RealGM

Posted: **Thu Dec 10, 2020 11:27 pm**

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. Karl Malone
17. David Robinson
18. Julius Erving
19. George Mikan
20. Moses Malone
21. Charles Barkley
22. Kevin Durant
23. Chris Paul
24. Stephen Curry
25. Bob Pettit
26. John Stockton
27. Steve Nash
28. Dwyane Wade
29. ???

Target stop time around 6pm EST on Saturday.

btw---As we're using Condorcet results to "validate" default winners and [potentially] decide ties, etc (again: protocol below)......it will save me some effort in chasing you all down, and potentially save time for EVERYONE if EVERYONE [regardless of who you vote for], clearly state your opinion within your vote post among the heavy-hitters for any given spot.
For this one [based on votes from last round], I expect Patrick Ewing and James Harden to probably be the two front-runners.

Spoiler:

Moving forward, I want to make sure everyone knows EXACTLY what to expect in a future contentious vote; so below is a flow-chart (which is consistent with precedent that has already occurred in this project):

1) ranked vote system (RVS) like we've been doing with three ordered picks. If a majority or **default victory is NOT obtained by a single player with this method.....

2) ....we go to Condorcet method [of the "finalist" players] among the original counted voters [which is a very natural "continuation" of a RVS, btw, given the entire point of the RVS is to better ensure everyone gets a counted vote] to determine a winner. BUT we will wait no longer than 24 hours after the original deadline to hear from everyone (and there's no mystery to figuring if you're one of the people I need to hear from: it's easy enough for any of you to tell without my asking each of you [if two or more of the three "finalists" were not on your original vote post, I don't know what your position is on them]).

IF the Condorcet method yields a tie OR I do not hear from every original voter wrt his player hierarchy within 24 hours of the original deadline and the tabulated Condorcet results still indicate undecided (i.e. that it could go either way if all votes were in).....

3) .....we will go to a "sudden death" runoff, wherein the first finalist to receive [at least] TWO new votes [which can come from one of the original Condorcet hold-outs] AND be in the lead by Condorcet method (including BOTH original voters and runoff voters) will be awarded the spot.

**All default victories will be "validity checked" via the Condorcet method. As long as the default victor does NOT lose to one of the other finalists via Condorcet, the default victory will be upheld, and he will be awarded the spot.
IF, otoh, he loses to one [or more] competitors via Condorcet method, we will enter a "sudden death" runoff that follows the same rules as indicated in #3 above.

Posted: **Thu Dec 10, 2020 11:35 pm**

RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project Tier List

Tier 1: LeBron James, Michael Jordan

Tier 1.5: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Tier 2: Bill Russell, Tim Duncan, Wilt Chamberlain

Tier 3: Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett

Tier 4: Kobe Bryant, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson

Tier 4.5: Dirk Nowitzki

Tier 5: Karl Malone, David Robinson, Julius Erving, George Mikan, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Steph Curry, Bob Pettit, John Stockton, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade

Tier 6: Thread #29

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:31 am**

1. John Havlicek
-11x all nba 1st or 2nd team(4 1st)
-7x all nba defense(5 1st) and played 6 years before those were created
-7x top 10 in mvp voting
-8x champ and 1 fmvp(strong case in 69 as well averaging 28.1/11.0/4.4 on 52% ts)
-led 3 title teams in playoff scoring, assists and win shares(68, 69 and 74)
-great all around skills(led Celtics in scoring 7x, apg 7x, win shares 6x)
-great chemistry/leadership/hustle guy

2. Walt Frazier
-I want to start this off by saying that I also strongly considered Ewing, Barry, Pippen and Harden for this spot. What I really like about Walt is that he is one of the things I most prize in any bb player which is someone who can do multiple things well and has no real weakness. Imo those are the players easiest to build title teams around. With Walt you get a floor leader, highly efficient scorer, very good passer/rebounder and goat level defender at his position. You also get a guy with very good size/athleticism and who could lift his game in the playoffs when necessary to win titles which he did(twice). The only thing he lacks is a lenghty prime(only 7-8 years) which I had to take into account and which kept me from voting for him until now.
-I also want to mention that those Knicks teams are considered to be quite talented and deep teams but that Frazier was leading them in ppg, apg and win shares in both rs and ps most every year from 1970-1975. During the 1973 title run he had 3.0 win shares followed by Monroe with 1.9 and Phil Jackson with 1.1 while leading them to wins over a 68 win Celtics team in the ecf and 60 win Laker team in the finals.
-6x all nba(4x 1st team)
-7x all defensive 1st team
-career ts add of 1109 with 4 straight years over 170 from 70-73 and 6 years over 100
-led offenses that were generally top 8 by ORtg peaking at top 3 twice
-from 69-75 playoffs averaged 21.2/7.2rpg/6.4apg on 56.4% ts including the 36/7/19 on 78%ts game 7 in the 1970 finals(imo deserved the fmvp)

3. Rick Barry
-this is a very close one for me between Rick, Pippen, Ewing, Harden and Baylor. I went with Barry mainly because at the end of the day he led a team to a title, has very good rs accolades(though close with Harden and Baylor) and imo was consistently the best in the playoffs out of this group. He also played in a tougher era for wings but was still very effective as a scorer and playmaker.
-11x all league(9x 1st team)
-6x top 5 in mvp voting
-led league in scoring in 67 with 35.6ppg on +195 ts add
-overall very efficient volume scorer with career ts+ of 104(2% above league average) and 6 straight years with ts add over 120
-led league in playoff ppg 3x
-from 73-77 led the Warriors in ppg and apg while those teams ranked 11th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd and 4th in ORtg showing how well he could run an offense
-epic 75 playoff run in which he won ring/fmvp

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:37 am**

I believe this'll be my last vote in the project, at least for quite some time. I'll leave my whole rankings to #40 if you decide to use my rankings.

I don't have a pre-set rankings to follow. I learn about my list as I go. This time, I'll go a bit further than usual.

29. Patrick Ewing
I think his defense, performance/quality/impact wise, a bit underrated. With Riley, he was the centre piece of one of the best defensive teams ever. I don't have the exact numbers as of now but when I compared Nash led offense in playoffs in Phoenix and Ewing led defense in playoffs from '92 to '96, they were pretty much on par. And we all know how great that Phoenix offense was. We just do not acknowledge the defensive quality of the NY team enough. Ewing was not entirely suitable to carry an offense, similar to Robinson. But he was still productive and his offensive production was resilient enough.

30. Elgin Baylor
This may seem too old school. And I'd already concede that Baylor was not the highest impact player. But he still had pretty good impact and his on court production was great. I think it's quite forgotten that Baylor had a 41/18/4 series against the Celtics in '62. Bill Russell had to play arguably the best game 7 in the game history to deny Baylor and the Lakers. It's kind of unfair to Baylor, thinking that West gets so much love for '69 Finals but Baylor doesn't for '62 Finals.
Had he not gotten injured in '65, I think he'd be higher on this list.

31. Rick Barry
Ewing and Baylor were already on my list. This is the spot I'll be thinking while moving forward.
I had Rick Barry, Walt Frazier and John Havlicek for this spot. I initially had Frazier for this spot but his prime lasted shorter than both and I don't see a particular gap on performance level to make up for it. Havlicek was a more complete player than Barry but Barry's abilities mattered slightly more. So, I'll have Barry, Havlicek, Frazier order.

32. John Havlicek
Already explained in Rick Barry's section.

33. Walt Frazier
Already explained in Rick Barry's section. Though, I'll add this about Frazier's defensive quality;

Spoiler:

Odinn21 wrote:
Whopper_Sr wrote:You're saying Kidd and Frazier had near DPOY-level impact without providing rim protection? How did they fare/would fare against star wings?

Frazier always caused big troubles to the player he defended.

A quick look at the star players played against the Knicks in the playoffs during Frazier's prime;
E. Monroe against Frazier in '69 playoffs - 28.3 ppg on .386 fg (25.8 ppg on .440 fg r. season average for Monroe and his team was .427 against the Knicks)
E. Monroe in '70; 28.0 ppg on .481 fg (23.4 ppg on .446 fg r. season and .418 fg team)
E. Monroe in '71; 24.4 ppg on .407 fg (21.4 ppg on .442 fg r. season and .448 fg team)
S. Jones in '69; 14.5 ppg on .350 fg (16.3 ppg on .450 fg r. season and .469 fg team)
P. Maravich in '71; 22.0 ppg on .377 fg (23.2 ppg on .458 fg r. season and .427 fg team)
J. West in '70; 31.3 ppg on .450 fg (31.2 ppg on .497 fg r. season and .494 fg team)
J. West in '72; 19.8 ppg on .325 fg (25.8 ppg on .477 fg r. season and .421 fg team)
J. West in '73; 21.4 ppg on .442 fg (22.8 ppg on .479 fg r. season and .431 fg team)
J. White in '72; 22.6 ppg on .402 fg (23.1 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .416 fg team)
J. White in '73; 23.6 ppg on .414 fg (19.7 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .443 fg team)
J. White in '74; 15.2 ppg on .385 fg (18.1 ppg on .449 fg r. season and .467 fg team)
C. Murphy in '75; 20.7 ppg on .418 fg (18.7 ppg on .484 fg r. season and .481 fg team)

The only time a player improved their scoring volume and fg% from the floor was Monroe in 1970. There are 12 performances on there and literally half of them regressed in both volume and % against Frazier. Other than those 6, I'd put also '69 against Monroe, '70 against West and '75 against Murphy as definite wins in Frazier's case. That's 9 out of 12.
That's a pretty impressive track record if you ask me. Especially considering defense was more about 1v1 performances back then meaning those performance drops were more directly related to Frazier than team's defensive schemes.

34. James Harden
With better postseason resilience, intangibles, off-ball play and defense he could be way higher.
I expect some to argue as this way too low for him but I just don't see him over the players I voted higher. Simple as that. Their peaks, primes, prime durations, longevities were already on the same level. So those negatives have a serious impact against them.

35. Jason Kidd
Next group of players to consider for me are; Kidd, Drexler, Miller, Pippen, Payton, Gilmore, Gervin, Zeke.
I'll start thinking with Pippen. I think he's usually overrated and overranked. Not saying this because he has that many rings. He had decent scoring volume and he did everything else good or better. The thing though, he was in such setup that he got to show his versatility more than enough. And it's overstated about him. Jordan was lucky to have Pippen for a decade? Yeah, so was Pippen. 1994 Bulls get brought up in these conversations but it should be noted that the Bulls board made some good moves to strengthen the roster. I'm yet to indulge his position against those players but I just don't see the point of putting Pippen over Gervin for example, because prime Gervin was in a rather Dwyane Wade or Kevin Garnett situation and Pippen got to play with one of the 4 goat candidates.
I guess I'll go with Kidd for this spot because Kidd's peak seasons were still great. Many seem to look at the fact that the East was weak but overlook the fact that the Nets weren't great to begin with. There's always a ratio between the help a player gets and the competition his team faces. Kidd did great.
One thing about Kidd and his impact, in 2004 Kidd was playing with one good leg and Martin wasn't fully healthy and they took the Pistons to a game 7. They gave the Pistons the hell despite being so broken. Surely, Martin and Jefferson improved massively in the mean time. But if Kidd's success was only related to a weak conference, they wouldn't do that well against probably the best (non Russell led) defensive team ever with those issues.
Kidd's the one checks my boxes the most properly. Peak, average prime level, prime duration, longevity and intangibles (as basketball related).

36. George Gervin
I'm more of a peak/prime guy. I'd take 5-7 seasons with higher chance of winning than 9-10 season with lower chance of winning. I think we're too used to talk about goat stuff and too used to see goats being goats and the constant hype and narrative around winning. If I'm a fan of an NBA team, I'd take 1 NBA title + 2 conference finals exits + 2 first round exits + 5 missed playoffs over 1 conference finals + 7 second round exits + 2 first round exits. No debate.
This is not particularly about Gervin, I explained my preferences.
And with that, I'll have Gervin and Drexler over Reggie Miller. Between Gervin and Drexler, Drexler was more versatile but the quality of Gervin led offenses always just felt better to me. And neither were Frazier on defense, Gervin takes it over Drexler for me.

37. Clyde Drexler
Almost all of it is explained in Gervin's section. One minor addition, I talked about Pippen being overrated but that shouldn't mean that I'm underrating his quality. Kidd and Gervin were the only two those felt clear enough to put them ahead clearly.

38. Reggie Miller
Miller got this spot over Pippen, Payton, Zeke and Gilmore because his prime duration was significantly longer and those 4 didn't make up for it with their quality. I doubt if they made some TBH. Miller's off-ball play had such significance. O'Neal had massive off-ball presence / gravity because you just can't leave him 1v1. Miller OTOH, worked his ass off without the ball. He didn't have big assist numbers but despite being a 3 apg shooting guard, he created more than 5 apg shooting guards.

39. Isiah Thomas
TBH, not entirely sure about this pick. But my remaining candidates other than Gilmore for this spot have some sort of too much winning bias to be addressed. Thomas was declining when the Pistons started to be the Bad Boys, Payton's reputation is mostly coming from his 1996 season and I already talked about Pippen.
Thomas' on court production was getting lower while the team was getting better. I'm not saying there's a direct correlation. It's just that, it can be interpreted something like Garnett scoring 18.8 ppg in 2008 for the Boston team. Lower than his usual prime average and already on the decline. But it still mattered.
So, unless this thought of mine changes so drastically, I think I'm going to keep Thomas over the other names.

40. Scottie Pippen
By #39, Pippen will be on the list. It's just that where he happened to be on my list. Now, it's too hard to deny him for Gilmore or Payton.

41. Artis Gilmore
Well, I'm tired right now. I guess this could be my longest post on the RealGM message board now.

I'll keep it short. Had Payton managed to keep his defensive level while he improved on offense, he'd be on this spot. Heck, he'd probably in the top 35. But he didn't. It's reminder of that there's only so much a player can have. It goes to show his limitations. And Gilmore's prime level and prime duration are the deciders for me.

Edit; Forgot about Harden for a moment there.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:49 am**

Again there are a bunch of guys I could support and the last couple of picks and the next several could all be easily swapped around without my feeling someone is out of place. My carry over choices are Ewing and Frazier -- both great defensively, both very good offensively, both strong leaders. Frazier's case would be based on his great playoff performances, particularly in the finals. Like Hakeem or Jordan, he stepped up his game on the biggest stage. Ewing, on the other hand, has a long prime as a great player and is a center in an era where center is still influencing more plays than any other position. If I was starting a team and could pick one of these guys to start it with, it would be Ewing so I will go with that.

Behind them, I probably should vote Harden as the most individually dominant player. Good arguments for Barry and Havlicek but if I ignore leadership issues, I'd go Harden over Barry anyway and Rick was a pain to be around. Havlicek had some good years but I have him slightly behind Pippen. Baylor early in his career had some magnificent years and while I know others have issues with his taking more shots than Jerry West, they still were consistent finalists with donut teams in the era of the center dominated league.

1. Patrick Ewing
2. Walt Frazier
3. Elgin Baylor

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:05 am**

Let us please talk about someone who [imo] is one of the most underrated players of his era. Outside of RealGM, I don't know of a single source that has ranked him inside the top 30 [and many lock him out of even the top 35]. And yet some of these same sources will rank Hakeem in the top 10. How do we justify such a divide?

Mostly, Hakeem's got the narrative ("led a bunch of scrubs/role players/[insert your description] to a title").
I think it's often forgotten how close that was to being EWING'S NARRATIVE.

That '94 Finals went 7 games, and the Knicks actually outscored the Rockets by 6 pts in it. Not a single one of the Knick losses were by more than 7 pts (while their wins were by 8, 9, and 7, respectively).

The Knicks were leading that series 3-2, and had a chance to win game 6 (this was Hakeem's famous block of John Starks).

In game 7, it basically took John Starks having the single-worst shooting night of his entire life [in game 7 of the finals, can you imagine? Must be a basketball player's worst nightmare] for the Rockets to win. Starks was 0 for 11 from downtown, and only 2 of 18 total from the field. He finished with 8 pts on 20.2% TS.......this is their 2nd option. The Knicks lost the game by 6. This was a Paul George in game 7 against the Nuggets level collapse.

It's not hard to imagine a scenario where Starks shoots merely "kinda bad" (like 5 of 18 from the field [either 2 or 3 of 11 from trey].....which is still only 40.5-43.0% TS), and the Knicks winning. But he didn't just shoot "kinda bad"; he didn't just shoot "REALLY bad"; he shot "omg so horrid I just want to crawl into a hole and die bad".....and the Knicks lost a close one.

btw, I don't want to sound like I'm dumping all over Starks here; he'd played a fantastic series up that point, and is a big factor in why they made it that far. jsia.....if he could have managed just one more merely "not horrid" performance, the Knicks have a title [and Ewing has a FMVP].
There's not a list in the world that doesn't have Ewing in the top 30 [and probably one or two that have him in the top 20] if Starks shoots better that night. It was that close to re-writing the narrative on TWO all-timers.

To some degree Ewing's playoff record haunts him [perhaps justifiably so]. Though I'll point out in this instance where they came about as close as you can come to a title without getting it, Ewing led the team in playoff PER, WS/48, and BPM [while also leading the team in mpg].

In a more general sense, I read sentiment that it's hard to build a seriously GOOD team around Patrick Ewing [subtext: because he's just not good enough to do it easily].
To those who share that sentiment it should be pointed out that the Knicks went to the playoffs 13 consecutive years while built primarily around Patrick Ewing, losing in the 1st round only twice. They went as far as the conference finals FOUR times, making it to the finals TWICE (and again: coming so so bloody close in '94).

I just want to point out how many franchises [regardless of who they're built around] can claim a stretch of 13 [or more] years in which they went as far as the 2nd round [or division finals around the 50s and 60s, of the ~8-team league] at least 11 times:

Knicks '88-'00
Celtics '57-'69
Celtics '80-'92
Lakers '48-'61 or Lakers '61-'73 (barely any overlap)
Lakers '77-'89 (or '78-'90 or '78-'91)
Bulls '86-'98
Spurs '95-'07 (or '96-'08 or '98-'10)

.....and I think that's it.
The Ewing Knicks are also the *only team that took Jordan's Bulls to 7 games during their championship years (*although I've been vocal in noting the '98 Finals should have gone 7 games if the refs hadn't missed two major calls), fwiw.

He's overshadowed in terms of DPOY and/or All-Defensive accolades because his career almost exactly overlaps with those of Hakeem, DRob, Dikembe, and Mourning......although there was a dearth of quality depth at the center position in this time, the talent at top for that position [that is: the competition for media-awarded accolades] has arguably NEVER been better.
I'm willing to bet Dwight Howard does no better [or even as good] on this front if his career overlapped with these guys.

But Ewing anchored [or at worst "co-anchored"] TWO of the greatest defensive squads in NBA history (two of the top 3-4 defenses of the last 30 years), while simultaneously being the 1st option on offense [even if he wasn't terrifically suited to that role]. There are not a lot of guys who can anchor an elite defense AND score 23-27 ppg [even if it is on average(ish) efficiency].

And Ewing had more than respectable longevity as well.
I know there isn’t a mainstream list that has Ewing in the top 30, though I think that’s because they’re all too often based heavily on media accolades [which he just misses out on by having career overlap with Hakeem, Robinson, and Mutombo] and rings.

I'll also quote this post of mine from prior thread:

trex_8063 wrote:Below are the 23 all-time greatest team defenses in all of NBA/ABA history (for simplicity, based just on rs rDRTG)....

'64 Celtics: -10.8
'65 Celtics: -9.4
'04 Spurs: -8.8
'08 Celtics: -8.6
'62 Celtics: -8.5
'63 Celtics: -8.5
'93 Knicks: -8.3
'94 Knicks: -8.1
'20 Bucks: -7.7
'52 Lakers: -7.6
'61 Celtics: -7.6
'04 Pistons: -7.5 (*even better late-season after acquiring Sheed)
'16 Spurs: -7.4
'14 Pacers: -7.4
'05 Spurs: -7.3
'99 Spurs: -7.2
'11 Celtics: -7.0
'11 Bulls: -7.0
'07 Bulls: -6.9
'66 Celtics: -6.6
'06 Spurs: -6.6
'07 Spurs: -6.6
'70 Knicks: -6.6

Just pointing out that TWO of the top 8 EVER were Ewing Knicks teams. Yes, these teams had an excellent defensive-minded coach, a roster packed with guys who were "more defense than offense". But still, you don't achieve those kinds of results without an all-time tier defensive big in the middle.
We're talking about TWO defenses that only ONE of Duncan's teams, ONE Garnett team, and only 4 (of 13) of Bill Russell's teams ever bested......NO ONE else managed better.
And note that there is not a single team of Hakeem's, or Dikembe's, or Wilt's, or any Utah team (Eaton/Gobert), or any ABA Gilmore team, etc on this list.

Because his shot block numbers don't quite stack up, Ewing is often held in substantially lower esteem defensively than some of his same-era peers......but he really wasn't far behind [at all] guys like Hakeem, DRob, Deke in their respective primes.
And he did so while being relied upon for anywhere from 22-29 ppg [on anywhere from -1% to +7% rTS].

Considering all of the above, I'm set.....
1st vote: Patrick Ewing

2nd vote: Scottie Pippen
Somewhat set on this pick for my #2.
Was he a great scorer? No, he wasn't......but he was a good one.
Was he a great rebounding SF? No, he wasn't......but he was a [really] good one.
Was he a great playmaking SF? Here I'd hedge toward yes. Not Lebron-level, or Bird-level either; but REALLY damn good in this regard. A stronger feature than his scoring or rebounding, imo.
Was he a great defensive SF? Duh.

Add all those things up, and this becomes somewhat the ultimate utility knife, and someone who is pretty portable on excellent teams, too. He's got the rep of the GOAT #2 for how he meshed with Jordan to form a dynasty.
He didn't mesh half-bad [at least in terms of play-style] with a contender/near-contender Rockets team, despite being arguably past his prime.
Then he meshed well as a MAJOR contributor with a contender-level Blazer team [despite being more definitively past his prime].

The end result has left him 13th all-time in playoff WS (NBA and ABA) and 8th in playoff VORP [since 1973]; he's 45th and 24th, respectively, in the rs in those metrics.
In his late prime and early post-prime, his league rank in RAPM was 6th in '97, 21st in '98, tied for 30th in '99, still solid [+2.5] in '00.
His rs pseudo-APM rank in '94-'96 were 18th, 5th, and 4th in the league.

And overall 15 seasons of actual "value added" for his career.

3rd vote: ???
idk. I'll come back to this. Strongly considering Elgin Baylor, John Havlicek, Jason Kidd, and James Harden.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:44 am**

trex_8063 wrote:

Let us please talk about someone who [imo] is one of the most underrated players of his era. Outside of RealGM, I don't know of a single source that has ranked him inside the top 30 [and many lock him out of even the top 35]. And yet some of these same sources will rank Hakeem in the top 10. How do we justify such a divide?

Mostly, Hakeem's got the narrative ("led a bunch of scrubs/role players/[insert your description] to a title").
I think it's often forgotten how close that was to being EWING'S NARRATIVE.

That '94 Finals went 7 games, and the Knicks actually outscored the Rockets by 6 pts in it. Not a single one of the Knick losses were by more than 7 pts (while their wins were by 8, 9, and 7, respectively).

The Knicks were leading that series 3-2, and had a chance to win game 6 (this was Hakeem's famous block of John Starks).

In game 7, it basically took John Starks having the single-worst shooting night of his entire life [in game 7 of the finals, can you imagine? Must be a basketball player's worst nightmare] for the Rockets to win. Starks was 0 for 11 from downtown, and only 2 of 18 total from the field. He finished with 8 pts on 20.2% TS.......this is their 2nd option. The Knicks lost the game by 6. This was a Paul George in game 7 against the Nuggets level collapse.

It's not hard to imagine a scenario where Starks shoots merely "kinda bad" (like 5 of 18 from the field [either 2 or 3 of 11 from trey].....which is still only 40.5-43.0% TS), and the Knicks winning. But he didn't just shoot "kinda bad"; he didn't just shoot "REALLY bad"; he shot "omg so horrid I just want to crawl into a hole and die bad".....and the Knicks lost a close one.

btw, I don't want to sound like I'm dumping all over Starks here; he'd played a fantastic series up that point, and is a big factor in why they made it that far. jsia.....if he could have managed just one more merely "not horrid" performance, the Knicks have a title [and Ewing has a FMVP].
There's not a list in the world that doesn't have Ewing in the top 30 [and probably one or two that have him in the top 20] if Starks shoots better that night. It was that close to re-writing the narrative on TWO all-timers.

To some degree Ewing's playoff record haunts him [perhaps justifiably so]. Though I'll point out in this instance where they came about as close as you can come to a title without getting it, Ewing led the team in playoff PER, WS/48, and BPM [while also leading the team in mpg].

In a more general sense, I read sentiment that it's hard to build a seriously GOOD team around Patrick Ewing [subtext: because he's just not good enough to do it easily].
To those who share that sentiment it should be pointed out that the Knicks went to the playoffs 13 consecutive years while built primarily around Patrick Ewing, losing in the 1st round only twice. They went as far as the conference finals FOUR times, making it to the finals TWICE (and again: coming so so bloody close in '94).

I just want to point out how many franchises [regardless of who they're built around] can claim a stretch of 13 [or more] years in which they went as far as the 2nd round [or division finals around the 50s and 60s, of the ~8-team league] at least 11 times:

I'll also quote this post of mine from prior thread:
trex_8063 wrote:Below are the 23 all-time greatest team defenses in all of NBA/ABA history (for simplicity, based just on rs rDRTG)....

Just pointing out that TWO of the top 8 EVER were Ewing Knicks teams. Yes, these teams had an excellent defensive-minded coach, a roster packed with guys who were "more defense than offense". But still, you don't achieve those kinds of results without an all-time tier defensive big in the middle.
We're talking about TWO defenses that only ONE of Duncan's teams, ONE Garnett team, and only 4 (of 13) of Bill Russell's teams ever bested......NO ONE else managed better.
And note that there is not a single team of Hakeem's, or Dikembe's, or Wilt's, or any Utah team (Eaton/Gobert), or any ABA Gilmore team, etc on this list.

I just want to say if you are going to bring up the 94 finals and Starks play in game 7 then it also seems fair to mention Ewing posting a 39.0 ts% for that series(on 23fgapg) while Hakeem was the leading scorer in every game in that series. I think that highlights to me the problem I have with running an offense through him(he only averaged 1.7apg also) as compared to Hakeem. Plus as you mentioned those Knicks teams did overload on defense which is why I think only 1 of those 90's Knicks teams were in the upper half of the league in ORtg. So they definitely did sacrifice offense for defense in a way that most title teams aren't forced to which gave them great defensive stats but at the cost of a championship caliber offense.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:41 am**

Hello all, placing my Vote for #29

1. James Harden
2. Scottie Pippen
3. Kawhi Leonard

1. No one else left has Harden's offensive firepower. Think about this, Harden dropped 36 ppg in the modern era! He also accumulated three scoring titles, an MVP, and an assist title. Very few have won both an assist and scoring title in their NBA career. Not to mention he is an 8x all-star, but the thing holding him back the most is lack of Finals appearances and rings. He only has 1 Finals appearance, although I feel if CP3 didn't get hurt in 2018 playoffs then Harden most likely wins his first title and possibly the FMVP. I can't count LeBron out completely in 2018 but if Chris Paul doesn't get hurt in 2018 then Harden likely wins his 1st ring (finally). Harden also has 6x all NBA 1st teams (more than some guys voted before him such as: Barkley, Erving, Dirk, KG, Moses, Robinson, Russell, Curry, & Nash [And Wade and Pippen if people are voting them in]).

2. Talk about a true swiss army knife of basketball. The ultimate #2 option for a vast number of reasons. Capable of 20 ppg during an era where most #2 options did not score 20 with consistency. Pippen also is a really good rebounder, and his team's offensive playmaker (assist leader), the team's defensive anchor, and ultimate glue guy. He only had 2 seasons on his own as the #1 option but already his RS peak was 3rd in MVP voting (1994) so that matches Wade's best MVP run, but Pippen also has the 6 rings to Wade's 3. Additionally, Pippen's 8x all Defensive 1st teams is the second most all time and his 10 overall selections is 5th most in NBA HISTORY. Pip also has 3x 1st team all NBA selections, which is more 1st team all NBAs than: Wade, Stockton, Nash, Payton (2). Lastly, his ability to take a 57 win team after losing the greatest player in the world for lowly Pete Myers and only dropping off by 2 wins (to 55) was beyond incredible. I feel Pippen could have won a championship that year if he had someone good (but did not need Jordan) to win it. With a lesser talent than MJ he would have won, even with someone like Reggie or Mitch Richmond could have been enough for Pippen to win that year. Pippen also won over 30 playoff series which is good for 5th all time (if I'm not mistaken). Big time winner, big time longevity, and he really did it all. Pass, Shoot, Defend, Playmake, Lead.

3. Kawhi would be a lot higher if he didn't "load manage" and had more longevity. Only time will tell if this changes but I doubt it. He has done some extraordinary things such as winning back-to-back DPOY awards and 2x FMVP. If I recall correctly only Kawhi and Hakeem have ever achieved such a feat (B2B DPOY winner and winner of 2x FMVP). His 2019 run was also very impressive:

31/9/4 on splits of 49/38/88 (very close to entire 50-40-90 run on over 30 ppg en route to a FMVP. If you value greatness on both ends of the ball then it would be hard to put many guys left ahead of Kawhi. He is elite on both ends, but again, his lack of longevity is hurting his resume along with him needing at least one regular season MVP or Scoring Title. Nearly all of the greats have them but him.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:48 am**

As for Ewing, I am attempting to create a Points-Per formula that can rank players based on a number of factors such as FMVP, MVP, All NBA 1st team, All Defensive 1st, Regular Season PER over 25, Playoff PER over 25.0, WS/48 over .250 in RS and PO, and many other categories, Ewing is dead last among the top 40 players I've been evaluating, this is why I brought it up in the other thread rank. Not to beat up on Ewing but he is not a top 30 player, that's all. For example, he has:

0x FMVP
1x All NBA 1st team
0x 1st team All Defense
0x FMVP
0x RS WS/48 > .250
0x PO WS/48 > .250
0x RS BPM > 7.0
0x PO BPM > 7.0

It was very eye opening to me when I ran him through the formula system, which has been pretty accurate and actually very close to what we've ranked guys at RealGM during the 2020 Project. For example, the top ten using my formula, IN ORDER, was:

LBJ, MJ, Kareem, Duncan, Russell, Magic, Wilt, Kobe, Bird, Shaq.

I don't love Kobe over Bird and Shaq but the rest is damn near accurate. Again, I'm not hating on Ewing, I just don't think he has a spot in the top 30 when we have many players more deserving. I'm surprised to see him mentioned when (as mentioned above) he has a lot of zeros in key components of a successful career.

Edit: I'll be running an amended version that includes Reg Season and Playoff PER runs over 25.0, this will further increase the accuracy of the system I'm sure of it.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:27 am**

Magic Is Magic wrote:As for Ewing, I am attempting to create a Points-Per formula that can rank players based on a number of factors such as FMVP, MVP, All NBA 1st team, All Defensive 1st, Regular Season PER over 25, Playoff PER over 25.0, WS/48 over .250 in RS and PO, and many other categories, Ewing is dead last among the top 40 players I've been evaluating, this is why I brought it up in the other thread rank. Not to beat up on Ewing but he is not a top 30 player, that's all. For example, he has:

0x FMVP
1x All NBA 1st team
0x 1st team All Defense
0x FMVP
0x RS WS/48 > .250
0x PO WS/48 > .250
0x RS BPM > 7.0
0x PO BPM > 7.0

It was very eye opening to me when I ran him through the formula system, which has been pretty accurate and actually very close to what we've ranked guys at RealGM during the 2020 Project. For example, the top ten using my formula, IN ORDER, was:

LBJ, MJ, Kareem, Duncan, Russell, Magic, Wilt, Kobe, Bird, Shaq.

I don't love Kobe over Bird and Shaq but the rest is damn near accurate. Again, I'm not hating on Ewing, I just don't think he has a spot in the top 30 when we have many players more deserving. I'm surprised to see him mentioned when (as mentioned above) he has a lot of zeros in key components of a successful career.

Edit: I'll be running an amended version that includes Reg Season and Playoff PER runs over 25.0, this will further increase the accuracy of the system I'm sure of it.

I've done a formula mysef that includes that and much more. Formulas are a good way go guide your vote, but in the end they just provide a number.

Also, formulas or numbers can't really weight defense properly (and mine includes some stuff I think is at least some defensive notion).

Ewing's major contribution comes from defense. He also has 11 seasons above 20 PER. 25 is just arbitrary, remember that.

Just some food for thought. I'm not going to vote for him here anyway, but you shouldn't take a formula as a completely deciding factor.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 1:36 pm**

Magic Is Magic wrote:As for Ewing, I am attempting to create a Points-Per formula that can rank players based on a number of factors such as FMVP, MVP, All NBA 1st team, All Defensive 1st, Regular Season PER over 25, Playoff PER over 25.0, WS/48 over .250 in RS and PO, and many other categories, Ewing is dead last among the top 40 players I've been evaluating, this is why I brought it up in the other thread rank. Not to beat up on Ewing but he is not a top 30 player, that's all. For example, he has:

0x FMVP
1x All NBA 1st team
0x 1st team All Defense
0x FMVP
0x RS WS/48 > .250
0x PO WS/48 > .250
0x RS BPM > 7.0
0x PO BPM > 7.0

It was very eye opening to me when I ran him through the formula system, which has been pretty accurate and actually very close to what we've ranked guys at RealGM during the 2020 Project. For example, the top ten using my formula, IN ORDER, was:

LBJ, MJ, Kareem, Duncan, Russell, Magic, Wilt, Kobe, Bird, Shaq.

I don't love Kobe over Bird and Shaq but the rest is damn near accurate. Again, I'm not hating on Ewing, I just don't think he has a spot in the top 30 when we have many players more deserving. I'm surprised to see him mentioned when (as mentioned above) he has a lot of zeros in key components of a successful career.

Edit: I'll be running an amended version that includes Reg Season and Playoff PER runs over 25.0, this will further increase the accuracy of the system I'm sure of it.

Firstly, I'd like to preface this post by noting that I think that formulae do serve a purpose in terms of pigeon-holing players, and perhaps highlighting outliers. However... a basketball formula is unlikely to contain 100% predictive value, and they'll almost invariably contain blind spots. Whilst I'm not voting in the project, and I don't actually think it's ludicrous to place Ewing outside of the top 30 (similarly, I think Ewing within the top 30 is just fine), I feel like your approach may be containing a fairly large blind spot towards Ewing.

Awards

Only crediting first team awards is likely to underestimate players that are in talent logjams during their playing career. Patrick Ewing only made one All NBA first team, but he also made six All NBA second teams, which is the 4th most all time (Bill Russell - 8, John Havlicek - 7, Hal Greer - 7 being the top 3). The six All NBA selections placed him behind Hakeem Olajuwon four times, and David Robinson twice. Nobody is campaigning for Patrick Ewing above Hakeem Olajuwon or David Robinson. Furthermore, let's note that there is only one centre slot available, so playing alongside two generational centres is going to make it more difficult for Ewing to gain first team recognition.

Similarly, it's going to be hard for Ewing to make too many All NBA defensive teams when Olajuwon, Robinson and Mutombo (quite arguably top 5 defenders of all time) are vying for the same spots.

Box Score composites

Box score composite statistics have a historical blind spot when it comes to big men, especially on defence.

The current edition of BPM was based on a 5 year regression that seems to have larger magnitudes of offence relative to defence than most other RAPM editions available.

For example, let's take the 1990 NBA season.

The highest OBPM was 9.09, the highest DBPM was 4.01.
Second highest OBPM was 8.3, DBPM was 3.31.
Third highest OBPM was 7.19, DBPM was 2.85.

And so on. If we look at the top 10, the average DBPM/OBRPM ratio is something like 40%... which is far lower than what most RAPM samples tell us about the relationship between top end offence and top end defence. My experiences tell me that the top DRAPM results are generally something like 75% of the top ORAPM results, and the number becomes closer to 100% as we move past the "elite" guys in the league. Both the difference between the 5 year RAPM used as a BPM basis and standard RAPM, and the greater difficulty in regressing defensive statistics, mean that great defensive players can be highly underrated via the box score. Dwight Howard once led the league in DBPM with a mere 2.8!

Furthermore, these statistics can have additional blind spots when looking at how the numbers are reached. For example, Patrick Ewing was not a good passer. However, assists actually contribute quite strongly to DBPM for centres (they're a proxy for "awareness" and positioning, since the best passers in the league tend to have great awareness of the court). Alonzo Mourning was a 2x defensive player of the year, but looks initially underwhelming via DBPM thanks to poor assist numbers.

If we look at the general features of Ewing's play, there are rough analogues to Alonzo Mourning and Dwight Howard in that they were all excellent rim protectors, high volume, above average efficiency scorers (Ewing being less efficient, but having fairly high volume/taking more jump shot to space the floor) and poor passers. Note that all of these guys were hovering around the 4-5 BPM range in their peak seasons. Yet, in the 2008-2011 RAPM dataset, Dwight came 4th with a RAPM of 7.6 (behind LeBron at 10.2, Nash and Dirk at 7.8 each) and Mourning came 2nd in a few seasons around the 1999-2000 era. We don't really have the same number for Ewing anywhere unfortunately, since he got injured after 1997 at the age of 34 and that's when RAPM starts. However, there are hints that players of Ewing's prototype and box score stats have been capable of near-top-of-the-league impact.

Postseason impact

I would honestly dismiss WS/48 almost entirely as a postseason statistic. WS/48 doesn't scale for quality of opposition, and the baseline you prescribe to (WS > 0.250) is almost unrealistically high. Magic Johnson is almost tailor made for WS/48 in the playoffs (WS rewards winning and efficiency more than anything, and Magic is an incredibly efficient offensive demigod, he won a lot, and he was lucky enough to benefit from some incredibly easy western conference opposition in the mid 80s).

Magic Johnson only exceeded WS > 0.250 twice in his career.

WS/48 benefits highly efficient scorers. Charles Barkley never reached > 0.250 WS/48 in the postseason and he led the league in TS% four times. David Robinson never did it and he ranks 8th in career WS/48 all time.

In other words, treating WS/48 > 0.250 as a gold standard for player ranking is... not good.

BPM actually does attempt to benchmark player performance to the opposition, so it's better to use than WS/48. Without doing a proper game weighted approach, 88-97 Ewing had a regular season BPM of 4.0 and a playoff BPM of 3.8. That's not a large drop at all. His scoring efficiency gets worse, but his assist rate increases and his turnovers drop, helping mitigate some of the scoring drop. And the Knicks were one of the greatest defensive teams in both the regular season and the playoffs (very little difference between the two in terms of defensive performance). So, even if one does prescribe to the notion of Ewing being less effective in the playoffs, I struggle to view it as a large or definitive drop off at all.

Personally, I think that Ewing being on the cusp of the top 30 is a very fair assessment of his career. Not everybody needs to agree on this. However, I definitely think that the methodology you seem to be prescribing to is very harsh on Ewing, and I'd propose that he seems to be an unfair recipient of the blind spots of this methodology.

I apologise if this has seemed random/accusatory at all - this is meant to be more suggestive in promoting a more thorough investigation on players that seem to stray from public perception when using formulae to assess players. Once again, all time ranking formulae have a great place in the basketball world for helping highlight players that may be underrated/overrated by most people. However, I think it's imperative that the misalignment with public perception that can be highlighted by these formulae are investigated more thoroughly, and that a rigid adherence to a formula can be problematic.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:16 pm**

Hal14 wrote:1. Elgin Baylor
2. John Havlicek
3. Isiah Thomas

Pettit just got voted in, but I'm voting for Baylor here. IMO Baylor is slightly better than Pettit because Baylor was faster, better passer and better ball handler. And in terms of impact, Baylor was Dr. J before Dr. J. Baylor was Connie Hawkins before Connie Hawkins. Jordan modeled his game after Dr. J, as did Dominique Wilkins. Kobe and LeBron modeled their game after Jordan. Baylor was a pioneer. He paved the way for all of the explosive, big, strong, athletic wings to come later.

Also, Pettit's crowning achievement was his 50 point, 19 rebound game to led the Hawks to the win in game 6 over the Celtics to clinch the 1958 NBA championship. However, Russell only played 20 minutes that game because he had a severely sprained ankle suffered in game 3 of that series. Baylor meanwhile, scored 61 points and pulled down 22 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a win over the Celtics in game 5 of the 1962 NBA finals, so Baylor put up better numbers and did it against a healthy Russell who played all 48 minutes of that game. Baylor also played all 48 minutes that game. Jerry West? He had 26 points, 4 rebounds and 0 assists.

Baylor is the best all-around player left on the board IMO when you take into account his scoring, rebounding, passing, defense, ball handling and ability to score/defend both inside and outside.

Baylor and Pettit are both very close and it's definitely debatable which was the greater player. I think both have a case to be top 20 of all time. Scary to think how good they would have been if they played in the modern era with the advantage of 50 years of advances in basketball skills, more favorable rule changes, less days off between games, better equipment, better facilities, better weight training, better nutrition, better sports science, etc. Pettit was voted in several spots ago - it's Baylor's time now.

Baylor's teammate Jerry West is the no. 13 player on this list. And while I do have West ranked ahead of Baylor all-time, it is very close, so if West is no. 13 then Baylor could definitely be the no. 29 guy, considering that when they were teammates, Baylor was often times the better player. Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn was quoted saying that Baylor was the best player he covered - not West. West is quoted saying that Baylor was better than him. Dr. J ranks Baylor as one of his top 5 players ever. Both Baylor and West made first team all NBA 10 times. Baylor was a better rebounder than West, a bigger, stronger more powerful player who could score and defend just as well inside as he could outside.

Anyone thinking Baylor isn't a top 29 player ever, I invite you to watch these videos:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Hondo is in my no. 2 spot here. 8 titles (8-0 in the NBA finals), Celtics all time leading scorer, outstanding defensive player, strong clutch player, 1 NBA finals MVP.

And yes, I do have Isiah ranked slightly ahead of Stockton and Nash. Isiah, Stockton and Nash - all 3 of them had good careers, and had good supporting casts. But of the 3, Nash is the only 1 who could never make it to the NBA finals and he's also the only one who couldn't play a lick of defense. Plus he struggled his first few years when the game was more physical, had less spacing and more geared towards big men/post play (a.k.a. the environment that Isiah played his whole career in and Stockton played his entire prime in) and wasn't until rule changes, no more hand checking, no more hard fouls, more spacing, the rise of the 3-point shot, D'Antoni's system - defense got much weaker in 05, etc. it wasn't until then that Nash dominated.

In this video at the 14:45 mark, Bill Simmons says, "And then David Stern changed the rules so you could succeed"

Watch on YouTube

At the 49:35 mark of this video, Isiah says, "the game today, it favors the point guards and the small players. The era that I won in, the rules were geared towards the bigger players."

Watch on YouTube

Stockton made it to the finals twice, but a) that was after Isiah retied and b) Stockton's Jazz team lost to Jordan's Bulls both times. Meanwhile, during the time when Stockton and Isiah were both in their prime, Isiah made it to 3 NBA finals, won 2 championships and would have been 3 if not for the phantom foul call on Laimbeer in 88, which even Pat Riley admits was a BS call:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2103545-pat-riley-admits-84-lakers-benefited-from-phantom-foul-vs-detroit-pistons

And while Stockton's team lost to Jordan's Bulls twice in the finals, Isiah's Pistons beat Jordan's Bulls 3 times in the playoffs, and beat Magic's Lakers in 89, would have beat Magic Lakers in 88 if not for Phantom Foul and beat Bird's Celtics in 88..

Yes, it's a team game and Isiah had a strong supporting cast, but Isiah was the Piston's best player his entire career except for the very end of his career when he had injuries and the Pistons were a joke before they drafted him.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:56 pm**

1. Kawhi Leonard - I value Kawhi's 2019 run very highly. Sure, he benefitted from having a solid team around him but if we're going to dicsount Kawhi's role for the Raptors you could just as well disqualify any player who isn't the primary ballhandler from this list. He was scoring like MJ, played great defense and had some amazing clutch moments. I think he has an argument for a top 15 peak with the 2019 season. It's not just a one-off like with Walton and Rose either. 2016, 2017 and 2020 are all very high level seasons and I'm higher on 2013-2015 Kawhi than most. If we're going to count seasons like 2013 and 2014 Curry as significant boosters in longevity, it'd be unfair to not do the same for Kawhi's early Spurs years. I understand the longevity advantage for players like Ewing and Harden is still too much for some but compared to other players with primes of around 5-7 years Kawhi really doesn't give up much on that front.

2. Elgin Baylor - Used to be really high on Baylor, then my view of him was tempered a bit by him arguably holding West and the Lakers as a whole back. Now I'm somewhere in the middle. Baylor was a truely elite player early on and after a disappointing couple of injury riddled years, he did also have a fairly strong end to his career.

3. Walt Frazier - I'm staying consistent with the type of careers I'm looking at here. Kawhi, Baylor and Frazier all have relatively short primes but they also all have in common that the good years they do have are ridiculously high level. I might switch Baylor and Frazier around for next round if I see some strong arguments for Frazier but the main thing is that Reed took the leading role early for the Knicks, while Baylor did his best work with West still coming up in the league. Other than that I think their primes are very similar with a consistency edge to Frazier.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:30 pm**

Dutchball97 wrote:1. Kawhi Leonard - I value Kawhi's 2019 run very highly. Sure, he benefitted from having a solid team around him but if we're going to dicsount Kawhi's role for the Raptors you could just as well disqualify any player who isn't the primary ballhandler from this list. He was scoring like MJ, played great defense and had some amazing clutch moments. I think he has an argument for a top 15 peak with the 2019 season. It's not just a one-off like with Walton and Rose either. 2016, 2017 and 2020 are all very high level seasons and I'm higher on 2013-2015 Kawhi than most. If we're going to count seasons like 2013 and 2014 Curry as significant boosters in longevity, it'd be unfair to not do the same for Kawhi's early Spurs years. I understand the longevity advantage for players like Ewing and Harden is still too much for some but compared to other players with primes of around 5-7 years Kawhi really doesn't give up much on that front.

2. Elgin Baylor - Used to be really high on Baylor, then my view of him was tempered a bit by him arguably holding West and the Lakers as a whole back. Now I'm somewhere in the middle. Baylor was a truely elite player early on and after a disappointing couple of injury riddled years, he did also have a fairly strong end to his career.

3. Walt Frazier - I'm staying consistent with the type of careers I'm looking at here. Kawhi, Baylor and Frazier all have relatively short primes but they also all have in common that the good years they do have are ridiculously high level. I might switch Baylor and Frazier around for next round if I see some strong arguments for Frazier but the main thing is that Reed took the leading role early for the Knicks, while Baylor did his best work with West still coming up in the league. Other than that I think their primes are very similar with a consistency edge to Frazier.

I care about games missed. I actually penalize players who miss more than 10. Then penalize them even more if they miss 20, or 30.

Kawih in 19 missed 20 RS games. That has weight to me. Because if we insert him in a team that needs him those 20 games he might not be there, thus giving me a lesser chance for a great outcome in the end.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 4:39 pm**

Vote 1 - Patrick Ewing
Vote 2 - Walt Frazier
Vote 3 - Scottie Pippen

I’m just going to address some of the themes (for the lack of a better word) that revolved around ewing during his career.

He came up in one of the best eras for centers the game has ever seen. There are the obvious all time greats such as hakeem, robinson, and towards the later part of his career shaq. Then you had his georgetown counterparts in mutombo and mourning as well as guys like parish, divac, willis, smits, sabonis, daugherty, etc. On top of competing with these guys for accolades like all NBA and all defensive team, he had the tall task of being the focal point on offense going up against them on a regular basis.

And that leads me to the story of ewing’s career: He never had a consistent all star caliber 2nd option in his prime. The knicks were essentially forced to run the offense through him as he was their only option. Starks was a talented player who would go to war for you, but for every few games he went off, you’d end up with a shot happy poor shooting night. Many times, the knicks would end up winning these games in spite of that due to ewing’s stellar play.

Was Ewing a hyper efficient elite offensive player? Not quite, but he would turn into a great offensive force with impressive athleticism for a guy his size. As his athleticism waned, he developed more of an outside game, and while his efficiency would decrease, you could still go to him late in games if you needed a bucket. You can also attribute his decrease in efficiency in the playoffs to defenses locking in even more on him due to the lack of other options.

I’m sorry, but the notion that he actually brought his teammates down offensively to the point where they would’ve had a significantly greater impact without him is irrational. If ewing was ever fortunate enough to play with another great player, he would’ve taken advantage of it just fine. When he finally got the opportunity to play for a championship in 94, he just so happened to face his ultimate match in hakeem. By no means am I guaranteeing a championship if he faced the likes of barkley, stockton and malone, or david robinson, but the outcome may have been different.

Ewing and the knicks played jordan’s bulls as well as anyone back then, but just couldn’t get over the hump. While teams from other eras certainly prevented players from winning championships, jordan had a major effect on those guys from the 90s. Those knicks teams were built on defense, and while there’s no question ewing had great defensive players around him, he was the anchor nonetheless. NY’s defensive RTG ranks from 92-99:

92 - 2nd
93 - 1st
94 - 1st
95 - 1st
96 - 4th
97 - 2nd
98 - 4th
99 - 4th

Top 5 defense for 8 straight seasons and best in the league for 3 straight? That’s damn impressive any way you slice it. 92 was riley’s first year as head coach, and he found a way to manage all these strong personalities (mason, oakley, mcdaniel, starks, harper, etc.) and help them channel that towards performance on the court. Ewing had an impressive peak in 89-90 putting up 28.6 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1 SPG, 4 BPG on 59.9% TS and 115 ORtg. He rounded out his career with solid longevity (15 productive seasons) and 9 straight seasons of 20+ PPG, 10+ RPG and 2+ BPG.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:02 pm**

Joao Saraiva wrote:
Dutchball97 wrote:1. Kawhi Leonard - I value Kawhi's 2019 run very highly. Sure, he benefitted from having a solid team around him but if we're going to dicsount Kawhi's role for the Raptors you could just as well disqualify any player who isn't the primary ballhandler from this list. He was scoring like MJ, played great defense and had some amazing clutch moments. I think he has an argument for a top 15 peak with the 2019 season. It's not just a one-off like with Walton and Rose either. 2016, 2017 and 2020 are all very high level seasons and I'm higher on 2013-2015 Kawhi than most. If we're going to count seasons like 2013 and 2014 Curry as significant boosters in longevity, it'd be unfair to not do the same for Kawhi's early Spurs years. I understand the longevity advantage for players like Ewing and Harden is still too much for some but compared to other players with primes of around 5-7 years Kawhi really doesn't give up much on that front.

2. Elgin Baylor - Used to be really high on Baylor, then my view of him was tempered a bit by him arguably holding West and the Lakers as a whole back. Now I'm somewhere in the middle. Baylor was a truely elite player early on and after a disappointing couple of injury riddled years, he did also have a fairly strong end to his career.

3. Walt Frazier - I'm staying consistent with the type of careers I'm looking at here. Kawhi, Baylor and Frazier all have relatively short primes but they also all have in common that the good years they do have are ridiculously high level. I might switch Baylor and Frazier around for next round if I see some strong arguments for Frazier but the main thing is that Reed took the leading role early for the Knicks, while Baylor did his best work with West still coming up in the league. Other than that I think their primes are very similar with a consistency edge to Frazier.

I care about games missed. I actually penalize players who miss more than 10. Then penalize them even more if they miss 20, or 30.

Kawih in 19 missed 20 RS games. That has weight to me. Because if we insert him in a team that needs him those 20 games he might not be there, thus giving me a lesser chance for a great outcome in the end.

And that's a completely fair approach as well. I look at the regular season as a larger sample size to see if a player is as good as limited numbers in the post-season make said player seem. In the case of someone like Isiah Thomas you see that while his play-off performances in the mid to late 80s were very impressive, they weren't backed up by high level regular season play. Kawhi might sit some games but he does play at a consistently high level in the regular season.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 6:32 pm**

Votes
James Harden
Kawih Leonard
Scottie Pippen

I'm giving it to James Harden here. I think he's getting a bit underrated due to a bit of lack of team success... but considering his rosters I can't say he has done too bad either.

Yes he has dropped a bit in the playoffs, but it's not like he has been really bad in some campaigns.

In OKC he was really important going to the 2012 finals since he was the ball handler in the 4th quarter a lot of times, and in the WCF he did an amazing job with that. People remember him for not having a good finals, but he was important to get there in the 1st place.

I also see 15, 18 and 20 as good campaigns. I can't fault him for CP3 being injured, or for losing to the Lakers when the duo with Westbrook didn't work.

He's not such a good fit as Harden or the defender Walt Frazier or Pippen or Kawih are, but I believe he tops all of them as an offensive weapon. The issue I have with Kawih has been longevity, since even when he doesn't get injured he misses a ton of games. Can't put him higher even tough he is a legit #1 option. Hope he adds some longevity to rise in the rankings. Even above Ewing and Pippen he seems a bit suspicious, but I beleive proving himself as a #1 option while the others didn't is something I can't ignore.

I think that despite not having the ring, Harden is a proven legit #1 option on a contender.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 7:02 pm**

Dutchball97 wrote:I'm higher on 2013-2015 Kawhi than most. If we're going to count seasons like 2013 and 2014 Curry as significant boosters in longevity, it'd be unfair to not do the same for Kawhi's early Spurs years.

It is not unfair to treat early Kawhi differently from early Curry because the two were tiers apart.

2013 Curry: 23/4/7, 11.2 WS (7th), 5.6 VORP (5th)
2013 Kawhi: 12/6/2, 6.2 WS (53rd), 2.3 VORP (46th)

2014 Curry: 24/4/9, 13.4 WS (4th), 6.7 VORP (4th)
2014 Kawhi: 13/6/2, 7.7 WS (33rd), 3.5 VORP (20th)

Curry was already one of the top players then. Kawhi was not. If he hadn't developed MVP level offense later on, those seasons of Kawhi would be regarded as on the same level as prime Tayshaun Prince or Robert Covington who are irrelevant on GOAT lists.

Posted: **Fri Dec 11, 2020 9:13 pm**

I'm putting up a vote for Harden; he has 9 elite years in the modern era, and has been a scoring and passing machine. Team success hasn't been there, which is what keeps him from being ranked higher. But tons of points, efficiency, and playmaking. I think he is best choice out there.

I'm flipping at my next spot and taking Havlicek. Basically he is Pippen except he comes through in the clutch. Realized he led championship teams in playoff win shares both before and after Frazier - 3 times, which nobody else on the board is close to. All-around guy, played guard or forward,
great defender, played as piece of a team, or leader of a team. The guy did everything right, has longevity. Great athlete, just missed making the NFL, was in last cut of Cleveland Browns.

Right now I'm taking Walt Frazier third - I need to look at the candidates closer, but love the combination of scoring, defense, and playmaking. He had a major impact in an era with some great Laker, Buck, Knick, Bullets team, and is one of the best two way players ever.

1. Harden
2. Havlicek
3 Frazier

Posted: **Sat Dec 12, 2020 12:07 am**

Bad Gatorade wrote:
Magic Is Magic wrote:As for Ewing, I am attempting to create a Points-Per formula that can rank players based on a number of factors such as FMVP, MVP, All NBA 1st team, All Defensive 1st, Regular Season PER over 25, Playoff PER over 25.0, WS/48 over .250 in RS and PO, and many other categories, Ewing is dead last among the top 40 players I've been evaluating, this is why I brought it up in the other thread rank. Not to beat up on Ewing but he is not a top 30 player, that's all. For example, he has:

0x FMVP
1x All NBA 1st team
0x 1st team All Defense
0x FMVP
0x RS WS/48 > .250
0x PO WS/48 > .250
0x RS BPM > 7.0
0x PO BPM > 7.0

It was very eye opening to me when I ran him through the formula system, which has been pretty accurate and actually very close to what we've ranked guys at RealGM during the 2020 Project. For example, the top ten using my formula, IN ORDER, was:

LBJ, MJ, Kareem, Duncan, Russell, Magic, Wilt, Kobe, Bird, Shaq.

I don't love Kobe over Bird and Shaq but the rest is damn near accurate. Again, I'm not hating on Ewing, I just don't think he has a spot in the top 30 when we have many players more deserving. I'm surprised to see him mentioned when (as mentioned above) he has a lot of zeros in key components of a successful career.

Edit: I'll be running an amended version that includes Reg Season and Playoff PER runs over 25.0, this will further increase the accuracy of the system I'm sure of it.

Awards

Only crediting first team awards is likely to underestimate players that are in talent logjams during their playing career. Patrick Ewing only made one All NBA first team, but he also made six All NBA second teams, which is the 4th most all time (Bill Russell - 8, John Havlicek - 7, Hal Greer - 7 being the top 3). The six All NBA selections placed him behind Hakeem Olajuwon four times, and David Robinson twice. Nobody is campaigning for Patrick Ewing above Hakeem Olajuwon or David Robinson. Furthermore, let's note that there is only one centre slot available, so playing alongside two generational centres is going to make it more difficult for Ewing to gain first team recognition.

Similarly, it's going to be hard for Ewing to make too many All NBA defensive teams when Olajuwon, Robinson and Mutombo (quite arguably top 5 defenders of all time) are vying for the same spots.

I'd alluded to this in my post above:

trex_8063 wrote:He's overshadowed in terms of DPOY and/or All-Defensive accolades because his career almost exactly overlaps with those of Hakeem, DRob, Dikembe, and Mourning......although there was a dearth of quality depth at the center position in this time, the talent at top for that position [that is: the competition for media-awarded accolades] has arguably NEVER been better.
I'm willing to bet Dwight Howard does no better [or even as good] on this front if his career overlapped with these guys.

Howard utterly slays Ewing by these measures.....but mostly because he was competing against guys like Amar'e Stoudemire, Andrew Bogut, Andrew Bynum, Al Horford, and Tyson Chandler for those honours [you know.....instead of Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal, Dikembe Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning, and Brad Daugherty].

Bad Gatorade wrote:Box Score composites

Box score composite statistics have a historical blind spot when it comes to big men, especially on defence.

The current edition of BPM was based on a 5 year regression that seems to have larger magnitudes of offence relative to defence than most other RAPM editions available.

For example, let's take the 1990 NBA season.

The highest OBPM was 9.09, the highest DBPM was 4.01.
Second highest OBPM was 8.3, DBPM was 3.31.
Third highest OBPM was 7.19, DBPM was 2.85.

And so on. If we look at the top 10, the average DBPM/OBRPM ratio is something like 40%... which is far lower than what most RAPM samples tell us about the relationship between top end offence and top end defence. My experiences tell me that the top DRAPM results are generally something like 75% of the top ORAPM results, and the number becomes closer to 100% as we move past the "elite" guys in the league.....

In one of the earlier threads of this project both myself and one other poster [I think it was maybe DQuinn1575???] did a quick study into DRAPM vs ORAPM, but using very different methods (and mine was much more focused on just the "elite/semi-elite" [top 10] in each), and yet came to almost identical conclusions (only about 1% difference between our results): DRAPM was about 85-90% of ORAPM.

Bad Gatorade wrote:Both the difference between the 5 year RAPM used as a BPM basis and standard RAPM, and the greater difficulty in regressing defensive statistics, mean that great defensive players can be highly underrated via the box score. Dwight Howard once led the league in DBPM with a mere 2.8!

Furthermore, these statistics can have additional blind spots when looking at how the numbers are reached. For example, Patrick Ewing was not a good passer. However, assists actually contribute quite strongly to DBPM for centres (they're a proxy for "awareness" and positioning, since the best passers in the league tend to have great awareness of the court). Alonzo Mourning was a 2x defensive player of the year, but looks initially underwhelming via DBPM thanks to poor assist numbers.

If we look at the general features of Ewing's play, there are rough analogues to Alonzo Mourning and Dwight Howard in that they were all excellent rim protectors, high volume, above average efficiency scorers (Ewing being less efficient, but having fairly high volume/taking more jump shot to space the floor) and poor passers. Note that all of these guys were hovering around the 4-5 BPM range in their peak seasons. Yet, in the 2008-2011 RAPM dataset, Dwight came 4th with a RAPM of 7.6 (behind LeBron at 10.2, Nash and Dirk at 7.8 each) and Mourning came 2nd in a few seasons around the 1999-2000 era. We don't really have the same number for Ewing anywhere unfortunately, since he got injured after 1997 at the age of 34 and that's when RAPM starts. However, there are hints that players of Ewing's prototype and box score stats have been capable of near-top-of-the-league impact.

And even at that late stage of his career, his impact was pretty substantial according to the data we have (even compared to a rival who's held in much higher esteem [Hakeem]). Below are respective RAPM's (which include playoffs) for both, league rank by year:

'97
Ewing: +4.82 (10th in league)
Hakeem: +3.37 (28th in league)

'98
Ewing: +4.36 (24th in league)
Hakeem: +3.11 (42nd in league)

'99
Ewing: +4.07 (25th in league)
Hakeem: +2.62 (tied for 51st in league)

'00
Ewing: +3.56 (27th in league)
Hakeem: +1.56 (tied for 69th in league)

Hakeem does hold up better in their final two twilight seasons, with marks of +0.5 and +1.0 (while Ewing's tanks to -1.9 and -1.0).

Bad Gatorade wrote:I apologise if this has seemed random/accusatory at all - this is meant to be more suggestive in promoting a more thorough investigation on players that seem to stray from public perception when using formulae to assess players. Once again, all time ranking formulae have a great place in the basketball world for helping highlight players that may be underrated/overrated by most people. However, I think it's imperative that the misalignment with public perception that can be highlighted by these formulae are investigated more thoroughly, and that a rigid adherence to a formula can be problematic.

The principle concerns I see with such a formula are:
1) it's very narrow in scope. It's using a mere handful of arbitrarily-selected [media-awarded] accolades (and disregarding the others), and a few box-based metrics.
2) The box-based metrics are used by way of arbitrary threshold and scoring for getting over that threshold......which means everything even marginally below the threshold is basically disregarded. Additionally, there's [apparently] no accounting for playing time in which these rate metrics are achieved [i.e. a PER of 25.0 in 29 mpg is going to "rate better" than a PER of 24.8 in 39 mpg].
There's also [apparently] no accounting for missed time either, or of the strength/competitiveness of the league it was achieved in [e.g. the one and only rs of Rick Barry that would qualify in the PER and WS/48 categories is '69: in which he played just 35 games, AND it was in the early ABA].
There's also no accounting or consideration for league circumstances which may have caused increased parity (like in years where NO ONE bested a PER of 25).
3) Where the accolades are concerned, other than the arbitrary decision that some count and some don't, there's also what we touched on above wrt competition for those honours.

I'll go on to note that of the number of people who'd match or rate ahead of Ewing by this means, there are quite a few dubious names listed below (their "scores" in parentheses); these are just ones I came up with off the top of my head, btw [only referenced bbref to get their exact "scores"].
I'd take into consideration not only of who's ahead of him but [in some cases] the margin by which they're ahead, as well as the order in general.....

Dennis Johnson (8)
Dennis Rodman (7)
Larry Foust (7)
Joakim Noah (6)
Ben Wallace (5)
Joe Dumars (5)
Hassan Whiteside (4)
Chauncey Billups (4)
Dikembe Mutombo (4)
Tiny Archibald (4)
Marcus Camby (3)
Draymond Green (3)
JaVale McGee (3)
Tim Hardaway (2)
Cedric Maxwell (2)
Derrick Rose (2)
Rajon Rondo (2)
Andre Iguodala (2)
Dave Bing (2)
Pete Maravich (2)
Larry Nance (1)
Earl Monroe (1)
Tyson Chandler (1)
Patrick Ewing (1)

I'm fairly comfortable saying NONE of these guys belongs above Ewing on an all-time list; several are unlikely to even make our top 100, and at least a few probably don't even belong within 100 places [or more] of Ewing. And yet there they are. And again, this is just who I thought of with ~15 minutes of idle brain-storming (I'm sure we can find others who are highly questionable).

I'm all for using formulae to ball-park players, and have several of my own [much MUCH more comprehensive, in general, and I'd never use just ONE in isolation, btw] which I consult.
But any formula which can lead you THAT wrong THAT often is probably not one I'm going to put any stock in.

RealGM

RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #29 (Patrick Ewing)

RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #29 (Patrick Ewing)

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