RealGM

Jermaine O'Neale was a mobile big with good defensive skills who played 18 years including a 6 year stretch averaging 20/10 for Indiana despite shooting only .518 ts% for his career.

Amar'e Stoudamire was a similarly mobile big with poor defense who played 14 years including a 7 year stretch (interrupted by injury) where he averaged roughly 22/9 but with a .597 ts% for his career.

Neither were good passers or showed much 3 point range. Contemporaries picked Amar'e as All-NBA 5 times (4 2nd, 1 1st) and JO as All-NBA 3 times (2 3rds, 1 2nd). Knowing what we know today, who would you rather start a team with
(1) in the 2000s that were both their prime and
(2) today?

penbeast0 wrote:Jermaine O'Neale was a mobile big with good defensive skills who played 18 years including a 6 year stretch averaging 20/10 for Indiana despite shooting only .518 ts% for his career.

JO. Horrid offensive player. Strong defensive player. Considerably more monodimensional than his raw box score stats indicate/

Amare. Lazy-ass, incompetent defender, lazy-ass rebounder. Not a great passer, though IMHO a little better than JO. Fantastic scorer, even without Nash, when healthy. Lots of health issues.

Could take either depending on the rest of the team and what the needs were, TBH. Neither were complete players.

tsherkin wrote:...

Could take either depending on the rest of the team and what the needs were, TBH. Neither were complete players.

I agree but it dodges the value question. That's why OP said, "rather start a team with."

penbeast0 wrote:

tsherkin wrote:...

Could take either depending on the rest of the team and what the needs were, TBH. Neither were complete players.

I agree but it dodges the value question. That's why OP said, "rather start a team with."

I wouldn't start a team with either, it'd be a losing proposition. If I had to choose, I'd take Amar'e because of his entertainment value.

Today, I'd take my chances with JO and scale back his offensive role. No sensible team is going to be running things through him in the post anyway. I have no hope of fixing Amar'e's defensive cluelessness, and it becomes even more damaging in this day and age.

It's a tougher question in-era, but I feel like things work out a lot worse for Amar'e on an average 2000s team. Still JO.

Getting guys like JO to accept a lesser offensive role is easier said than done. I think it would be easier finding a defensive specialist to put next to Amare.

Hard to go against JO here I think. He was a better offensive player than his poor shooting percentages suggest. His highest scoring, healthy years came during the absolute worst offensive environment the NBA has seen since probably the early 70's. And on top of that, his team sucked on offense, so he had to take on greater USG% than he should have. He was a very good post-up player - deceptively strong with his back to the hoop. Indy was a top-notch defense, and he was their main defensive rebounder, shot-blocker, and overall paint deterrent. He doesn't get enough credit for that.

Big Amar'e fan, and he gets too much flak on this board. I'm not talking about his defense - he's the worst defensive player ever who managed to play more than 30 MPG - but people don't respect the offense enough. Modern era, he's there with Dirk, Shaq, and now Jokic as far as pure scoring skillset goes. Guy was an absolute animal. 6'9" with a Worthy-like first step, automatic jumper, amazing power and body control to jump into a defender's chest and finish through contact. Amar'e was unstoppable.

Assuming your building around one of these guys and that one will be by far your best player, it's probably a bit more doable to build a contender around J.O. Plus the longevity edge.

ronnymac2 wrote:Hard to go against JO here I think. He was a better offensive player than his poor shooting percentages suggest. His highest scoring, healthy years came during the absolute worst offensive environment the NBA has seen since probably the early 70's. And on top of that, his team sucked on offense, so he had to take on greater USG% than he should have. He was a very good post-up player - deceptively strong with his back to the hoop.

Fell in love with his tepid jumper, especially that turnaround fade. Weak at the line. Outside of 03, mostly quite notably UNDER league-average efficiency. So even era-relative, he was pretty poor in that regard. Pretty good inside 10 feet but mostly useless beyond. He's like an old archetype. "Yay, he's big, let's run the ball into it him even if it isn't a good idea" as far as his scoring volume, with the exception of 2003, when he was actually pretty good. The potential was certainly there for him to have been better in his day, but it never materialized. And he wasn't a good enough passer that giving him the ball a lot was a particularly good idea even if he WAS scoring efficiently, though that's a common issue with post guys and not unique to JO (and certainly ITT, Amar'e was not much better; both were more finishers than offensive hubs).

It often seemed like Artest was the most important player on those Pacers teams. Subsequent events seemed to confirm it. JO was dubbed the 'star', but Artest was the key to those teams.

SHAQ32 wrote:Getting guys like JO to accept a lesser offensive role is easier said than done. I think it would be easier finding a defensive specialist to put next to Amare.

I'm inclined to disagree. [edit ... at least with what I read as the implied sentiment, yes it's easy to get a defensive specialist but at what cost to Amar'e's offense and per below I'm not sure O'Neal needs to be high usage]

O'Neal's usage spikes to monstrous levels when they had nothing else in Indiana. But he had low usage roles at the start of his career and choose to keep on playing on relatively low value contracts in a below average usage role.

I think with a better coach than Isiah Thomas he doesn't necessarily have to get used to taking on greater than 25 usage (Miller, Miller and Croshere all sub-19). If his ego needs assuaging (I don't know here, though see above) I think you could probably sell him on he's going to be the defensive big man anchor on the best defensive team ever (that's what you sell ... with him, Artest, Foster the core of that '04 team with very strong D ... plus we can get people to overrate them by playing a slow pace in a slow era ... hooray). Keep B. Miller and give him the ball more, let O'Neal get points by being a play finisher, running the floor, crashing the offensive glass (regarding keeping Miller ... as far as I can tell doing the sign and trade was motivated by cheapness and if they had to dump money could have moved Harrington [+ probably Mercer] for Brandon's soon to be medically cap-vaporized contract . I don't know but I think eliminate post-ups/isos is doable, stops slow poor passing possessions, frees the paint and doesn't stop him getting some of those points back by other, off-ball means.

I think it's considerably easier/more plausible to get O'Neal to be an okay offensive player for position than STAT to be an okay defensive one (which isn't all the question but is key to the framing above). Amar'e probably, in most cases, looks less productive, adds less on offense as a 4 next to a defensive specialist at the 5.

penbeast0 wrote:Jermaine O'Neale was a mobile big with good defensive skills who played 18 years including a 6 year stretch averaging 20/10 for Indiana despite shooting only .518 ts% for his career.

Amar'e Stoudamire was a similarly mobile big with poor defense who played 14 years including a 7 year stretch (interrupted by injury) where he averaged roughly 22/9 but with a .597 ts% for his career.

Neither were good passers or showed much 3 point range. Contemporaries picked Amar'e as All-NBA 5 times (4 2nd, 1 1st) and JO as All-NBA 3 times (2 3rds, 1 2nd). Knowing what we know today, who would you rather start a team with
(1) in the 2000s that were both their prime and
(2) today?

In today’s game, JO without much hesitation. Early 2000’s JO was an impact defender whose defense would likely translate well in today’s game. Additionally, he would coming in that he wouldn’t be taking all the ugly turnaround shots. He became a pretty good FT shooter and had decent range, so perhaps he could become a three-point spacer. I don’t seem any way that Amar'e Stoudemire wouldn’t be an even worse defender in today’s game—his lack of awareness on defense, slow rotations/actions recognition would lead to busted rotations and open threes. On top of that, I don’t think he’d be as good offensively without ATG offensive maestro Nash, though his excellent FT touch suggests if he were tasked early in his career to develop a three point shot he would.

In the time they played, I’d still probably lean JO—his offense was still better than A’mare’s defense, especially relative to position.

Owly wrote:I think it's considerably easier/more plausible to get O'Neal to be an okay offensive player for position than STAT to be an okay defensive one (which isn't all the question but is key to the framing above). Amar'e probably, in most cases, looks less productive, adds less on offense as a 4 next to a defensive specialist at the 5.

This.

Amare by a lot.

Extremely good offensively.

homecourtloss wrote:Additionally, he would coming in that he wouldn’t be taking all the ugly turnaround shots.

Why? They weren't any less stupid then. His coaches all told him they were bad shots for him. Why would he suddenly listen now?

[quote[]
He became a pretty good FT shooter and had decent range,[/quote]

No he didn't. He did have a couple of solid FT% seasons but he never exhibited any reliable/consistent range. Taking shots isn't the same as making them at a good clip.

Thought Amare had a decent mid range game? Would not be that hard for him to extend to 3pter for today's game.

tsherkin wrote:

homecourtloss wrote:Additionally, he would coming in that he wouldn’t be taking all the ugly turnaround shots.

Why? They weren't any less stupid then. His coaches all told him they were bad shots for him. Why would he suddenly listen now?

He became a pretty good FT shooter and had decent range,

No he didn't. He did have a couple of solid FT% seasons but he never exhibited any reliable/consistent range. Taking shots isn't the same as making them at a good clip.

I won't pretend to have immersed myself in JO'N tape...
How confident are you that "His coaches all told him they were bad shots for him".
Fwiw I've got a contemporary source (Hollinger, 2004) stating that "Carlisle slowing the tempo and repeatedly calling post plays for him" is a significant factor in his usage rise and efficiency dropoff. And he was playing in a time where bigs posting up for moves from their back to the basket was still in vogue. That gives me some pause that all coaches were particularly questioning his shot diet.

Re: FT% ... depends how much one curves for position and what position you consider JO'N. Early on it's ugly. But people will cite Robinson, Olajwuon and Ewing as good "shooting" centers with a free throw percentage in the low/mid 70s. 2002 Jermaine gets to just about passable (given he's a big) and spends the rest of his prime in the 70s at worst, and his average for prime and remainder of his career is at .748. "A couple of solid seasons" then sounds a touch ungenerous, especially if you curve for position (maybe depending on semantic interpretation of "solid"). I would say from that point he was pretty solid generally, so in between the two positions offered.

From the field it depends on his shot diet and even if it didn't I'm not that confident getting an in era read on range, percentages but I don't think it's that pretty.

I'd say he's someone an offense is fine with taking open Js, but probably you probably shouldn't in most circumstances be actively looking for him to get Js and especially not out of iso/post. As to how that projects to a three it's always pretty speculative (the circa 75% is solid for a big but that's his best indicator and it's average, rather than anything special, in absolute terms).

carlquincy wrote:Thought Amare had a decent mid range game? Would not be that hard for him to extend to 3pter for today's game.

Yes (Nash helped a bit of course). Extending to 3 is always a bit of a question mark but his prime indicators from the field and the line are positive. Think the questioning is more around O'Neal.

Owly wrote:How confident are you that "His coaches all told him they were bad shots for him".
Fwiw I've got a contemporary source (Hollinger, 2004) stating that "Carlisle slowing the tempo and repeatedly calling post plays for him" is a significant factor in his usage rise and efficiency dropoff. And he was playing in a time where bigs posting up for moves from their back to the basket was still in vogue. That gives me some pause that all coaches were particularly questioning his shot diet.

I absolutely believe that they were emphasizing the post for him. He was pretty adept in the 3-10 range, that wasn't really my point. I was responding specifically about the longer jumpers and his fadeaways.

Re: FT% ... depends how much one curves for position and what position you consider JO'N. Early on it's ugly. But people will cite Robinson, Olajwuon and Ewing as good "shooting" centers with a free throw percentage in the low/mid 70s. 2002 Jermaine gets to just about passable (given he's a big) and spends the rest of his prime in the 70s at worst, and his average for prime and remainder of his career is at .748. "A couple of solid seasons" then sounds a touch ungenerous, especially if you curve for position (maybe depending on semantic interpretation of "solid"). I would say from that point he was pretty solid generally, so in between the two positions offered.

I don't curve for position. If you're bad at the line, you're bad at the line. He got better as his career progressed, and his run from 04-09 was good enough at the line.

I'd say he's someone an offense is fine with taking open Js, but probably you probably shouldn't in most circumstances be actively looking for him to get Js and especially not out of iso/post.

Career 38.4% shooter from 10-16 feet, 37.6% from 16-23. I'd be thrilled with letting him take those all game long. 41.7% from 3-10, which isn't amazing, but also overrepresents the beginning and end of his career. 03-07, he was closer to 44, 45% there. Pre-04, he was also a good finisher around the rim, then tailed off until his volume dropped enough that it improved again. JO didn't really have amazing touch, and that's a big part of why he was rarely a particularly efficient player, even by era standards.

As for 3pt shooting, it's hard to judge for me. A steady diet of set-foot, catch-and-shoot, assisted 3s from the corner and maybe the odd wing shot? It isn't unthinkable to envision him shooting like Old Man Sheed on some of that.

The reason I liked this comp is the offense v. defense split. I think Amar'e was significantly better offensively than JO was defensively, I think JO was significantly better offensively than Amar'e was defensively, ie. Amar'e was more the outlier player. Normally, I'd go with that and try to get a good coach to build around that skill set. Amar'e lack of passing chops does limit how much you can build the offense around him (rather than around Nash) though and I would guess that I would value defense more than offense for an NBA big man if they were relative equivalencies.

That said, I do think you can teach JO to be less problematic on offense (though even an old man Rasheed comp is overstating his shooting ability I think), I'm not sure you can teach Amar'e to either be significantly better defensively or to raise his playmaking level significantly in most circumstances. Scoring would still be his reason for being on the court and the focus of his game. So, I'd probably take O'Neal to start even though I think Amar'e had the more storied career.

Owly wrote:

SHAQ32 wrote:Getting guys like JO to accept a lesser offensive role is easier said than done. I think it would be easier finding a defensive specialist to put next to Amare.

I'm inclined to disagree. [edit ... at least with what I read as the implied sentiment, yes it's easy to get a defensive specialist but at what cost to Amar'e's offense]...

There doesn't have to necessarily be a cost to Amare's offense. You can still have great offenses without each of the starting five contributing. For instance, the Warriors had great offenses with Andrew Bogut.

I think it's considerably easier/more plausible to get O'Neal to be an okay offensive player for position than STAT to be an okay defensive one (which isn't all the question but is key to the framing above). Amar'e probably, in most cases, looks less productive, adds less on offense as a 4 next to a defensive specialist at the 5.

Even if this were true, then look at the other side of the ball. Amare's offense was of a higher caliber than JO's defense. I mean, JO was great defensively for his era, don't get me wrong, but he's not all-time defensively. Amare however is all-time, offensively, for his positions.

SHAQ32 wrote:

Owly wrote:

SHAQ32 wrote:Getting guys like JO to accept a lesser offensive role is easier said than done. I think it would be easier finding a defensive specialist to put next to Amare.

I'm inclined to disagree. [edit ... at least with what I read as the implied sentiment, yes it's easy to get a defensive specialist but at what cost to Amar'e's offense]...

There doesn't have to necessarily be a cost to Amare's offense. You can still have great offenses without each of the starting five contributing. For instance, the Warriors had great offenses with Andrew Bogut.

That depends on the degree to which one thinks Amare's global offensive value came from drawing out 5s, and at a more individual level how much he benefitted from a quickness advantage versus 5s.

Regarding Bogut:
Bogut looks, I believe, substantially more net impactful than STAT for prime (e.g. 97-14 googlesites RAPM, 1.52 to 0.03), so that a team can succeed with him may not be entirely surprising.
Bogut was playing with one of the greatest offensive players ever (especially RS).

So, pairing him with a defensive minded 5, if he plays with someone seemingly better than him at the 5, that five needn't be an impairment to the offense if we also have an outlier impactful offensive supernova. It's true. But it means (at least) 2 players better than him, one by a long distance. One can quibble at the margins, maybe this version of Bogut is worse than his average year and the version of STAT is better than his ... the broader point stands.

SHAQ32 wrote:

I think it's considerably easier/more plausible to get O'Neal to be an okay offensive player for position than STAT to be an okay defensive one (which isn't all the question but is key to the framing above). Amar'e probably, in most cases, looks less productive, adds less on offense as a 4 next to a defensive specialist at the 5.

Even if this were true, then look at the other side of the ball. Amare's offense was of a higher caliber than JO's defense. I mean, JO was great defensively for his era, don't get me wrong, but he's not all-time defensively. Amare however is all-time, offensively, for his positions.

This idea of the other side of the ball is explicitly acknowledged. Your conclusion though ...

97-14 googlesites "strong end" RAPM
AS: 0.92
JON: 1.96 (positive good)

97-22 (JE, I think) "strong end" RAPM
AS: 1.6
JON: -3.2 (negative good)

granting that this is only 2 variations on one methodology ...

Amare does have very strong offensive production at his apex years ('05, '08) depending somewhat on metric of choice (BPM not so much a fan as the offensive side [majority] of PER ... whilst playing with Nash. At the big picture level his impact signal appears to be relatively moderate. If one is very much into PER or Offensive PER, maybe OWS and generally reject BPM (and perhaps similar measures) and longer-term impact data and are into peaks, and don't think those numbers are Nash inflated then one could get behind Amare as really high offensively. The degree to which is big picture offensive impact numbers are non-exceptional and his overall numbers are average would tend to sour me on the idea that he was that special as an offensive or overall player. That as an offensively tilted player he will perceived as and expect to be paid as a top tier superstar would also hurt him as a value proposition, for those who think in such terms (not that O'Neal was cheap).

SHAQ32 wrote:

Owly wrote:

SHAQ32 wrote:Getting guys like JO to accept a lesser offensive role is easier said than done. I think it would be easier finding a defensive specialist to put next to Amare.

I'm inclined to disagree. [edit ... at least with what I read as the implied sentiment, yes it's easy to get a defensive specialist but at what cost to Amar'e's offense]...

There doesn't have to necessarily be a cost to Amare's offense. You can still have great offenses without each of the starting five contributing. For instance, the Warriors had great offenses with Andrew Bogut.

I think it's considerably easier/more plausible to get O'Neal to be an okay offensive player for position than STAT to be an okay defensive one (which isn't all the question but is key to the framing above). Amar'e probably, in most cases, looks less productive, adds less on offense as a 4 next to a defensive specialist at the 5.

Even if this were true, then look at the other side of the ball. Amare's offense was of a higher caliber than JO's defense. I mean, JO was great defensively for his era, don't get me wrong, but he's not all-time defensively. Amare however is all-time, offensively, for his positions.

Bogut is a much better and lower-usage offensive player than JO. Weird comparison.