[Project] Top 5 single season peaks by franchises: The Wizards

[Odinn21]

Hello.

Link to the project thread.

Pick the top 5 individual single seasons in the Wizards franchise history.

As Washington Wizars from 1997-98 to today
As Washington Bullets from 1974-75 to 1996-97
As Capital Bullets in 1973-74
As Baltimore Bullets from 1963-64 to 1972-73
As Chicago Zephyrs in 1962-63
As Chicago Packers in 1961-62

Things to follow;
- This project is franchise bound, not city bound. Quick example; Philadelphia Warriors from 1949-50 to 1961-62 is part of the Golden State Warriors franchise history and 1952 Arizin is eligible for the GS Warriors history.
- We'll follow continuity of the franchise. I.e. Seattle SuperSonics and Oklahoma City Thunder are the same franchise. We'll use BBRef as reference for this.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/
- ABA seasons are included.
- 2020-21 season is yet to be completed, so, it's not eligible for this project.
- One season per player, no duplicates within the franchise history. Quick example; Shaquille O'Neal can be voted for only once for the LA Lakers franchise history, and he can be voted for the Orlando Magic franchise history. They are separate occasions.

- Reg. season and postseason play, both are included in evaluations.
- Votes will be counted per player, not per version of player.
- An easy going point system of 10/7/5/3/1, the same as Retro PoY project, will be used. Number of higher placement votes will be the tiebreaker (if two players are tied at 27 points for the 1st place, the player with more 1st place votes will get it).
- Explanation is needed, even in short forms.
- We'll be going alphabetically with franchise nicknames. Linked to the voting threads as well.

Spoiler:

Philadelphia 76ers
Milwaukee Bucks
Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Boston Celtics
Los Angeles Clippers
Memphis Grizzlies
Atlanta Hawks
Miami Heat
Charlotte Hornets
Utah Jazz
Sacramento Kings
New York Knicks
Los Angeles Lakers
Orlando Magic
Dallas Mavericks
Brooklyn Nets
Denver Nuggets
Indiana Pacers
New Orleans Pelicans
Detroit Pistons
Toronto Raptors
Houston Rockets
San Antonio Spurs
Phoenix Suns
Oklahoma City Thunder
Minnesota Timberwolves
Portland Trail Blazers
Golden State Warriors
Washington Wizards

Results on Google Sheet

- The time frame for each franchise is 2 days (10:00 EST).

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[Dr Positivity]

I'm gonna need penbeast's help on this one

[penbeast0]

I haven't been involved in this project though I've read it with interest so I don't feel comfortable with a definitive list. A few possibles to look at:

Bellamy was ridiculous as a rookie and 2nd year player, he never achieved those heights again and the teams around him in Chicago were awful but the numbers are just silly.

Earl Monroe was his most dominant with the Bullets. With Gus Johnson and a young Wes Unseld, he took the 69 team to the league's best record for which Unseld got ROY and MVP (the only guy not named Wilt to win both) since Wes hadn't been there the year before.

Hayes and Unseld took the team to 3 finals and 1 title, they've never been a real contender otherwise. Remember that Hayes played very strong defense for us as well as scoring while Unseld did a lot of things that didn't show in the box score (GOAT pick setter, outlet passer, very good at blocking out his man), Bobby Dandridge was a strong 3rd option as he'd been on the Milwaukee title team.

Moses played for us for a few years, Bernard King too but neither were at their peak.

Chris Webber was the team's next "superstar," but never won a single playoff game.

Gil Arenas was the next primary scorer, then John Wall.

Modern day, Brad Beal has put up some big numbers.

The top 5 is going to come from those guys.

[Dutchball97]

I haven't been involved in this project though I've read it with interest so I don't feel comfortable with a definitive list. A few possibles to look at:

Bellamy was ridiculous as a rookie and 2nd year player, he never achieved those heights again and the teams around him in Chicago were awful but the numbers are just silly.

Earl Monroe was his most dominant with the Bullets. With Gus Williams and a young West Unseld, he took the 69 team to the league's best record for which Unseld got ROY and MVP (the only guy not named Wilt to win both) since Wes hadn't been there the year before.

Hayes and Unseld took the team to 3 finals and 1 title, they've never been a real contender otherwise. Remember that Hayes played very strong defense for us as well as scoring while Unseld did a lot of things that didn't shot in the box score (GOAT pick setter, outlet passer, very good at blocking out his man), Bobby Dandridge was a strong 3rd option as he'd been on the Milwaukee title team.

Moses played for us for a few years, Bernard King too but neither were at their peak.

Chris Webber was the team's next "superstar," but never won a single playoff game.

Gil Arenas was the next primary scorer.

Modern day, Brad Beal has put up some big numbers.

The top 5 is going to come from those guys.

Not a big John Wall fan? I'm seriously considering 2017 Wall for the top 5. I'd maybe mention Bailey Howell as well.

[falcolombardi]

I haven't been involved in this project though I've read it with interest so I don't feel comfortable with a definitive list. A few possibles to look at:

Bellamy was ridiculous as a rookie and 2nd year player, he never achieved those heights again and the teams around him in Chicago were awful but the numbers are just silly.

Earl Monroe was his most dominant with the Bullets. With Gus Williams and a young West Unseld, he took the 69 team to the league's best record for which Unseld got ROY and MVP (the only guy not named Wilt to win both) since Wes hadn't been there the year before.

Hayes and Unseld took the team to 3 finals and 1 title, they've never been a real contender otherwise. Remember that Hayes played very strong defense for us as well as scoring while Unseld did a lot of things that didn't shot in the box score (GOAT pick setter, outlet passer, very good at blocking out his man), Bobby Dandridge was a strong 3rd option as he'd been on the Milwaukee title team.

Moses played for us for a few years, Bernard King too but neither were at their peak.

Chris Webber was the team's next "superstar," but never won a single playoff game.

Gil Arenas was the next primary scorer.

Modern day, Brad Beal has put up some big numbers.

The top 5 is going to come from those guys.

what are your thoughts on wizards moses?

while out of prime he is still the best player to play for wizards (jordan notwithstanding) and seems at a glance he was still a star level player there

may he be a wild card here?, also are you low on John Wall compared to beal?

[penbeast0]

Not a big John Wall fan? I'm seriously considering 2017 Wall for the top 5. I'd maybe mention Bailey Howell as well.

Wall should have gotten a mention too, he was such a disappointment that I sometimes forget he was for a while a very good player.

Howell wasn't much for Washington -- efficient scorer but not at big volumes nor were his rebounding or defense anything to write home about from what I can tell, Dischinger was probably the bigger deal if you want someone from the pre-Monroe era other than Bells. More scoring at slightly less efficient peak on worse teams but gave the franchise hope that they could build something around Bellamy eventually.

[penbeast0]

...what are your thoughts on wizards moses?...

Question: Did the team improve with Moses over the previous year where they played Manute Bol and Charles Jones at center? They went up a couple of games, then slipped back again in his two seasons. Just not seeing a big impact.

And yeah, I have Beal over Wall pretty clearly.

[penbeast0]

Question for you guys: Should you grade a guy off for having a contract that hurt's the team's chance of improving (Wall, Howard, etc.) or is that purely irrelevant?

And, MAJOR KUDOS to Odinn for sticking with this project to the end. Thank you.

[Dr Positivity]

I'm probably going to vote 1. Unseld 2. Hayes. At least they accomplished something compared to many many years of good stats players on mediocre teams. Not sure whether to put Dandridge 3rd for the same reason or bigger stat player.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Wes Unseld 1971 - The Bullets/Wizards only good period coincides with his prime with two different cores in Monroe/Johnson and then the Hayes/Dandridge teams, starting as soon as he gets there leading to a 05 Nash like MVP for the turnaround. While I'm not a big fan of the missed games stuff in terms of causation/correlation, they go 14-12 during his injury season in 74 and 33-23 with the hobbled version playing, and then 60 W when he's healthy again the next year. He clearly is one of the best non boxscore players in history due to positional IQ and better intangibles than Hayes. I'll go with the 1971 playoff run but I don't feel that confident about it.

2. Elvin Hayes 1975 - The Wizards defensive anchor and flawed offense and intangibles and not the most reliable in the playoffs. I usually see his defense/offense as being like ironman Jermaine O'Neal which I guess is still a decent player. This is one of the best Washington seasons in terms of MVP/All NBA with 3rd MVP and 1st team All NBA.

3. John Wall 2017 - Excellent assists guard and peak scoring season at 24ppg, don't think this was his defensive peak but still better than some of the other one way candidates here. Solid in palyoffs.

4. Bob Dandridge 1979 - Not sure how much to trust 1st team all defense, but it appears he was solid on that end in addition to being a 20pt scorer with an all time midrange shot and decent assist numbers. Looks like his skillset was decent for playoffs. Can be argued over Hayes.

5. Gilbert Arenas 2006 - Top 5 scorer ahead of his time in an era where it was harder to put up points and hot in the playoffs as Lebron's first rival. I'd rate Beal over him if 2021 was eligible but not sure I want to put his 2020 good stats bad team season over Gilbert.

HM:

Chris Webber - Can make a case for his based on boxscore advanced stats and +/- but I'd rather just pick the elite offensive seasons

Earl Monroe, Gus Johnson - Seems like the efficiency isn't quite there, Monroe has volume scoring and Gus has defense though

Bellamy - Seems like limited impact when he gets traded, and unlike say Dantley didn't show up on elite teams

Moses - I guess he has a case statistically but like Webber I'd just rather vote for elite offensive guard at that point

Beal - 30ppg on weak team last year

Can be sold on switching Arenas for any of these guys, I think I like Wall and Dandridge in top 5

[Rich Michmond]

1984 Jeff Ruland deserves a mention. 22/12/4 on .633 TS% in RS, then 24/13/8 on .579% in the playoffs (on the Bird/McHale/Parish frontcourt). Appears to be a decent defensive player. His turnovers aren't pretty (to say the least), but he did improve his A/TO ratio in the playoffs, and I wonder how many of his turnovers stemmed from bad passing and how many were caused by moving screens/flying elbows etc.

1975 Phil Chenier also looks pretty solid.

[Odinn21]

And, MAJOR KUDOS to Odinn for sticking with this project to the end. Thank you.

Thanks a lot for the kind words. Popped my project cherry.

I have a few more ideas those can grab some attention but right now, I'm a bit ready to take a break after a 2-month project.

---

1. 1975 Elvin Hayes
He's the best among the options for me. I know that he was an inefficient scorer but I think that gets held against him way too much because it wasn't like he was playing next to a great creator and he was taking away from his team's offense. His aggressiveness was the bed rock of his team's offense despite his efficiency worries. He might be inefficient but sometimes a team needs an aggressive presence to create for others. Coupled with his performance on defense and boards, he's clearly the #1 in here for me.
1975 is the season that had the best overlap between regular season play and postseason play. It could very well be 1977 or 1978.

2. 1987 Moses Malone
As it tends to be that way with Moses and me, I expect this selection to be controversial. But he had a great season. I know that the Bullets did not improve much with him in terms of wins and SRS but look at these;

- The Bullets lost Cliff Robinson, Gus Williams and Jeff Ruland (to some extent), they got Moses. The improvement wasn't big but they were pretty reliant on their Malone duo, especially offensively.
- Moses Malone had +4.3 obpm, Jeff Malone had +1.3 obpm and no one else on the team posted positive obpm in that season. Not only that, Moses was 8th in obpm league wide. Also Moses' o-vorp share was through the roof. What I mean by through the roof, it's kind of like his own 1982 season and Bryant's 2006. Even though it's incredibly small sample, his o-vorp in the postseason is more than twice of team's total. That kind of thing happens when team is really insufficient on offense.
- As for his defense, this is one of those seasons I'd have Moses as a meaningfully positive impact defender.

My recollection from the footages I had is also quite high on Moses.

3. 1971 Wes Unseld
A pretty obvious choice at this point.

4. 1979 Bob Dandridge
What a player. I've always been fond of him. He was Pippen before Pippen the way I see it. Great all-around performance in the season. He did everything well.

5. 2017 Bradley Beal
One of the rather complete seasons in the franchise history. The reason I'm not going with Arenas in here is that Arenas was quite a defensive liability in 2006 and that makes it unfavourable even though the screaming match he got into with James. He was better on d in 2007 but missed the playoffs. Quality wise, he's not that ahead of Beal to earn this spot for me.

HMs; 1970 Earl Monroe, 2007 Gilbert Arenas

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While I was writing, I forgot about Walt Bellamy for a moment. I'll come back to edit this post about Bellamy. My initial reaction is to have him at #5 and slide Beal to HMs but I should sit on this for a while.

[HeartBreakKid]

1) 1971 Wes Unseld - He's up there with Malone and Blatche as an all time fat Washington player. Seems like a guy who did everything at a high level except score - I don't think any other players are well rounded or dominant enough to take advantage of the lack of volume scoring from Unseld. Unseld was involved with a lot of solid teams and seems likely given his playstyle that he would be a very impactful player.

2) 1975 Elvin Hayes - Not really sure who the better defender is, but I don't really think Hayes' offense moves the needle. The volume isn't very impressive nor is the efficiency, and there's nothing special about his passing. Even though it's known he wasn't a great scorer around here, I still think his scoring number subconsciously puts him in the conversation as the leader of the Bullets. Great combination of blocks and steals, but hard to really say what makes the Bullets go - seemed like they had a lot of good players during this period.

3) 1987 Moses Malone - Pit stop for Malone, but why not? Seems like he's as good as he was the season prior and that's more or less a prime season albeit he's on a decline removed well from his peak. Hayes seems like he has comparable scoring in his peak season, but obviously is a much better defender than Moses so I can't give him higher than #3.

4) 2006 Gilbert Arenas - Was really lightning this season. Perhaps he benefited a bit from the change of defensive rules, but it seemed like his scoring was tier 1 level. Okayish passer, but turnover prone. One dimensional, but the closest thing to an elite scorer the Wizards have had. I'll say Malone's rebounding keeps him ahead, but maybe that's not even a promise.

5) 2017 John Wall - Love his passing and playmaking. Strikes me more as a player who is better in the PS than the RS, perhaps that is true of that eras Wizards in general (they had awful depth). His scoring was pretty decent for a pass first guy. I thought he wasn't that far behind someone like Westbrook. Perhaps if him and Beal had more help they could have done something special, but it's hard to say - the Wizards were really poorly built in the past decade.


Phil Chanier is a contender for me.

Pearl Monroe strikes me more of a scoring guard than a passing guard, and I think there are a few guards who have a better track record than him. Beal is perhaps one of them.

Not sure what to make of Dandridge.

Bellamy and Webber are big names, but they were associated with pretty low points in the franchise and they haven't impressed me much outside of their tenure in Washington as well. Also, it's a big red flag for someone to allegedly have their peak season be their rookie season (I doubt it he really peaked then).



I'm not sure of any of my rankings, this might be the hardest franchise for me.

[70sFan]

I'll have to think about it for a bit, but Bob Dandridge has to be in top 5. He had Pippen-esque season in 1979, except that he was better offensively than Pippen.

[Dutchball97]

1. Wes Unseld, 1970/71 - I'm having a hard time picking a season as Unseld has multiple high quality outings so I'm going to stay with the concensus and go for 71. He's one of those guys whose impact doesn't always translate to the boxscore and yet he has some of the more impressive boxscores for the franchise. I see Unseld as the better defender than Hayes and honestly I'm not even sure if Hayes pretty inefficient volume scoring is more valuable than what Unseld brings on the offensive end of the floor. I considered Arenas for the first spot but while his stats do look better, he is the type of player very favored by boxscores while not nearly everything Unseld provided shows up in stats like that.

2. Gilbert Arenas, 2005/06 - I can understand how Hayes has a similar argument to Unseld. Hayes was also a much better defender than Arenas and had a much deeper play-off run. The thing is that I don't rate Hayes' offense all that highly and while his defense also gets overlooked in the stats, it isn't like Hayes was a good playmaker or as proficient at screens at Unseld either. Another reason is that while Hayes had a deep play-off run in 75 it wasn't his best. His 74 post-season is a comparable strong individual performance in a first round exit as Arenas has in 06 but the regular season is a clear step behind. His 78 post-season is my favorite but that regular season wasn't all that good either.

3. Bob Dandridge, 1978/79 - I was initially debating Hayes vs Wall for this spot but I like what Dandridge brings to the table. It is a bit odd to put Dandridge ahead of Hayes in my eyes but this again comes down to Hayes not really having that one stand out signature season.

4. John Wall, 2016/17 - So my experience with this list can be summed up as comparing Hayes to someone and preferring the other guy most of the time. Wall had a very similar statistical season to Dandridge and a similar team context as well but when the stats are this close I give the benefit of the doubt to the guy with better intangibles.

5. Elvin Hayes, 1974/75 - A lot of candidates left but looks like I've finally run out of players I'd pick ahead of Hayes here. Bellamy somehow got worse every year of his career and once he finally made the play-offs he wasn't nearly as impressive anymore. Monroe and Moses are solid candidates but neither really blow me away either. Webber would've probably gotten the nod with a strong post-season but what he produced in the play-offs with Washington is just about the opposite of that.

[TroubleS0me]

1) 1971 Wes Unseld - He's up there with Malone and Blatche as an all time fat Washington player. Seems like a guy who did everything at a high level except score - I don't think any other players are well rounded or dominant enough to take advantage of the lack of volume scoring from Unseld. Unseld was involved with a lot of solid teams and seems likely given his playstyle that he would be a very impactful player.

2) 1975 Elvin Hayes - Not really sure who the better defender is, but I don't really think Hayes' offense moves the needle. The volume isn't very impressive nor is the efficiency, and there's nothing special about his passing. Even though it's known he wasn't a great scorer around here, I still think his scoring number subconsciously puts him in the conversation as the leader of the Bullets. Great combination of blocks and steals, but hard to really say what makes the Bullets go - seemed like they had a lot of good players during this period.

3) 1987 Moses Malone - Pit stop for Malone, but why not? Seems like he's as good as he was the season prior and that's more or less a prime season albeit he's on a decline removed well from his peak. Hayes seems like he has comparable scoring in his peak season, but obviously is a much better defender than Moses so I can't give him higher than #3.

4) 2006 Gilbert Arenas - Was really lightning this season. Perhaps he benefited a bit from the change of defensive rules, but it seemed like his scoring was tier 1 level. Okayish passer, but turnover prone. One dimensional, but the closest thing to an elite scorer the Wizards have had. I'll say Malone's rebounding keeps him ahead, but maybe that's not even a promise.

5) 2017 John Wall - Love his passing and playmaking. Strikes me more as a player who is better in the PS than the RS, perhaps that is true of that eras Wizards in general (they had awful depth). His scoring was pretty decent for a pass first guy. I thought he wasn't that far behind someone like Westbrook. Perhaps if him and Beal had more help they could have done something special, but it's hard to say - the Wizards were really poorly built in the past decade.

.

yea he did...

[homecourtloss]

1. Hayes, 1975. Hard to pick here between him and Unseld but I like his offense better.

2. Unseld, 1971. Like the defense here

3. Gilbert Arenas, 2006 - difficult scoring era and he made it look rather easy. Better impact in 2007 but very good playoffs in 2006.

4. Beal, 2017. When his defense wasn’t turnstile bad.

5. Moses, 1987. Still was doing Moses things.

[Odinn21]

The Wizards results;

Code: Select all

1. 4-1-1-0-0 / 42 points / 0.867 share / '71 Wes Unseld
2. 2-3-0-0-1 / 35 points / 0.700 share / '75 Elvin Hayes
3. 0-1-1-1-1 / 16 points / 0.267 share / '87 Moses Malone
4. 0-1-1-1-1 / 16 points / 0.267 share / '06 Gilbert Arenas
5. 0-0-2-2-0 / 16 points / 0.267 share / '79 Bob Dandridge

6. 0-0-1-1-1 /  9 points / 0.150 share / '17 John Wall
7. 0-0-0-1-1 /  4 points / 0.067 share / '17 Bradley Beal
8. 0-0-0-0-1 /  1 points / 0.017 share / '70 Earl Monroe

Results on Google Sheet

[Doctor MJ]

Was trying to make myself commit to a vote and just couldn't seem to justify an order. Props to those who did.

Glad Unseld got the top spot. Was really struggling to compare him against Arenas & Beal.

[70sFan]

Will my votes still be counted?

1. 1970/71 Wes Unseld - one of the best passing bigs ever (not only outlet passing, but high post playmaking as well), great defender and one of the best leaders ever.

2. 1974/75 Elvin Hayes - I know, he wasn't efficient and I don't like his offense but his defense was real (better defender than Unseld in my opinion) and he gave Bullets consistent scoring option, even if mediocre one. Very underrated athlete and versatile defensive player.

3. 1978/79 Bobby Dandrigde - almost picked him above Hayes - excellent defender and very well-rounded offensive player. At his peak he was like Scottie Pippen with better scoring and slightly worse passing.

4. 1986/87 Moses Malone - underrated season, Moses was still in his prime and it was probably his last consistent defensive season. He made quite big impact on this Washington team and posted high boxscore numbers in low minutes. It's possible that I underrate him.

5. 1969/70 Earl Monroe - this might be biased choice, but I'm quite high on Monroe as a passer, creator and floor general. I prefer his all-around offensive game over Beal's scoring. It is close though and I may be too high on Pearl.