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Who would you draft for your team today? Webber or Pettit? Assume both stay their whole career.

Pettit. Plays bigger and while he plays boring he also plays fundamentally sound, which is something coaches can work with.

Webber sticks out more because he has unique attributes and skills but his problem is perhaps the opposite, he is fundamentally not good at things volume scoring bigs should be good at. He plays too far from the rim and will take jumpers when he's not a good jump shooter.

Webber is also injury prone.

Not that close really for me. Webber will have fun hitting open 3 pointers with passes and will likely see success defensively, but he is a more flawed player.

Prime Webber seemd to score better than Pettit when he was asked to tbh.

We have a lot of uncertainties about Pettit, but for what I know I'd take him easily over Webber.

One_and_Done wrote:Prime Webber seemd to score better than Pettit when he was asked to tbh.

Not really

One_and_Done wrote:Prime Webber seemd to score better than Pettit when he was asked to tbh.

What do you base this on? TS ADD is the best scoring stat we have in terms of pure box score and it shows Pettit averaging around 175 TS Add for his whole career (+ 1758) except for his rookie year and his injured final year. His peak TS ADD is over 250. To contrast, Webber is negative (-450.6) for his career (poor foul draw, poor FT shooting, and poor 3 point % drag him down) with no seasons over 50 except his rookie year. In the leagues they were in, you wanted Pettit to shoot and Webber to pass to someone who was at least league average as a scorer.

Webber was the more fluid athlete and more creative passer. Pettit was the Tim Duncan of his day, Mr. Fundamental, making his living off his ability to draw fouls and offensive rebounding with enough of an outside shot to force players to guard him away from the basket. Pettit also had a much stronger rep for his motor (relentless was a description that at least 2 players used about him in "Tall Tales") where Webber would play in bursts.

One_and_Done wrote:Prime Webber seemd to score better than Pettit when he was asked to tbh.

Pettit has a career TS+ of 1700 while Webber is at -450.

Also, LOL at the idea that Webber scored "when asked". Bro did what he wanted on the court and no coach was changing that about him.

Kinda surprised that Webber received one more vote so far in the poll than I expected him to get.

Colbinii wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:Prime Webber seemd to score better than Pettit when he was asked to tbh.

Pettit has a career TS+ of 1700 while Webber is at -450.

Also, LOL at the idea that Webber scored "when asked". Bro did what he wanted on the court and no coach was changing that about him.

Even if you ignore era adjustments, Webber in his scoring prime (1995-06) posted 51.1 TS% which is identical to Pettit's career average. He's actually worse than Pettit in postseason as well.

You really can't defend this claim.

I expected the people that believe anyone who played prior to 1970 played against plumbers and firefighters to vote Webber despite any evidence to the contrary.

I'll put it this way:

I'm really not sure I'd want to draft Chris Webber over Brad Miller.

I'm not sure if I'd be drafting the 1955 version of Pettit or if I am getting a Bob Pettit who was born in 2003 and developed as a modern player. If it's 55 I might go with Webber but part of the issue with Webber is the endless injuries. If it's 03 Bob I think I'd go with him. Webber wasn't quite as good as some people always want to make him out to be in terms of his career as a whole or even his peak.

Webber I think was some time too passive and not as aggressive of a player on both ends that he should have been. Pettit put in the effort on both ends and was an underrated defender.

penbeast0 wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:Prime Webber seemd to score better than Pettit when he was asked to tbh.

What do you base this on? TS ADD is the best scoring stat we have in terms of pure box score and it shows Pettit averaging around 175 TS Add for his whole career (+ 1758) except for his rookie year and his injured final year. His peak TS ADD is over 250. To contrast, Webber is negative (-450.6) for his career (poor foul draw, poor FT shooting, and poor 3 point % drag him down) with no seasons over 50 except his rookie year. In the leagues they were in, you wanted Pettit to shoot and Webber to pass to someone who was at least league average as a scorer.

Webber was the more fluid athlete and more creative passer. Pettit was the Tim Duncan of his day, Mr. Fundamental, making his living off his ability to draw fouls and offensive rebounding with enough of an outside shot to force players to guard him away from the basket. Pettit also had a much stronger rep for his motor (relentless was a description that at least 2 players used about him in "Tall Tales") where Webber would play in bursts.

I was actually going to call him the "Tim Duncan of Power Forwards" in my original post but realized that Tim Duncan was a power forward.

Chris Webber was, along with contemporary Derrick Coleman, amongst the most talented PFs in league history. Both achieved far less than what everybody expected, for different reasons.

Chris Webber might be super marketable today. He'd be a triple-double guy, shoot 3's, date actresses and Instagram models, etc. I think you could argue he'd be a superior franchise centerpiece. However, if winning is the priority, then you take Bob Pettit for sure.

If you doubt Pettit's place amongst the greats, understand that the guy played on the same court as Russell, Chamberlain, Robertson, West, and Baylor, all in their primes, and Pettit came out with the All-Star Game MVP, back in a time when players actually tried their best. Like, you can't just be a plumber and do that. You outplay those five in a single night, you're a baller.