RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #16 (Karl Malone)

[trex_8063]

2020 List
1. LeBron James
2. Michael Jordan
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Magic Johnson
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Larry Bird
11. Kevin Garnett
12. Kobe Bryant
13. Jerry West
14. Oscar Robertson
15. Dirk Nowitzki
16. ????

Target stop time will be around 4pm EST on Sunday.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Odinn21]

16. Moses Malone
I believe this will be my most controversial choice so far but I'm pretty confident in this pick.
His single season peak was tier 2 on overall for me. I'd put 1982 or 1983 Moses in the same tier as 2004 Garnett, even though I'd rate Garnett slightly higher. One of the things going for Moses though, his 3 season peak from 1980-81 to 1982-83 is definitely at the top level among the available names. He does not come short in peak, extended peak, prime and extended prime for me. His career resume is also massive.
He was one of the most skilled bigs on offense. His name rarely comes up among the best low post scorers but he literally had every move in his book and he was at least pretty good on some and great or best on most. Look at the players he thought; Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley. Also he was at least as good as old man Duncan from mid range.
The arguments against him usually go such as this;
- "He wouldn't be that good in the modern times which utilize PnR far more."
Portability is very important, yes. But, TBH, this is like saying Oscar Robertson did not shoot enough threes to me. Don't see the point of penalizing a player for a play style that was not there in his time.
Also, one of the things that gets easily overlooked while thinking about Moses' portability is that he's quite possibly the greatest foul drawing big. That would make wonders in any era. I don't have the exact numbers right now because BBRef made their play index service paid but I know that Moses Malone before fell out of his prime made young Hakeem Olajuwon fouled out in majority of their h2h games. I wrote the exact numbers in the past on the forum, if I find, I'll edit this part.
- "He was a negative impact on defense."
This is flat out wrong and it's not about some preference unlike the previous point. If Moses Malone was a negative impact on defense, then how did the Sixers improved on defense after losing their best defender in order to get Moses?
1982 Sixers; 7th in DRtg with -3.0 rDRtg
1983 Sixers; 5th in DRtg with -3.8 rDRtg
The thing about his defense was, he was inconsistent. He had bad defensive seasons and good defensive seasons, in the end both sides would cancel out each other and I'd put down Moses Malone as an average defender. But I never get the point of talking about him as if he was Nowitzki who got way more traction than him so far.
- "He was not an impact player."
This is also one of the wrong assumptions about him. I think I watched enough games of him to get the sense of a very positive impact player.
Also there was a Dipper 13 thread at the time, showing on/off Rtg numbers for the '80s Sixers. I'm looking for that, couldn't find it so far. If anyone has the link, it'd be appreciated.
Edit; Found it.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/edit#gid=459687126
Just look at the numbers he had in '83 and '85 in Philly. (I tend to consider 1984 of Moses as something like 2005 for Bryant, a down year but also an outlier.)

The only aspect I'd hold against him is his passing. He was not a black hole, he was a decent facilitator. Though his passing lacked in some sense and you wouldn't see him those cutting passes to a guard under the basket. That type of stuff was the only major gap in his game for me.
His skillset was great, his scoring volume was great, he had the proper impact on offense, he's among one of the greatest rebounders. We usually overlook rebounding, the neutral aspect of the game, in this offense and defense evaluations. His defensive inconsistencies and passing issues are there to be addressed surely but, his great qualities are enough for me to put him on 16th spot.

17. Karl Malone
This spot was between Erving, West (he's already in there) and Karl Malone for me.
Between the 3, I'd rank their peaks in Erving, West, Malone order. While Malone falls behind in peak, average prime level and postseason resilience categories, for me he makes up more than that with his longevity. I'm aware that it was harder for Erving and West to have that many quality seasons in their career due to their times. What makes Malone's case is his constantly being that good over a decade. His 1st prime season was 1988 and his best season was 10 years after in 1998 at his 34. It's very hard to leave out Malone for top 5 prime duration. That makes his career value bigger than Erving and West for me.

18. George Mikan
To be honest, I probably even watched footages of Bob Pettit way more than Mikan, let alone Russell or other '60s legends. But Mikan's legacy and impact has to be in the top 20. I'll never be sure about his exact placement on the list but it's time I start to include him on my ballot.

[penbeast0]

I tend to be more about prime and less about both absolute peak and about longevity than most. That said, none of my picks got in last time so I will cut and paste what I wrote then:

Mikan is clearly the strongest candidate here in terms of making it likely for your team to win multiple titles. He had an 8 year prime where he was probably the best player alive for all 8 and certainly for a good half of it (plus a short, ugly comeback that we try to ignore, like MJ's Washington years). His league was relatively weak compared to any other eras, even the 70s, and it was segregated (though he seemed better than the best of the Globies or Rens when they played against each other from what little anecdotal evidence I've read) so depending on the degree to which you discount it, that is certainly a factor. His playoff performances were strong. He had no out of prime years to speak of to pad his stats, and in fact the stats we have are problematic but for me, an 8 year prime is about where I quit worrying about short careers and I count prime years a lot more heavily than post or pre-prime years where the player is below All-Star level. I don't say every should vote for him, I do think everyone should at least consider his candidacy; when you signed up for this project you agreed not to say, "I don't look at players who played before . . . . since I haven't seen enough of them to judge." I never saw Mikan either. But by the best evidence we have, he's by far the most dominant guy left.

The next two spots are a lot closer and a lot more problematic. I have Karl Malone over Dirk in that debate; the lesser playoffs are an issue but his level of play was so strong and his incredible ironman act and motor to me are a major leadership plus. I have him over Moses both for his longer prime and better passing; Moses was bigger and even more physical but the passing is a problem. In terms of shorter careers, I have David Robinson, another player whose main knock (other than shorter career) is his playoff resume, and Steph Curry. Julius Erving is also definitely in the mix here for me. If I want to win a title with this guy as my best player, Curry or ABA Erving are my first choices and Julius played a longer time though his first years in Philly where he was trying to fit in rather than take over as the primary are an issue. Since contributing to a team's chance of being the best is my focus, I will go:

1. George Mikan
2. Julius Erving
3. Stephen Curry

Again, written in sand rather than set in stone.

[Cavsfansince84]

1. Dr. J
-great prime from 72-84 where he was likely a top 5 player in the world most years with a few years after where he was till a top 20-25 player
-won titles(3) in both leagues as well as mvps(4)
-great athlete who was also very portable/adaptable imo
-very good chemistry guy whose teams made it to 6 league finals and were essentially legit title contenders for a decade
-was good enough defender to make 1 all aba def 1st team(76)
-most all metrics have him compare favorably with other guys in the 10-20 range
-some great playoff runs where he could score in volume on great efficiency including 34.7ppg on 61%ts while winning a ring in 1976

2. Charles Barkley
-very good prime from imo 86-96
-tremendous all around offensive player and rebounder. His ability to do so many things well also makes him very portable imo
-I have him neck and neck with Karl Malone but ahead of him based on his consistency in the playoffs. At the end of the day I simply trust him more as my #1 guy in a 7 game series
-finished ahead of peak/prime MJ twice in mvp voting which shows you how highly he was thought of by voters at that time
-loved the effort he would put in to grab off rebounds, especially in the playoffs. I think off rebounds have the ability to sort of mentally crush opposing teams and he could just impose his will at times in the paint like few other players in nba history.

3. Karl Malone
-obviously one of the great primes/overall longevity guys in league history
-easy to build around imo with his post play, passing, pnr ability, rebounding and ability to run the court
-very solid defender with great ability to strip guys of their dribble
-very good rebounder even for a 4
-not a great playoff guy but good enough to get teams close and I think its underrated how much he carried the Jazz in those later years when Stockton had dropped off while he was still mvp caliber

[Magic Is Magic]

Voting for the #16 spot

1. David Robinson
2. Kevin Durant
3. Charles Barkley




1. I go with David Robinson here because of his elite ability to play both sides of the ball. Most of the players left are going to be great at offense or defense (and for most of them it will be offense) but his unique skillset of being able to do both at an all-time level plus and winning 2 rings (one of them as a main piece) is why he gets the nod. The only thing hurting him that someone like Karl Malone has over D-Rob is longevity and longevity is important but D-Rob still played 14 years. David Robinson's skill set is so rare, he has to be one of the very few to win a blocking title and scoring title in a career. I would be surprised to see if anyone else has ever done that but besides Kareem I don't think it's been done. Pair that with his DPOY award, an MVP and 2 chips and I think D-Rob wins this spot.

2. I hate Kevin Durant's move in 2017 but his overall resume is hard to ignore. 4x Scoring Champion, MVP, 3 Finals, 2 Finals MVPs, 11-straight seasons of 25 ppg or more, 10x All Star (Approaching Oscar who had 12), ROY. KD has averaged 25 ppg or higher every single playoff run and has one of the top 5 all time Finals by GameScore. 14th all time in MVP win shares, 10th all time in playoff points. Again, I hate his move in 2017 but the rest is hard to ignore. I don't think any player not already included in the top 14 has that resume to match up with him.

-Top 10 all time playoff scoring (every one ahead of him in playoff points is already ranked ahead of him except for Karl Malone and Tony Parker, but he will pass TP in his next playoff run)
-11-straight 25 ppg seasons
-EVERY playoff run is 25 ppg or higher
-4 Scoring Titles
-2 Finals MVPs
-1 Regular season MVP
-No one else is close if you ask me, and probably not even remotely close

3. Charles Barkley. Sir Charles is a legend, but a ringless legend! If he won a championship I'm sure he would be much higher up but I find it very hard to make the top 15 without a championship when so many other ATGs were able to win a ring. 11x All-Star, 11x All NBA, 1993 MVP and a brilliant Finals performance too. He also has the only single playoff game in league history with a GameScore over 50.0 (1994, WC1). He is a respectable top 25 in MVP win shares as well (Karl Malone is #8). I think 1993 is the one year where Jordan truly stopped someone from winning a championship because Barkley was on a roll and probably not losing to anybody except an all-time performance by MJ where had to average 40 ppg for the series to beat Chuck.

[DQuinn1575]

1. George Mikan - most dominant player left, would rank in Top 5 without an era adjustment. Going to downgrade him by 1/3 to put him in Top 15 range. Completely dominant, winning 7 championships and multiple scoring titles. He is downgraded for longevity, but he was the best player on more championships than anyone than Russell.

2. Karl Malone - lots of longevity, compares with Doctor J in terms of being Top 5 player, including above average defense. Not as spectacular as Doc, but more consistent scorer. Obviously no ring, but Doc wasn't the best player on an NBA title team.

3. Moses - he was probably better than Doc at their peak, especially when they won the title together. Other than Mikan, he is probably the last guy left who was the best in the world at one point.

[Gibson22]

1) Mikan
2) Karl Malone

My toughts are basically same as the poster above him (I would not say mikan top 5 without era adjustment but easily top 10).

3) Erving. Another really dominant player, not the greatest impact player or defender but Dominated at least 1 season and was the second best player of his decade. I have him slightly ahead of kd and drob. then i'd have curry

[Gibson22]

I don't like this list at this point. Duncan, magic, kg (don't feel strongly about this one) are all 4 or 5 positions higher than what i'd like. And shaq has no reason to be that low.

[70sFan]

Again, I hate his move in 2017 but the rest is hard to ignore. I don't think any player not already included in the top 14 has that resume to match up with him.

-Top 10 all time playoff scoring (every one ahead of him in playoff points is already ranked ahead of him except for Karl Malone and Tony Parker, but he will pass TP in his next playoff run)
-11-straight 25 ppg seasons
-EVERY playoff run is 25 ppg or higher
-4 Scoring Titles
-2 Finals MVPs
-1 Regular season MVP
-No one else is close if you ask me, and probably not even remotely close

Julius has comparable resume, probably better one to be honest:

- 3 rings,
- 4 MVPs,
- 2 FMVPs,
- 9 first team selections,
- 3 second team selections,
- 3 times scoring leader
- 9 seasons in top 5 MVP voting.

Not only it's close (unlike you said) but Julius has clearly better resume in terms of accolades.

[70sFan]

I don't like this list at this point. Duncan, magic, kg (don't feel strongly about this one) are all 4 or 5 positions higher than what i'd like. And shaq has no reason to be that low.

So you'd like to have Magic outside of top 10? Instead of who?

Shaq finished 8th, how is that low? Every player that finished ahead of him has good case for that. Shaq has plenty of black marks on his career for top 10 player ever, so there are actually many reasons not to rank him higher. Not everybody are all about peaks and not everybody believe that Shaq's peak is untouchable.

[Jaivl]

I don't like this list at this point. Duncan, magic, kg (don't feel strongly about this one) are all 4 or 5 positions higher than what i'd like. And shaq has no reason to be that low.

Well, and I don't like Wilt, Magic or West's placement (and in the case of West I really did not like the reasoning either) - being a collaborative project, everyone is gonna have some qualms with the final list. The only "solution" is doing your own top 100.

[70sFan]

I don't like this list at this point. Duncan, magic, kg (don't feel strongly about this one) are all 4 or 5 positions higher than what i'd like. And shaq has no reason to be that low.

Well, and I don't like Wilt, Magic or West's placement (and in the case of West I really did not like the reasoning either) - being a collaborative project, everyone is gonna have some qualms with the final list. The only "solution" is doing your own top 100.

Then I am in minority, because so far I love the results and I don't even vote! My top 10 is very close to this one (I'd have Magic a bit lower and Bird behind Garnett) and the 12-15 spots are also decent (though I would have Malone higher than Dirk).

Could you tell me why you don't like the reasoning behind ranking West 13th? Do you think he just wasn't good enough or is it related to his durability/longevity?

[Gibson22]

I'm not complaining, just expressing my opinion. I love these projects (and especially this one) no matter what.
My top 25 would look something like this

1 Lebron James
2 Kareem
3 Michael Jordan
4 Bill Russell
5 Shaq
6 Wilt
7 Hakeem
8 Bird
9 Jerry West
10 Oscar
11 Duncan
12 Kobe
13 Magic
14 Mikan
15 Malone
16 KG
17 Erving
18 Durant
19 Moses
20 David Robinson
21 Dirk
22 Curry
23 Pettit
24 Barkley
25 Wade
(26 Patrick Ewing
27 Chris Paul)

[Dutchball97]

1. Kevin Durant - Looks like I might be doing this for a while haha. I had a ghost vote last round but if it came to it I'd have chosen Dirk over Karl Malone as well. I've mentioned my argument for KD over Karl Malone already. I think KD peaked higher in the regular season than Karl Malone, Malone does have a substantial longevity advantage but I think KD was better in his prime by quite a bit as well. The real kicker is the play-offs where KD and Karl Malone have accumulated a similar amount of WS and VORP but KD did this in 139 games, where Karl Malone needed 193 games. Because of that I don't see a significant longevity edge for Malone that could bridge the peak/prime advantage of KD.

2. Julius Erving - I'm still not quite sure if I prefer KD or Dr J here tbh. Dr J is the GOAT ABA player and he had a legitmate argument to be the best player in the NBA from 80-82 as well. Dr J's 1976 peak didn't come against terrible competition. The ABA at that point was a serious league and not far behind the NBA at all. You've got to wonder what would've happened if the NBA stars of the 70s had to adapt to the ABA style/rules instead of Dr J having to adapt to the NBA. What ifs are just what ifs though so I'm going with KD for my pick but if any of my votes are going to count this round it's probably going to be Dr J.

3. Stephen Curry - Another guy I'm very high on already even if he still has more elite years ahead of him. He has an argument for the best regular season peak ever and while his numbers in the play-offs might not be as impressive as his regular season numbers, Steph is still one of the most proven play-off performers we've seen. Making the finals 5 years in a row, winning 3 of those, is very impressive by any standard. I prefer KD for now because his prime is a bit longer but Curry definitely has been gaining on him the last years.

[Dutchball97]

Again, I hate his move in 2017 but the rest is hard to ignore. I don't think any player not already included in the top 14 has that resume to match up with him.

-Top 10 all time playoff scoring (every one ahead of him in playoff points is already ranked ahead of him except for Karl Malone and Tony Parker, but he will pass TP in his next playoff run)
-11-straight 25 ppg seasons
-EVERY playoff run is 25 ppg or higher
-4 Scoring Titles
-2 Finals MVPs
-1 Regular season MVP
-No one else is close if you ask me, and probably not even remotely close

Julius has comparable resume, probably better one to be honest:

- 3 rings,
- 4 MVPs,
- 2 FMVPs,
- 9 first team selections,
- 3 second team selections,
- 3 times scoring leader
- 9 seasons in top 5 MVP voting.

Not only it's close (unlike you said) but Julius has clearly better resume in terms of accolades.

With how hard you've been going against KD I'm positively surprised to see we agree on KD/Dr J being a pretty close comparison. Seems like we might not be that far apart on this one after all.

[sansterre]

I thought I'd wake up this morning and do some stat-analysis of David Robinson's team performance in the playoffs. Not whether or not they won; we know his teammates were fairly garbage for everything before 1998.

So I crunched his team's playoff ORating and DRating (adjusted for the teams they played) for each year of the playoffs. I can do the individual year breakdowns, but here's the summary:

Offensive Rating Pre-Duncan (RS / PS): +1.87 / +0.92
Defensive Rating Pre-Duncan (RS / PS): +-3.07 / -3.27

So, assuming his teammate performance stayed constant (quite an assumption), his team's offensive performance dropped by almost a point in the playoffs, but his teams' defenses actually got slightly better. So as much of a defensive world-beater as he was in the regular season (and a ton of things point to him being at that level) he (implicitly) was better in the playoffs.

In these years, in the regular season, he averaged 54.4% of his team's combined VORP. This is a really, really, really high number. In the playoffs he averaged only 44.6% of his team's combined VORP. So his numbers fell off (as I figured they would). But 44.6% is still a ton. And here's a neat stat:

Robinson's Playoff VORP Share when the Spurs only made the 1st Round: 53.6%
Robinson's Playoff VORP Share when the Spurs made the 2nd Round: 42.0%
Robinson's Playoff VORP Share when the Spurs made the Conference Finals: 35.1%

In other words, when his teammates played better (or were better), which shrank his VORP share, his teams went farther. This, again, is a long way of saying that Robinson's teammates were very weak, and he alone could really only take them so far.

So how good was playoff Robinson? Still an above-average offensive player and still a fantastic defender. I think it's very easy to argue for playoff Robinson being better (per season) than anyone being talked about right now, except Durant and Mikan. Downside, I realized that he missed a postseason with injury, so now he only has 20% more playoff opportunity than Durant, and 2/3 of Karl Malone.

As far as votes:

1. Julius Erving - a solid blend of reasonable longevity and quality performance. This relies heavily on his ABA years, but I'm not a huge fan of anyone else.
2. Karl Malone - I hate how comparably weak he is in the playoffs (though he's still decent enough), but his playoff opportunities are so high it gets weird to argue against him.
3. David Robinson - An only decent scorer in the playoffs, but his rebounding, solid passing and excellent defense make him incredibly additive. Alas that we never got to see him add to anyone until Duncan was acquired.

Weirdly, while my Robinson project confirmed my assessment that his overall impact didn't wane too much in the playoffs (especially on defense), the realization that he had one less playoff opportunity than I thought makes him a harder sell.

[Baski]

I don't like this list at this point. Duncan, magic, kg (don't feel strongly about this one) are all 4 or 5 positions higher than what i'd like. And shaq has no reason to be that low.

Doesn't look too bad to me. The only guy I find to be highly over-ranked is KG. With everyone else it's just them being placed like 1 or 2 spots outside of where I think they should, which isn't that much of a problem as they're all pretty great players.

[70sFan]

I'm not complaining, just expressing my opinion. I love these projects (and especially this one) no matter what.
My top 25 would look something like this

1 Lebron James
2 Kareem
3 Michael Jordan
4 Bill Russell
5 Shaq
6 Wilt
7 Hakeem
8 Bird
9 Jerry West
10 Oscar
11 Duncan
12 Kobe
13 Magic
14 Mikan
15 Malone
16 KG
17 Erving
18 Durant
19 Moses
20 David Robinson
21 Dirk
22 Curry
23 Pettit
24 Barkley
25 Wade
(26 Patrick Ewing
27 Chris Paul)

Kobe and West over Magic is not something I'd defend and I love West game. Duncan outside of top 10 is also very strange, especially when you have Shaq and Hakeem much higher.

[70sFan]

Again, I hate his move in 2017 but the rest is hard to ignore. I don't think any player not already included in the top 14 has that resume to match up with him.

-Top 10 all time playoff scoring (every one ahead of him in playoff points is already ranked ahead of him except for Karl Malone and Tony Parker, but he will pass TP in his next playoff run)
-11-straight 25 ppg seasons
-EVERY playoff run is 25 ppg or higher
-4 Scoring Titles
-2 Finals MVPs
-1 Regular season MVP
-No one else is close if you ask me, and probably not even remotely close

Julius has comparable resume, probably better one to be honest:

- 3 rings,
- 4 MVPs,
- 2 FMVPs,
- 9 first team selections,
- 3 second team selections,
- 3 times scoring leader
- 9 seasons in top 5 MVP voting.

Not only it's close (unlike you said) but Julius has clearly better resume in terms of accolades.

With how hard you've been going against KD I'm positively surprised to see we agree on KD/Dr J being a pretty close comparison. Seems like we might not be that far apart on this one after all.

I view them as comparable players prime for prime, but I give Julius edge due to more versatile game and better postseason performance. If you count longevity though (and I do), then Durant has no case over Julius. I already explained that Julius had one third longer prime and much better non-prime seasons than KD.

[eminence]

I thought I'd wake up this morning and do some stat-analysis of David Robinson's team performance in the playoffs. Not whether or not they won; we know his teammates were fairly garbage for everything before 1998.

So I crunched his team's playoff ORating and DRating (adjusted for the teams they played) for each year of the playoffs. I can do the individual year breakdowns, but here's the summary:

Offensive Rating Pre-Duncan (RS / PS): +1.87 / +0.92
Defensive Rating Pre-Duncan (RS / PS): +-3.07 / -3.27

So, assuming his teammate performance stayed constant (quite an assumption), his team's offensive performance dropped by almost a point in the playoffs, but his teams' defenses actually got slightly better. So as much of a defensive world-beater as he was in the regular season (and a ton of things point to him being at that level) he (implicitly) was better in the playoffs.

May I ask the methodology here? I feel like I remember seeing a worrying trend of his team defense scaling to opponent (better against weaker teams), with the only standout performance against a strong team being the '93 series vs the Suns.