Better Player: Adrian Dantley or Alex English

[mdonnelly1989]

Better Player: Adrian Dantley or Alex English

[ty 4191]

Great comp!! Same exact years played. Same position:

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Dantley leads English in basically every metric, most notably, TS Added:

Dantley: +3109 (5th all time)
English: +632

Head to Head, same thing. 59 matchups:

https://stathead.com/basketball/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

[falcolombardi]

Great comp!! Same exact years played. Same position:

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Dantley leads English in basically every metric, most notably, TS Added:

Dantley: +3109 (5th all time)
English: +632

Head to Head, same thing. 59 matchups:

https://stathead.com/basketball/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Do you have the ts add list btw?

[penbeast0]

Dantley was the better scorer (5th all time is actually reasonable if you are talking about pure 1 on 1 scoring/efficiency ability) and that was both of their main role. English was better at everything else, better passer, more versatile, better defender, and one of the most liked people out there winning humanitarian awards while Dantley could be a grump (though most of his bad rep is due to Frank Layden). I would take Dantley for floor raising though English's ability to create for himself and others makes him good at that, but English for fitting in on a talented team though Dantley did that well in Detroit.

[ty 4191]

Do you have the ts add list btw?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B7L0VTBk3EPsXOnEntxJyBVsLrF7MNa3/edit#gid=446285040

[SickMother]

Great comp!! Same exact years played. Same position:

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Dantley leads English in basically every metric, most notably, TS Added:

Dantley: +3109 (5th all time)
English: +632

Head to Head, same thing. 59 matchups:

https://stathead.com/basketball/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Yeah, 115 career TS+ for Dantley vs 103 career TS+ for English. Even if Alex was better at everything else it's hard to make up for a 12% gap in shooting efficiency.

For comparison here are the career TS+ marks for some other all time great efficient scorers...

Reggie (116), Oscar (115), Curry (114), Nash (114), Kareem (114), Barkley (114), Mikan (114), Durant (113), Magic (113), Wilt (113)

[Owly]

Great comp!! Same exact years played. Same position:

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Dantley leads English in basically every metric, most notably, TS Added:

Dantley: +3109 (5th all time)
English: +632

Head to Head, same thing. 59 matchups:

https://stathead.com/basketball/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Yeah, 115 career TS+ for Dantley vs 103 career TS+ for English. Even if Alex was better at everything else it's hard to make up for a 12% gap in shooting efficiency.

For comparison here are the career TS+ marks for some other all time great efficient scorers...

Reggie (116), Oscar (115), Curry (114), Nash (114), Kareem (114), Barkley (114), Mikan (114), Durant (113), Magic (113), Wilt (113)

Bob Feerick 121 (4 years).

[70sFan]

Great comp!! Same exact years played. Same position:

https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Dantley leads English in basically every metric, most notably, TS Added:

Dantley: +3109 (5th all time)
English: +632

Head to Head, same thing. 59 matchups:

https://stathead.com/basketball/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1=dantlad01&player_id2=englial01

Yeah, 115 career TS+ for Dantley vs 103 career TS+ for English. Even if Alex was better at everything else it's hard to make up for a 12% gap in shooting efficiency.

For comparison here are the career TS+ marks for some other all time great efficient scorers...

Reggie (116), Oscar (115), Curry (114), Nash (114), Kareem (114), Barkley (114), Mikan (114), Durant (113), Magic (113), Wilt (113)

Bob Feerick 121 (4 years).

Neil Johnston: 119
Ed Macauley: 118

[falcolombardi]

Do you have the ts add list btw?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B7L0VTBk3EPsXOnEntxJyBVsLrF7MNa3/edit#gid=446285040

That list is eye opening about how overvalued volume is vs efficiency

So many moderately high volume in elite efficiency beating ultra high volume in good efficiency seasons

Wilt 67 is his highest ts add of his career and the highest overall until kareem (and one of the highest ever) in spite of being much lower volume than his 50 ppg season

Artis gilmore ultra efficient but not huge volume srasons have some of the highest ts adds in the league, jordan actually never reaches the top of the ts add list anf loses often to barkley in ts add

It explains how someone like magic or nash can be so impactful despite not fitting the scoring volume profile of a lebron or jordan

[penbeast0]

Someone did a study on APBR on lineups to compare scoring volume v. scoring efficiency in terms of offensive ratings. I have it on a flash drive but not here. If I remember I will dig it out.

[ty 4191]

Someone did a study on APBR on lineups to compare scoring volume v. scoring efficiency in terms of offensive ratings. I have it on a flash drive but not here. If I remember I will dig it out.

That sounds fascinating. Please do, if you can find it. Thanks!!

What's more important, in your opinion, volume scoring, or rTS%?

[No-more-rings]

Far from an expert on either one, however i’d imagine Dantley is more talented but English the more impactful star.

[penbeast0]

Someone did a study on APBR on lineups to compare scoring volume v. scoring efficiency in terms of offensive ratings. I have it on a flash drive but not here. If I remember I will dig it out.

That sounds fascinating. Please do, if you can find it. Thanks!!

What's more important, in your opinion, volume scoring, or rTS%?

The answer is . . . it depends. rTS% doesn't matter much if you are taking single digit shots, it matters a lot when you are shooting 20+ times a game. High volume with negative rTS% can actually be hurtful to your team (though there are some studies that show it has a gravity type effect helping others sometimes). Generally, I look for a blend though I tend to favor rTS% because I find volume scoring tends to be overrated so someone needs to take the other side.

[ty 4191]

Dantley scored 30 a game for 7 straight years on incredibly high efficiency, especially for that era.

What numbers/metrics are people using to come to the conclusion the English was more valuable than Dantley?

[DNice68]

Dantley scored 30 a game for 7 straight years on incredibly high efficiency, especially for that era.

What numbers/metrics are people using to come to the conclusion the English was more valuable than Dantley?

I agree, and as great of a scorer as English was he benefited from Doug Moe’s ‘get and go’ scoring system.

[penbeast0]

You can't make the case logically that English was a better statistical scorer than Dantley, he wasn't. In terms of other stats,

For over a decade in Denver, English was averaging 25.9/5.6/4.4 with only 2.7to and scoring efficiently for his era as well with a TS+ of 103 (.550 ts%). Denver did play at a fast pace but per 100 possessions, that's 32.2/7.5/5.5 (3.4 to) for a prime lasting 4 years longer (if you factor Dantley's Detroit numbers in the averages get a lot closer).

In his 7 year prime in Utah, Dantley scored more and more efficiently, rebounded slightly more, but was worse than English in both assists and turnovers. 29.6/6.2/3.7 on a rTS of 112 (.612 ts%)! with per 100 stats of 35.8/7.4/4.5 (4.1).

In terms of citizenship, I mentioned the anecdotes and awards. In terms of versatility, Dantley was who he was in terms of scoring, mainly an incredible mid-post one on one force driving the rest of his game. English filled a number of roles in Denver though, he was the main stretch the floor shooter (from midrange -- it was still the 80s) when Denver had big guards Fat Lever and T.R. Dunn, the main post threat when they had outside shooting bigs in Dan Issel and Kiki Vandeweghe, the main defensive forward when covering for Kiki, even some point forward at times. If you make the case for English over Dantley, it's probably on versatility, ability to fit different systems, defense, and intangibles.

[trex_8063]

Someone did a study on APBR on lineups to compare scoring volume v. scoring efficiency in terms of offensive ratings. I have it on a flash drive but not here. If I remember I will dig it out.

That sounds fascinating. Please do, if you can find it. Thanks!!

What's more important, in your opinion, volume scoring, or rTS%?

The answer is . . . it depends. rTS% doesn't matter much if you are taking single digit shots, it matters a lot when you are shooting 20+ times a game. High volume with negative rTS% can actually be hurtful to your team (though there are some studies that show it has a gravity type effect helping others sometimes). Generally, I look for a blend though I tend to favor rTS% because I find volume scoring tends to be overrated so someone needs to take the other side.

I agree it definitely has to be a blended consideration. And context of the efficiency should be considered too.

Someone like circa-2012 Tyson Chandler had astronomically high rTS%.....but it's because nearly all of his attempts were gimme's and put-backs.
Is he a better scorer than prime Carmelo Anthony (who was usually just +1-4% [if even] rTS%)? No, clearly not.


fwiw, the RealGM poster Moonbeam created [years ago] a metric he called Score+ or Scorer+: it was basically TS Added before TS Added was a thing.

I was always critical of it because it would rate players who were scoring BELOW LEAGUE AVERAGE volume as BETTER scorers than players for whom that was their whole deal: scoring.
Same is true of TS Add. Tyson Chandler has FIVE seasons higher than Melo's career-best TS Add, for example (five seasons better than Allen Iverson's best [which interestingly is EXACTLY the same as Melo's career-best], too).

I created a version some years back with Moonbeam's basic framework, but adjusted for scoring RATE and minutes played. I felt it was a more accurate representation of who the great scorers are.


But the other factor that is so often lost in the shuffle when talking about scoring and scoring efficiency is turnovers.

People only tend to consider turnovers within the context of passing/playmaking (if they consider them at all). But the majority of turnovers do NOT occur while making a pass, and a whole lot of them occur while trying to score (e.g. getting stripped of the ball, offensive foul, travelling or other dribbling violation, lose ball out of bounds, etc).

[homecourtloss]

Dantley scored 30 a game for 7 straight years on incredibly high efficiency, especially for that era.

What numbers/metrics are people using to come to the conclusion the English was more valuable than Dantley?

It’s hard to make a definitive case for English, but in the time that they played, English was thought to be a plus player.

Part of the knock against Dantley is that he scored so incredibly efficiently with his unique skill set, but still the Utah offense was below average every year from 1980 to 1986 except one year and in a few of those years, they were a bad offense. Dantley didn’t play with offensively talented teammates but the thinking is that an outlier efficient player would lead to better offenses.

We don’t have impact metrics but the partial data if it is to be taken as accurate suggests English was indeed a positive impact player:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2201404&hilit=Rapm

We have numbers about how players did vs. the Sixers and Dantley was a positive there but so was English. https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1416825

[ronnymac2]

I'll take the leading scorer of the 1980s...Alex English.

I feel like Dantley doesn't have many people who are neutral on him. He's been a polarizing figure on the PC Board since I could remember.

We have a sample size of 450+ games where Dantley scores 30 PPG on 56% shooting with 10 FTAs per game - impressive stuff regardless of era or offensive team results. We saw the guy sublimate his game to an extent on a championship-caliber team (1988 non-title Pistons are probably the best Detroit team of the era).

He's a midpost scorer with elite foul draw who doesn't do much else. I think the ideal situation for him in his prime would have been as a 24 PPG guy on a 4.00-5.00 SRS decent contender where he's the second best overall player. Or ensemble cast of all-stars...maybe run an inverted offense with Laimbeer or Sikma shooting jumpers while handling rebounding and defense and have a great two-way guard like DJ.

I always liked English. His 1985 season and playoffs is his peak, and in my opinion, is very underrated. People see English as a longevity, guy and for good reason; he's got about three more seasons of games more than Dantley, who doesn't have bad longevity himself. Alex averaged 30/6/4 with a staggering 7.9% Turnover Rate across 14 games in the '85 playoffs. He clearly outplayed Dantley in the semis as well (though to be fair, I see Dantley missed a fair amount of games in the '85 REG SEA, so he possibly was playing through injury in the postseason - I am not sure, just trying to be fair). I remember talking about English as a top-5 candidate in the RPOY project.

I will take English because I think he's a tad more useful offensively with his passing and more perimeter-oriented attack. He's got better longevity as well. Won't argue too hard if you take Dantley though. I do believe these guys are a similar caliber of player.