Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #29 - 2018-19 James Harden

[LA Bird]

RealGM Greatest Peaks List (2022)
1. 1990-91 Michael Jordan
2. 2012-13 LeBron James
3. 1999-00 Shaquille O'Neal
4. 1976-77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
5. 1966-67 Wilt Chamberlain
6. 2002-03 Tim Duncan
7. 1993-94 Hakeem Olajuwon
8. 1963-64 Bill Russell
9. 1985-86 Larry Bird
10. 1986-87 Magic Johnson
11. 2016-17 Stephen Curry
12. 2003-04 Kevin Garnett
13. 2020-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo
14. 1963-64 Oscar Robertson
15. 1965-66 Jerry West
16. 2021-22 Nikola Jokic
17. 1976-77 Bill Walton
18. 2005-06 Dwyane Wade
19. 2007-08 Kobe Bryant
20. 1993-94 David Robinson
21. 2016-17 Kawhi Leonard
22. 1975-76 Julius Erving
23. 2010-11 Dirk Nowitzki
24. 2016-17 Kevin Durant
25. 1982-83 Moses Malone
26. 2019-20 Anthony Davis
27. 2006-07 Steve Nash
28. 2014-15 Chris Paul
29. 2018-19 James Harden

Spoiler:

Please vote for your 3 highest player peaks and at least one line of reasoning for each of them.

Vote example 1
1. 1991 Jordan: Explanation
2. 2013 LeBron: Explanation
3. 2000 Shaq: Explanation

In addition, you can also list other peak season candidates from those three players. This extra step is entirely optional

Vote example 2
1. 1991 Jordan: Explanation
(1990 Jordan)
2. 2013 LeBron: Explanation
(2012 LeBron)
(2009 LeBron)
3. 2000 Shaq: Explanation

You can visit the project thread for further information on why this makes a difference and how the votes will be counted at the end of the round.

Voting for this round will close on Monday September 19, 9am ET.

[AEnigma]

1. Patrick Ewing (1990)
Basically 1982 Moses Malone with defence. Ewing sadly had no true chance at MVP that year with peak-ish Magic and Jordan in the league, nor was he fortunate enough to be traded to a 1982 76ers equivalent. However, he did go on his own monstrous scoring run and pull off an unexpected upset of Bird’s Celtics, where Ewing won three straight elimination games averaging an efficient 36/13/5, including a road win in the league’s toughest road environment. Shortly after, with Pat Riley as his coach and a better but still unspectacular supporting cast, he came the closest to beating each of the 1992 Bulls, 1993 Bulls, and 1994 Rockets in their respective title years. If he had been his 1990 self, instead of a few years on with degrading knees and overall athleticism, maybe he could have broken through (almost certainly in 1994). Timing is such an under-appreciated element of how legacies are built in this sport.

Here are some of the best posts and articles I was able to find about that season. I do not agree with every claim (e.g. calling Ewing a better pnr defender than Hakeem), but for the most part I think this all does a better job of detailing his season than I could on my own:

Spoiler:

https://hardwoodhype.com/the-work/f/nba-1989-90-peak-patrick-ewing

Already a bona fide star, the 1989-90 season is the one in which Ewing catapulted himself into SUPERstardom.

Ewing hit on 55.1% of his shots and a career-high 77.5% of his free throws en route to 28.6 points per game, third-best in the league and a career-high. For good measure, 10.9 rebounds per game, which was fifth in the league, was his best to date, as were his Assist (10.0%) and Turnover Rates (12.4%).

Twenty-one times he scored at 35 points in a game – in no other season did he do so more than eleven times. Eleven times he went for at least 40 – it’s the only time he reached 40 more than four times in a season. He set a single-season high with twelve games of 30+ and at least 15 rebounds. On ten of those occasions he scored at least 35 – he never did this more than five times in any other season. Eight times in his career Ewing scored at least 30 and grabbed at least 20 rebounds. He did it three times in ’89-‘90 – it’s the only season in which he did it more than once. Two of these were the only 40-20 games of his career. By Basketball Reference Game Score, this is the season in which he turned his top four (and five of the top-ten) individual performances, regular and postseason. Only once since 1983-84 (the date from which B-R has Game Scores) has a center topped four such games in a season.

This is a breakout season of volume greatness and performances, by a short-lived version of Patrick Ewing. Beyond the goofy great statistics and but special, historic performances (more on this in a sec), this is a different Ewing than the Dream Teamer, let alone, the one who anchored the contending Knicks teams to come.

Consider the first of those 40-20s. A month into the season, during the Knicks’ annual visit to Oakland, Ewing positively battered the Warriors, making 17 of 27 shots on his way to 44 points, while grabbing 24 rebounds – ten of them offensive –blocking three shots and handing out four assists in an easy win.

And the hits just kept coming. Three nights later in Phoenix, he had 41, 8 and 4, with five blocks. Two weeks after that, on December 16, it was 30, 14 and six blocks in a home win over the Sonics. Three nights after that, 41, 15 and four blocks in another win, this time over the Jazz.

By the numbers, that night in northern California remained the best regular performance of his career… for about five weeks. On January 7 he basically replicated the feat at home against the Clippers, again scoring 44, this time with 22 rebounds, seven blocked shots, four assists and a pair of steals. Two nights later he hung 35 on the Bullets, before putting a 33 and 12, with five assists and eight blocks on the Bulls at MSG.

And so it went… 38, 15 and four blocks in Dallas… 24, 11 and nine against Miami… 35, 13 and seven the next night in Orlando… 33, 13 and six in Houston… a pair of 41s in wins on either side of the All-Star break, with a combined 25 rebounds and eleven blocks… 37, 13, six assists and three blocks against the defending champion Pistons… 30, 18 and six blocks against Philly… and on… and on…

The game at the Garden on March 24 was always going to be an event, as any visit from the Celtics was in those days. Though the Knicks ultimately fell by five, it was another milestone for Ewing, who grabbed a whopping 18 rebounds to go with a career-high 51, and looked completely unstoppable doing it.

The next time out it was 41 and 12 with four blocks against the Bullets. Four days later it was 37, 21 and six against Denver. This is one of ten 35/20/6 performances recorded since 1973-74 – it was Ewing’s second of the season, and remains the most recent. He went for 37 twice more in the week that followed, first with 17 rebounds in Washington, and two nights later, with 19 rebounds and nine blocks in a home win against Philly. Six times since 1973-74 has a player has scored 35, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked nine shots in a game. Only four times has it been done in regulation. This is one of them. No one has done it since.

Some context around the 1990 Knicks: The Knicks started out 34-17 before making the Strickland/Cheeks trade. Then finished the season 11-20 for a combination of reasons. I wish I had game 3 of the Celtics series on my computer because Peter Vecsey does a decent job in a halftime segment of showing all the chemistry issues the Knicks had in the last couple of months of the season (these issues were why Knicks were given no chance to beat the Celtics). From making the Strickland trade, to Mark Jackson getting booed on the court and benched for 33 year old Cheeks, to Oakley fracturing his left hand and missing games, to Kiki V coming back and joining the team. These are a LOT of lineup changes for a team to endure mid-season, Knicks had a different starting PG, a different starting PF (Oakley out), a different starting SF (all of whom were defensive downgrades) in the last month of the season than they did when they were winning and putting up one of the best records in the league. I don't think it's a coincidence how the team performance changed so much just as the Knicks began encountering instability in their lineup. Unfortunately this stretch thwarted Ewing's MVP campaign as well (he was in the convo with Magic, Barkley, MJ for it). That was a 50+ win team disguised by the issues at the end of the season, so I would say Ewing was doing a great job of getting the best out of what he was given.

Some posts here seem to be have no sense of context surrounding his season, no analysis of his game (probably haven't bothered to watch any games), just going off a very very superficial analysis of "let me check PER and team defensive rating" and draw conclusions. This type of analysis is only going to produce outrageous statements such as "90 Malone was better than Ewing" or that Ewing "wasn't even on par with Dwight".

This is a peak project, I have a feeling people are letting their bias from mid/late 90s Ewing (who I have issues with offensively too) cloud their judgement on how good he was this year. I had a similar bias, but then I began watching his games from that season (about 15 or so) and what I'm seeing a dominant defender (his defensive versatility is better here than later in the 90s, my one gripe defensively would be that he was more prone to foul trouble this season than he would be later) with an offensive package like we've never seen Ewing put together at any other point of his career.

Why was he so much better offensively? As I've been mentioning, he had more variety in his offensive game, this was something everyone in the league was talking about. He went from being a predictable offensive player who was easy to game plan for, to being a lot more well rounded who mixed up and expanded his scoring repertoire. He was better at creating space on his shots, got that extra bit of separation he wasn't quite getting later as the years went on and a result he was having a lot of success as a one on one scorer in the post. He was at his physical peak in the NBA, insane stamina, a lot more athletic, moved better, had a bit more spring in his legs, which naturally allowed him to have a better conversion rate around the basket. His aggressiveness is completely different, he wasn't content to bail you out with fadeaways all game, he attacked the defense more often ever and consequently posted the best FTA numbers of his career (combined with a career best FT% which further raised his efficiency). His passing also took a big leap that year. While he wasn't Shaq or prime Hakeem, he was competent at reading doubles, this is another observation that is obvious to me from watching games and also reading/listening to what people around the league were saying.

This isn't a guy who saw an increase in his averages because he just upped his numbers and feasted on bad defenses either (like say D-Rob in '94), he was lighting up everyone. Here he is putting up 41/15 on Eaton:

Watch on YouTube

Here is the game where he put up 45/16 against the best defensive team in the league:

Watch on YouTube

His offensive numbers against good defensive teams/centers were very good over the course of the entire season.

Here's a Sports Illustrated article midway through the season (when Knicks were 25-10) talking about Ewing's amazing improvement on offense and how surprised everyone was by how much he improved:

But what the NBA is seeing these days, and is likely to be seeing through a good bit of the next decade, is much, much more. Some of the old images of Ewing are dated. He has buried them under an avalanche of soft, turnaround jump shots. "The book on him always was, Make him shoot over you, make him earn it," says Boston's backup center, Joe Kleine. "Well, now he's earning it." The power, the intimidation, the fearlessness are still there, but so are grace and finesse and economy of movement, terms previously associated with Houston's Akeem Olajuwon, Ewing's yardstick through most of the '80s, and San Antonio rookie David Robinson, the only other NBA center currently mentioned in the same breath with Ewing and Olajuwon.

Ewing's play has been an even more important component of New York's success. "He might be the best in the game right now," Los Angeles's Mychal Thompson told the New York Daily News after Ewing scored 29 points in a 115-104 loss on Dec. 3. "He and Magic [Johnson] are shoulder to shoulder."

"I know what people are saying now," says Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, "but when he came out of college, I don't recall anybody thinking he would score like this."

"I worked on some things this summer, just like I always do. I wanted to get better on coming into the lane with my left hand, and I've done that. I'm getting to the foul line more [his eight attempts per game are about two more than last season], and that's helped my scoring. But I haven't changed my jump shot. It just got better.

Ewing gradually improved under Pitino, but only recently has the whole package been unwrapped. It reveals an agile seven-footer whose turnaround jumper is accurate up to 20 feet; a heady player who discourages double-teaming with canny passes; an outstanding athlete who has somehow figured out the exotic fast-break passing strategies of point guards Mark Jackson and Rod Strickland, both of whom never make a simple move when 13 complicated ones will do; and a defensive intimidator whose 3.7 blocks per game at week's end were second only to Olajuwon's league-leading 4.2.

''He has taken his game to another level,'' Johnson continued, ''a level I've never seen him play at before. He's dominating offensively and defensively, but he's also making the right plays at the right time. He's leading his team, as opposed to before, when it seemed he'd just as soon let somebody else lead. That's the real mark of an MVP.'

https://vault.si.com/.amp/vault/1990/01/22/the-big-man-gets-bigger-patrick-ewing-has-added-finesse-to-his-intimidating-presence-and-made-new-york-an-nba-force

And people are questioning this guy's defense? Come on...this is '92-'94 Ewing but with way better knees. I mean every game I've seen of his from this season, it's the type of combo of scoring variety, defense and athleticism, Knicks fans always wished he had. He was seen as a better center than Hakeem that year, made the all-NBA first over him and had coaches around the league saying he was the best center in the league.

Parish said that Ewing "is a better player today because he has variety of shots, just doesn't throw the fadeaway jumpshot, he gives you the jump hook and his spin move on the baseline is the toughest thing for me to guard" (so this isn't exactly the fadeaway jumpers all game long offensive version of Ewing we remember most). From what I've read guys say about him, he took a big leap in his post game that season but declined as the 90s went on because his knees got worse and worse (and of course he aged, he was in his 30s during '92-'94...and consequently shot jumpers wayyyyyy more often), and as a result so did his efficiency. Even in something like FT shooting, it's way above his career average and his best year ever. He is doing a lot of heavy lifting offensively...must be turning the ball over a lot like he always did, but nope, while putting up the scoring numbers he did, he also posted the third best TOV% of his career. It's not like Ewing is inexperienced here either, he is 27-28 which is usually when players peak so career trajectory wise, it makes sense.

Knicks were still above average defensively considering the following things: a rookie head coach (Stu Jackson, fired 15 games into next season...and only coached one other team after that, the 6-33 Grizzlies), the second best defender on the team missing 21 games, a bad defensive backcourt particularly when Kiki joins the team. I would say he's making pretty good impact here (and we know he can probably make a lot more if he is on a championship caliber team where he doesn't have to score as much). This is one of the great interior defenders of all time, he didn't learn defense when he was 30 years old just like KG didn't magically learn to play defense when he joined the Celtics. His comparison was Bill Russell coming out of college, he was seen as one of the finest defensive talents ever. The questions weren't "can he defend?" but "can he add enough to his post game?" (and he did in 1990). In terms of interior defense, he's ones of the best ever, anything you threw around the basket was going to get challenged, no easy baskets even it meant you put him on a poster. He's second in the league in blocks behind Hakeem, I know averages aren't everything but this isn't Javale McGee we are talking about, but a fundamentally sound defensive player, who plays great post defense and whose block averages reflect his ability to absolutely lock down the paint. I'm going to guess a better moving version of the guy who was anchoring historic defenses a year and a half later was still pretty damn effective on defense. Seems like a reasonable conclusion.

Regarding the Ewing Theory. It refers to the mid/late 90s version of Ewing (in his mid 30s) who is 5+ years away from the year in question here and a CLEAR step down offensively. Even if it were true, it's not very relevant. It's like using Kobe's impact last couple of years to define his impact in '08.

One thing I kind of wish there was more of an argument for was D-Rob (who I think went a few spots too high) vs. Ewing. Would people really take '95 D-Rob in a playoff series over '90 Ewing? Has D-Rob ever taken over offensively for his teams in the playoffs like that? Could D-Rob give the bad boy Pistons defense 45 point game and then come back and drop 30 points in the second half of the next game? And don't forget the intangibles, Ewing was intimidating on the court, a better leader, a guy who has an impact over the entire mentality of the team. I think a great argument I read for D-Rob was that he'd be a great second banana offensively on a championship team but would still be the best overall player on the team...could the same thing not be said about '90 Ewing?

Another great post by fatal and I agree with you 100% (even youtube video you posted was uploaded by me, because I was so impressed by Ewing's play).

And Ewing theory is completly BS... at least until he was 36 years old. In 1986 he missed 32 games and NYK without him were worse by 6.2 efficiency pts (Ewing improved offense by 1 and defense by 5,2).

1987: 19 games missed, -7 without Ewing (0.4 offense, 6,6 defense)

1996: 6 games missed, -10.6 without Ewing (he improved defense by 12.2 drtg! but offense was worse with him by 1.6)

1998: 56 games missed, -5.4 without Ewing (he improved defense by 7.3 but offense was worse with him by 1.9)

1999: 12 games missed, NYK were better without him by 2.7 eff pts (but still defense was better with Ewing by 1.5)

2000: 20 games missed, team worse by 1.1 with Ewing (but with him offense was better by 3.5 and defense worse by 4.6)

So we see that through almost whole career he was great defensive player and during his early years, before knees were destroyed by injuries, he was also slightly positive player on offense. I really see no reason to put him so much behind DRob whose profile and impact on the game are very close to Ewing's.

1990 Patrick Ewing - This season is spectacular. Ewing was legitimately up for MVP along with Barkley and Magic for most of the season prior to his team making some moves that hurt them. In the first 52 games of the season the Knicks went 34-17 (55 win pace) with Ewing averaging 27.8/10.2/2.3 (4.9 combined blocks and steals) on 58.7 TS% with a 114 ORTG. After the trade the Knicks went 11-20 which would make one assume Ewing didn't play well but he actually played better with the team around him falling apart. He averaged 30.0/12.1/2.1 (4.9 combined blocks and steals) on 61.9 TS% with a 116 ORTG in the last 31 games.

At one point they had a 1-9 stretch where Ewing averaged 32.1/12.5/1.3 (5.0 blocks and steals combined) on 64.5 TS%. His career high was in that stretch, a 51 point performance in a loss to the Celtics.

Then the playoffs came and Ewing went off. In game 1 vs Boston they lost pretty handedly and in game 2 they allowed Boston to break the playoff record for points with 157 (a record that still stands). Following that embarrassment at Boston they were facing elimination in game 3. Ewing and Oakley really turned on the defense and dominated the glass with Ewing grabbing 19 boards in the 3 point win. They followed that with a game 4 blowout win where Ewing played what's probably his best game ever with 44 points, 7 steals, 5 assists, and shooting 75% from the field. Now they were tied up in the series attempting to become the 2nd [sic] team to comeback from being down 0-2 and at the same time hoping to break a 28 game losing streak in Boston (the last time they won in Boston was in 84). The Knicks won that closely contested game with the momentum shifting towards the end of the game with Larry Bird missing an easy dunk and Ewing shortly after making his iconic turnaround 3 pointer.

On Larry Bird missing that dunk this is from SI's article on that series:

When Larry Bird missed the dunk—a point-blank dunk at crunch time in a do-or-die playoff game in Boston Garden—he did so not as a result of any strange astrological occurrence or the Massachusetts budget crisis or even tough defense.

He did so, by his own account, because he was worried. "I wasn't going to dunk it," he explained after the game. "But I thought Patrick was coming, so I tried to. And then I jumped too high, if you can believe it."

Believe it, as hard as it may seem. It is not the business of Boston Celtics to feel shadowy presences, least of all for Larry Legend to feel one from a New York Knick in the building in which New York had lost 26 straight times and hadn't won in the playoffs since the Nixon administration. This was the Garden, and the ghosts are supposed to be friendly. But: "I thought Patrick was coming."

If the truth be told, at the time of Bird's misguided dunk attempt, any Celtic was entitled to be wary of these Knicks. A little more than four minutes remained in Sunday's fifth and final game of these teams' first-round Eastern Conference playoff series, and the Patrick in question, a certain Mr. Ewing, had just feathered in a jump-hook to give New York a 103-99 lead. Ewing did just about everything asked of him in this game. He finished with 31 points and 10 assists, and those figures are stark testimony to how shrewdly he picked apart Boston's double teams with opportune passes and drives.

https://vault.si.com/.amp/vault/1990/05/14/oh-those-cheeky-knicks-mo-cheeks-drove-new-york-to-a-stunning-win-over-boston

Following that series they were completely outmatched by the Pistons but Ewing wasn't. He had some stinkers but overall averaged 27.2 ppg on 56 TS% which is more PPG than anyone outside of MJ (who was only as efficient as Ewing one of those 3 years) averaged against the Pistons in a series between 88 and 90.

EDIT: I punched the numbers. MJ averaged 30.0 ppg on 56.0 TS% against the Pistons from 88 to 90. He averaged 25.4 points per 36. Ewing averaged 26.2 points per 36 against them on 56.0 TS%. So his scoring performance against them was right there with MJ's average scoring performance against them.

Overall that's a pretty great season, but it's not the most impressive left on the board so why 90 Ewing? Well here's how I see his game:

Scoring - 28.6 ppg on +6.2 rTS% speaks for itself. Post merger only Moses (in 81), Robinson (in 94), and Shaq (in 94, 95, 00, and 01) have scored more ppg as a center. Only Shaq in 94, 00, and 01 did it on higher efficiency. In the playoffs he showed he could consistently score on that level scoring 29.4 ppg on 57.9 TS% in the playoffs. Post merger only Shaq (in 98, 00, and 01), Hakeem (in 88 and 95), and Kareem (in 77 and 80) scored more ppg than Ewing in the 90 playoffs. Only Kareem in both years, and Shaq in 98 did it on higher efficiency.

Then you look at his skillset. He had a robotic but effective post game with a predictable but at times unstoppable running hook shot, great speed and strength, the best jumper for any true C I've seen outside of KAT, and his one weakness was probably his small hands which at times limited him on lobs and lead to easy misses of his signature finger roll. There's a solid argument to be made that outside of the true greats (Kareem, Hakeem, Wilt, Moses, Shaq) he's the best scoring C ever. I think his scoring game would suit the modern game amazingly too. Ewing got most of his buckets back then off quick actions and turnaround jumpers, things that would be more valued in today's league at his size.

His passing and rebounding on the other hand were never strong. His passing was below average and his rebounding was mediocre at best for his size.

There's been a lot of discussion about his defense this year. Discussion I don't really understand. Ewing was still an elite defender in 1990 and I don't really have any reason to think he improved after 1990. Played better? In 1992, definitely, but outside of that the biggest change in the quality of the Knicks defense those years was due to his support and most of all the coach. The coach's effect on defensive ratings is always overlooked but there's no great defenses that don't have great defensive coaches and his supporting cast was Oak, Wilkins, and a bunch of scrubs in 1990.

On that end he was a beast out on the perimeter capable of sticking with smaller guys, super athletic and capable of blocking shots at their apex, the best PNR defender of all the Cs of that era (DRob, Hakeem, Deke, and a little later Zo) and he had fast hands capable of stopping drives. Can anyone actually say what he improved at under Pat Riley? I mean performances aren't consistent which is why I think he was better defensively in 89, 92, etc. but why believe Ewing was a meaningfully better defender in the mid 90s just because he finally got a supporting cast that was dominant on that end and a great defensive coach?

I think tons of people just aren't used to seeing young Ewing so they see the numbers and can't connect it to him being legitimately better, and assume he had to have improved later when in reality he lost a ton of his athleticism and really didn't add much to his game. 93/94 Ewing isn't locking down Edwards on the perimeter, forcing Isiah to pick up his dribble and rush a pass (causing a turnover) after a switch in the PNR, drawing a charge on Isiah all the way at the dotted line with his quick reaction and movement (it was called blocking but he's clearly there in time), stopping 3 on 1 fast breaks because no one wanted to go up with it with him around, and at the end of the game blocking Isiah's layup from the other side of the basket.

2. Dwight Howard (2011)
Put simply, I think he is the best remaining defender in contention (perhaps depending on whether Thurmond qualifies as a contender, which he might), and while I have some issues with his offensive profile in the postseason and with that profile’s ability to translate dynamically across different teams, his intense rim gravity gives him a pretty fair floor. He was a top player on par with several already admitted — 2009-11 Wade, 2009-11 Dirk, 2005-11 Nash — and has a theoretical framework of “Rudy Gobert with legitimate scoring pressure”. As with Ewing, also worth considering just how much timing affects our assessments: could the 2011 iteration of Dwight and a healthy Jameer Nelson have won the title in 2009?

3. James Harden a.) 2020 b.) 2019
Yes, I have finally managed to stomach my sheer revulsion and seething hatred. Reached a rare (arguably unprecedented) scoring apex, improved his defence to tolerable levels, captained one of the ~five best non-title teams ever (imo: 2016 Warriors, 2017 Cavaliers, 1972/74 Bucks), and in Brooklyn proved an immediate ability to scale back the scoring load. Now, in that particular role I would prefer someone like Chris Paul or Penny, but I do give him credit for having the ability to do both and the durability to shoulder those loads consistently even in long postseason runs. There are plenty of valid criticisms: still not a good defender, not the most dynamic passer (although that is not a strength for Paul either), not quite one of the all-time court generals, terrible off-ball, on-ball scoring primacy can marginalise teammates or otherwise lead to obvious diminishing returns, mediocre impact indicators…
…
Hm, I might be talking myself out of this as I go on. I fully encourage people to sway me a different way. Until then, Harden is the pick.

4. Karl Malone a.) 1998 b.) 1995
I said when I entered the project that I had a general preference for two-way bigs. Among that archetype, Karl Malone looks like the best option (if only because I am applying something of a health penalty to Embiid). Outstanding offensive impact through scoring and passing, and respectable defensive impact via tenacious post defence, crafty hands, and positionally strong defensive rebounding. Robust albeit not overwhelming performer in most impact indicators, although as I have repeatedly expressed, I avoid getting too myopic with both in-era contextual and cross-era comparative impact, and I do believe there are some major collinearity issues with being perpetually tied to Stockton. I do not see Stockton as any sort of superstar, think he was only ever a fringe top ten player at his peak (and this is not his peak), and am secure with the evidence (contrary to common assumption) that Malone did not exactly need Stockton to score as he did.

The postseason dips give me some pause, but the results were still stronger than most players, and the scoring decline is defensible enough when factoring load, scheme, opposition, style, and teammates. An often unrecognised attribute I like in Malone: he has a mild positive tendency to improve after struggling against a prior opponent. Note the change from the 1994 Rockets to the 1995 Rockets, from the 1997 Rockets/Bulls to the 1998 Rockets/Bulls, and from the 1999 Blazers to the 2000 Blazers. I think 1995 has merit, but 1998 would be my pick, for its postseason and for how Malone supported the team without Stockton… but that sample without Stockton is also what makes me hold off on a higher spot.

The Jazz went 51-13 with Stockton (65-win pace) and 11-7 (50-win pace) without him. In prior projects I saw cases made that the without record is a bit unfair because the team needed time to adjust without their ever-present offensive captain, and that is probably true… but then again, most of those teams in the without sample were pretty bad. I do not have any SRS numbers on hand for that stretch, or even net rating. I do not exactly have Malone on/off splits independent of Stockton, although I do know his average plus/minus (not regularised — I am referring to the one for which Draymond set the all-time record in 2016) was +4.2. He went +8.1 the rest of the season with Stockton in the lineup. I encourage anyone to share further data or prior comments on this dynamic.

Now, this is not a damning result. Elsewhere on this board I have gone over other random WOWY absences which hurt their teams, by players with a much lower place on their team’s hierarchy than Stockton’s place on the Jazz. However, Stockton was an undeniably high impact player in the regular season, and while we could debate the merits of replacing him with a less “good” but more reliable postseason performer, seems fair to say the Jazz would not be much of a contender without him. I slightly prefer players who manage to contend without an equivalent secondary support piece, but I do have him ahead of Barkley for his substantial advantage on defence and for postseason offensive results comparable to or better than Barkley with a generously “similar” supporting cast (Playoff KJ >>> Playoff Stockton).

Spoiler:

the RS numbers need to be remembered in interpreting what happened to Utah in the PS. This is a 27 ppg/58% guy changing to 27 ppg/53%...but there are also circumstantial changes to consider.

I've written about the change in role in the PS, largely IMO bc Stockton was incapable of certain things for the heart of Malone's career. The rest of the team's turnovers plummet (an indication they are "doing" less), for example, as Malone does more. (I'd call it unipolar, but I have a lot of respect for the Jazz offensive sets.) As a result, we see Malone in more iso situations, absolutely.

With jordan, Shaq and Hakeem as the only other better statistical PS scorers of the period (or perhaps Reggie Miller?)...

I've written about this before... https://web.archive.org/web/20120222015812/www.backpicks.com/2012/02/07/john-stocktons-legacy-impact-and-playoff-failures/; Most players will drop no more than 1.5% in TS% more than we "expect" in the PS based on their opponent strength. Malone drops more than any other notable star since the merger, at 3.9%.

You know who else has an enormous drop? His teammate, Stockton (-3.4%). Chicken, meet egg. But if you believe that Stockton was helping Malone get better shots, only Stockton's own game limits the pressure he can put on a PS defense, then that shifts some of the role to Malone (which bastillon was saying). That we still see 27 ppg scoring and excellent offensive results (remember Malone was a fantastic passer) means it doesn't make much sense to say his scoring was "REALLLYYYY overstated."

The 94 Jazz had "second options" of Horny and Stock...but really Stock was a PG who wasn't going to take over the game scoring and he didn't have the same scoring threat we see today from guys like Paul or Nash (heck it wasn't close to the same as Penny.) Horny was a spacer/shooter, and a good one, and his arrival boosted the Jazz offense. So what you get is:

94 Malone 27 ppg 53% TS (Hornacek 15 ppg/59%, Stockton 14/52%)
95 Malone 30 ppg 55% TS (Hornacek 12/60%, Stockton 18/55%)
96 Malone 27 ppg 50% TS (Hornacek 18/65%, Stockton 12/60%)
97 Malone 26 ppg 50% TS (Hornacek 15/57%, Stockton 16/63%)
98 Malone 26 ppg 53% TS (Hornacek 11/53%, Stockton 11/57%)

Malone's A 27 ppg, 53% TSer who was carrying an enormous load. The Jazz postseason offenses in those years were:

Utah PS offenses
94 +4.5
95 +8.5
96 +6.7
97 +6.5
98 +0.1 (and that was +4.3 in the WC PS before the debacle in Chi)

So you're left with a scorer, who is the primary scorer, who is scoring at a rate that only the all-time best eclipse, and his team's ORtg changes correlate strongly (0.77 from 92-98) with his individual ORtg changes. Here are the players I consider to be better offensive post players and their PS numbers*:

Hakeem (93-95): 27/57%
Shaq (00-02): 30/56%
Kareem (77-80): 32/62%
Dirk (09-11): 27/62%
Barkley (89-93): 26/58%

And here's the crux of the point: If Malone could maintain his volume/efficiency (27/58%) despite the changes in what his teammates were doing in playoff series...he'd actually be raising his game significantly. Significantly! Heck, 27/56% would be raising his game a lot because that would simply be the "expected" TS% against those defenses. This is, in a statistical sense, what Hakeem did (and why he was voted in at No. 5). If Malone was doing this, he'd quite likely have multiple championship rings and we'd have voted him in a long time ago.

So I guess if you think of Malone as a 30/60% guy, then that does really overstate him as an iso scorer. If you think of him as a 27/53% guy on a good team (or for some, a really good team), that understates him as a scorer. Who cares about the semantics here though, when the important point is that Malone is an excellent scorer who is just a cut below the all-timers.

*Malone 92-98 is 27/53% (103.9 opp DRtg). He's +1.6% aTS% gainst his opponent's, and when we incorporate how good of a passer he was, there just simply aren't any bigs left who are better offensively. Other bigs in their prime as PS scorers:

Duncan 23/55% v 103.7 DRtg teams
Moses 23/55% v 103.2 DRtg teams
Ewing 23/55% v 105.1 DRtg teams
Robinson 23/55% v 106.5 DRtg teams

If we take out isolation offense, Malone is maybe the best scorer ever. He is incredible at scoring in context of the team, kind of like “take nothing off the table” type of guy in the offense. He spaces out the floor. He gets your offense easy baskets. He RUNS offense for you out of the high post. He threads passes from the post to hit cutters. He is a legit offensive hub. He makes opponents think twice about fighting through his screens. He reads defenses well. He's elite in the pick and roll. He is a capable iso scorer (mediocre when compared to the best). He does an amazing job at putting himself in position to score without the ball (has a knack for where to be, and also has brute strength to get position where ever he wants). He can score an efficient 25 without ever stopping the ball or putting it on the floor. If he grabs a defensive rebound, he’s throwing an outlet pass in the receiver's lap. He is an incredibly effective team offensive player. You lose a lot with him off the floor.

I think it's absurd that people are questioning Malone's team impact when his strength as a scorer and offensive player is how well he does it WITH the team (and how well the team does with a player like him on the floor). No, I don't think old Stockton and old Hornacek playing 30 mpg are the co-anchors of an offense that was better than MJ's Bulls. I can’t throw out all I see based on a single piece of data that isn't even from the time period in question and is filled with confounding variables galore.

Malone’s regular season impact is and never was a question to me. I have problems with his isolation scoring in the playoffs and to me that was a big flaw when we were discussing him with players in the 15-20 range (who were 5+ type offensive players). Now we are at 25, the flaw isn’t quite as glaring because everyone now has one thing or another, we’ve moved into lower end of the tier.

After these four is when I get more comfortable with the smaller postseason sample names, so maybe Embiid or McGrady next. Much like with Harden, could be talked down on Malone
And to be clear, pretty much everyone after Nash is on a roughly comparable level to me. I did not vote for Paul for injury reasons, but I do respect his healthy impact, so no objections to him slotting in at #28. If Ewing and Howard end up taking a while, pretty fine with that too (I think it looks bad relative to the Moses placement, but I guess that is just MVP/ring privilege). I just felt really strongly about Nash. Like, I personally had him as a top twenty peak, but I understand some abstract “greatness” penalty for never winning or even reaching the Finals; slotting in as the second-best non-title winner after Jokic is all I ever really hoped to achieve here.

[Samurai]

1. George Mikan 1950. (alternate 1951, 49) By far the most dominant 2-way player relative to his peers of anyone left. Led the league in scoring, Win Shares and Defensive WS. Likely would have led the league in rebounds and blocks if those stats were recorded then and would have been the clear favorite for Defensive Player of the Year is such an award existed. There is no question whatsoever that he was the best of his era, more so than anyone left. In terms of in-era dominance, he has a very good case for being the GOAT. As is, he may well be the most impactful player ever, given that the 24-second rule was established largely due to Mikan's dominance and the widening of the key was dubbed "the Mikan rule". A good argument can be made that the introduction of the shot clock is the single biggest and most influential rule change since the NBA started. The question is how much do we penalize him for playing in a weaker era. This is where I would draw the line at continuing to penalize him.

2. Bob Pettit 1959. (alternate 58, 62)I have Pettit as very close to Mikan so I suppose it makes sense for me to list him just after Mikan. In terms of how he did against his peers, I think a good argument could be made that 59 Pettit could have been a top ten season. Obviously we also have to look at the context of his season and the quality of his competition and figure out how much to penalize him for the era he played in. He was MVP in a league that had Bill Russell averaging 23 boards/game, a rookie Elgin Baylor averaging 25 pts and 15 rebounds/game, and Hall of Famers like Schayes, Arizin, Hagan, Cousy and Twyman in their primes. Pettit led the league with 29.4 pts/game, a 28.2 PER and 14.8 WS while finishing second in rebounds with 16.4/game.

3. Tracy McGrady 2003. Sure, its an outlier season for him but for this project that is irrelevant. For that one year, he put together his best shooting season with one of his better assist seasons. Also had his best season at drawing fouls and by far his best season ever in WS, WS/48, OBPM and PER.

[trelos6]

29. James Harden 2019. Hard to pick a year. 18 v 19. Both were great. In 18-19 he was 36.2 pp75!!!! At +5.9 rTS%. Team rOtg was +5.1. Not to mention the assists he generated for teammates. Harden was the modern definition of a solar system offence.

30. Charles Barkley 1990. (1993 HM). There’s no perfect players left, and Charles certainly was not great on D. But what Barkley did on TNT, I mean offense, is pretty spectacular. 24.1 pp75 on +12.4 rTS%.

31. T-Mac 2003. 31.5 pp75 at +4.5 rTS%. I don’t care if it was a single season outlier. It happened and it was beautiful.

[trex_8063]

1st ballot: Charles Barkley '90 (> '93)
I know many go for '93, but I like '90 best because he was still closer to his athletic peak and utilizing his inside game optimally, just on constant attack. '93 is probably his best playmaking season, and arguably one of his better defensive ones [though not any better than '90, I don't think].......but his increasing penchant for shooting in the mid-range [or from trey]---where he was merely mediocre---is a big strike against '93 compared to '90: he was the worst 2pt% season since his rookie year in '93, while also taking more 3's than ever before [hitting just 30.5% (and worse in the playoffs)], AND '93 also sees his [by far] lowest FTAr of his career to that point.


2nd ballot: '22 Joel Embiid (> '21)
Honestly, on a per-minute basis, I think Embiid is a bit better/more valuable than anyone left on the table. It's simply the missed games/durability concerns (in BOTH rs and playoffs) combined with relatively restricted minutes that slides him just behind a couple players for me.


3rd ballot: '03 Tracy McGrady
Not sure how much of a ceiling raiser he can be, but this was perhaps an all-time tier floor-raising carry-job. I'm going to quote portions of posts of other posters [from the TMac vs Drexler thread] for argumentation...

He was a +4.5% rTS guy (109 TS+) in that 02-03 season. Led the league in usage at 35.2%, led the league in OWS (13.2) on a 42-win team. 30.3 PER, led the league. .262 WS/48, league-high. +9.8 OBPM, league-high. Second in the league in oRAPM behind Dirk.

I'm about to focus on OBPM, but obviously it is just one stat, and one which has its own pros and cons. But I do want to examine the achievement, since we're speaking specifically of offense and specifically of peak.

Keep in mind, there are 3 seasons in league history of 2,000+ minutes and 9.5+ OBPM. McGrady's 9.8 is second-highest on that list, ahead of 09 Lebron's 9.5, and behind 2016 Steph's 10.3. There are 9 player-seasons of +9.0 or better with those 2,000 minutes, just to open it up to a slightly less arbitrary range. Lebron's on it 3 times, and Jokic is on it twice. No one else is on it more than once.

2016 Steph
03 McGrady
09 Lebron
19 Harden
13 Lebron
22 Jokic
21 Jokic
90 MJ
10 Lebron

Just for reference.

Drexler's career-high is +6.8 OBPM, from the 92 season when his Blazers lost to MJ in the Finals. It was part of a stretch of 5-straight seasons of +5.0 or better, and six seasons in eight. Never managed double-digit OWS. Never exceeded 24.1 PER. rTS a little lower in his peak seasons than McGrady. Never exceeded 27.2 ppg. Never exceeded 28.7 USG. Topped out at 29.9% AST and 12.4% TOV, against 03 McGrady's 30.0% USG and 8.4% TOV.

https://thedyspatch.com/2022/05/31/how-good-all-time-was-2021-22-luka-doncic-on-offense-for-his-age/?preview_id=7677&preview_nonce=9b2a701c1c&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=7735

In an article I previously wrote, I described TMac's offensive game and value before.

Some stats:

33.4 Adjusted Points (leading the league) on +4.5 relative-to-league average true shooting
5.4 Assists, along with a 9.9 Offensive Box Creation and 7.6 Passer Rating
6.4 Rebounds (1.6 coming on the offensive end)
5.8 BackPicks Box Plus-Minus, 4.4 Augmented Plus-Minus / Game (4th and 5th in the league)

Posting one of the highest possessional scoring rates in NBA history, McGrady demonstrated a versatile scoring arsenal – leveraging his size and quickness for a long mid-range and 3-Point driven shot diet (57.7% of his total field-goal attempts, shooting 43.1 and 38.6 % on these level shots respectively) with stellar low post play and basket drives in addition. In a situation with relatively poor spacing and offensive support, McGrady was often responsible for creating possessions. His volume scoring gave him significant attention through doubles – where he showed a solid ability to pass out of them – dishing assists over the heads of defenders (the hyperlinked clip shows career highlights, including his 2002-03 season). How much McGrady was responsible directly impacted his team’s situation. With a 105.2 rated team offensive (good for 10th in the league), 74% of this production came with McGrady on – where the team posted a 109.3 offense (5.7 points above league average). In the other 26%, the Magic posted only a 91.8 offensive rating.

This goes to show how much of a load McGrady shouldered, where he ultimately brought the Magic to the first round of the playoffs in an 8 vs. 1 seed matchup against the 2002-03 Pistons (whom were anchored by a 99.9 rated team defense). While McGrady had some struggles down the stretch, he still performed well in totality. His averages in the series, listed below, show a somewhat decline in creation, but this can certainly be explored further when considering an inferior (for star standards) supporting cast and the opponent faced. In a better situation, there would certainly be a chance McGrady could engine a championship level offense.

32.5 Points on +5.5 relative-to-opponent average true shooting
4.4 Assists, with an 8.1 Offensive Box Creation and 5.8 Passer Rating
6.2 Rebounds (1.4 coming on the offensive end)
5.0 BackPicks Box Plus-Minus

Looking at all of that, it is clear McGrady has posted a season that is more impactful than any variant of Drexler. Even with such a high offensive load and responsibility, I believe McGrady didn't quite have scoring blindness --- nor was he a slouch off ball. As a matter of fact, he was a very good playmaker off of his scoring gravity and I believe him to be the best offensive player in the league in 2003 (with Shaq declining and Kobe not quite reaching his apex then).

.

4th: '90 Patrick Ewing (> '94 Ewing)
5th: '97 Karl Malone (> '94 > '98) --- I think his peak is slept on a bit, but certainly deserves to be in the conversation around here. Could even see moving it ahead of TMac and Ewing (though not into my top 3).
6th: '11 Dwight Howard (> '09 Howard)
7th: '20 James Harden (> '19 > '18 > '15)

[No-more-rings]

…

Considering most others already cast Harden a vote, could you elaborate why you’re lower on him than most in here?

[trex_8063]

…

Considering most others already cast Harden a vote, could you elaborate why you’re lower on him than most in here?

Mostly defense [or lack there of (outside of '15 perhaps, which is clearly behind some other seasons offensively)], though poor [imo] era portability (I tend to not think much on era portability except within the context of a peaks project) and moderate playoff decline also come into consideration. Character or leadership qualities could be a factor relative to some others already voted in, though perhaps not relative to those still on the table (Patrick Ewing maybe being the one exception).

fwiw, he's the next peak after those that I listed. Since you've asked, I'll go ahead and put him in there next (to his credit, he does have multiple seasons that are very close in overall quality).

[capfan33]

1. 90 Ewing
I'm not very familiar with Ewing overall, but I do know he was a historically great defensive anchor who anchored some of the greatest defenses ever. AEngima's posts in the previous thread are largely the reason for this vote, as he showed how 1990 for Ewing was actually a legitimate outlier for him due to an improved offensive skillset while still maintaining his athleticism, and I suspect that the better defensive results in 93 and 94 are more due to roster construction and coaching than Ewing himself. In a general sense, I like his skillset quite a bit, a legitimate top-10 defensive anchor ever who also had outside shooting touch and athleticism to play in the pick and roll. It plays well in many teams in any era, and as such I'm unexpectedly voting for Ewing here.

2. 19 Harden
Very difficult choice, really didn't know who to go with. Ultimately going with Harden because this year his playoff performance was better, specifically against the Warriors. While I'm not a huge fan of his postseason resiliency and general playoff consistency, he was incredible in the regular season and still very good in this playoffs to the point where I like him more than anyone else here. Dwight is the other major player I'm looking at here but I think Harden pushing the Warriors as hard as he did is a little more impressive than anything Dwight did.

3. 11 Dwight
ATG defender with good offense and great athleticism, I think he's probably somewhat underrated in a historical sense because we see what he is now but forget the force he was before the injuries took their toll. I've seen some interesting stuff on Malone and Stockton, who I used to exclusively view as postseason chokers but thanks to Colt18 and what Proxy wrote in the last thread I've had to reconsider that viewpoint some, but I still don't think either of them has any skill that matches Dwight's defensive impact. I'm not sure where to put Paul due to injury as well as general postseason issues and I hate the idea of building around Chuck. So Dwight seems like the best candidate left.

[capfan33]

…

Considering most others already cast Harden a vote, could you elaborate why you’re lower on him than most in here?

Mostly defense [or lack there of (outside of '15 perhaps, which is clearly behind some other seasons offensively)], though poor [imo] era portability (I tend to not think much on era portability except within the context of a peaks project) and moderate playoff decline also come into consideration. Character or leadership qualities could be a factor relative to some others already voted in, though perhaps not relative to those still on the table (Patrick Ewing maybe being the one exception).

fwiw, he's the next peak after those that I listed. Since you've asked, I'll go ahead and put him in there next (to his credit, he does have multiple seasons that are very close in overall quality).

I'm curious, are you saying poor portability because half his stepbacks would be travels in another era lol.

[falcolombardi]

1. Patrick Ewing (1990)
Basically 1982 Moses Malone with defence.

1990 ewing averaged 3 offensive rebounds a game

1982 malone averaged 7 offensive rebounds a game

You cannot be "moses malone + great defense" averaging less than half his offensive boards

[AEnigma]

1. Patrick Ewing (1990)
Basically 1982 Moses Malone with defence.

1990 ewing averaged 3 offensive rebounds a game

1982 malone averaged 7 offensive rebounds a game

You cannot be "moses malone + great defense" averaging less than half his offensive boards

Evidently you ignored my posts (or you know, the history of the NBA) looking into how helpful those offensive rebounds actually were. Maybe if Moses had been as efficient as Ewing he would have been less able to pad his offensive rebound numbers, how disappointing that would be.

What a nonsensical callout. I expected better.

[70sFan]

1. Patrick Ewing (1990)
Basically 1982 Moses Malone with defence.

1990 ewing averaged 3 offensive rebounds a game

1982 malone averaged 7 offensive rebounds a game

You cannot be "moses malone + great defense" averaging less than half his offensive boards

Evidently you ignored my posts (or you know, the history of the NBA) looking into how helpful those offensive rebounds actually were. Maybe if Moses had been as efficient as Ewing he would have been less able to pad his offensive rebound numbers, how disappointing that would be.

What a nonsensical callout. I expected better.

Please, explain how his offensive rebounds were not important. Moses didn't pad his offensive rebound numbers, he was just damn good at getting them. If you think that Moses missed shots on purpose to get more rebounds, then you are mistaken. I made tracking work on 1979-83 Moses games we have and he rarely rebounded his own misses.

Besides, the difference between Moses and Ewing isn't about boxscore numbers. Moses was one of the best off-ball bigmen ever with his off-ball movement and offensive rebounding. He was much less ball-dominant than Ewing and he took less time to make decision with the ball. Neither is a good passer, but Moses gave his team much more value within the offensive system. Malone was just far more dynamic offensive player and he anchored slightly better offensive results than Ewing with worse supporting cast.

Ewing has shooting advantage over Moses, but that's the only thing he has. I don't see any reason to call Ewing "Moses with better defense".

[falcolombardi]

1. Patrick Ewing (1990)
Basically 1982 Moses Malone with defence.

1990 ewing averaged 3 offensive rebounds a game

1982 malone averaged 7 offensive rebounds a game

You cannot be "moses malone + great defense" averaging less than half his offensive boards

Evidently you ignored my posts (or you know, the history of the NBA) looking into how helpful those offensive rebounds actually were. Maybe if Moses had been as efficient as Ewing he would have been less able to pad his offensive rebound numbers, how disappointing that would be.

What a nonsensical callout. I expected better.

Not really, 4 offensive rebounds is a lot of value for a single player

Offensive rebounding is a valuable part of a big game and the -difference- between moses and ewing is bigger than what most bigs get

Also if you think he was statpadding his offensive rebounds it would mean his efficiency was actually a lot better than his raw ts%

as missing 2 or 3 shots in purpose to get the rebound before scoring would tank a player efficiency numbers without making him a less effective scorer. As a player who misses on purpose to get a offensive board is one who could have easily scored if he wanted

Take away two "statpadded misses" field goals from moses and he improves his ts% from 57.5 into 31 points on 62% ts% (ewing was 60% in his peak 90' season) making him a 31 points +8 efficiency guy

Takr away the full 4 offensive rebounds difference as "just" statpadding and moses is a 67% ts player on 31 points. Aka a 31 points on +13 efficiency player.....

In other words, your points about moses offensive rebounding advantage being statpadded and moses being a less efficient scorer than ewing are self excluding.

[AEnigma]

Evidently the eye roll emoji is tough to parse for both of you.

if you think he was statpadding his offensive rebounds it would mean his efficiency was actually a lot better than his raw ts%

as missing 2 or 3 shots in purpose to get the rebound before scoring would tank a player efficiency numbers without making him a less effective scorer. As a player who misses on purpose to get a offensive board is one who could have easily scored if he wanted

Take away two "statpadded misses" field goals from moses and he improves his ts% from 57.5 into 31 points on 62% ts% (ewing was 60% in his peak 90' season) making him a 31 points +8 efficiency guy.

In other words, your points about moses offensive rebounding advantage being statpadded and moses being a less efficient scorer than ewing are self excluding.

Yes, that was my point. You do not get to look at offensive rebounding disparity and ignore the efficiency gap. Four extra shots on lessened efficiency, call it equivalent efficiency and suddenly it becomes say two and a half extra shots, wow, now it is no longer “not even half” so I guess “basically the same” must be back in play, right?

Not really, 4 offensive rebounds is a lot of value for a single player

Offensive rebounding is a valuable part of a big game and the -difference- between moses and ewing is bigger than what most bigs get

Please, explain how his offensive rebounds were not important. Moses didn't pad his offensive rebound numbers, he was just damn good at getting them.

I wonder whether we would ever say the same for someone like Drummond.

I looked at the DRB ranks of Moses' teams, because I was thinking heavily at the time about how big men who excel at getting offensive rebounds more than defensive ones, may be using their high skill of "tracking" the ball on the glass on the defensive end, thus chasing after rebounds instead of boxing out. Moses of course has one of the highest ORB to DRB ratios of all players in history, such as in 1982 having 47% of his rebounds on the offensive glass, 53% DRB. A guy I compared him to as on the opposite end of ORB/DRB ratio, Dirk, had 10% of his rebounds offensive in 2011, 90% defensive, and his team managed to have a lot of good defensive rebounding years. Here are Moses' team rebounding stats:

Moses
Rockets 77 - 5th
Rockets 78 - 15/22
Rockets 79 - 9/22
Rockets - 80 - 21/22
Rockets 81 - 11/23
Rockets 82 - 17/23
Sixers 83 - 13/23
Sixers 84 - 18/23
Sixers 85 - 15/23
Sixers 86 - 17/23 - This is a Barkley/Moses frontcourt year. WTF?
Bullets 87 - 22/23
Bullets 88 - 21/23
Hawks 89 - 22/25
Hawks 90 - 26/27
Hawks 91 - 7/27
Bucks 92 - 23/27

That's rough. I also looked at what happened to the team's after his moves - Rockets move from 17th in DRB in 82 to 18th in 83, Sixers move from 22nd DRB in 82 to 13th DRB in 83. So that's not a bad impact, though he was also replacing Daryl Dawkins, who has probably the worst size of human being to rebounding ratio ever. The Sixers are 17th in both 86 and 87, the Bullets are 20th in 86 and 22nd in 87. The Hawks go from 13th in 88 to 22nd in 89, the Bullets go from 21st in 88 to 12th in 89. The Hawks go from 7th in 91 to 8th in 92, the Bucks go from 21st in 91 to 23rd in 92. So the overall changing from team to team doesn't support Moses being an impact defensive rebounder.

I wouldn't completely rule out Moses having an impact on the defensive glass because team results have many variables, but it doesn't look that good to me

People often point out that defense and rebounding win championships. Yet a quick look at this season’s stats shows that there is no correlation between offensive rebounding and team success—more playoff teams were actually below the league average than above it. (This is true historically as well.) The more important rebounding figure to look at, then, is defensive rebounding in isolation, since limiting an opponent’s shots at the basket is an essential component of good defense.

It is almost orthodoxy in most of the NBA today: Offensive rebounding doesn't matter, especially because it threatens the integrity of your defense.
"San Antonio set the model," says Terry Stotts, the Blazers' coach. "Offensive rebounding has never been a priority for us."
Doc Rivers, Stan Van Gundy, Steve Clifford, Erik Spoelstra and Rick Carlisle are among the coaching giants who have (mostly) gone down the Pop path.
"Right now, everything is tilted toward transition defense," Brown says. "We are all sheep."
Players feel the shift too. "Years ago, every coach was looking for offensive rebounds," says Luis Scola, Toronto's starting power forward. "And now it's so different, because coaches don't want to give up transition points. That's why players stopped doing it."
The effect has crescendoed this season. Leaguewide, offenses have rebounded just 23.8 percent of misses, on pace to be the lowest overall mark in NBA history. On the flip side, the Spurs, Hornets and Cavs all have a chance to set the all-time record in defensive rebounding rate -- a record Charlotte set just last season. "If you study the numbers," Clifford says, "you find that offensive rebounding just isn't important in winning big."
He's right in a literal sense, but there might be a chicken-and-egg thing going on. Does ignoring the offensive glass help teams win, or is it just a characteristic of most NBA teams -- including those that win? … Teams keep most of their findings secret, but the wizards at Nylon Calculus use public rebounding data to track which offenses most often have players near the basket, in rebounding position, when someone jacks a shot. They call this "chase percentage," and over the past two seasons, the top five chase teams have ranked around 19th or 20th overall in those same measures of transition defense. (This jibes with some of the non-public data I've seen.) At the same time, the paranoid offensive rebounding teams tend to be among the best at limiting fast-break points.
In other words: There may be real danger in banking too much on offensive rebounds. And that may be especially true for the best teams. Good teams have good offenses, and good offenses make almost half their shots. If the first shot is a decent bet to go in, perhaps the risk-reward calculus favors getting back on defense. This probably plays some role in explaining why good teams appear to avoid the offensive glass: because they're good, not because offensive rebounding is on its face a bad thing. Bad teams have even more incentive to crash hard; they miss more often than good teams!

We can compare two teams, one of which (team ‘Dan’) has a higher shooting percentage than the other (team ‘Nick’). We can ask, ‘How much higher does team Nick’s offensive rebounding have to be, in order to have the same points per possession?’ Figure 1 displays curves of equivalent teams.

Overall, my reaction is that these curves are disappointingly steep. That is, it takes a large increase in offensive rebounding proficiency to offset a small decline in shooting percentage.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/matthew.atkins/viz/OREBvs_DREB/OREBvsDREB

Besides, the difference between Moses and Ewing isn't about boxscore numbers. Moses was one of the best off-ball bigmen ever with his off-ball movement and offensive rebounding. He was much less ball-dominant than Ewing and he took less time to make decision with the ball. Neither is a good passer, but Moses gave his team much more value within the offensive system. Malone was just far more dynamic offensive player and he anchored slightly better offensive results than Ewing

Funny thing is I actually agree with all this (note how little this case relies on a disparity in offensive rebounds). Again, coming back to “basically”. But the problem is that most of the people voting for Moses were not engaged with his true “value” in this sense — if we were, defence would have been more of a factor than was ever really given beyond “well he made the all-defensive team so he must have been good enough.” Much like with 2019 Harden, it was about the abstract “dominance” of his offence, and that abstract dominance is what Ewing approximated well.

Moses actually did have great impact with the '83 Sixers because he fit the team really well. Offensively he was in a perfect situation because he had so many guys around him who could create their own offense or for others, so you didn't need Moses to make other guys better. But you're not always going to be that lucky where you can play with three other all-stars in your backcourt, so his portability as an offensive hub in the post is still a major flaw.

But more importantly, the 76ers at the time were sorely lacking a rebounder. In '82 they were the worst rebounding team in the league (partly because of the insanely active defense they played on the perimeter which didn't allow them to crash the boards). They were 22nd out 23 in drb% and 21st in orb%, Moses came in and made them an average defensive rebounding team and the best offensive rebounding team. His defensive rebounding allowed the Sixers guards/wings to play their frenetic defense but not give up second chance points. If he had positive defensive impact that year, it would be because of that (allowing guys around him to focus on defense while he cleared the boards). At the same time though, this could be said about any good defensive rebounder...

Re: People arguing for Moses' defensive impact based on the fact Philly was the 5th best defensive team.

I'll give him solid post defense and solid defensive rebounding which allowed the perimeter guys to play pressure defense without having to worry about hitting the boards (this had hurt them in the past especially against LA), so overall was probably a positive impact defender that year (playing on a contender also naturally increases a player's willingness to play defense as well). But Philly was the best perimeter defensive team in the league. It was the unbelievably active defense applied by the backcourt and Erving/Jones which made them a top 5 defensive team year in year out. What hurts Moses to me, especially in comparison to other guys at his position like Zo or Dwight for example, is that I see them making Philly an all-time great defensive team (with all those active perimeter defenders, you put Zo or Dwight's shot blocking in the middle to shut down the paint, who also provide similar level or better defensive rebounding...how is that not the best defensive team of that era?

[Dutchball97]

1. 1961 Elgin Baylor - At this point the margins are becoming extremely small in my eyes. There are a bunch of other guys like Nash, Harden, Barry and Barkley that I could've went with as well but I'm a bit surprised Baylor isn't getting more traction yet. Of course Pettit and Mikan are higher on all-time lists so it isn't a surprise they come up earlier here as well but for a one year peak I'd take early 60s Baylor over them. This season is pretty similar to Harden's 18-20 period but despite Baylor's reputation for unefficient offense later in his career, he's actually a more consistent scorer in the early 60s than Harden ever was in the post-season. In 62 his play-offs were arguably even better than the year before but he missed too much time in the regular season.

2. 2019 James Harden - I think Harden does not get enough credit for how consistent he was in the post-season in 2019 (and 2020). In his other top years like 2015 and 2018 he had some incredible stinkers but in 2019 and 2020 he managed to turn even his worst shooting nights into solid overall performances. Overall we're now getting to a group of players who were MVP level in the regular season but didn't quite have the post-season runs to put an explanation mark after it. We've still got Barry but I'm not as high on his individual performance in a pretty weak season so he drops behind a couple of non-title winners for me, there is Mikan as well but I can't get over just how weak that era was and how Mikan fell off pretty quickly even if that was due to injuries. I've got Nash, Barkley and Pettit next up. I'll have to take a good look at AD as well if he doesn't get voted in this round.

2b. 2020 James Harden

3. 1993 Charles Barkley - I'm actually surprised I'm only getting to Barkley now as I'm generally pretty high on Barkley at his best. However, he doesn't have the clearest peak season out of all-time greats. In the play-offs you often hear about him not stepping up in the finals against the Bulls but I think that's overstated. However, throughout the 93 play-offs he was pretty inconsistent in a way not uncommon for Harden. Barkley had some inefficient low-scoring outings where he didn't contribute a lot elsewhere but then turned around and completely dominated some of the best teams in the league. Despite winning MVP in 93, I'd place him below MJ and Hakeem there, while having better arguments in 1990 and arguably 91 (even though MJ ran away with that, Barkley was still more impressive than in the 93 regular season imo).

3b. 1991 Charles Barkley

3c. 1990 Charles Barkley

[70sFan]

Please, explain how his offensive rebounds were not important. Moses didn't pad his offensive rebound numbers, he was just damn good at getting them.

I wonder whether we would ever say the same for someone like Drummond.

I wouldn't because Drummond has no value without the ball, while Moses did a lot of things when he didn't touch it.

Spoiler:

I looked at the DRB ranks of Moses' teams, because I was thinking heavily at the time about how big men who excel at getting offensive rebounds more than defensive ones, may be using their high skill of "tracking" the ball on the glass on the defensive end, thus chasing after rebounds instead of boxing out. Moses of course has one of the highest ORB to DRB ratios of all players in history, such as in 1982 having 47% of his rebounds on the offensive glass, 53% DRB. A guy I compared him to as on the opposite end of ORB/DRB ratio, Dirk, had 10% of his rebounds offensive in 2011, 90% defensive, and his team managed to have a lot of good defensive rebounding years. Here are Moses' team rebounding stats:

Moses
Rockets 77 - 5th
Rockets 78 - 15/22
Rockets 79 - 9/22
Rockets - 80 - 21/22
Rockets 81 - 11/23
Rockets 82 - 17/23
Sixers 83 - 13/23
Sixers 84 - 18/23
Sixers 85 - 15/23
Sixers 86 - 17/23 - This is a Barkley/Moses frontcourt year. WTF?
Bullets 87 - 22/23
Bullets 88 - 21/23
Hawks 89 - 22/25
Hawks 90 - 26/27
Hawks 91 - 7/27
Bucks 92 - 23/27

That's rough. I also looked at what happened to the team's after his moves - Rockets move from 17th in DRB in 82 to 18th in 83, Sixers move from 22nd DRB in 82 to 13th DRB in 83. So that's not a bad impact, though he was also replacing Daryl Dawkins, who has probably the worst size of human being to rebounding ratio ever. The Sixers are 17th in both 86 and 87, the Bullets are 20th in 86 and 22nd in 87. The Hawks go from 13th in 88 to 22nd in 89, the Bullets go from 21st in 88 to 12th in 89. The Hawks go from 7th in 91 to 8th in 92, the Bucks go from 21st in 91 to 23rd in 92. So the overall changing from team to team doesn't support Moses being an impact defensive rebounder.

I wouldn't completely rule out Moses having an impact on the defensive glass because team results have many variables, but it doesn't look that good to me

This quote is about defensive rebounding, not offensive rebounding. If we go with teams ORB%, Moses teams were consistently all-time great:

1977 Rockets: 1st
1978 Rockets: 4th (Moses missed a 22 games)
1979 Rockets: 3rd
1980 Rockets: 1st
1981 Rockets: 9th
1982 Rockets: 1st
1983 76ers: 1st
1984 76ers: 5th
1985 76ers: 1st
1986 76ers: 1st
1987 Bullets: 7th
1988 Bullets: 8th
1989 Hawks: 2nd
1990 Hawks: 3rd

Spoiler:

People often point out that defense and rebounding win championships. Yet a quick look at this season’s stats shows that there is no correlation between offensive rebounding and team success—more playoff teams were actually below the league average than above it. (This is true historically as well.) The more important rebounding figure to look at, then, is defensive rebounding in isolation, since limiting an opponent’s shots at the basket is an essential component of good defense.

That's true, because most teams that crash the glass on offense give up transition defense and it's not a good thing. I don't see any reason to believe that this trend can be just projected to individual impact. We have quite a few top tier offensive rebounders getting decent offensive impact even in 2022, despite most of them being significantly more limited than Moses on offense.

Moses could crash the glass, while the rest of the team could focus on transition defense. Moses was good enough to do that alone.

Spoiler:

It is almost orthodoxy in most of the NBA today: Offensive rebounding doesn't matter, especially because it threatens the integrity of your defense.
"San Antonio set the model," says Terry Stotts, the Blazers' coach. "Offensive rebounding has never been a priority for us."
Doc Rivers, Stan Van Gundy, Steve Clifford, Erik Spoelstra and Rick Carlisle are among the coaching giants who have (mostly) gone down the Pop path.
"Right now, everything is tilted toward transition defense," Brown says. "We are all sheep."
Players feel the shift too. "Years ago, every coach was looking for offensive rebounds," says Luis Scola, Toronto's starting power forward. "And now it's so different, because coaches don't want to give up transition points. That's why players stopped doing it."
The effect has crescendoed this season. Leaguewide, offenses have rebounded just 23.8 percent of misses, on pace to be the lowest overall mark in NBA history. On the flip side, the Spurs, Hornets and Cavs all have a chance to set the all-time record in defensive rebounding rate -- a record Charlotte set just last season. "If you study the numbers," Clifford says, "you find that offensive rebounding just isn't important in winning big."
He's right in a literal sense, but there might be a chicken-and-egg thing going on. Does ignoring the offensive glass help teams win, or is it just a characteristic of most NBA teams -- including those that win? … Teams keep most of their findings secret, but the wizards at Nylon Calculus use public rebounding data to track which offenses most often have players near the basket, in rebounding position, when someone jacks a shot. They call this "chase percentage," and over the past two seasons, the top five chase teams have ranked around 19th or 20th overall in those same measures of transition defense. (This jibes with some of the non-public data I've seen.) At the same time, the paranoid offensive rebounding teams tend to be among the best at limiting fast-break points.
In other words: There may be real danger in banking too much on offensive rebounds. And that may be especially true for the best teams. Good teams have good offenses, and good offenses make almost half their shots. If the first shot is a decent bet to go in, perhaps the risk-reward calculus favors getting back on defense. This probably plays some role in explaining why good teams appear to avoid the offensive glass: because they're good, not because offensive rebounding is on its face a bad thing. Bad teams have even more incentive to crash hard; they miss more often than good teams!

Same thing here. Another fact is that we shouldn't judge players from the early 1980s by 2010s standards. The game was played differently back then and what's the "orthodoxy" now, wasn't such back then.

Funny thing is I actually agree with all this (note how little this actual case relies on a disparity in offensive rebounds). Again, coming back to “basically”. But the problem is that most of the people voting for Moses were not engaged with his true “value” in this sense — if we were, defence would have been more of a factor than was ever really given beyond “well he made the all-defensive team so he must have been good enough.” Much like with 2019 Harden, it was about the abstract “dominance” of his offence, and that abstract dominance is what Ewing approximated well.

Well, even if most people are not that aware of Moses style and impact, why you ignore things you know? I always say that Moses is very misunderstood player and only few people here actually understand his value. Most people vote for Shaq for wrong reasons as well.

If all people think about Moses is "he averaged X offensive rebounds, he must have been great!", then of course this is wrong. Moses gave his team tremendous value, because he was very good offensive player.

Spoiler:

Moses actually did have great impact with the '83 Sixers because he fit the team really well. Offensively he was in a perfect situation because he had so many guys around him who could create their own offense or for others, so you didn't need Moses to make other guys better. But you're not always going to be that lucky where you can play with three other all-stars in your backcourt, so his portability as an offensive hub in the post is still a major flaw.

But more importantly, the 76ers at the time were sorely lacking a rebounder. In '82 they were the worst rebounding team in the league (partly because of the insanely active defense they played on the perimeter which didn't allow them to crash the boards). They were 22nd out 23 in drb% and 21st in orb%, Moses came in and made them an average defensive rebounding team and the best offensive rebounding team. His defensive rebounding allowed the Sixers guards/wings to play their frenetic defense but not give up second chance points. If he had positive defensive impact that year, it would be because of that (allowing guys around him to focus on defense while he cleared the boards). At the same time though, this could be said about any good defensive rebounder...

Re: People arguing for Moses' defensive impact based on the fact Philly was the 5th best defensive team.

I'll give him solid post defense and solid defensive rebounding which allowed the perimeter guys to play pressure defense without having to worry about hitting the boards (this had hurt them in the past especially against LA), so overall was probably a positive impact defender that year (playing on a contender also naturally increases a player's willingness to play defense as well). But Philly was the best perimeter defensive team in the league. It was the unbelievably active defense applied by the backcourt and Erving/Jones which made them a top 5 defensive team year in year out. What hurts Moses to me, especially in comparison to other guys at his position like Zo or Dwight for example, is that I see them making Philly an all-time great defensive team (with all those active perimeter defenders, you put Zo or Dwight's shot blocking in the middle to shut down the paint, who also provide similar level or better defensive rebounding...how is that not the best defensive team of that era?

Again, this is where fatal9 criticizes Moses for playing in a "perfect situation" (despite Philly having horrible spacing and Julius being far from ideal co-superstar next to him), but shouldn't we start the "portability" conversation here?

Moses fits next to the great talent - he's lucky. Curry fits next to the great talent - he's so good!

I know it's a generalization and Moses indeed was lucky to play with strong team, but he also had such a great impact because he didn't take anything away from Toney, Cheeks and Jones (more so with Julius). Unlike a lot of solid offensive centers, he didn't need the ball in his hands to influence his team. If you exchange Moses with Ewing on 1983 Sixers, their offense would look significantly rougher (though, their defense would be even better). Ewing slowed down the game in halfcourt sets, he was a slow decision maker. He didn't move without the ball like Moses either.

I know that fatal9 is extremely high on Hakeem, but even Hakeem wouldn't work as well in that system. I view Hakeem as a significantly better player overall, but he doesn't fit as well next to strong offensive talent as Moses (again, this is offense-only conversation).

It's not like we haven't seen Moses next to poor offensive teammates either, in 1982 Moses skillset grew up and he showed how versatile he truly was:

Watch on YouTube

I won't touch defense here, because this is strictly an offensive comparison.

[AEnigma]

Well, even if most people are not that aware of Moses style and impact, why you ignore things you know? I always say that Moses is very misunderstood player and only few people here actually understand his value. Most people vote for Shaq for wrong reasons as well.

I won't touch defense here, because this is strictly an offensive comparison.

Okay, crux of the issue here. Important to keep in mind this is a comparative project which had plenty of voters that are most interested in either narrative approaches or more cursory box score approaches — both of which work together well for Moses specifically, as an obvious high offence “65-win Finals MVP and three-time MVP”. And those were quite a few of the people I hoped could have been swayed to at least consider Ewing once Moses was in, but then a large chunk of them bailed as soon as that happened.

To be clear, no, I do not think Ewing is as “offensively portable” as Moses or as good off-ball as Moses or as offensively valuable as Moses in general. However, his 1990 scoring does a strong enough approximation of what a lot of people tend to like about 1982 Moses, with improved range and passing (with the acknowledgement that you and Falco are right in pointing out that his passing is not exactly fluid and more of a limited on-ball approach), and at that point the gulf in defensive abilities feels like it should be comfortably surmounting any remaining gap on offence.

Moses could crash the glass, while the rest of the team could focus on transition defense. Moses was good enough to do that alone.

That certainly suited the 1983 76ers, but what about other rosters.

I know that fatal9 is extremely high on Hakeem, but even Hakeem wouldn't work as well in that system. I view Hakeem as a significantly better player overall, but he doesn't fit as well next to strong offensive talent as Moses (again, this is offense-only conversation).

But that is kind-of the issue: for a peaks project, we do not just get to totally breeze over those offence/defence tradeoffs. The 1983-86 76ers would be worse offences with Hakeem and Ewing and Dwight and Mourning. However, they would also be all-time defences while still having a nearly unprecedented array of scoring threats at their disposal.

Like a lot of what you are talking about with portability and adaptability and off-ball scoring could be reasonably applied to the other Malone… but he was a loser and Moses was a winner (on a two-time runner-up), so tough luck.

It could also be said of Willis Reed, but Reed never led a team like Moses, so tough luck.

It could also be said of Bob Lanier, but Lanier was an even bigger loser than Karl Malone, so tough luck.

It could also be said of Artis Gilmore, but Gilmore peaked in the ABA, so tough luck.

[70sFan]

So this is the crux here. This is a comparative project which had plenty of voters that are most interested in either narrative approaches or more cursory box score approaches — both of which work together well for Moses specifically, as an obvious high offence “65-win Finals MVP and three-time MVP”. And those were quite a few of the people I hoped could have been swayed to at least consider Ewing once Moses was in, but then a large chunk of them bailed as soon as that happened.

I agree, it's a shame we didn't get a better discussion about Moses here. I am to be blamed here, because I couldn't find any time to talk about Malone broader during that time and I was inactive. I really wanted to go more in-depth about Moses, but sometimes real life just doesn't give you that chance...

To be clear, no, I do not think Ewing is as “offensively portable” as Moses or as good off-ball as Moses or as offensively valuable as Moses in general. However, his 1990 scoring does a strong enough approximation of what a lot of people tend to like about 1982 Moses, with improved range and passing (with the acknowledgement that you and Falco are right in pointing out that his passing is not exactly fluid and more of a limited on-ball approach), and at that point the gulf in defensive abilities feels like it should be comfortably surmounting any remaining gap on offence.

Again, I don't care about people's wrong idea of Moses style. If someone doesn't know why Moses was good outside of high scoring numbers and 1983 run, then I agree that he shouldn't vote for him.

At the same time, it's just not true that similar scoring production + better defense gives you a better player. Moses did so many things on offense Ewing didn't that the difference is indeed massive. On top of that, you seem to be lower on Moses defense than me, as I don't view him as weak defender.

But that is kind-of the issue: for a peaks project, we do not just get to totally breeze over those offence/defence tradeoffs. The 1983-86 76ers would be worse offences with Hakeem and Ewing and Dwight and Mourning. However, they would also be all-time defences while still having a nearly unprecedented array of scoring threats at their disposal.

Well, I decided to talk about Moses here because of your description of Ewing: "Basically 1982 Moses Malone with defence." gives me the conclusion that you think Ewing was Moses equal on offense (or at least extremely close), only with better defense. I don't agree with that description, which is why I focused on offense here.

I didn't have the time to talk about Moses vs Ewing debate when both were still available and it's a shame, but for now I don't think we should focus too much on a player that's already in.

By the way - Ewing seemed to be better P&R defender than Hakeem in any scheme that didn't require switching defense

Like a lot of what you are talking about with portability and adaptability and off-ball scoring could be reasonably applied to the other Malone… but he was a loser and Moses was a winner (on a two-time runner-up), so tough luck.

It could also be said of Willis Reed, but Reed never led a team like Moses, so tough luck.

It could also be said of Bob Lanier, but Lanier was an even bigger loser than Karl Malone, so tough luck.

It could also be said of Artis Gilmore, but Gilmore peaked in the ABA, so tough luck.

Well, if you believe that I think highly of Moses only because he won a ring, then we have no reason to discuss any further.

I am all for the discussion about Reed/Lanier/Gilmore vs Ewing though. I think none of them stands out clearly above the rest. In fact, I might even prefer Reed peak over Ewing.

[AEnigma]

At the same time, it's just not true that similar scoring production + better defense gives you a better player. Moses did so many things on offense Ewing didn't that the difference is indeed massive. On top of that, you seem to be lower on Moses defense than me, as I don't view him as weak defender.

Yeah you are not going to sell me on that. The impact indicators are not there, nor even are the attempts to translate box score production into impact.

By the way - Ewing seemed to be better P&R defender than Hakeem in any scheme that didn't require switching defense

Hm. I guess, but solely relegating Hakeem to drop coverage would be a massive waste.

Like a lot of what you are talking about with portability and adaptability and off-ball scoring could be reasonably applied to the other Malone… but he was a loser and Moses was a winner (on a two-time runner-up), so tough luck.

It could also be said of Willis Reed, but Reed never led a team like Moses, so tough luck.

It could also be said of Bob Lanier, but Lanier was an even bigger loser than Karl Malone, so tough luck.

It could also be said of Artis Gilmore, but Gilmore peaked in the ABA, so tough luck.

Well, if you believe that I think highly of Moses only because he won a ring, then we have no reason to discuss any further.

I am all for the discussion about Reed/Lanier/Gilmore vs Ewing though. I think none of them stands out clearly above the rest.

Right, again I am saying that was not what the discourse ever became.

In fact, I might even prefer Reed peak over Ewing.

Definitely more portable, but there too I would give Ewing a comfortable edge on defence. I would need to be more clearly sold on Reed versus Frazier to really work with that.

Lanier is the one I would have closest; if he had managed more of a playoff sample in his prime, I probably would have seriously considered voting for him already, with that brief defensive peak and his incredibly flexible offensive game.

[falcolombardi]

Evidently the eye roll emoji is tough to parse for both of you.

if you think he was statpadding his offensive rebounds it would mean his efficiency was actually a lot better than his raw ts%

as missing 2 or 3 shots in purpose to get the rebound before scoring would tank a player efficiency numbers without making him a less effective scorer. As a player who misses on purpose to get a offensive board is one who could have easily scored if he wanted

Take away two "statpadded misses" field goals from moses and he improves his ts% from 57.5 into 31 points on 62% ts% (ewing was 60% in his peak 90' season) making him a 31 points +8 efficiency guy.

In other words, your points about moses offensive rebounding advantage being statpadded and moses being a less efficient scorer than ewing are self excluding.

Yes, that was my point. You do not get to look at offensive rebounding disparity and ignore the efficiency gap. Four extra shots on lessened efficiency, call it equivalent efficiency and suddenly it becomes say two and a half extra shots, wow, now it is no longer “not even half” so I guess “basically the same” must be back in play, right?

Not really, 4 offensive rebounds is a lot of value for a single player

Offensive rebounding is a valuable part of a big game and the -difference- between moses and ewing is bigger than what most bigs get

Please, explain how his offensive rebounds were not important. Moses didn't pad his offensive rebound numbers, he was just damn good at getting them.

I wonder whether we would ever say the same for someone like Drummond.

I looked at the DRB ranks of Moses' teams, because I was thinking heavily at the time about how big men who excel at getting offensive rebounds more than defensive ones, may be using their high skill of "tracking" the ball on the glass on the defensive end, thus chasing after rebounds instead of boxing out. Moses of course has one of the highest ORB to DRB ratios of all players in history, such as in 1982 having 47% of his rebounds on the offensive glass, 53% DRB. A guy I compared him to as on the opposite end of ORB/DRB ratio, Dirk, had 10% of his rebounds offensive in 2011, 90% defensive, and his team managed to have a lot of good defensive rebounding years. Here are Moses' team rebounding stats:

Moses
Rockets 77 - 5th
Rockets 78 - 15/22
Rockets 79 - 9/22
Rockets - 80 - 21/22
Rockets 81 - 11/23
Rockets 82 - 17/23
Sixers 83 - 13/23
Sixers 84 - 18/23
Sixers 85 - 15/23
Sixers 86 - 17/23 - This is a Barkley/Moses frontcourt year. WTF?
Bullets 87 - 22/23
Bullets 88 - 21/23
Hawks 89 - 22/25
Hawks 90 - 26/27
Hawks 91 - 7/27
Bucks 92 - 23/27

That's rough. I also looked at what happened to the team's after his moves - Rockets move from 17th in DRB in 82 to 18th in 83, Sixers move from 22nd DRB in 82 to 13th DRB in 83. So that's not a bad impact, though he was also replacing Daryl Dawkins, who has probably the worst size of human being to rebounding ratio ever. The Sixers are 17th in both 86 and 87, the Bullets are 20th in 86 and 22nd in 87. The Hawks go from 13th in 88 to 22nd in 89, the Bullets go from 21st in 88 to 12th in 89. The Hawks go from 7th in 91 to 8th in 92, the Bucks go from 21st in 91 to 23rd in 92. So the overall changing from team to team doesn't support Moses being an impact defensive rebounder.

I wouldn't completely rule out Moses having an impact on the defensive glass because team results have many variables, but it doesn't look that good to me

People often point out that defense and rebounding win championships. Yet a quick look at this season’s stats shows that there is no correlation between offensive rebounding and team success—more playoff teams were actually below the league average than above it. (This is true historically as well.) The more important rebounding figure to look at, then, is defensive rebounding in isolation, since limiting an opponent’s shots at the basket is an essential component of good defense.

It is almost orthodoxy in most of the NBA today: Offensive rebounding doesn't matter, especially because it threatens the integrity of your defense.
"San Antonio set the model," says Terry Stotts, the Blazers' coach. "Offensive rebounding has never been a priority for us."
Doc Rivers, Stan Van Gundy, Steve Clifford, Erik Spoelstra and Rick Carlisle are among the coaching giants who have (mostly) gone down the Pop path.
"Right now, everything is tilted toward transition defense," Brown says. "We are all sheep."
Players feel the shift too. "Years ago, every coach was looking for offensive rebounds," says Luis Scola, Toronto's starting power forward. "And now it's so different, because coaches don't want to give up transition points. That's why players stopped doing it."
The effect has crescendoed this season. Leaguewide, offenses have rebounded just 23.8 percent of misses, on pace to be the lowest overall mark in NBA history. On the flip side, the Spurs, Hornets and Cavs all have a chance to set the all-time record in defensive rebounding rate -- a record Charlotte set just last season. "If you study the numbers," Clifford says, "you find that offensive rebounding just isn't important in winning big."
He's right in a literal sense, but there might be a chicken-and-egg thing going on. Does ignoring the offensive glass help teams win, or is it just a characteristic of most NBA teams -- including those that win? … Teams keep most of their findings secret, but the wizards at Nylon Calculus use public rebounding data to track which offenses most often have players near the basket, in rebounding position, when someone jacks a shot. They call this "chase percentage," and over the past two seasons, the top five chase teams have ranked around 19th or 20th overall in those same measures of transition defense. (This jibes with some of the non-public data I've seen.) At the same time, the paranoid offensive rebounding teams tend to be among the best at limiting fast-break points.
In other words: There may be real danger in banking too much on offensive rebounds. And that may be especially true for the best teams. Good teams have good offenses, and good offenses make almost half their shots. If the first shot is a decent bet to go in, perhaps the risk-reward calculus favors getting back on defense. This probably plays some role in explaining why good teams appear to avoid the offensive glass: because they're good, not because offensive rebounding is on its face a bad thing. Bad teams have even more incentive to crash hard; they miss more often than good teams!

We can compare two teams, one of which (team ‘Dan’) has a higher shooting percentage than the other (team ‘Nick’). We can ask, ‘How much higher does team Nick’s offensive rebounding have to be, in order to have the same points per possession?’ Figure 1 displays curves of equivalent teams.

Overall, my reaction is that these curves are disappointingly steep. That is, it takes a large increase in offensive rebounding proficiency to offset a small decline in shooting percentage.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/matthew.atkins/viz/OREBvs_DREB/OREBvsDREB

Besides, the difference between Moses and Ewing isn't about boxscore numbers. Moses was one of the best off-ball bigmen ever with his off-ball movement and offensive rebounding. He was much less ball-dominant than Ewing and he took less time to make decision with the ball. Neither is a good passer, but Moses gave his team much more value within the offensive system. Malone was just far more dynamic offensive player and he anchored slightly better offensive results than Ewing

Funny thing is I actually agree with all this (note how little this case relies on a disparity in offensive rebounds). Again, coming back to “basically”. But the problem is that most of the people voting for Moses were not engaged with his true “value” in this sense — if we were, defence would have been more of a factor than was ever really given beyond “well he made the all-defensive team so he must have been good enough.” Much like with 2019 Harden, it was about the abstract “dominance” of his offence, and that abstract dominance is what Ewing approximated well.

Moses actually did have great impact with the '83 Sixers because he fit the team really well. Offensively he was in a perfect situation because he had so many guys around him who could create their own offense or for others, so you didn't need Moses to make other guys better. But you're not always going to be that lucky where you can play with three other all-stars in your backcourt, so his portability as an offensive hub in the post is still a major flaw.

But more importantly, the 76ers at the time were sorely lacking a rebounder. In '82 they were the worst rebounding team in the league (partly because of the insanely active defense they played on the perimeter which didn't allow them to crash the boards). They were 22nd out 23 in drb% and 21st in orb%, Moses came in and made them an average defensive rebounding team and the best offensive rebounding team. His defensive rebounding allowed the Sixers guards/wings to play their frenetic defense but not give up second chance points. If he had positive defensive impact that year, it would be because of that (allowing guys around him to focus on defense while he cleared the boards). At the same time though, this could be said about any good defensive rebounder...

Re: People arguing for Moses' defensive impact based on the fact Philly was the 5th best defensive team.

I'll give him solid post defense and solid defensive rebounding which allowed the perimeter guys to play pressure defense without having to worry about hitting the boards (this had hurt them in the past especially against LA), so overall was probably a positive impact defender that year (playing on a contender also naturally increases a player's willingness to play defense as well). But Philly was the best perimeter defensive team in the league. It was the unbelievably active defense applied by the backcourt and Erving/Jones which made them a top 5 defensive team year in year out. What hurts Moses to me, especially in comparison to other guys at his position like Zo or Dwight for example, is that I see them making Philly an all-time great defensive team (with all those active perimeter defenders, you put Zo or Dwight's shot blocking in the middle to shut down the paint, who also provide similar level or better defensive rebounding...how is that not the best defensive team of that era?

Yes, that was my point. You do not get to look at offensive rebounding disparity and ignore the efficiency gap

I never denied the efficiency gap in their scoring. In fact i didnt comment on that at all at first. I know ewing was more efficient and a much better defender (notice that i didnt disagree with that part of your comment)

I said exactly 1 thingh about the "moses with better defense" comparision. And it was that the rebounding was too far apart for ewing to be seen as a better defending moses.

Moses minus the rebounding is like saying someone is like lebron james except with mediocre inside scoring or someone is like dirk nowitksy except for an average jumpshot. Aka not like lebron or dirk at all

Offensive rebounding is the defining part of moses game and where he gained a lot of his separation from thr average center pack

I wonder whether we would ever say the same for someone like Drummond.

Andre drummond was not a 30 points per game scorer with solid efficiency

Not all of that or even most of it came from his offensive rebounding, but it was a significant value add on top of the rest of his scoring game.

Four extra shots on lessened efficiency, call it equivalent efficiency and suddenly it becomes say two and a half extra shots, wow, now it is no longer “not even half” so I guess “basically the same” must be back in play, right?

I am confused now on the point here tbh.

Let me put it this way. Whenever you get a offensive rebound you are getting another field goal which in average will yield close to 1 point each~. (As the average half court possesion is close to this and many of the shots that get rebounded end in putbackd)

So whether moses passes the ball (not as often), shots himself or get fouled. He is adding points to his team with said rebounding.

Is not as clear cut because charging the boards is worse for defense than running back to ptevent the fastbreak but overall the offensive rebound itself is a very good thingh to get.

Lots of team have succeded offensivrly by outrebounding the rival team the freaking second threapeat bulls often had so-so scoring efficiencies but had great offense thanks to their possesion advantage (which came from their low turnovers and great offensive rebounding)

Possesion advantage is very valuable. Getting 1 or 2 more offensive rebounds a game than your rival is very valuable add to a team

Ewing can still be a more valuable player than moses. The defensive gap can easily be bigger than the rebounding gap.

But the rebounding gap is not somethingh to handwave away

To be clear, no, I do not think Ewing is as “offensively portable” as Moses or as good off-ball as Moses or as offensively valuable as Moses in general. However, his 1990 scoring does a strong enough approximation of what a lot of people tend to like about 1982 Moses, with improved range and passing (with the acknowledgement that you and Falco are right in pointing out that his passing is not exactly fluid and more of a limited on-ball approach), and at that point the gulf in defensive abilities feels like it should be comfortably surmounting any remaining gap on offence.

I have no issue whatsoever with ewing over moses.

My whole "issue" here was how i though offensive rebounding fairly sizable gap was kind of handwaved away from the discussion

Possesion advantages matter in basketball. Is why if you look at historical results teams very often won on the back of getting more possesions than their rivals rather than by outshooting their rivals