso than thru great handles], a willing defender, and has terrific longevity with a solid impact profile (*see below; we have RAPM for his final four seasons, and his rs APM for the two years before that); all this in a pretty competitive era.

He was only once an All-Star, which tends to get him disregarded out of hand; but when you look at his career you see he's actually got probably a good 7-8 seasons where he was at least a fringe or borderline All-Star level player.

Take '90, for example: 17.6 ppg/4.7 rpg/5.0 apg on excellent shooting efficiency (nearly +6% rTS) and 2.70 Ast:TO ratio; was either the 2nd or 3rd best player for a contender-level team [54 wins, +7.09 SRS, went six games in the WCF] that year.
In '96 and '97 he was basically a 14 ppg/3 rpg/4+ apg player on ELITE (like +8% rTS) shooting efficiency, and again an Ast:TO ratio that hovered around 2.7 (and again, always while playing fair/passable defense); and did so for contender level teams.

imo, these kinds of years outshine [for example] some of Joe Johnson's "All-Star" seasons, or Mo Williams's '09 invite.
And they were more or less what we came to expect from Hornacek during his prime (which lasted ~11 years; 11 years in which he was never seriously injured--->the aforementioned '90 was his least durable season [and he missed just 15 games]).

I think he suffers in popular perception because he rarely [and barely] crossed that magic number of 20 [ppg]. Something seems to happen to popular perception once that threshold is crossed (and I don't necessarily think it's a coincidence that his ONE All-Star selection came in the year he avg 20.1 ppg).
If casuals and mainstream media are looking at two players (Player A and Player B):
Player A averaged 22/4/4 on +1% rTS while playing poor defense for a fair/decent team. Player B averaged 16/4/4 on +7% rTS while playing passable defense for a contender-level team...…

Most casuals and media tend to side with Player A as the better player (because, ppg). But I think that's far from a given [may even hedge toward Player B, if given no other information]. Obviously, Player B represents something very very typical of prime Hornacek.

More expounding on his longevity/consistency:
His rookie year was literally the only season (out of 14) where he wasn't a good player. In his sophomore and final seasons he was "merely" a decent player (weak starter level). For the other ELEVEN seasons of his career ('89-'99) he consistently ranged between solid starter-level [at worst] and solid All-Star level [at best].
The summation of those 11 years: 18.3 PER, .165 WS/48, +3.7 BPM, +11 efficiency differential in 33.45 mpg (in raw box totals, that was avg 16.1 ppg/3.6 rpg/5.0 apg/1.8 topg on near-elite shooting efficiency). He was basically----on average----a borderline All-Star over an 11-year period.

About his impact profile:
'95 rs APM: +2.99 (19th in league)
'96 rs APM: +2.59 (27th in league)
'97 NPI RAPM: +4.98 (9th in league)
'98 PI RAPM: +4.98 (12th in league)
'99 PI RAPM: +4.36 (20th in league)
'00 PI RAPM: +2.61 (44th in league)


Nut-shell: Jeff Hornacek was never a great player.....but he was consistently a legit very good player for a rather extended period of time in a competitive era. I don't know that we can truthfully say much better for guys like Joe Dumars (or perhaps Mo Cheeks, Jack Sikma, etc).

70sFan wrote:I'm waiting for trex post about Nance before making my list, but this class is very thin, probably the worst since 1960 one.

No pressure!

Well I hope you're not expecting a real barn-burner of a post, I just don't have the time [or perhaps the ability] to do that. I'll provide a quick and dirty....

Nance is just one of those almost criminally underrated (by the mainstream) players, perhaps in part for some of the same reason Hornacek is overlooked (he doesn't often cross that 20 ppg threshold??). Ironically, the two seasons he DID cross that threshold he was NOT selected as an All-Star.
Although those seasons provide a spot-light on he was probably underrated. Granted, the '87 Suns weren't overly good, but he averaged 22.5 ppg @ around +7% rTS, 8.7 rpg, 3.4 apg, and only 2.2 topg, while being likely the best defensive player on the team...….but not an "All-Star", apparently.
Other years, like '92 for example: 17.0 ppg @ ~+5% rTS, 8.3 rpg, 2.9 apg, and only 1.1 topg!, as well as 3.0 bpg for an above avg defense and team that won 57 games overall......but apparently not an "All-Star".

He was a very mild-mannered persona on the court......which I think sometimes made it easy for fans/media to overlook him. Even when he was competing for dunk contests, he almost looks embarrassed about the attention.

His accolades suffer, for whatever reason he was continuously overlooked. Only a 3-time All-Star, but realistically it looks like he's got like 11 seasons that are at least borderline (with probably 7-8 that are very solidly All-Star level).

As penbeast0 said previously, he's got a case [at least excluding Tim Duncan] as the best shot-blocking forward of all-time; he was a key piece [arguably the anchor at times] of multiple good defenses between Phoenix and Cleveland, peaking at a -4.9 rDRTG for the '89 Cavs. And he does so while scoring at a notably above average rate on notably above average efficiency, passing reasonably well for a big, and displaying a pretty good turnover economy.
And he sort of spreads the floor, too, having really nice touch out to at least 16-19 feet.

Ben Taylor's WOWYR loves him: +5.1 for his prime, +5.6 for his career....
…..which more or less jives with the limited WOWY studies I'd had a chance to do:

‘85
29-32 (.475) with, 7-14 (.333) without
-1.15 SRS with, -5.81 SRS without (+4.66 change)

‘86
29-44 (.397) with, 3-6 (.333) without
-3.08 SRS with, -3.84 SRS without (+0.76 change)
104.39 ORtg with, 103.59 ORtg without (+0.8 change)
107.15 DRtg with, 107.57 DRtg without (-0.42 change)
+1.22 net rating boost

‘87
32-37 (.464) with, 4-9 (.308) without
-1.72 SRS with, -7.44 SRS without (+5.72 change)
108.58 ORtg with, 104.91 ORtg without (+3.67 change)
109.1 DRtg with, 116.69 DRtg without (-7.59 change)
+11.26 net rating boost

‘89
51-22 (.699) with, 6-3 (.667) without
+8.19 SRS with, +6.04 SRS without (+2.15 change)
110.98 ORtg with, 107.53 ORtg without (+3.45 change)
103.19 DRtg with, 100.56 DRtg without (+2.63 change)
+0.82 net rating boost

‘90
35-27 (.565) with, 7-13 (.350) without [that's on pace for 46-47 wins with him, only 28-29 without]
+1.15 SRS with, -6.07 SRS without (+7.22 change)
108.48 ORtg with, 101.99 ORtg without (+6.49 change)
106.78 DRtg with, 108.49 DRtg without (-1.71 change)
+8.20 net rating boost


^^^I like that the 2-3 years showing the BIGGEST positive change/impact are also the years with the largest without samples [doesn't feel as flukey/sample-size related that way].

idk, that's what I got for now. I just think he's a really damn fine player, overlooked due to quite persona and the fact that the Cavs never quite got there. imo, he's probably BETTER THAN guys like Bill Laimbeer [who I've stated I feel is also one of the most underrated guys of all-time].

Alright, thanks a lot for this post trex. I didn't watch Nance much in Cavs, but he looked really good in Suns games I've seen recently. He's kind like Bobby Jones, but didn't have the same luck to play with someone like Julius. I voted for Bobby, so I would be hypocrite if I didn't vote for Larry in weaker class.

My list:
Magic Johnson
Charles Barkley
Clyde Drexler
Dominique Wilkins
Robert Parish
Larry Nance
Dennis Rodman
Lenny Wilkens
Maurice Cheeks
Mark Eaton

As I thought, I have a lot of picks from other classes here. I considered these players:

Kevin Johnson - I decided not to include him, because of his lack of durability and short prime. I have to pick ironmen like Cheeks and Wilkens over him.
Joe Dumars - one of my favorite players ever, but he's not HOF worthy to me. Extremely good at what he did, but limited player (terrible rebounder, good but not great playmaker, weak at generating turnovers).

Some may be surprised that I have Eaton that high, but I believe in his defensive impact. I've watched lots of 1980s Jazz games recently (Dantley obsession) and he was truly a game changer on that end. I expect Ben Wallace to make the list and I don't think Eaton was worse player than him.