RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #92

[penbeast0]

I didn't post on this one, want to take the time to look deeper so it's deliberate, not an omission. If you need my vote (tie/runoff/etc.) I will certainly do so.

"Tall Tales," my favorite basketball book ever written implies that the reason Hagan was made player/coach was because they couldn't keep him from fighting and if he was constantly sitting on the bench for that anyway, they might as well put him to use. Nice that he did a good job at it but I do see that despite 3 years over .500, he never coached again for whatever reason.

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Carmelo Anthony
Vote 3 - Bernard King
Vote 3 - Chris Webber

Tiny > DeBusschere > Terry Porter > Bellamy > Jerry Lucas > Aldridge > Gus Williams > Lowry > Sikma > Dennis Johnson > Hawkins > Jokic > Johnston > Draymond > Walton

Below are players already voted in in Melo’s VORP and Win Shares range. I left out older players who had some seasons before VORP was calculated since it's cumulative:

VORP
Rasheed Wallace 38.36
Dwight Howard 38.28
Alex English 38.25
Kevin Johnson 37.27
Carmelo Anthony 35.6
Giannis Antetokounmpo 34.59
Kevin McHale 34.29
Dikembe Mutombo 34
Sidney Moncrief 33.15
Horace Grant 33.05
Chris Bosh 31.14
Tony Parker 30.13
Alonzo Mourning 27.60
Dennis Rodman 21.02

Win Shares
Hal Greer 102.65
Russell Westbrook 102.58
Carmelo Anthony 102.3
Alex English 100.68
Grant Hill 99.93
Allen Iverson 98.97
Tracy McGrady 97.27
Ben Wallace 93.51
Kevin Johnson 92.77
Sam Jones 92.29
Bob Cousy 91.11
Dennis Rodman 89.83
Alonzo Mourning 89.74
Damian Lillard 89.39
Bob McAdoo 89.08
Dave Cowens 86.32
Anthony Davis 86.05
Kawhi Leonard 82.56
Isiah Thomas 80.69
Giannis Antetokounmpo 72.56

Peak carmelo developed into one of the best offensive players in the league. The “iso melo” stigma really became an outdated narrative as you saw all he really needed was a decent PG rotation to keep the ball moving (a little different, but billups certainly got the best out of him in denver). He became one of the better off the ball players in 12-13, actually shooting more efficiently and on higher volume than durant in catch and shoot situations. His transition to a great 3 pt shooter also opened up his game, and he stepped into transition 3s about as well as anyone in the league.

He’s obviously known for his great post up and face up game, but not acknowledged as much for being a great offensive rebounder for his position. He had a deceptively quick second jump and soft touch around the rim for put backs. He also possessed a unique rolling spin move to the hoop i’m not sure anyone else in the league has. The one thing he was really average at is finishing at the rim, and i’d say that partially has to do with him not being able to take advantage of the way the game is called these days. He wasn’t a freak show athlete like lebron, and he doesn’t have those long strides like durant / harden where they know the angles and draw fouls as easily as they do.

I then look at someone like dominique, who was voted in at #73, and I don't think carmelo should fall too far behind. Let's look at their first 11 seasons. You can change the years, but my point remains the same.

https://stathead.com/tiny/Vr6aD

They’re very comparable in most areas, and carmelo actually comes out as the better postseason performer, something wilkins was well criticized for, but still managed to get voted in much earlier. Melo also has a clear edge in relative scoring efficiency. I noted trex's argument in past threads about nique consistently carrying offenses with not much support. It's a valid point, although a good portion of melo's prime was wasted on poor PG play, which was the key to unlocking his best performance.

I'd also point out that while melo's transition to a role player was a bit rocky, he didn't call it quits like iverson when asked to come off the bench. You could make the argument that he was scapegoated in houston (to be clear, no conspiracy theories here about him getting blackballed -- that was just dumb). There's some revisionist history there as he literally came off the bench for HOU, so he did what they asked. Then last year in portland he did exactly what you'd want from a role player in year 17: 38.5% from 3 on 3.9 attempts per game, posting a positive net rating and on/off along with being a great teammate.

As I noted earlier, melo's best years came when he had decent PG play around him. Knicks management largely failed him in this regard post 2013. In 12-13, a merely average PG rotation of felton, kidd and prigioni was quite beneficial to him. In 13-14 felton was out of shape and kidd retired. After that:

14-15: Shane Larkin, Langston Galloway, 37 yr old Prigioni, 33 yr old Calderon

15-16: Langston Galloway, rookie Jerian Grant, 34 yr old Calderon — this PG rotation was so poor that Carmelo ended up leading the team in APG and just about equaled Calderon in AST%

16-17: Rose, Jennings, rookie Ron Baker

Jennings was really the one penetrate and dish PG the knicks had in those 3 seasons.  He even seemed to buy in to the fact that he can’t shoot and really got everyone involved.  Of course, he had rose starting in front of him, so his time on the floor with melo was limited.  He was used more in bench lineups that actually thrived, relatively speaking.

In an era where dynamic PG play is paramount, knicks management abhorrently ignored the position.  I don’t think you can find such ineptitude in a front office with playoff aspirations outside of the cousins-era kings.  

Then we get to the clutch play.  82games.com looked at shot data from 04-09 in the reg season + 04-08 in the post season.  Carmelo was 6th in the league in game winners, but #1 in the league by far in FG% on game winners at 48.1%:

http://82games.com/gamewinningshots.htm

By 2011, he already had enough game winners to choose from to create a top 10 for his career:

Watch on YouTube

For clutch data from 2000-2012, carmelo was 7th in the league in FG%, and 50% of his FGs were assisted, which is interesting to note for being criticized for holding the ball too long.

http://bit.ly/1wnySdJ

[I’d obviously prefer eFG% or TS% for these figures, but they weren’t available here]

Carmelo gets a decent amount of flack for his playoff resume, and I think it’s a little overstated, so I’d like to provide some context for each season.  It also seems to get pushed aside that making the playoffs 10 seasons in a row is no big deal or something, especially when the majority of them came out west.  Below is carmelo’s team SRS rank and the opponent’s SRS rank that he lost to in the playoffs.

CARMELO SRS RANK / OPPONENT SRS RANK

'04 - 11th / 2nd
'05 - 10th / 1st (eventual NBA champion spurs)
'06 - 15th / 9th
'07 - 9th / 1st (eventual NBA champion spurs)
'08 - 11th / 2nd
'09 - 8th / 3rd (eventual NBA champion lakers)
'10 - 8th / 3rd
'11 - 15th / 6th
'12 - 11th / 4th (eventual NBA champion heat)
'13 - 7th / 9th

Aside from 2013, the team he lost to has always been favored in SRS, with 4 of the 10 series losses coming to the eventual NBA champs.  To me, this doesn’t reflect a player who’s come up short when he’s been expected to go farther in the playoffs.  You can make the argument that if he was a better player, he may have been favored in more series, but that only goes so far.  

It’s clear that he hasn’t been as fortunate as some other players as far as who he’s played with.  Some more details on his recent playoff loses:

'09 - This run to the WCF almost gets glossed over at times.  Nuggets were 2 wins away from the finals, losing to the eventual NBA champion lakers, who were just flat out the better team. He had some great performances during that run.

'11 -  Billups gets hurt in game 1 against boston (out for rest of series), then amare gets hurt in game 2 only playing 17 min.  First 2 games are decided by 2 and 3 points respectively.  

Tony douglas forced to play PG for the rest of the series, basically putting it out of reach.

'12 - Disastrous # of injuries.  Tyson chandler finishes off a DPOY season, and of course gets the flu as soon as the playoffs start.  Lin doesn’t come back for the playoffs, shumpert and douglas only play 1 game a piece, baron davis eventually goes down, and the knicks are only left with 33 yr old mike bibby to run the point, who already had 1 foot in retirement.

'13 - First time since carmelo came to the knicks that they really looked like a team who could make a run to the finals.  PG play was always an issue prior to this season, and felton came up big in the 1st round against boston.  Ball movement flowing with kidd and prigioni as well.  Then in the 2nd round against indiana, chandler again doesn’t look himself, which would later be revealed that he had an “undisclosed illness” during the series.  I think there’s a good chance they beat the pacers with a healthy chandler, and who knows what happens from there.

As for defense, the last few seasons specifically he hasn’t been the same player physically. I’ve never claimed him to be a plus defender, even in his prime.  I’m now reminded of some data i gathered in the 2014 project that i haven’t added here:

While not perfect, take a look at how the below SFs have performed against carmelo vs. their career averages.  Sure, camrelo may not have been guarding them the whole time, but it's a large enough sample size to at least uncover any red flags.

(TS% or eFG% not available for head to head data)

Durant - 27.9 PPG on 43/41/87 (career 27.3 PPG on 48/38/88)

LeBron - 25.9 PPG on 49/27/70 (career 27.4 PPG on 50/34/75)

Gay - 18.6 PPG on 44/22/72 (career 18.4 PPG on 45/34/79)

George - 15.1 PPG on 45/34/77 (career 15.3 PPG on 43/36/83)

Pierce - 23.1 PPG on 50/41/80 (career 20.9 PPG on 45/37/81)

Granger - 16.6 PPG on 45/39/88 (career 16.8 PPG on 43/38/85)

Caron Butler - 12.4 PPG on 43/38/84 (career 14.5 PPG on 43/34/85)

McGrady - 19.6 PPG on 45/44/82 (career 19.6 PPG on 44/34/75)

Deng - 17.1 PPG on 45/36/83 (career 16.9 PPG on 46/33/77)

Josh Howard - 12.7 PPG on 44/31/79 (career 14.3 PPG on 45/33/77)

Richard Jefferson - 14.2 PPG on  51/43/66 (career 14 PPG on 47/38/77)

Stephen Jackson - 17.4 PPG on 35/33/86 (career 15.1 PPG on 41/33/80)

Of the 12 players, 6 scored the same or less than their career averages against carmelo.  Those that scored more were only by marginal amounts.  Efficiency ranges from lower to somewhat higher.  No red flags here.

That’s 11 seasons of data. It doesn’t paint the picture of an egregious defender.

Here are the best players carmelo’s played with in his prime: andre miller (first few seasons of carmelo's career), kenyon martin (often injured), post 30s iverson, camby (often injured), JR smith, nene (often injured), billups, afflalo, amare (often injured), tyson chandler (often injured), kidd in his last season, in shape felton and porzingis' rookie/soph year.  

Outside of iverson, that’s a collection of good players, but nothing that screams "consistent second option", or even "consistent first option" if you want to push carmelo down a notch.  Porzingis and carmelo actually had great chemistry until rose came along, but their timelines unfortunately didn't match up.  Fit is clearly important, too, and while iverson and carmelo never had "problems" with each other, it wasn't working.  It’s not an accident that carmelo’s best seasons came with billups running the show in 2009 and a knicks team in 2013 which focused heavily on keeping the ball moving and quick decision making.

When he made it to OKC with westbrook and george it was just too little too late. Not denying the growing pains, but he was in year 15 and not the same player since his knee surgery. Took him time to adjust his game as he's now done in portland.

[Owly]

Well I'd note that that way of looking at things actually knocks both players, and that an alternative view might lead you to appreciate Hagan - and even Hawkins - more.

Here's something to chew on. You might know of the stat TS Add that bkref has added. It basically estimates how many extra points you're creating taking the shots you are as opposed to an expected level. There's more to scoring ability certainly, but as a baseline, it's great lens.

So, here are the top 5 players in the ABA by TS Add in the first year of the ABA:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/ABA_1968_adj_shooting.html

1. Connie Hawkins (Pittsburgh) +359.4
2. Charles Beasley (Dallas) +165.4
3. John Beasley (Dallas) +158.1
4. Cincinnatus Powell (Dallas) +148.2
5. Cliff Hagan (Dallas) +137.3

I'm guess you see the pattern. The Dallas Chaps' offense most definitely seems to be be the best offensive system in the ABA that year, and while that might mean that Hagan is merely a "system player" here, there's also the matter that he was player-coach and known for being a loud, controlling coach. This wasn't just 5 guys out there with the ball the way it was for the Pittsburgh Pipers.

Incidentally, unsurprisingly these were the two best offenses by ORtg that year.

More surprising? Perhaps the fact that Hawkins' Pipers had the #1 rating over Dallas despite the fact that Hawk was only the 3rd most prolific shooter on his team, and the 1st & 2nd guys had negative TS Adds.

I'd say with Dallas what you had is probably more capable coaching than the rest of the ABA early on - due to Hagan - but in the end the talent of Hawkins was so overwhelming that even when forced to carry the equivalent of handicapping weights, his team topped all.

One other note:

I think it's important to remember that Hagan got moved into more of a 6th man role as the St. Louis Hawks focused their first unit away from the previous Pettit-Hagan core to something more like a Pettit-Wilkens-Zelmo core, and those are good players. So a) while it certainly makes Pettit look more impressive than Hagan, I don't think it makes Hagan look awful, and b) I definitely don't think it should be taken as a given that Hagan was given as much primacy as he should have been.

Some interesting stuff.

Re the first para: I don't think many put much stock in Hagan's ABA run, if they're even aware of it. Hawkins conversely has his clear cut apex in the early ABA, if one buys that Hagan is highlighting how poor that league is (and Hagan was slightly below league average in the Reference box-composite metrics by the final year and sliding, then takes a year out) then you may cut the legs out of what might appear an exceptional peak and are left with a (to whatever degree) diminished perception of the ABA version and then 3, what, very good NBA years and then nothing needle moving. The quality of the early ABA (which he dominated) looms larger in the Hawk's evaluation than any other player, I would suggest.

I do understand what you're saying here, and this was what I was trying to address with my post.

I think it's important to understand that Hagan wasn't just able to show up in the ABA and become an MVP candidate. After being relegated to 6th man in the NBA, he got to be player-coach controlling his own team, and the result was an offensive system that produced unusually good offensive efficiency for all the core shooters on the team.

I don't mean to imply that Hagan didn't have some outstanding scoring games in the ABA, but if you look at Hagan's game-by-game data in the NBA, you'll see that every year he was producing 30+ point scoring games. I think the role he was asked to play in St. Louis toward the end made Hagan look like he had degraded further from prime than he actually had, and I think what we end up seeing in the ABA is that he was in the process of seeing his body crumble as old vets often crumble: They have good days and bad, and once the injuries start acting up, that can be that.

And I understand that the concerns of the quality of the 1st year ABA are on your mind and understandably so, but I just showed you a stat indicating that Hawkins was a country mile ahead of anyone else in the league. So if anyone is under the impression that "Hawkins had good numbers, but so did everyone in the ABA", I think they need to realize that Hawkins was in a completely different category from everyone else.

To be clear it's not that Hawkins' numbers in the ABA aren't exceptional so anyone thinking "so did everyone" is thinking wrong (though a liitle later players like Beaty, Haywood [bigs] and for a limited spell early, Barry did very well in the ABA). It is precisely because those numbers are exceptional and such a large part of his career value (as it actually transpired, rather than any hypothetical) that if you think the early ABA was essentially a second tier league and are more ... either pessimistic or even just uncertain as to what that translates to in NBA years ... I think that's got to hurt him.

I'm less sure that I buy Hagan as better than his numbers because he sometimes scored 30. By the end he I can't see that he appears to warrant a larger role (and haven't read as much either from, for instance, Full Court). Without stronger supporting evidence my impression is he went out at the right time in the NBA (then did commentary for a year and rightly figured he could be a good player-coach in the ABA). At the very margins I might guess with more rest and maybe more minutes versus subs he might be in a marginally advantageous position, maybe? I don't know. If one bought in that he was better than his numbers and weighted the playoffs more than I, and was lighter in penalizing the early ABA, they might having been advocating for Hagan a while ago (depending I suppose on peak versus career weighting, how one regards/weights the late 50s etc).

If I were to guess what might have been my inclinations are bullish on Hawkins. In terms of what he actually did ... I don't think I could justify him this high.

[Owly]

I didn't post on this one, want to take the time to look deeper so it's deliberate, not an omission. If you need my vote (tie/runoff/etc.) I will certainly do so.

"Tall Tales," my favorite basketball book ever written implies that the reason Hagan was made player/coach was because they couldn't keep him from fighting and if he was constantly sitting on the bench for that anyway, they might as well put him to use. Nice that he did a good job at it but I do see that despite 3 years over .500, he never coached again for whatever reason.

His take (from later on), and career path.

[Doctor MJ]

To be clear it's not that Hawkins' numbers in the ABA aren't exceptional so anyone thinking "so did everyone" is thinking wrong (though a liitle later players like Beaty, Haywood [bigs] and for a limited spell early, Barry did very well in the ABA). It is precisely because those numbers are exceptional and such a large part of his career value (as it actually transpired, rather than any hypothetical) that if you think the early ABA was essentially a second tier league and are more ... either pessimistic or even just uncertain as to what that translates to in NBA years ... I think that's got to hurt him.

Okay, I don't want to belabor the point. I'll just hit a couple other things with Hawkins.

As I've discussed, Hawkins was a high efficiency volume scorer over his first season in the NBA despite the fact that we know he was missing part of his earlier explosion. As such, I don't think there really is that much of a mystery about what Hawkins could do against tougher competition.

As for these other guys, I'm happy to talk about them in a Top 100 context.

First thing to be clear is that everything I've seen from ABA folks seems to indicate that there was not a doubt that Hawkins was better than Zelmo, Haywood, and Barry.

Alright, second thing: I kinda want to push back against using Barry doing well against anybody, like, ever. I mean, Barry got voted in a long time ago. If you want to have the debate about Hawkins vs Barry straight up peak vs peak we could, but fundamentally Barry was an incredible player.

Next Haywood. I think there's a clear contrast here people aren't seeing. People see similarities because Haywood won ABA MVP with big scoring numbers and then jumped to the NBA for a Hall of Fame career but:

Haywood's TS% in his '69-70 MVP season was 54.6. That's not just a lot less than what Hawkins did in the ABA, that's worse than Hawkins did in the debut in the NBA the same year (56.3). As such, if there's any notion that these guys were dominating in the same way, that should be nixed.

Second, remember that Hawk led the Pipers to the title by going next level.

Hawk in RS: 26.8 PPG on 59.7% TS (Those numbers being what allowed him to roughly double everyone else in the league by TS Add)
Hawk in PS: 29.9 PPG on 65.1% TS

While Hayward's scoring numbers look better in the playoff too (scored at an even higher volume), his efficiency remained good-but-not-that-good and his team got upset in the 2nd round by an L.A. Stars team that had been basically a .500 team.

I don't want to hate on Hayward, but what I'll say is that when I look through his career, I don't really see a guy who is that impressive. We're talking about a big whose focus was on volume scoring often with meh efficiency, and this is not what I'm looking for in a big if I want to win.

Okay, what about Zelmo? Well, I'd point out that I'm not sure if it really makes much sense to say "If Zelmo was great in the ABA, the ABA must not have been that good", because in addition to Barry, we've already voted Billy Cunningham and Dan Issel in, and I think Zelmo has a pretty good case for being better than either of them.

Zelmo was an all-star in the NBA before Cunningham, and he was leading his team past Cunningham in playoffs at an age when Cunningham would be washed up.

Consider in particular with Issel, that it's not just that Zelmo led his team to the ABA championship by beating Issel, but that Zelmo was an all-star more times in the NBA than Issel. Fine to prefer Issel by longevity, there's absolutely no reason to consider Issel the clear cut better player.

All this to say, while I don't expect to champion Zelmo for inclusion on the list, I consider him a worthy candidate.

One other note, it's interesting that we're talking about two different former Hawks when we mention Hagan & Zelmo. I mention this because the Hawks during Hagan/Zelmo's time were largely quite good, and those guys were important pieces to why they're good. I think it's important to recognize the difference between being given a smaller role on a team with other talent, and leading a team down the drain.

[prolific passer]

If Hagan didn't become a 6th man after 62. He probably at least has two more 20 7 4apg seasons in his career and probably makes 2 more all star games.
Heard him and Baylor had some classic battles.
Underrated well rounded forward.

[Owly]

To be clear it's not that Hawkins' numbers in the ABA aren't exceptional so anyone thinking "so did everyone" is thinking wrong (though a liitle later players like Beaty, Haywood [bigs] and for a limited spell early, Barry did very well in the ABA). It is precisely because those numbers are exceptional and such a large part of his career value (as it actually transpired, rather than any hypothetical) that if you think the early ABA was essentially a second tier league and are more ... either pessimistic or even just uncertain as to what that translates to in NBA years ... I think that's got to hurt him.

Okay, I don't want to belabor the point. I'll just hit a couple other things with Hawkins.

As I've discussed, Hawkins was a high efficiency volume scorer over his first season in the NBA despite the fact that we know he was missing part of his earlier explosion. As such, I don't think there really is that much of a mystery about what Hawkins could do against tougher competition.

As for these other guys, I'm happy to talk about them in a Top 100 context.

First thing to be clear is that everything I've seen from ABA folks seems to indicate that there was not a doubt that Hawkins was better than Zelmo, Haywood, and Barry.

Alright, second thing: I kinda want to push back against using Barry doing well against anybody, like, ever. I mean, Barry got voted in a long time ago. If you want to have the debate about Hawkins vs Barry straight up peak vs peak we could, but fundamentally Barry was an incredible player.

Next Haywood. I think there's a clear contrast here people aren't seeing. People see similarities because Haywood won ABA MVP with big scoring numbers and then jumped to the NBA for a Hall of Fame career but:

Haywood's TS% in his '69-70 MVP season was 54.6. That's not just a lot less than what Hawkins did in the ABA, that's worse than Hawkins did in the debut in the NBA the same year (56.3). As such, if there's any notion that these guys were dominating in the same way, that should be nixed.

Per the above it

Second, remember that Hawk led the Pipers to the title by going next level.

Hawk in RS: 26.8 PPG on 59.7% TS (Those numbers being what allowed him to roughly double everyone else in the league by TS Add)
Hawk in PS: 29.9 PPG on 65.1% TS

While Hayward's scoring numbers look better in the playoff too (scored at an even higher volume), his efficiency remained good-but-not-that-good and his team got upset in the 2nd round by an L.A. Stars team that had been basically a .500 team.

I don't want to hate on Hayward, but what I'll say is that when I look through his career, I don't really see a guy who is that impressive. We're talking about a big whose focus was on volume scoring often with meh efficiency, and this is not what I'm looking for in a big if I want to win.

Okay, what about Zelmo? Well, I'd point out that I'm not sure if it really makes much sense to say "If Zelmo was great in the ABA, the ABA must not have been that good", because in addition to Barry, we've already voted Billy Cunningham and Dan Issel in, and I think Zelmo has a pretty good case for being better than either of them.

Zelmo was an all-star in the NBA before Cunningham, and he was leading his team past Cunningham in playoffs at an age when Cunningham would be washed up.

Consider in particular with Issel, that it's not just that Zelmo led his team to the ABA championship by beating Issel, but that Zelmo was an all-star more times in the NBA than Issel. Fine to prefer Issel by longevity, there's absolutely no reason to consider Issel the clear cut better player.

All this to say, while I don't expect to champion Zelmo for inclusion on the list, I consider him a worthy candidate.

One other note, it's interesting that we're talking about two different former Hawks when we mention Hagan & Zelmo. I mention this because the Hawks during Hagan/Zelmo's time were largely quite good, and those guys were important pieces to why they're good. I think it's important to recognize the difference between being given a smaller role on a team with other talent, and leading a team down the drain.

Last post on this.

I'm not using Barry to "push back". This is not primarily a "pushing" exercise. Though this time I fear it's feeling like one. Barry was dominant in the very early ABA notching a 29.6 PER, .301 WS/48 (despite not being able to influence the team component for the majority of the season), and since you like it 219.5 TS add ... across 1361 minutes (which is to say, set to shatter Hawkins's record over a full schedule).

To say that he and Haywood and Beaty "did very well in the ABA" seems entirely reasonable. No Haywood at 20 wasn't as dominant (in an improving league) or as good as an older Hawkins (nor in my opinion would he ever match apex Hawkins) - but as you did with Gus Williams you've fixated on scoring efficiency as though it were an all in one metric, and here also focusing on it as a comparison (perhaps some idea of anchoring) rather than a measure of the ABA. Haywood's league leading 28.0 PER, .216 WS/48 at such a young age and the precipitous drop in those numbers highlights the gap between the ABA and NBA numbers (down to 18 and .091 across 33 games, then 19.7, .131 the next season) makes the NBA look much, much tougher, despite it's own expansion. Beaty's PER climb is lesser ( 6.1) with WS/48 up .108 after a year out, back at age 31, again league leader in both metrics ..

To say Zelmo was "an all-star" is somewhat ... less than the whole picture. In the 9 team league of '66. You have 10 all-stars per conference (if we weren't counting any injury replacements, which of course do get counted though I can't at a glance find that there were any for '66 - Thurmond was injured for '68). You have 45 starting spots overall in the league. Beaty does admittedly play in the 25 starter conference. This is also the conference with a single team above 0 SRS (and neither Chamberlain nor Russell). Even with a purely meritorious selection (position, conference and the three per team cap effectively enforcing a sharing round of spots prevent that being necessarily the case) and assuming no injury replacements an all-star birth at that time meant only that you were an above average starter. You could argue Beaty was good. You could argue he merited whatever status you deem all-star in a 9 team league connotes. Throwing the name "all-star" (or two time all-star) from that time means very, very little to me. Some of these things are less the case in '68 (expansion means less guaranteed spots etc) but most of the general points stand, all-star births mean little at this time.

Simply put, I don't think you can or need to argue against or at tangents to the point that the early ABA substantially inflated big men's numbers (heck Red Robbins couldn't get an NBA job and has 25.7 PER, .208 WS/48 as an ABA rookie). I don't think there's any question that those ABA numbers take a substantial haircut in the NBA. The question in simply how much and perhaps whether other angles (e.g. better use or any idea of him being better than his boxscore) mitigate against that.

Regarding Cunningham I guess you're making an internal consistency point? I'll just say I'm a non-voter and would not have had him in where he went (nor, off the top of my head and subject to change, for quite a while after).

[Odinn21]

92. Gus Williams
It's interesting to me that a player with similar prime but worse postseason resilience made the list before Gus in Lillard.
Gus had decent prime duration, elite peak and prime level. Had he not sat out a season with a contract dispute, I’d probably make a case for him earlier. But that season without him showed how valuable he was.
1979 Sonics, 52 wins and title with Gus, Sikma and DJ
1980 Sonics, 56 wins and WCF loss against the eventual champions with Gus, Sikma and DJ
1981 Sonics, 34 wins and no playoffs with only Sikma (Gus sat out, DJ was traded away for Westphal and Westphal played only 36 games)
1982 Sonics, 52 wins and 2nd round exit with Gus and Sikma (Westphal wasn’t in Seattle in that season)

93. Walt Bellamy
His prime has some inconsistencies but he had a career trajectory of a ‘00s player in the ‘60s with good quality. It’s all there for him.
(In terms of first few seasons, Bellamy and Hawkins are pretty similar but curious about why Hawkins should be a better candidate than Bellamy, Cunningham, Issel with their entire careers. It’s arguable that Hawkins peaked higher to begin with...)

94. Bernard King
Arguably the best peak among the big scoring wings of the '80s (Gervin, Dantley, English and Wilkins). Even after the injuries he was still a good impact ended up with nearly 20k career point.
I know my list is quite harsh on Bill Walton and Connie Hawkins who do not have much to show for outside of their top 3 or 4 seasons. But King is not like them to me. If anything, King is like a more impactful Carmelo Anthony IMO.

D. DeBusschere > J. Worthy > C. Webber > T. Porter > N. Jokic > C. Anthony > K. Lowry > L. Aldridge > D. Green > C. Hawkins > B. Walton > N. Archibald > N. Johnston > D. Johnson

[HeartBreakKid]

Hmm I haven't really thought about Beaty. If I could decide the last 8 spots he'd probably make them.

[70sFan]

I don't participate in the project unfortunately, but is there any reason why Hagan doesn't get any recognition for top 100?

[Owly]

I don't participate in the project unfortunately, but is there any reason why Hagan doesn't get any recognition for top 100?

2017 he got HMs that would have put him very approximately in the 114-119 range.
2011 extended ballot votes at 100 indicate circa 107.
2014 (in which I voted) he was getting mentions if not votes (from me).

So he's been consistently at the fringe.

Why he isn't in? Some speculative possibilities.
Discounting the 50s?
Maybe one could argue inconsistency in valuing playoff game-raisers only where it is part of a big part of the historical narrative (Thomas, Olajuwon, maybe for some Miller versus Wanzer, Baron Davis, Gus Williams, Johnny Moore, Coleman, Kemp, Andersen, Hagan, Schayes). This is a clearly speculative.
And of course the tough competition (and very small gaps at this point).

[trex_8063]

Thru post #31:

Carmelo Anthony - 2 (Clyde Frazier, trex_8063)
Bill Walton - 1 (HeartBreakKid)
Nikola Jokic - 1 (Dutchball97)
Dennis Johnson - 1 (Hal14)
Dave DeBusschere - 1 (Cavsfansince84)
Connie Hawkins - 1 (Doctor MJ)
Gus Williams - 1 (Odinn21)


Well this is an interesting case, and illustrates that EVERY vote counts at this stage and how consistent participation is essential if you want "your guy" going in: based on prior threads, this spot was Terry Porter's to lose.....but sansterre [the one guy who'd had Porter as his #1 pick] didn't participate this thread, making Porter ineligible from go.

As is, we have 8 votes with the above distribution, making Melo a default winner again. This time, his default victory is upheld: he leads Walton and Hawkins 5-3 in Condorcet, and ties the other four [which is sufficient to uphold a default win].
I'll get the next up.....

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[penbeast0]

...

Next Haywood. I think there's a clear contrast here people aren't seeing. People see similarities because Haywood won ABA MVP with big scoring numbers and then jumped to the NBA for a Hall of Fame career but:

Haywood's TS% in his '69-70 MVP season was 54.6. That's not just a lot less than what Hawkins did in the ABA, that's worse than Hawkins did in the debut in the NBA the same year (56.3). As such, if there's any notion that these guys were dominating in the same way, that should be nixed.

Per the above it

Second, remember that Hawk led the Pipers to the title by going next level.

Hawk in RS: 26.8 PPG on 59.7% TS (Those numbers being what allowed him to roughly double everyone else in the league by TS Add)
Hawk in PS: 29.9 PPG on 65.1% TS

While Hayward's scoring numbers look better in the playoff too (scored at an even higher volume), his efficiency remained good-but-not-that-good and his team got upset in the 2nd round by an L.A. Stars team that had been basically a .500 team.

I don't want to hate on Hayward, but what I'll say is that when I look through his career, I don't really see a guy who is that impressive. We're talking about a big whose focus was on volume scoring often with meh efficiency, and this is not what I'm looking for in a big if I want to win.
....

...To say that (Barry) and Haywood and Beaty "did very well in the ABA" seems entirely reasonable. No Haywood at 20 wasn't as dominant (in an improving league) or as good as an older Hawkins (nor in my opinion would he ever match apex Hawkins) - but as you did with Gus Williams you've fixated on scoring efficiency as though it were an all in one metric, and here also focusing on it as a comparison (perhaps some idea of anchoring) rather than a measure of the ABA. Haywood's league leading 28.0 PER, .216 WS/48 at such a young age and the precipitous drop in those numbers highlights the gap between the ABA and NBA numbers (down to 18 and .091 across 33 games, then 19.7, .131 the next season) makes the NBA look much, much tougher, despite it's own expansion. ...
Simply put, I don't think you can or need to argue against or at tangents to the point that the early ABA substantially inflated big men's numbers (heck Red Robbins couldn't get an NBA job and has 25.7 PER, .208 WS/48 as an ABA rookie). I don't think there's any question that those ABA numbers take a substantial haircut in the NBA. The question in simply how much and perhaps whether other angles (e.g. better use or any idea of him being better than his boxscore) mitigate against that....

Haywood was a consistent All-NBA mention for his first four full NBA seasons in Seattle for what it's worth. His ABA season was very consistent with his NBA except for minutes (still over 3000 per year from 72-74) and rebounding; this is not unknown for a lot of players who start out rebounding at a higher level their first year or two then drop off. He also played mainly center in the ABA and was more a PF who sometimes shifted to the 3 or the 1 in the NBA (like Hawkins), not sure how much difference that makes. His ABA year is still his best, but it's not too out of line with his NBA ones other than the minutes and rebounding numbers.

The numbers per 36 min (as per 100 possessions isn't available):
1969-70 ABA (rookie) 15.5reb, 1.8ast, 23.8pts, .546ts%
1971-72 1st full NBA 10.5reb, 1.7ast, 21.8pts, .527ts%
1972-73 2nd full NBA 11.0reb, 2.2ast, 24.9pts, .532ts%
(Note that he only played 33 games in 70-71 so I didn't use it)