RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #46 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 11/22/23)

[Doctor MJ]

2 Nominees added last time. No Nomination vote this time.

Our system is now as follows:

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
f4p
falcolombardi
Fundamentals21
Gibson22
HeartBreakKid
homecourtloss
iggymcfrack
LA Bird
JimmyFromNz
Joao Saraiva
lessthanjake
Lou Fan
Moonbeam
Narigo
OhayoKD
OldSchoolNoBull
penbeast0
Rishkar
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):

Joel Embiid


Draymond Green


Dwight Howard


Kevin McHale


Paul Pierce


Russell Westbrook


As requested, here's the current list so far along with the historical spreadsheet of previous projects:

Current List
Historical Spreadsheet

[WintaSoldier1]

It’s Dwight.

The rhetoric used to decredit and value his abilities based on his intangibles and lack of a premier offensive game DONT do Justice to the skillset and impact he had as a player.

Nominate: Iverson

[AEnigma]

Alternate: Paul Pierce (finally)
VOTE: Kevin McHale
(Nominate: Dave Cowens)

EDIT: Doc, my primary vote is for McHale, out of recognition for how McHale needs sufficient primary votes to qualify for the alternate votes.

Pierce has outstanding longevity and I think was an outright better player (if for era/team reasons a less consistently relevant one) than Drexler. I would have voted him in several spots ago, and while I think he clearly merits similar status to Jason Kidd, I suppose Kidd leading two teams to the Finals and being a nominal MVP contender can justifiably create some amount of separation.

Cowens will be my future nomination as a guy I see as essential to the “story” of the 1970s to a degree not true of Lanier (although I think Lanier was better), and therefore a relatively “necessary” top 50 inclusion. Right now it does not appear as though he will make the top 50, but I do want to push hard for him as the centrepiece of the most successful team of the mid-1970s and a sort of progenitor to what Draymond has been for the Warriors. In his 1972-77 prime, the Celtics won over 70% (58-win pace) of games with him and only 50% when he was out, as part of a strong half decade in which the Celtics made at least the conference finals every year.

Based on voting trends my alternate nomination will probably be deciding between Gervin and Butler next round… I definitely take Butler for better peak, prime, and extended prime, but I am not sure if he ever separated himself as an impact player the way I think most of the top bigs on the board did. And on that note, I do hope people seriously consider Cowens over Gervin. Gervin was an impressive scorer, but while he did have more success than someone like Dantley, it was not really that much more, nor would I typically characterise his teams as outright weak. I would rather have Hayes and Lanier from that era too.

[Doctor MJ]

It’s Dwight.

The rhetoric used to decredit and value his abilities based on his intangibles and lack of a premier offensive game DONT do Justice to the skillset and impact he had as a player.

Nominate: Iverson

I don't have you down on the voting list WintaSoldier. If you'd like to be a voter, participate for a while and then ask.

I will say though, I'd want you to be more constructive if your reasoning than I've seen from you to this point.

[Samurai]

Repeating my vote from previous round:

Vote for #46: Russell Westbrook. Not a fan and I wouldn't necessarily want him on my team if I were picking from scratch. But I'm having trouble continuing to not nominate him based on my personal playstyle preferences. MVP in 2017 and 9-time All NBA Team member (2 first team, 5 second team and 2 third team selections). Led the league twice in points/game and three times in assists/game. I don't highly value his triple doubles since I tend to think he was a stat padder, particularly his rebounding, but he was still a very good defensive rebounder for a guard.

Alternate vote: Kevin McHale. Six-time All Defensive Team member , three of them on the first team. Was also an excellent low post shooter with an unstoppable plethora of moves. I may be in the minority on this but I also think he could have been a decent 3-point shooter if he had been raised in today's game; he made 36% in 90-91 on over 100 attempts and was a career 80% FT shooter. Not the quickest defender on the perimeter but he made up for it with his freakish wingspan.

[penbeast0]

Vote: Kevin McHale: Scoring, defense, rings, consistency, a willingness to play roles that may not maximize his own value in order to help his team win.

Alt: Russell Westbrook Switching my alternative vote. I think Draymond is more likely to win you a title, but Westbrook is one of the great floor raisers in NBA history and Dray's fathead stunts may cost you a title like Rodman hurting the Spurs.


Nominate: Bobby Jones. More than a decade of straight 1st team All-Defense votes combined with high efficiency, though not high volume scoring, and good playmaking. Not a great rebounder for his position but could play 2-5 at either end. Probably the greatest glue guy in NBA history and in his time where he was the best player on his team (75 and 76 for example), his team was the best in the league both years though they came up short in the playoffs. Probably too early but haven't been convinced of anyone else here.

Alt: Jimmy Butler Do it all player who plays both ends and has had some nice playoff runs.

Next up: Probably Pau Gasol

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1: Draymond Green



As I've been saying: I think Green's impact is clear cut superstar worthy. Not quite as valuable as his best teammate (Curry), but not someone we should be placing tiers lower due to his scoring limitations when you look at the holistic result of his game.

Induction Vote 2: Kevin McHale

Just an exceptionally capable guy on both ends of the floor who was able to blends with others to create arguably the best team peak of the era.

Nomination Vote 1: Paul Arizin



I'm really sold on Arizin as a player. I think at his best he was the best non-big the NBA ever saw until Oscar & West showed up, and I'd say arguably he was the most modern player the NBA saw until them also. This was a guy who was known for his one-handed jump shot at a time when this was not yet the norm, and he was also known for slashing his way to the basket.

For the early to mid stages of his career, he was also someone who seemed to correlate greatly with his team's success. Now, by moonbeam's RWOWY he comes off more mild here in favor of teammate Tom Gola, and I'm willing to have that conversation given that Gola was supposed to be a best-in-world candidate coming out of college, but my guess is that what we're seeing here is that Gola's arrival on the team coincided with Arizin really getting his sea legs back after the military service, and since that took a year, that prior year gets effectively held against him.

I will say there are considerable longevity concerns with Arizin, and frankly that's why I didn't vote for him earlier.
There are also concerns about why the later years with Wilt didn't feel like a team with overwhelming talent, and there while my answer would be the style of play the Warriors chose to play around Wilt, it doesn't change the fact that Arizin's impact didn't age as well as we'd like in practice.

Nomination Vote 2: Dave Cowens

I think it's time for Cowens. I don't think he should have won MVP...but I don't think he was far from it. He really came in and his arrival re-opened the championship window for the post-Russell Celtics. Playing with extreme motor which seems to be respected as high on the BBIQ scale (despite the shooting efficiency), this is an impressive thing to me.

[trex_8063]

Induction vote: Paul Pierce

As per prior discussions, I think Pierce is very close with Drexler. Similar overall [though more highly variable] team success in their respective careers, a better team defender with similar [arguably marginally better] longevity of effectiveness, slightly better scorer overall (though clearly worse turnover economy gives me some reservation in saying that with any force).......though substantially lesser passer/playmaker, imo, and feels slightly less historically relevant wrt accolades [for whatever that's worth].
But obviously very very close to Drexler, imo. Would have been my alternate (perhaps even primary) vote last round had he been on the ballot.


Alternate induction vote: Russell Westbrook
idk, he just feels like the best of what's left. I've been disappointed with his inability to adapt his playing style as he ages and/or recognize that he just can't shoot (there's a reason your defender is giving you a 5-foot cushion).
However, his ability to co-anchor some contender-level teams [or nearly so] with Durant (and often not a lot of other help), as well as his remarkable volume production (I must admit there is a part of me that is impressed by that; just not TOO impressed [else I would have been championing him ~10 spots ago]).......it's worth serious consideration.

He's played 15 seasons [like Drexler], and also like Drexler they've been mostly injury-free, and he was decent by his second season. Somewhere in that '15-'17 range [arguably ALL THREE seasons] I think he peaked higher a little than Drexler.......but he just hasn't maintained value late in his career (for reasons alluded to above) the way Drexler was able to. I also don't think his impact ever quite matched his box/volume production. Those factors keep him below Clyde for me, despite the historical relevance of being an MVP and having an historic statistical season to his credit.

Overall, I feel like he's deserving somewhere around here, and I tentatively have him ranked above all candidates except Drexler.


Nomination: Pau Gasol
Alt Nomination: Gary Payton

Pau is a guy I'm really fairly surprised we're not talking about yet. Seriously, how is his career significantly lacking in comparison to Kevin McHale's, for example? A little lower in terms of peak, probably, but notably superior in terms of effective longevity.

[Doctor MJ]

So, I do feel compelled to carry this over for another thread.

Alright, so a stat I track are the number of playoff series a player wins as one of the 5 main players by minutes.

Hopefully it's obvious why I would be interest in playoff series wins. Just as obvious that a stat that's specifically about winning is one that could perpetuate "winning bias". Nevertheless, I think it's worth seeing.

What about the 5 main players thing? Well I think we'd all agree that there must be some kind of cutoff when you do something like this. You don't want a guy to add to his tally simply because he's getting token minutes. My thought in general is that since it's a 5-man game, focusing on the 5 guys who play the most when a team accomplishment happens is a meaningful place to draw a line.

With this in mind, here's how active Top 100-ish candidates look by this according to my counts:

LeBron James 41
Klay Thompson 24
Draymond Green 23
Steph Curry 21
Kevin Durant 21
Kawhi Leonard 18
James Harden 15
Al Horford 15
Chris Paul 12
Jimmy Butler 11
Kyrie Irving 11
Kyle Lowry 11
Jayson Tatum 10
Russell Westbrook 9
Paul George 8
Nikola Jokic 8
Giannis Antetokounmpo 7
Anthony Davis 7
Devin Booker 4
Damian Lillard 4
Joel Embiid 2
Rudy Gobert 2
Luka Doncic 1

Now, one of the things that's going on here is that guys who get injured in a series might now make the Top 5 in minutes. So just keep in mind that the 76ers have won 5 playoff series with Embiid on their team, it's just that in 3 of them, he wasn't one of their main 5 in terms of minutes.

Not looking to comment on all of these but I will say that there's something funny about me listing Klay Thompson there. I don't think I'll champion Klay anywhere in the Top 100, so obviously I don't adhere to this stat overly much. I try to understand what happened that shaped how the numbers got to where they are, and then take all that for what it's worth, which is only so much.

Spreadsheet with nearly 200 players on it by the same - simplistic - stat here:

NBA Playoff Major Minute Series Wins

So as not to be coy: While I find all of this to be a good thing to look at in general, it's Embiid here that really made me take a step back and reflect, and I think it's worth everyone else doing it too.

I think people really need to ask themselves about both longevity and career achievement before they vote for Embiid here. I personally would vote Bill Walton before I'd vote Embiid, and while I'm super-high on Walton did at hist best, I've generally been with the consensus in the past that his limited longevity relegate him considerably lower on lists such as this.

None of this means that voting Embiid this early is wrong, but I think it's easy to think he's accomplished more than he has. In a nutshell, he's been an MVP-candidate level player per minute pretty much since he got on the NBA floor, and he's been the fulcrum of a team that's been seen as a legit contender for a half decade. To think that someone like that deserves Top 50 consideration makes some sense, but it's come with tons of missed time and not-unrelated, a number of disappointments in the playoffs.

I'd have a hard time putting him over Jimmy Butler knowing that since their separation, it's been Butler who's successfully been leading his team to more playoff series wins than I think anyone else. Easy to think in retrospect that this happened due to Butler having a great supporting cast...but absolutely no one expected the Heat to have way more playoff success in the next 4 years when the 76ers chose to let Butler go.

And similarly, while I think Jayson Tatum has significant longevity issues that hold him back from my consideration at this point, they actually aren't as bad as Embiid's despite Tatum being 4 years younger, and it's hard for me to really debate whether Tatum's accomplished more than Embiid when I add up what's there to be added up.

(There's also Dame Lillard who I feel I should mention. He was already on the list last time so he's in a bit of a different category perhaps, but at present it still looks like Embiid will be ahead of him. One might think Dame's lack of playoff success should allow Embiid to surpass him...but limited though Lillard's success has been, it's still more success than Embiid's had.)

My apologies for the negativity folks. I do want to be clear that I don't think I disagree that much with how good Embiid is at his best - I think Jokic should have won MVP last year, but the situation there was more about Jokic being underrated than it was about skepticism toward Embiid - I'm just looking at how things tally up, and it kinda screams "not yet".

[trelos6]

Vote: Dwight Howard



One of the best defensive players of all time. His peak was arguably a top 3 player in the league. Offensively,he was limited, but what he did was effective. Great catch radius. Some monster dunks. 20.7 pp75 on +8.7% rTS. In the playoffs, he was still 23.2 pp75 on +10.7% for his 3 year peak. He was a monster down low.

I have him with 3 weak MVP seasons, 8 All NBA, 9 All Star, and 12 All D.

Alternate vote: Westbrook

Fantastic play creator. What he did 90% of the time was so good, it vastly offsets the 10% of bad plays he makes.

Nomination: Jimmy Butler

Fantastic 2 way player. His time in Miami has really elevated him, as he’s put in some weak MVP level post seasons.

Alt. Nom: Gary Payton

The glove was a good combination of scoring, playmaking, and on ball defense.

[Clyde Frazier]

I still have Gervin and Reed ahead in nominations, but a quick note on Payton: from '95-'03 he averaged 43.4 MPG in the playoffs (63 games)! That included 45.7 MPG against the bulls in the '96 finals. I always remembered him as a high minutes guy (39.96 MPG in the RS in that same span), but that's pretty staggering.

This is the first thread where I really don't know which way to go. Leaning Dwight/Westbrook for now but will think it over.

[trelos6]

So far 41 of the top 42 guys from the 2020 project have been inducted.

Gervin (formerly 37) is the last that remains.

Manu (53), Davis (61), Giannis (74), Jokic (95) all made the jump.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

So far 41 of the top 42 guys from the 2020 project have been inducted.

Gervin (formerly 37) is the last that remains.

Manu (53), Davis (61), Giannis (74), Jokic (95) all made the jump.

Yeah, Gervin is overdue for sure.

[iggymcfrack]

Nomination Vote 1: Paul Arizin



I'm really sold on Arizin as a player. I think at his best he was the best non-big the NBA ever saw until Oscar & West showed up, and I'd say arguably he was the most modern player the NBA saw until them also. This was a guy who was known for his one-handed jump shot at a time when this was not yet the norm, and he was also known for slashing his way to the basket.

For the early to mid stages of his career, he was also someone who seemed to correlate greatly with his team's success. Now, by moonbeam's RWOWY he comes off more mild here in favor of teammate Tom Gola, and I'm willing to have that conversation given that Gola was supposed to be a best-in-world candidate coming out of college, but my guess is that what we're seeing here is that Gola's arrival on the team coincided with Arizin really getting his sea legs back after the military service, and since that took a year, that prior year gets effectively held against him.

I will say there are considerable longevity concerns with Arizin, and frankly that's why I didn't vote for him earlier.
There are also concerns about why the later years with Wilt didn't feel like a team with overwhelming talent, and there while my answer would be the style of play the Warriors chose to play around Wilt, it doesn't change the fact that Arizin's impact didn't age as well as we'd like in practice.

Nomination Vote 2: Dave Cowens

I think it's time for Cowens. I don't think he should have won MVP...but I don't think he was far from it. He really came in and his arrival re-opened the championship window for the post-Russell Celtics. Playing with extreme motor which seems to be respected as high on the BBIQ scale (despite the shooting efficiency), this is an impressive thing to me.

This sounds like a really fantastic case….. against Arizin. You have me utterly convinced that the doesn’t merit consideration. So his impact sucks and his longevity sucks and he might have been worse than his teammate that I’ve never heard of and other than one year way back in 1952 he never had a PER over 23, but he should get voted in because he…… shot a jump shot? It’s like if you listed all of Kyrie’s negatives and then said “well he had a sick handle”.

Like how does Arizin possibly compare to Embiid who had 6 seasons with a better PER than Arizin’s one good year while playing elite D and playing competition approximately a million times better? How does he compare with Gary Payton who played almost twice as many games and combined similar numbers with elite defense and playmaking? How does he compare to George Gervin who has 1.5x as many POY shares in a real league and had similar numbers with actual longevity?

[Owly]

Nomination Vote 1: Paul Arizin



I'm really sold on Arizin as a player. I think at his best he was the best non-big the NBA ever saw until Oscar & West showed up, and I'd say arguably he was the most modern player the NBA saw until them also. This was a guy who was known for his one-handed jump shot at a time when this was not yet the norm, and he was also known for slashing his way to the basket.

For the early to mid stages of his career, he was also someone who seemed to correlate greatly with his team's success. Now, by moonbeam's RWOWY he comes off more mild here in favor of teammate Tom Gola, and I'm willing to have that conversation given that Gola was supposed to be a best-in-world candidate coming out of college, but my guess is that what we're seeing here is that Gola's arrival on the team coincided with Arizin really getting his sea legs back after the military service, and since that took a year, that prior year gets effectively held against him.

I will say there are considerable longevity concerns with Arizin, and frankly that's why I didn't vote for him earlier.
There are also concerns about why the later years with Wilt didn't feel like a team with overwhelming talent, and there while my answer would be the style of play the Warriors chose to play around Wilt, it doesn't change the fact that Arizin's impact didn't age as well as we'd like in practice.

Nomination Vote 2: Dave Cowens

I think it's time for Cowens. I don't think he should have won MVP...but I don't think he was far from it. He really came in and his arrival re-opened the championship window for the post-Russell Celtics. Playing with extreme motor which seems to be respected as high on the BBIQ scale (despite the shooting efficiency), this is an impressive thing to me.

This sounds like a really fantastic case….. against Arizin. You have me utterly convinced that the doesn’t merit consideration. So his impact sucks and his longevity sucks and he might have been worse than his teammate that I’ve never heard of and other than one year way back in 1952 he never had a PER over 23, but he should get voted in because he…… shot a jump shot? It’s like if you listed all of Kyrie’s negatives and then said “well he had a sick handle”.

Like how does Arizin possibly compare to Embiid who had 6 seasons with a better PER than Arizin’s one good year while playing elite D and playing competition approximately a million times better? How does he compare with Gary Payton who played almost twice as many games and combined similar numbers with elite defense and playmaking? How does he compare to George Gervin who has 1.5x as many POY shares in a real league and had similar numbers with actual longevity?

Going to be blunt here ... we all have different levels and areas of expertise. But going into this type of project with no idea who Tom Gola is ... at best is announcing "I have very little idea about the context of some of the basketball I'm here to comment on."

I'm also not convinced it's conducive to honest debate if people acknowledging honest flaws in their candidates is somewhat aggressively jumped on. This doesn't make it "wrong" but ...

Then too "his impact sucks" ... well the short version is we don't really know his impact because the level of impact data we have is very noisy.

I'm not entirely sold on the Kyrie analogy. Maybe it's hyperbole bit I don't think it is alike. Kyrie has had some pretty toxic negatives and you're understating the pros as actually put forth.

I don't know where I'd rank him. I understand across era stuff is tricky ... it's generally good to be honest ... I just think the not knowing of Gola ... I think it probably announces that there isn't a discussion to be had between you and someone that cares about that era.

[Doctor MJ]

Nomination Vote 1: Paul Arizin



I'm really sold on Arizin as a player. I think at his best he was the best non-big the NBA ever saw until Oscar & West showed up, and I'd say arguably he was the most modern player the NBA saw until them also. This was a guy who was known for his one-handed jump shot at a time when this was not yet the norm, and he was also known for slashing his way to the basket.

For the early to mid stages of his career, he was also someone who seemed to correlate greatly with his team's success. Now, by moonbeam's RWOWY he comes off more mild here in favor of teammate Tom Gola, and I'm willing to have that conversation given that Gola was supposed to be a best-in-world candidate coming out of college, but my guess is that what we're seeing here is that Gola's arrival on the team coincided with Arizin really getting his sea legs back after the military service, and since that took a year, that prior year gets effectively held against him.

I will say there are considerable longevity concerns with Arizin, and frankly that's why I didn't vote for him earlier.
There are also concerns about why the later years with Wilt didn't feel like a team with overwhelming talent, and there while my answer would be the style of play the Warriors chose to play around Wilt, it doesn't change the fact that Arizin's impact didn't age as well as we'd like in practice.

Nomination Vote 2: Dave Cowens

I think it's time for Cowens. I don't think he should have won MVP...but I don't think he was far from it. He really came in and his arrival re-opened the championship window for the post-Russell Celtics. Playing with extreme motor which seems to be respected as high on the BBIQ scale (despite the shooting efficiency), this is an impressive thing to me.

This sounds like a really fantastic case….. against Arizin. You have me utterly convinced that the doesn’t merit consideration. So his impact sucks and his longevity sucks and he might have been worse than his teammate that I’ve never heard of and other than one year way back in 1952 he never had a PER over 23, but he should get voted in because he…… shot a jump shot? It’s like if you listed all of Kyrie’s negatives and then said “well he had a sick handle”.

Like how does Arizin possibly compare to Embiid who had 6 seasons with a better PER than Arizin’s one good year while playing elite D and playing competition approximately a million times better? How does he compare with Gary Payton who played almost twice as many games and combined similar numbers with elite defense and playmaking? How does he compare to George Gervin who has 1.5x as many POY shares in a real league and had similar numbers with actual longevity?

His impact sucks? I absolutely did not say that. I think you need to try harder to understand the nuance of what others are saying if that’s your takeaway from my words iggy.

Re vs Embiid. Well I mean, Arizin isn’t higher because longevity related issues…which are minor compared to Embiid’s.

Then there’s the matter of Embiid’s PER advantage basically disappearing in the playoffs as Arizin got stronger.

Then there’s that whole thing we already talked about pertaining to comparing different types of players with a coarse metric like PER.

Look, I can understand someone championing Embiid at this point in time even if disagree, but I think it’s pretty obvious why folks like myself are bringing up longevity concerns with him.

So what would you like to speak to pertaining to those?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[iggymcfrack]

Nomination Vote 1: Paul Arizin



I'm really sold on Arizin as a player. I think at his best he was the best non-big the NBA ever saw until Oscar & West showed up, and I'd say arguably he was the most modern player the NBA saw until them also. This was a guy who was known for his one-handed jump shot at a time when this was not yet the norm, and he was also known for slashing his way to the basket.

For the early to mid stages of his career, he was also someone who seemed to correlate greatly with his team's success. Now, by moonbeam's RWOWY he comes off more mild here in favor of teammate Tom Gola, and I'm willing to have that conversation given that Gola was supposed to be a best-in-world candidate coming out of college, but my guess is that what we're seeing here is that Gola's arrival on the team coincided with Arizin really getting his sea legs back after the military service, and since that took a year, that prior year gets effectively held against him.

I will say there are considerable longevity concerns with Arizin, and frankly that's why I didn't vote for him earlier.
There are also concerns about why the later years with Wilt didn't feel like a team with overwhelming talent, and there while my answer would be the style of play the Warriors chose to play around Wilt, it doesn't change the fact that Arizin's impact didn't age as well as we'd like in practice.

Nomination Vote 2: Dave Cowens

I think it's time for Cowens. I don't think he should have won MVP...but I don't think he was far from it. He really came in and his arrival re-opened the championship window for the post-Russell Celtics. Playing with extreme motor which seems to be respected as high on the BBIQ scale (despite the shooting efficiency), this is an impressive thing to me.

This sounds like a really fantastic case….. against Arizin. You have me utterly convinced that the doesn’t merit consideration. So his impact sucks and his longevity sucks and he might have been worse than his teammate that I’ve never heard of and other than one year way back in 1952 he never had a PER over 23, but he should get voted in because he…… shot a jump shot? It’s like if you listed all of Kyrie’s negatives and then said “well he had a sick handle”.

Like how does Arizin possibly compare to Embiid who had 6 seasons with a better PER than Arizin’s one good year while playing elite D and playing competition approximately a million times better? How does he compare with Gary Payton who played almost twice as many games and combined similar numbers with elite defense and playmaking? How does he compare to George Gervin who has 1.5x as many POY shares in a real league and had similar numbers with actual longevity?

Going to be blunt here ... we all have different levels and areas of expertise. But going into this type of project with no idea who Tom Gola is ... at best is announcing "I have very little idea about the context of some of the basketball I'm here to comment on."

I'm also not convinced it's conducive to honest debate if people acknowledging honest flaws in their candidates is somewhat aggressively jumped on. This doesn't make it "wrong" but ...

Then too "his impact sucks" ... well the short version is we don't really know his impact because the level of impact data we have is very noisy.

I'm not entirely sold on the Kyrie analogy. Maybe it's hyperbole bit I don't think it is alike. Kyrie has had some pretty toxic negatives and you're understating the pros as actually put forth.

I don't know where I'd rank him. I understand across era stuff is tricky ... it's generally good to be honest ... I just think the not knowing of Gola ... I think it probably announces that there isn't a discussion to be had between you and someone that cares about that era.

I just looked up Tom Gola. Apparently he’s a wing with a career PER of 14.2 playing a career total of 698 games before the league was fully integrated. Is he really that relevant to a top 100 project? It’s like saying I’m not very well versed for an NFL top 100 if I don’t know who Paddy O’ Driscoll’s linemen were in the ‘20s. Do I really need to know every average schmoe who managed to make it on to a NBA floor because of the lack of competition?

Also, I think acknowledging the negatives of a player in your case is a good thing, but I just didn’t see any positives on Arizin. It’s literally “he took jumpers and slashed to the basket” and he was maybe the best perimeter player by default for a few years before people figured that out. I’m supposed to be impressed by that? The standards for these older players are so low. It’s like “he almost looked like a real basketball player, let’s vote him ahead of Gary Payton and Joel Embiid”.

[Doctor MJ]

Re Payton - I’m not much of a Payton guy. We’re talking about a guy who became the anointed face of the Sonic core of the time not when they became great, but a couple years later when McMillan aged out and Payton actually became the most effective point guard on the team.

Why did it take him so long? I’d say it had a lot to do with Payton being meh at point skills like shooting and passing. These were never things he became great at, and you could see that by the way the Lakers gradually relied on Derek Fisher more than Payton on what was supposed to be a 4-star super team.

His defense peaked high for a guard, but the longevity of that greatness was overrated. He should have stopped being considered an All-D guy some years before he did.

So yeah, it’s not just Arizin here, I’m low on Payton compared to contemporaries. To me guys like Pierce, Allen, and Gasol rate higher.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Doctor MJ]

Re Gervin. Oh I think he should be getting serious attention. I think he had a good case over Drexler and a debate against Pierce certainly makes sense.

With Gervin the elephant in the room is the lack of playoff success. How one evaluated that affects where he places a lot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[penbeast0]

I just looked up Tom Gola. Apparently he’s a wing with a career PER of 14.2 playing a career total of 698 games before the league was fully integrated. Is he really that relevant to a top 100 project? It’s like saying I’m not very well versed for an NFL top 100 if I don’t know who Paddy O’ Driscoll’s linemen were in the ‘20s. Do I really need to know every average schmoe who managed to make it on to a NBA floor because of the lack of competition?

Also, I think acknowledging the negatives of a player in your case is a good thing, but I just didn’t see any positives on Arizin. It’s literally “he took jumpers and slashed to the basket” and he was maybe the best perimeter player by default for a few years before people figured that out. I’m supposed to be impressed by that? The standards for these older players are so low. It’s like “he almost looked like a real basketball player, let’s vote him ahead of Gary Payton and Joel Embiid”.

Gola was a very good player. First real big guard who could handle like a point and rebound like a four. Didn't have a great shot but was a very solid defender who could do everything other than be a primary scorer. Good complimentary player, sort of a rich man's Andre Iguodala, probably not top 100.