1. We have a pool of Nominees you are to choose from for your Induction (main) vote to decide who next gets on the List. Choose your top vote, and if you'd like to, a second vote which will be used for runoff purposes if needed.
2. Nomination vote now works the same way.
3. You must include reasoning for each of your votes, though you may re-use your old words in a new post.
4. Post as much as they want, but when you do your official Vote make it really clear to me at the top of that post that that post is your Vote. And if you decide to change your vote before the votes are tallied, please edit that same Vote post.
5. Anyone may post thoughts, but please only make a Vote post if you're on the Voter list. If you'd like to be added to the project, please ask in the General Thread for the project. Note that you will not be added immediately to the project now. If you express an interest during the #2 thread, for example, the earliest you'll be added to the Voter list is for the #3.
5. I'll tally the votes when I wake up the morning after the Deadline (I don't care if you change things after the official Deadline, but once I tally, it's over). For this specific Vote, if people ask before the Deadline, I'll extend it.
Here's the list of the Voter Pool as it stands right now (and if I forgot anyone I approved, do let me know):
Spoiler:
AEnigma Ambrose ceilng raiser ceoofkobefans Clyde Frazier Colbinii cupcakesnake Doctor MJ Dooley DQuinn1575 Dr Positivity DraymondGold Dutchball97 eminence f4p falcolombardi Fundamentals21 Gibson22 HeartBreakKid homecourtloss iggymcfrack LA Bird JimmyFromNz Joao Saraiva lessthanjake ljspeelman Lou Fan Moonbeam Narigo OhayoKD OldSchoolNoBull One_and_Done penbeast0 rk2023 Samurai ShaqAttac Taj FTW Tim Lehrbach trelos6 trex_8063 ty 4191 ZeppelinPage
Alright, the Nominees for you to choose among for the next slot on the list (in alphabetical order):
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Charles Barkley
Kevin Durant
Julius Erving
Moses Malone
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 2:54 pm
by One_and_Done
Vote: KD
Alternate: Dr J
Nominate: Nash
Alternate nomination: Harden
KD is my vote. I have him ranked ahead of Dirk and Malone, who just got in. I haven’t seen anyone really justify why KD isn’t ahead of Malone and Dirk. Here are their per 100 stats.
In the case of D.Rob, the big argument in his favour is being a GOAT candidate on D, the fact he can also league the league in scoring is just a nice add on benefit that pumps him up even further. But with Dirk and Malone their case over KD is heavily reliant on how their offense holds up compared to his, and it’s a comparison they lose by huge margins. I think Dr J honestly has a better case over KD than those guys. I don’t buy his case, but at least it exists. KD is a solid defender when he wants to be too. Not as impactful as Karl, but certainly more than Dirk. I just feel there is not enough discussion about how KD should be in already.
KD is faster, longer, more athletic, and a better shooter and defender than Dirk on the eye test. Stats and the way each did and didn't drive various upper degrees of high level winning seem to back that up. I would say KD had a better handle and was a better passer too, which the stats also back up.
Kobe is in already, but look how he compares to KD. Clearly inferior.
Spoiler:
As for Durant vs Kobe I don’t understand the argument for Kobe. Durant was a better scorer, better defender, and a better complementary piece who fit in more easily with others. His longevity is enough that any minor advantage Kobe has is negated.
Let’s just look at a peak to peak comparison to start with. Because KD has the consistency of a metronome (when he’s on the court), a number of different years can be advanced as his “peak”. But 2014 seems to have the strongest case. So let’s look at 2014 KD v.s 2008 Kobe (which is often advanced as Kobe’s best year).
KD: 41.8 pp 100, 9.6 rp 100, 7.2 ap 100, 123 Ortg, 104 Drtg, on an insane 635. TS%
Kobe: 36.5 pp 100, 8.1 rp 100, 6.9 ap 100, 115 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 576. TS%
KD is better in literally every, single category, and not by a small margin. But let’s be fair to them and look at a bigger, more representative sample.
Here’s KD from 2010 to 2023, a 13 year stretch if we exclude 2020.
RS per 100: 38.2, 10, 6.3, 120 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 631. TS%
So again, KD is basically beating him in every single category except for a trivial defensive rating difference, which could just be noise given how close it is and the sample size. He’s scoring more, and scoring more on insane efficiency. Even his assists are similar, despite Kobe’s supposed passing advantage (which FYI isn’t much of an advantage if you don’t like passing). The difference in Ortg is insane. KD is just cooking him.
On the defensive end KD is almost 7 feet tall with crazy long arms, so he can to a limited extent provide rim protection and switch on to bigger guys, all of which was key to his time on the Warriors. KD fits so much better than Kobe in so many situations, needing a lower usage and complementing other guys. KD was also misused to some degree in OKC, with it now being apparent in hindsight that Westbrook was not an optimal co-star for KD (to put it lightly). He often played with poor spacing in OKC, and thrived anyway.
But let’s turn to the one thing Kobe supporters can maybe argue, which is longevity. I don’t buy this, because KD has had enough longevity to score almost 27K points despite playing through several seasons cut short by COVID and lock outs, so at that point I’d say he has “enough” longevity that unless the person he’s being compared to is a comparably good player longevity isn’t enough to move the needle. But then I’m not even sure we can criticise KD’s longevity too much. Kobe has basically 12-13 healthy-ish, prime type seasons. His last few seasons were negative value add, and the early part of his career is mostly not adding too much. If we took out those years Kobe actually only has 28k+ points, so barely different to KD (who isn’t done yet either).
But what of KD? He was healthy from 2010 to 2014. That’s 5 prime seasons right there. 2016 healthy. That’s 6. 2017 and 2018 he was being rested and was out by design basically, I count those as healthy seasons. KD is up to 8 prime seasons. 2019? He was healthy all the way to the finals, then had an injury. I don’t dock him for that because it’s absurd. It would be rewarding guys like Kobe for getting bounced out in the first round, before they had a chance to injure themselves. That’s 9 prime seasons. In my mind that’s enough to overcome Kobe’s longevity easily. But I also feel KD added good value from 2021 to 2023. In those 3 seasons some of the games he missed were for rest, or due to reasons having nothing to do with injury; if he and the team were keen on him playing more, he could have. He was also healthy for the playoffs in 2021 and 2023 when it mattered (which is what he was being rested for).
I just don’t see what Kobe’s argument over KD would be. KD is just flat out better.
Dr J seems to have peaked higher than Kobe, who has already been nominated, as I discuss below.
Spoiler:
I've already had threads discussing Malone and D.Rob's case, but let's look at Dr J. Underrated due to injuries later in his career that slowed him a little, and forced to take less shots to help manage the egos on his early NBA teams. However there's really no doubt in my mind he peaked higher than Kobe and had longer longevity than people think at first. He also has size, length, hands and athleticism that let him do stuff on both ends that Kobe never could.
1976 PS Erving: 37.4 pp 100, 13.6 r, 5.3a, 2.1, 2.2, 128 Ortg/103 Drtg, 610 TS%, and a title.
1976 ABA was as strong or stronger than 1976 NBA in terms of top teams.
Giannis is another player in this category. Yeh, sure, Giannis only has 10 years in the league; but when Jordan first retired he only had 9 and people were already calling him one of the greatest ever. In today’s game would Jordan really be more impactful than Giannis? I have my doubts. Just comparing Giannis/D.Rob/Dirk/Kobe’s best seasons, here’s how they come out:
So the first observation is that Giannis is the best of the bunch and it’s not close. The only reason not to take him yet is if you don’t think he has “enough” longevity. He isn’t just a force offensively, he’s one of the best defensive players you could have in the modern era. Defense is something that’s hard to measure, but I think we can all agree D.Rob and Giannis are 2 of the best defensive players ever. Then on the other end they’d only need to be solid to be in discussion here. But they’re not just solid. Giannis is flat out better than the rest on offense, and while D.Rob is the “worst” of the 4 in the playoffs on O, he’s still close enough that I don’t know that the others have much of a case over him given his all-time defensive anchoring ability. If you’re taking Dirk or Kobe it’s got to be on longevity. Kobe looks the worst on balance by far. He’s 2nd of the group on volume scoring, but he does it by having bad efficiency which is probably part of why his TS% is the worst of anyone except playoffs D.Rob, and his Ortg is the worst of the bunch on balance (because regular season isn’t worthless, your performance there adds a lot of value). Then factor in this is literally Kobe’s very best stretch. If we’d run this from 00-10 for instance, he’d look so much worse (see above comparison with KD).
Dirk’s high end run in the 2011 playoffs is a level of impact neither D.Rob nor Kobe had during a singular playoff run, putting up 39.1 pp100, 11.5 rp100, 3.6 ap100 on 115 Ortg/105 Drtg, and 609 TS% while taking out Kobe’s Lakers, KD’s Thunder, and Blazers, and the first incarnation of the Heatles, is crazy impressive. Yeh, they’d have gone down to the 2012 Heatles once they balanced the team a little and figured out the line-ups to play, etc, but nobody expected them to win that year. They weren’t even supposed to beat the Lakers, and they ka-rushed them. Check out the stat-line of 32 year old Kobe v.s 32 year old Dirk. It’s not pretty. Kobe had 23.3 ppg, 3rpg, 2.5 apg on 519 TS%, v.s Dirk’s 25.3ppg, 9.3 rpg, 2.5apg on an insane 673 TS%.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 3:04 pm
by rk2023
Nomination - Steve Nash Alternate Nomination - Dwyane Wade
Same nominations as last time, same arguments as before.
Nash:
In Nash's case, one of the biggest (and easier to detect, with a second/third/fourth glance into his career and prime) factors is his impact profile vastly trumps that of his box-profile - in a case where the latter undersells him for my $.02
From Doc's RAPM Chronology Google Sheet, which I lost the link for (dating from 1998 - 2012) -
Nash's top-two seasonal scaled O-RAPM values of 10.22 and 9.82 from 2007 & 08 have only been paralleled (precisely) by 2010 Wade (10.65) and James (9.95). His 5 year sum of top O-RAPM values comes out to be 45.39, first in the 15 year database (second is James with 40.7). According to Thinking Basketball's, Nash's 5-year RAPM (I'd assume the Offensive value > the full RAPM value) of 6.8 is 7th all time. I'd assume the latter is citing Engelmann - in which he grades highly in multiple parameters there too.
With this snippet of a case study in mind, I think It's quite interesting / telling and a testament to make sure to conduct a holistic analysis of pragmatic/team, tracking/film and efficacy, catch-all 'standardized' impact, and box production when analyzing players - more or less in that exact order. The Box Score of 17-11 (spanning 2005 through 2010) for Nash far from tells the whole story. I've been going back and looking at WOWYR/GPM studies as mentioned earlier - and all of them grade Steve Nash very highly. I will say, comparing across different eras and different roster constructions as a litmus test of "Player A is more impactful than B" is quite flawed - but I've noticed general trends about how (more often than not) 1-man defensive armies likes Russell and Robinson as well as hyper-efficient offensive QBs like West, LBJ, Oscar, Jordan, Magic serve as the most indispensable pieces across the board. Nash certainly fits the latter description like a glove. Some of the team offensive results may be slightly overstated due to Phoenix trading off defense, but I don't have much hesitation in believing Nash's outlier scoring efficiency and playmaking (only paralleled by that of Magic) could elevate various rosters to respectable heights. Hard for me, all evidence considered, to see him any lower than the third worse offensive prime of the data-ball era (perhaps fourth as Jokic stockpiles similar campaigns) while being a slight - on defense. This is good enough to give him 6 strong MVP level seasons imo, the most of anybody yet to be nominated.
From Taylor, back in 2018:
Spoiler:
That Mavericks four-year run of offense was the best in NBA history, averaging +7 efficiency during the stretch. The second best stretch? Nash’s Suns, from 2005 to 2008. His decade of offensive wizardry on two offense-first teams meant he played on the best offenses in NBA history through his career and a mind-boggling six of the 15 best “healthy” offenses ever. These attacks weren’t regular season frauds, either. The best four-year stretch for a playoff offense is held by Nash’s Suns, who were +10.7 in 51 playoff games between 2005 and 2008 (and his Dallas teams were in the top-10 too). Most importantly, all of this happened with lineups shifting around him:
His coach during that stretch, Mike D’Antoni, is known for his point-guard friendly system, and a number of his lead guards manufactured career years under him, although the effect is quite small.7 D’Antoni’s Suns also skewed their lineups, sacrificing defense for offense by playing four wings alongside a power forward at center (Amare Stoudemire). But some of Nash’s most impressive team results were produced with traditional lineups.
In 2006, the Suns brought in Kurt Thomas to provide some muscle at center. In 50 games with Thomas, Phoenix was 3.6 points better than average on offense…and 3.4 points better on defense (6.6 SRS or 59-win pace). Nash guided Phoenix to a top-15 percent offense with a rotation of spot-up shooters (Raja Bell, James Jones and Eddie House) alongside Shawn Marion — who couldn’t create his own offense — a scorer who could also hit spot-up 3s (Leandro Barbosa) and a versatile post player (Boris Diaw).8
Nash’s impact footprint extends beyond these team trends and Phoenix’s enormous single-season turnaround in 2005. His presence in the lineup correlated heavily with his team’s success, ranking in the top-10 in both WOWY and regressed game-level data. At the lineup level, he’s second in the Databall era in scaled offensive adjusted plus-minus (APM), behind only LeBron James. And his best scaled (overall) APM seasons are in the 99th percentile historically.
Wade: Happy to be joining the Wade Wagon along with Doc (and hopefully others here).
Of course, his longevity isn't great as 2005-14 is the meat and potatoes of his prime value - where four of these years in 07/08/13/14 re depleted with some injury / wear and tear anyways. I don't know how much lower he would be for me with all of this in mind - because of how damn good his best years were. Aside from Jokic (who's in Nomination convos too) and Walton (whose career is unfortunately derailed by injuries, the greatest what-if ever imo but that's neither here nor there) - I would confidently say his 2006/09/10 campaigns are the best out of players whom have yet to be a nominee. 2011 was great as well, and 2005/12 were perhaps Weak-MVP level (due to not being as consistent as his magnum opus years). I mentioned that his prime stacks up well and comparable to Giannis - whom is a nominee and is on my radar to be inducted in the not too far future. Aside from Moses Malone in 1983 (more on that later) and Jokic this past year, everybody else since 1977 Kareem with a POY selection has been inducted in this project. I personally think Wade should be a primary candidate quite soon, following this trend.
These highly impactful grades are even there with 2008 being a point that very well could deflate the overall sample (though I'm unsure how much of that is relevant or moot with these being PI RAPM samples).
While I ultimately prefer Kobe (this projects' #13) between the two and think Wade is close, peak/prime for peak/prime, here's how the two 00s SGs stack up side by side. Of course, Bryant's longevity is much, much better - but I think a player whom ends up looking statistically similar for a fair share of time ought to not be immensely far behind (where the early 20s seem very fair here).
Bryant from 2000-01 to 2009-10 28.5 ppg 5.8 rpg 5.2 apg 1.7 spg 0.5 bpg 3.1 tpg on .559 ts (+2.8 rts) and 24.6 per, 5.6 obpm in r. season 28.8 ppg 5.7 rpg 5.4 apg 1.5 spg 0.6 bpg 3.2 tpg on .548 ts (+1.7 rts) and 23.5 per, 5.6 obpm in playoffs
Wade from 2004-05 to 2010-11; 26.6 ppg 5.2 rpg 6.6 apg 1.8 spg 1.1 bpg 3.7 tpg on .570 ts (+3.1 rts) and 26.6 per, 5.8 obpm in r. season 27.3 ppg 6.0 rpg 5.6 apg 1.7 spg 1.2 bpg 3.9 tpg on .576 ts (+3.7 rts) and 25.7 per, 6.2 obpm in playoffs
A timeless sports or HoH or any smaller snippet isn’t going to hold much weight for my vote (I’d guess that’s more or less known and consensus for everybody else here), but how physically imposing Wade was in his heyday very much impressed me. I think such a brute force approach to volume scoring and guard defense (whether his younger, gas pedal first step self in 2006 or the bulkier, post Olympic Adrian Peterson-esque version of Wade from 2009) catapulted his raw value added on teams bereft of solid offensive talent. I maintain that aside from Jokic, he is the best floor raiser remaining among nominees and yet-to-be-nominees. Mentioned this in the post earlier, but from the 06-11 span - I find it hard to believe that Wade’s impact and aggregate value added doesn’t come out as any worse as 4th behind this projects’ #1, 13, and 18. Longevity and play-style taking a toll on Wade’s lower-body unfortunately holds him back to being in my top 20 :/ - but he warrants serious consideration here (especially with Jokic gaining traction and Giannis in as nominee).
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 5:21 pm
by iggymcfrack
Interested in Durant vs. Barkley discussion. Giannis will be my selection easily, but KD is #25 on my list and Barkley is #26 so I could see either one being my alternate. And yeah, I’m aware that KD will likely get more support, but I don’t really feel like making that the key criterion in my choice.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 6:19 pm
by Samurai
Vote for #21: Julius Erving. I believe the Doctor's 76 season ranks with the most dominant all-around season of any of the nominees. Led the league in scoring at 29.3 ppg. Fifth in the league in rebounds at 11 rpg. Seventh in assists at 5 apg. Third in steals at 3.5 spg. Seventh in blocks at 1.9 bpg. Sixth in 3-point % at 33%. And led the league in WS, OWS, DWS, WS/48, PER, Box Plus/Minus, Def Rtg, Usage %, and VORP. And also won MVP, Playoffs MVP, All ABA First Team and All Defensive First Team. That was the ABA's final year of existence and in my view, the ABA was on near-equal footing with the NBA by that time. And while he never approached a season like that in the NBA, he still picked up another MVP trophy in 81. And until Curry came along, prime Dr J was my favorite player to watch on TV; that's gotta count for something!
Alternate: Giannis. Not entirely comfortable with this pick due to his lack of longevity compared to to the other nominees; would likely feel much more confident in this if he continues his pace another couple of years. But his prime has been so impressive so far that it becomes a mitigating factor for me. George Mikan Trophy winner in 2017, two-time MVP , Finals MVP, and DPOY - his accolades speak for themselves. Particularly impressive to me is his gravity; the opposing team has to shift their overall strategy to account for him on both ends of the court more than I've seen from the other nominees.
Nominate: Steve Nash. Elite longevity and on a short list of GOAT-level offensive peaks by combining outstanding playmaking with incredible shooting accuracy. Two-time MVP, led the league in assists 5 times, and led the league in TS% twice.
Alternate nominee: Bob Pettit. To be clear, I have not and still do not believe in time machines so anyone wanting to time machine Pettit to the present NBA must first convince me that a time machine exists. Without a time machine, it is obvious that he would be terrible today since the man is over 90 years old. And also completely irrelevant. He was a 2-time MVP and 10-time All NBA First Team and Second Team once. I will also concede that I never saw him play live. But his adaptability is extremely impressive to me. His first season was 1955 and Neil Johnston was the big star then (a broken-down Mikan came out of retirement to play 37 games in 56). But by 1964, Pettit's second to last season, he was competing against the likes of Wilt, Russell, Oscar, West, Baylor, Lucas and Havlicek. The league strength was much higher in 1964 than 1955 and yet Pettit was still All NBA First Team in 64. He was the bridge from the Mikan era to the Russell/Wilt/Oscar/West era and he was elite in both eras.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 6:47 pm
by lessthanjake
Vote for #21: Moses Malone Alternate Vote: Giannis Antetokounmpo Nomination: Nikola Jokic Alternate Nomination: Steve Nash
I’ve set forth my reasoning regarding Moses for a while while trying to get him nominated. Basically, the way I see it, Moses was fairly straightforwardly the best player in the NBA for a 5-year stretch (1979-1983), and no other nominee can really say that (though Giannis gets close and that’s a good part of why he’s my alternate vote). During that 5-year span, Moses showed both incredible floor raising and ceiling raising ability. Specifically, he took a mediocre team to the finals in 1981 (beating the Magic/Kareem Lakers along the way), and also led one of the greatest teams ever in 1983. Beyond those peak years, he has a lot of longevity, with a whole bunch of all-NBA and all-star level years. We also have good impact signals from him. We know that his on-off in his time with the 76ers (which was mostly post-peak) was over +12 and comfortably above his teammates overall. We also know that when he left Houston, his team plummeted to become one of the worst teams in NBA history (after having made the Finals with Moses just a couple years before). The Squared RAPM data for 1984-1985 (the only year Squared has any significant RAPM data for Moses, I believe) has him 3rd in the NBA, behind only Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—and that’s not even a peak year for Moses (though to be fair, it’s not for Kareem either). In terms of skill set, he’s also probably the greatest ever offensive rebounder, to go along with a great post game, a good jump shot, and great post defense. He tended to get the better of Kareem when they faced each other, as Kareem found Moses’s physicality difficult to deal with. The knock on Moses is his limited passing ability, but that didn’t stop his teams from having some really impressive defenses—including his Houston team posting what was, at the time, the highest rORTG in history. Overall, I just don’t think anyone else matches Moses’s combination of peak, longevity, floor raising, ceiling raising, and impact.
Giannis gets the nod from me for the alternate vote. I see him as the only other guy left who has actually been the best player in the NBA for any remotely significant period of time. And, while he’s had some fairly stunning playoff failures at times, he won a title with a team that I frankly don’t regard as very good (and that shot absolutely horribly throughout much of those playoffs). I don’t think anyone else I could use my alternate vote on here has a similar playoff accomplishment. Kevin Durant probably would be the closest to me for this vote. He’s got longevity over Giannis for sure, and while it was a very different context, I do actually weigh his achievements with the Warriors more than others do, because I see the unstoppable quality of that team as in part reflecting his ability as a ceiling raiser. But I can’t quite get myself to a conclusion that Durant was ever as good a player as Giannis has been the last half decade.
As for the nominations, I’m using my nomination and alternate nomination on two players that I regard as being top 5 offensive players of all time. And they’re also just two of my top few favorite players of all time. Jokic gets the nod for me over Nash. I think Nash is probably a better offensive player than Jokic, but to me there’s actually a pretty significant gap between Jokic’s defense and Nash’s. Nash wasn’t quite as bad a defender as people suggest, but when you add together the fact that his defense was on the weak side and the fact that maximizing his offense probably required making significant compromises to the team’s defense at other positions (particularly center) while Jokic can actually be surrounded by a pretty defensive-minded roster, and I just think Jokic has the slightly higher ceiling for where he can take a team.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 7:34 pm
by OldSchoolNoBull
lessthanjake wrote:Vote for #21: Moses Malone Alternate Vote: Giannis Antetokounmpo Nomination: Nikola Jokic Alternate Nomination: Steve Nash
I’ve set forth my reasoning regarding Moses for a while while trying to get him nominated. Basically, the way I see it, Moses was fairly straightforwardly the best player in the NBA for a 5-year stretch (1979-1983), and no other nominee can really say that (though Giannis gets close and that’s a good part of why he’s my alternate vote).
I mean, Dr. J was probably the best player in the ABA for the five years he was in it, and he's got more longevity/rings/MVPs than Giannis.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 7:47 pm
by Owly
lessthanjake wrote:We also have good impact signals from him. We know that his on-off in his time with the 76ers (which was mostly post-peak) was over +12 and comfortably above his teammates overall.
I'm not quite sure what this means.
option a) It's better than his teammates collective average? That would be a given if minutes weighted. For every over there has to an under from the lineups in the players out sample. This seems obvious (not worth stating?).
option b) It's better than all his teammates during that span? I don't think this one is necessarily true. Haven't checked the math but Cheeks has a better number two seasons, Malone better two. Each have a big "win" and a smaller one but Cheeks 86 margin is bigger than Moses's '85 and his '84 is larger than Moses '83. I suspect, then, that within that span that Cheeks has the larger statistical impact signal.
option c) His Philadelphia career on/off is better than that of those who were there at the same time? Tru,e but hardly a like-for-like comparison.
Regardless those on/off numbers are very strong indeed but I think that he may not have been the team leader in that measure over that spell is pertinent.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 7:54 pm
by lessthanjake
OldSchoolNoBull wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:Vote for #21: Moses Malone Alternate Vote: Giannis Antetokounmpo Nomination: Nikola Jokic Alternate Nomination: Steve Nash
I’ve set forth my reasoning regarding Moses for a while while trying to get him nominated. Basically, the way I see it, Moses was fairly straightforwardly the best player in the NBA for a 5-year stretch (1979-1983), and no other nominee can really say that (though Giannis gets close and that’s a good part of why he’s my alternate vote).
I mean, Dr. J was probably the best player in the ABA for the five years he was in it, and he's got more longevity/rings/MVPs than Giannis.
I don’t consider “best player in the ABA” to be a remotely similar achievement to best player in the NBA. The talent was split between two leagues and the ABA was, if anything, the less talented of the two. And we basically know Dr. J wouldn’t have been the best player in a merged league at the time, since at the very least Kareem was definitely better at the time.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 8:10 pm
by penbeast0
Vote: Kevin Durant: While Durant's personality and ability to elevate teammates is certainly questionable, he's been one of the NBA's all-time greatest scorers and a solid defender for well over a decade in what I classify as the strongest era in league history (albeit one that is easier to be an ATG scorer than any other). I think there's been a backlash against him that will die down a bit over time and this seems the right spot for him though, again, it's close with Julius who will probably be my next choice.
Alternative: Giannis: Actually was planning to vote Julius here and certainly Julius has a longevity advantage but while Julius was as amazing in the ABA as Giannis has been in the NBA, I don't think he was actually more amazing or dominating. And the modern league is bigger, deeper, and more competitive than late era ABA. So balancing, I came down on the side of Giannis.
Nomination: Jokic Not sure this guy deserve this spot in front of guys like Frazier, Stockton, Moses, or Ewing, but not sure they don't. When in doubt, I will go with the active player knowing that sometimes I don't give them enough credit for what they've done.
Alternate Nomination: John Stockton -- I have Stockton as better than Nash, not as a pure offensive field general, it's close with Stockton doing a better job getting the ball to the open man in sets but Nash doing better in broken plays, but Stockton's ironman leadership and defense to me are more valuable than Nash's ability to occasionally have a big game (offset by small ones to bring Nash and Stockton back to the same rough scoring level) and the extra playoff numbers.
FWIW, I have also traditionally voted Bob Pettit before Barkley despite Barkley's numbers edge and more modern era due to Barkley's poor leadership and defense; not the guy I want leading my team. Probably Wade over Harden for the same reason though I haven't taken time to look at that comp seriously yet. Soon.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 8:11 pm
by HeartBreakKid
lessthanjake wrote:
OldSchoolNoBull wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:Vote for #21: Moses Malone Alternate Vote: Giannis Antetokounmpo Nomination: Nikola Jokic Alternate Nomination: Steve Nash
I’ve set forth my reasoning regarding Moses for a while while trying to get him nominated. Basically, the way I see it, Moses was fairly straightforwardly the best player in the NBA for a 5-year stretch (1979-1983), and no other nominee can really say that (though Giannis gets close and that’s a good part of why he’s my alternate vote).
I mean, Dr. J was probably the best player in the ABA for the five years he was in it, and he's got more longevity/rings/MVPs than Giannis.
I don’t consider “best player in the ABA” to be a remotely similar achievement to best player in the NBA. The talent was split between two leagues and the ABA was, if anything, the less talented of the two. And we basically know Dr. J wouldn’t have been the best player in a merged league at the time, since at the very least Kareem was definitely better at the time.
How would we know that? Conventional wisdom would say that Kareem was better than Moses Malone also.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 8:21 pm
by HeartBreakKid
Vote is for Julius Erving - I look at Dr.J as a "bigger" Dwyane Wade (who I think is a comparable player to Dirk). He doesn't dominate in the ways that you would think a superstar should in 2023. He doesn't have overly dominant defense. Isn't a point forward or a eyes behind the back passer. Doesn't have an amazing pull up game. Doesn't have a 3 ball.
What he does have though is really good decision making and insane athleticism. I think Bball IQ is the most scalable attribute in basketball. If you make the right decision then even if you a mediocre athlete you will come out ahead. Dr.J finds ways to get to the rim and leverage his insane athleticism.
While he doesn't look as good as he should in Phily, I think a lot of that comes down with coaching. The Sixers had good talent but they were not used properly, I think this goes without saying.
Dr.J's ABA career is enough proof to me of his dominance. Nearly every year his team upset another team in the post season and often had great records despite not having a very stacked team. Even when the Nets key players left the Nets still won titles, beating the very team that those players joined (the Spurs if I can recall). If Dirk's biggest claim to fame is carrying a team to a title that shouldn't have won, then Dr.J did the same thing (and quite frankly, there was more evidence that the 2011 Mavs should have won the playoffs regardless of what mainstream media thought).
I think Dr.J gets punished because of his aesthetics really. He doesn't play like how people want their best players to play, so he is assumed to be lesser than, but it doesn't really line up with what he did. He also is not properly interpreted as a 3 time champion as people often forget that the ABA titles are just as valid as NBA titles.
His impact must have been pretty high to do what he did in the ABA.
Even if one were to say the ABA wasn't as good competition, his teams were still not supposed to do what they did. Off the top of my head, I think one Dr.J team was upset or underachieved, the rest more or less exceeded expectations.
Even going back to Virginia, they are a terrible club that had barely any money in it. Dr.J took them to the playoffs twice even winning a series (going to the playoffs in a small league is nothing special, but both seasons Virginia did not have a losing record). The year after he left they were 28-56 (2nd to last in standings), which is about right for a team like that.
The year Dr.J joins the Nets they not only improved from a 30 win first round playoff team to the champions, but they swept an incredibly talented Kentucky team (and swept Utah in the finals as well).
The final ABA season the Nets aren't expected to do much. They had a huge collapse in the year prior in the post season, and then lose both their 2nd and third leading scorers due to financial troubles if I can recall. They beat the same team that inherits those players in the Spurs who have other NBA all-star level talent and a highly talented ensemble cast in the Nuggets (who would go on to be a good NBA team with many of their players intact post merger).
Now, those clubs are built much differently than Philly so it is entirely possible that the structure of Philly depressed Dr.J's impact (I think on many levels we do know that coaching was a problem for them).
It's a shame we do not have more advance data for the ABA because it seems clear that Dr.J's must have some type of incredible impact on his teams that he can carry them to defeat teams that should be way superior on paper. Maybe Dr.J is a bit like D-Wade in that he doesn't have the best impact stats but he seems to be the driving factor for winning games in a more crude manner.
Alternate Vote is for Kevin Durant - Kevin Durant doesn't have quite the one way weakness as Charles Barkley but still has the scary scoring efficiency. I have a hard time seeing an argument for ol Chucky here.
Giannis has been one of the best players of the last few years but I am not fully sure if he is quite the monster he is made out to be. While he is a great boxscore stuffer, I think his scoring isn't quite as useful. Durant also struggles I think with his boxscore stats leading to high impact but not to the same degree.
I would like to see more analysis on Giannis' defense because that intrigues me most about him but for now I'd have to give the nod to Durant.
My nomination is for Nikola Jokic(I'm very peak oriented and he has enough seasons where it is pretty easy to see he is no fluke, he is probably better than some of the players on the top 10 list already)
My alternate nomination is for Steve Nash (very close between him and Wade)
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 8:37 pm
by trelos6
Voting post
21. Kevin Durant. Great scorer, amazing efficiency, highly portable, good 5 year MVP level peak, 12 seasons as all nba level.
22. Dr J. Good peak, but mostly weak mvp level for me (sans 76). Beats out Giannis for longevity.
Nom: Nash. Outlined previously
Nom: Harden. Outlined previously
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 8:37 pm
by 70sFan
One thing regarding Moses that people often don't take into consideration - Moses had a huge impact on opposing starting centers fouls due to his enormous free throw rate.
Here are minutes and fouls averages for some of the best centers in the league from Moses prime:
1979-85 Kareem against the league: 35.5 mpg, 2.8 fpg 1979-85 Kareem against Moses: 36.2 mpg, 3.8 fpg
1985-89 Hakeem against the league: 36.2 mpg, 4.0 fpg 1985-89 Hakeem against Moses: 34.1 mpg, 4.3 fpg
1986-89 Ewing against the league: 34.3 mpg, 3.9 fpg 1986-89 Ewing against Moses: 33.9 mpg, 4.1 fpg
1979-85 Gilmore against the league: 34.6 mpg, 3.5 fpg 1979-85 Gilmore against Moses: 35.3 mpg, 4.0 fpg
1979-80 Lanier against the league: 34.2 mpg, 3.3 fpg 1979-80 Lanier against Moses: 34.9 mpg, 4.9 fpg
1979-89 Parish against the league: 32.8 mpg, 3.2 fpg 1979-89 Parish against Moses: 34.6 mpg, 3.8fpg
1987-89 Daugherty against the league: 35.8 mpg, 2.8 fpg 1987-89 Daugherty against Moses: 38.9 mpg, 3.4 fpg
It's not only about Moses being physical, but he was very crafty at drawing fouls (to put it nicely, other people would call it flopping and ruining the game ). Here is one specific example of recently found sophomore Hakeem vs Moses matchup:
Moses drew 3 fouls on Hakeem in the first half, then he drew another one at the beginning of the 3rd quarter, which basically eliminated Hakeem from playing his usual minutes (he got fouled out after 25 minutes).
This is something that is highly underappreciated - if your center is your best defender or best player, better take him off Moses.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 9:13 pm
by lessthanjake
HeartBreakKid wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
OldSchoolNoBull wrote: I mean, Dr. J was probably the best player in the ABA for the five years he was in it, and he's got more longevity/rings/MVPs than Giannis.
I don’t consider “best player in the ABA” to be a remotely similar achievement to best player in the NBA. The talent was split between two leagues and the ABA was, if anything, the less talented of the two. And we basically know Dr. J wouldn’t have been the best player in a merged league at the time, since at the very least Kareem was definitely better at the time.
How would we know that? Conventional wisdom would say that Kareem was better than Moses Malone also.
Not in Moses Malone’s peak half-decade he wasn’t.
I’ve talked about this in prior threads, but during his peak Moses was pretty straightforwardly superior to Kareem, though Kareem wasn’t miles below him. Moses won 3 MVP awards in those 5 years, while Kareem won one. Moses had a 25.0 PER, while Kareem had a slightly lower 24.7. The two players met in the playoffs twice, and Moses’s team won both times (despite having a very inferior team one of those times), and Moses outplayed Kareem both times. Kareem did get two titles in that timeframe compared to one for Moses, but Moses was only on a really good team one year (compared to 4 for Kareem), and he won a dominant title that year, and he managed to make the finals in another year when he had a mediocre team (while the only year in this timeframe where Kareem had a mediocre team, he lost in the conference semifinals). I don’t think Kareem was way behind Moses, but I think it’d ultimately be hard to construct a great argument for Kareem over Moses in those years. Moses is the straightforward answer for best player in the five-year 1979-1983 timeframe.
During Dr. J’s years in the ABA, I don’t think it’s particularly plausible that he was actually the best basketball player in the world, even if he was the best player in the ABA. Like, do you actually think ABA Dr. J was better than Kareem at the same time? I just don’t think almost anyone would agree with that. And of course you can say that this is in part a reflection of Kareem just being better in those years than in the slightly later timeframe of Moses’s peak years (though of course Moses’s peak also overlapped with Bird and Magic, while Dr. J’s didn’t). But the statement being contested was me saying that Moses was the best player in a half-decade span, while the other nominees were not, and I don’t think there’s much of a plausible argument that that was true of Dr. J too.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 9:30 pm
by lessthanjake
Owly wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:We also have good impact signals from him. We know that his on-off in his time with the 76ers (which was mostly post-peak) was over +12 and comfortably above his teammates overall.
I'm not quite sure what this means.
option a) It's better than his teammates collective average? That would be a given if minutes weighted. For every over there has to an under from the lineups in the players out sample. This seems obvious (not worth stating?).
option b) It's better than all his teammates during that span? I don't think this one is necessarily true. Haven't checked the math but Cheeks has a better number two seasons, Malone better two. Each have a big "win" and a smaller one but Cheeks 86 margin is bigger than Moses's '85 and his '84 is larger than Moses '83. I suspect, then, that within that span that Cheeks has the larger statistical impact signal.
option c) His Philadelphia career on/off is better than that of those who were there at the same time? Tru,e but hardly a like-for-like comparison.
Regardless those on/off numbers are very strong indeed but I think that he may not have been the team leader in that measure over that spell is pertinent.
I meant Option B, but I was basing that on a memory of having done prior calculations weeks or months ago, and I think maybe my prior calculations must’ve been Option C. Because you’re right that Moses and Cheeks basically have identical on-off in the timeframe Moses was there. I do think the fact that Cheeks’ on-off in his non-Moses years with the 76ers were pretty mediocre suggests that his on-off being quite good in those years with the 76ers is probably in large part just a function of randomness (and perhaps having a lot of minutes overlap with Moses). But you’re right that what I said was a little misleading, since it’s true if we look at players’ whole time with the 76ers but not entirely true if we just look at the years Moses was there. Either way, though, the on-off data we have for Moses is impressive, and the fact that they’re so much higher than guys like Dr. J suggests this isn’t likely to just be a function of rotations but rather is reflecting real impact from Moses specifically.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 9:46 pm
by MyUniBroDavis
lessthanjake wrote:Vote for #21: Moses Malone Alternate Vote: Giannis Antetokounmpo Nomination: Nikola Jokic Alternate Nomination: Steve Nash
I’ve set forth my reasoning regarding Moses for a while while trying to get him nominated. Basically, the way I see it, Moses was fairly straightforwardly the best player in the NBA for a 5-year stretch (1979-1983), and no other nominee can really say that (though Giannis gets close and that’s a good part of why he’s my alternate vote). During that 5-year span, Moses showed both incredible floor raising and ceiling raising ability. Specifically, he took a mediocre team to the finals in 1981 (beating the Magic/Kareem Lakers along the way), and also led one of the greatest teams ever in 1983. Beyond those peak years, he has a lot of longevity, with a whole bunch of all-NBA and all-star level years. We also have good impact signals from him. We know that his on-off in his time with the 76ers (which was mostly post-peak) was over +12 and comfortably above his teammates overall. We also know that when he left Houston, his team plummeted to become one of the worst teams in NBA history (after having made the Finals with Moses just a couple years before). The Squared RAPM data for 1984-1985 (the only year Squared has any significant RAPM data for Moses, I believe) has him 3rd in the NBA, behind only Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—and that’s not even a peak year for Moses (though to be fair, it’s not for Kareem either). In terms of skill set, he’s also probably the greatest ever offensive rebounder, to go along with a great post game, a good jump shot, and great post defense. He tended to get the better of Kareem when they faced each other, as Kareem found Moses’s physicality difficult to deal with. The knock on Moses is his limited passing ability, but that didn’t stop his teams from having some really impressive defenses—including his Houston team posting what was, at the time, the highest rORTG in history. Overall, I just don’t think anyone else matches Moses’s combination of peak, longevity, floor raising, ceiling raising, and impact.
Giannis gets the nod from me for the alternate vote. I see him as the only other guy left who has actually been the best player in the NBA for any remotely significant period of time. And, while he’s had some fairly stunning playoff failures at times, he won a title with a team that I frankly don’t regard as very good (and that shot absolutely horribly throughout much of those playoffs). I don’t think anyone else I could use my alternate vote on here has a similar playoff accomplishment. Kevin Durant probably would be the closest to me for this vote. He’s got longevity over Giannis for sure, and while it was a very different context, I do actually weigh his achievements with the Warriors more than others do, because I see the unstoppable quality of that team as in part reflecting his ability as a ceiling raiser. But I can’t quite get myself to a conclusion that Durant was ever as good a player as Giannis has been the last half decade.
As for the nominations, I’m using my nomination and alternate nomination on two players that I regard as being top 5 offensive players of all time. And they’re also just two of my top few favorite players of all time. Jokic gets the nod for me over Nash. I think Nash is probably a better offensive player than Jokic, but to me there’s actually a pretty significant gap between Jokic’s defense and Nash’s. Nash wasn’t quite as bad a defender as people suggest, but when you add together the fact that his defense was on the weak side and the fact that maximizing his offense probably required making significant compromises to the team’s defense at other positions (particularly center) while Jokic can actually be surrounded by a pretty defensive-minded roster, and I just think Jokic has the slightly higher ceiling for where he can take a team.
I mean, Jokic easily clears nash, but how does this make sense? Why would a strong off ball roll man big be inherently a bad defender lol
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 10:20 pm
by Owly
lessthanjake wrote:
Owly wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:We also have good impact signals from him. We know that his on-off in his time with the 76ers (which was mostly post-peak) was over +12 and comfortably above his teammates overall.
I'm not quite sure what this means.
option a) It's better than his teammates collective average? That would be a given if minutes weighted. For every over there has to an under from the lineups in the players out sample. This seems obvious (not worth stating?).
option b) It's better than all his teammates during that span? I don't think this one is necessarily true. Haven't checked the math but Cheeks has a better number two seasons, Malone better two. Each have a big "win" and a smaller one but Cheeks 86 margin is bigger than Moses's '85 and his '84 is larger than Moses '83. I suspect, then, that within that span that Cheeks has the larger statistical impact signal.
option c) His Philadelphia career on/off is better than that of those who were there at the same time? Tru,e but hardly a like-for-like comparison.
Regardless those on/off numbers are very strong indeed but I think that he may not have been the team leader in that measure over that spell is pertinent.
I meant Option B, but I was basing that on a memory of having done prior calculations weeks or months ago, and I think maybe my prior calculations must’ve been Option C. Because you’re right that Moses and Cheeks basically have identical on-off in the timeframe Moses was there. I do think the fact that Cheeks’ on-off in his non-Moses years with the 76ers were pretty mediocre suggests that his on-off being quite good in those years with the 76ers is probably in large part just a function of randomness (and perhaps having a lot of minutes overlap with Moses). But you’re right that what I said was a little misleading, since it’s true if we look at players’ whole time with the 76ers but not entirely true if we just look at the years Moses was there. Either way, though, the on-off data we have for Moses is impressive, and the fact that they’re so much higher than guys like Dr. J suggests this isn’t likely to just be a function of rotations but rather is reflecting real impact from Moses specifically.
Cheeks on-off is certainly significantly weaker in the "after Moses" years. In the before though he's better than Erving in the same span [79-82, indeed managing a very slightly higher raw plus minus despite playing about 300 fewer minutes each year] I believe so I wouldn't, myself call it "mediocre" (it's not great as a rookie presumably with the bench unit but not bad for a rookie in that context and ramping up going into the "with Moses" spell - maybe one could argue Erving's are that poor that it still is mediocre?), nor necessarily write it off as with Moses collinearity (or more particularly describe it in the single-direction manner as here, though because of the significant gaps in '85 and especially the larger gap, this time in Cheeks favor, in '86 collinearity looks a bit less of a factor than if the numbers were more tightly aligned). I think Cheeks' numbers are solid enough over a large sample to be reasonably confident in his impact.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Fri Sep 1, 2023 11:26 pm
by One_and_Done
Spoiler:
Owly wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
Owly wrote:I'm not quite sure what this means.
option a) It's better than his teammates collective average? That would be a given if minutes weighted. For every over there has to an under from the lineups in the players out sample. This seems obvious (not worth stating?).
option b) It's better than all his teammates during that span? I don't think this one is necessarily true. Haven't checked the math but Cheeks has a better number two seasons, Malone better two. Each have a big "win" and a smaller one but Cheeks 86 margin is bigger than Moses's '85 and his '84 is larger than Moses '83. I suspect, then, that within that span that Cheeks has the larger statistical impact signal.
option c) His Philadelphia career on/off is better than that of those who were there at the same time? Tru,e but hardly a like-for-like comparison.
Regardless those on/off numbers are very strong indeed but I think that he may not have been the team leader in that measure over that spell is pertinent.
I meant Option B, but I was basing that on a memory of having done prior calculations weeks or months ago, and I think maybe my prior calculations must’ve been Option C. Because you’re right that Moses and Cheeks basically have identical on-off in the timeframe Moses was there. I do think the fact that Cheeks’ on-off in his non-Moses years with the 76ers were pretty mediocre suggests that his on-off being quite good in those years with the 76ers is probably in large part just a function of randomness (and perhaps having a lot of minutes overlap with Moses). But you’re right that what I said was a little misleading, since it’s true if we look at players’ whole time with the 76ers but not entirely true if we just look at the years Moses was there. Either way, though, the on-off data we have for Moses is impressive, and the fact that they’re so much higher than guys like Dr. J suggests this isn’t likely to just be a function of rotations but rather is reflecting real impact from Moses specifically.
Cheeks on-off is certainly significantly weaker in the "after Moses" years. In the before though he's better than Erving in the same span [79-82, indeed managing a very slightly higher raw plus minus despite playing about 300 fewer minutes each year] I believe so I wouldn't, myself call it "mediocre" (it's not great as a rookie presumably with the bench unit but not bad for a rookie in that context and ramping up going into the "with Moses" spell - maybe one could argue Erving's are that poor that it still is mediocre?), nor necessarily write it off as with Moses collinearity (or more particularly describe it in the single-direction manner as here, though because of the significant gaps in '85 and especially the larger gap, this time in Cheeks favor, in '86 collinearity looks a bit less of a factor than if the numbers were more tightly aligned). I think Cheeks' numbers are solid enough over a large sample to be reasonably confident in his impact.
Not that I'm the biggest advanced stat guy, but there was no plus minus in Moses career, so I assume you're using some kind of micro-sample of it here. I'd question how much that tells us.
Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 9/4/23)
Posted: Sat Sep 2, 2023 12:00 am
by lessthanjake
MyUniBroDavis wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:Vote for #21: Moses Malone Alternate Vote: Giannis Antetokounmpo Nomination: Nikola Jokic Alternate Nomination: Steve Nash
I’ve set forth my reasoning regarding Moses for a while while trying to get him nominated. Basically, the way I see it, Moses was fairly straightforwardly the best player in the NBA for a 5-year stretch (1979-1983), and no other nominee can really say that (though Giannis gets close and that’s a good part of why he’s my alternate vote). During that 5-year span, Moses showed both incredible floor raising and ceiling raising ability. Specifically, he took a mediocre team to the finals in 1981 (beating the Magic/Kareem Lakers along the way), and also led one of the greatest teams ever in 1983. Beyond those peak years, he has a lot of longevity, with a whole bunch of all-NBA and all-star level years. We also have good impact signals from him. We know that his on-off in his time with the 76ers (which was mostly post-peak) was over +12 and comfortably above his teammates overall. We also know that when he left Houston, his team plummeted to become one of the worst teams in NBA history (after having made the Finals with Moses just a couple years before). The Squared RAPM data for 1984-1985 (the only year Squared has any significant RAPM data for Moses, I believe) has him 3rd in the NBA, behind only Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—and that’s not even a peak year for Moses (though to be fair, it’s not for Kareem either). In terms of skill set, he’s also probably the greatest ever offensive rebounder, to go along with a great post game, a good jump shot, and great post defense. He tended to get the better of Kareem when they faced each other, as Kareem found Moses’s physicality difficult to deal with. The knock on Moses is his limited passing ability, but that didn’t stop his teams from having some really impressive defenses—including his Houston team posting what was, at the time, the highest rORTG in history. Overall, I just don’t think anyone else matches Moses’s combination of peak, longevity, floor raising, ceiling raising, and impact.
Giannis gets the nod from me for the alternate vote. I see him as the only other guy left who has actually been the best player in the NBA for any remotely significant period of time. And, while he’s had some fairly stunning playoff failures at times, he won a title with a team that I frankly don’t regard as very good (and that shot absolutely horribly throughout much of those playoffs). I don’t think anyone else I could use my alternate vote on here has a similar playoff accomplishment. Kevin Durant probably would be the closest to me for this vote. He’s got longevity over Giannis for sure, and while it was a very different context, I do actually weigh his achievements with the Warriors more than others do, because I see the unstoppable quality of that team as in part reflecting his ability as a ceiling raiser. But I can’t quite get myself to a conclusion that Durant was ever as good a player as Giannis has been the last half decade.
As for the nominations, I’m using my nomination and alternate nomination on two players that I regard as being top 5 offensive players of all time. And they’re also just two of my top few favorite players of all time. Jokic gets the nod for me over Nash. I think Nash is probably a better offensive player than Jokic, but to me there’s actually a pretty significant gap between Jokic’s defense and Nash’s. Nash wasn’t quite as bad a defender as people suggest, but when you add together the fact that his defense was on the weak side and the fact that maximizing his offense probably required making significant compromises to the team’s defense at other positions (particularly center) while Jokic can actually be surrounded by a pretty defensive-minded roster, and I just think Jokic has the slightly higher ceiling for where he can take a team.
I mean, Jokic easily clears nash, but how does this make sense? Why would a strong off ball roll man big be inherently a bad defender lol
The issue is that an extremely athletic big that can run on the break, roll to the basket and finish extremely well, and also make jump shots to stretch the floor some (the sort of things necessary to optimize Nash’s offense) doesn’t generally coincide with being a great defender unless we are talking about legitimate all-time great big men. Like, I actually made a thread recently asking what people think would’ve happened if Nash played with David Robinson, because I think Robinson is exactly that type of player. So I am obviously not saying it's impossible or some inherently mutually exclusive thing. It’s not. It's just that that sort of player that would tick all the boxes is just not common to have because not many have existed in NBA history. What happened in reality (and what was generally very likely to happen with Nash unless he got *extremely* lucky) was that the team would need to make a compromise, where he ended up with someone like Amare Stoudemire—who ticked the offensive box but not the defensive one—or perhaps with a more capable defensive big that probably would've prevented Nash from producing the kinds of all-time-level offenses that he produced (he had that to some degree with Kurt Thomas). And I just don't think that Jokic presents as much of a conundrum in terms of roster construction. My intuition is that, if we assume a somewhat realistic amount of talent on the roster (i.e. we don’t give them a prime David Robinson-level sidekick), you can get all-time-level offense from Jokic without compromising team defense as much as you'd need to with Nash. That said, if you did give Steve Nash a prime David Robinson on his team, then I’m open to the idea that that could make a team that is as good or probably better than what could be created around Jokic. I just think that’s not the most realistic scenario (nor is it what happened in reality).
(dating from 1998 - 2012) -
). Here is one specific example of recently found sophomore Hakeem vs Moses matchup: