RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #68 (Ben Wallace)

Post #1 » by **Doctor MJ** » Sun Jan 28, 2024 5:20 pm

No Nomination vote for this thread.

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:

Alright, the Nominees for you to choose among for the next slot on the list (in alphabetical order):

Vince Carter

Cliff Hagan

Bobby Jones

Tracy McGrady

Wes Unseld

Ben Wallace

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

Current List
Historical Spreadsheet

AEnigma · Post #2 » by **AEnigma** » Sun Jan 28, 2024 6:04 pm

VOTE: Ben Wallace
Alternate: Wes Unseld

With Hayes inducted, I am open to Unseld. Had a nice (albeit not MVP-level) start to his career, and then fell off to more of a general all-star level. One title (Finals MVP was questionable but fine) and three more appearances. Strong leader and culture builder. I have never been too impressed with him by my eye-test, but he had the second longest prime of any player here and the most success while doing so across two distinct roster iterations.

Carter is second on my list, but I am not sure if he has non-Iggy votes. Okay giving an alternate to Ben and McGrady too.

Next round I intend to start pushing Paul George for nominations.

EDIT: Ben has two first place votes, so I guess he is my choice. Decent peak, fine prime… looks replaceable judging by the 2007/08 Pistons, but tended to show up in a nice way in the postseason. A worthy figure for our top 75.

Samurai · Post #3 » by **Samurai** » Sun Jan 28, 2024 6:54 pm

Repeating from previous round:

Vote for #68: Bobby Jones. Yes I have reservations about his lack of longevity and durability. But I'm pretty sure that I would take Jones and his reduced minutes over Draymond if I were drafting a team, so seeing Green get selected convinced me to consider him. Gotta admit that there is bias here since Jones is one of my favorite players of all time. Despite averaging less than 30 minutes/game during his NBA career, he still has ten All Defensive First Team awards and one Second Team selection (in his second to last season averaging only 20 minutes/game). He was nicknamed The Secretary of Defense for good reason. He didn't shoot much but he was highly efficient, leading the league in FG% three times and finishing in the top 20 in TS% nine times. But as good as he was at playing basketball, how he conducted himself may have been even more admirable. He was always a gentleman with honor; he didn't drink, smoke or use profanity, always raised his hand when called for a foul - even telling a ref who mistakenly called a foul on a teammate that he was the one who actually committed the foul, even though that was his fifth foul! When teammates tried to show him ways to "cheat" by grabbing an opponent's jersey or committing a foul when the ref wasn't looking, he adamantly refused to do so. He would reply "if I have to play defense by holding on, that's when I quit." Teammate Dr J described Jones as "a player who's totally selfless, who runs like a deer, jumps like a gazelle, plays with his head and heart each night, and then walks away from the court as if nothing happened." And former teammate Charles Barkley said "if everyone in the world was like Bobby Jones, the world wouldn't have any problems."

Alternate vote: Cliff Hagan. Solid all-around player - Finished in the top 20 8 times in points/game, 5 times in rebounds/game, 5 times in assists/game, 6 times in TS%, 9 times in both PER and WS/48. Won a ring in 58 and would/should have been Finals MVP if such an award existed then.

Post #4 » by **penbeast0** » Sun Jan 28, 2024 9:24 pm

Vote: 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. The most 1st team All-Defense awards, best player on two Nugget teams that had the best record in the NBA (though both came up short in the playoffs), great efficiency without being just an inside scorer, excellent passer, decent offensive rebounder, defensively good at blocking out rather than getting the board, good shot blocker for a forward, good steals, could play up to the 5 or down to the 2, limited minutes because of a physical condition but probably the greatest glue guy in the history of the NBA.

Stronger defensive impact than any of the nominated players, most efficient scorer along with Billups, one of the better playmakers for his position above everyone here except maybe Billups, he was the best player on the 75 Nuggets who had the best record in the league and made a big impact everywhere he went. The only real issue is his limited minutes and I think his impact is strong enough to overcome that.

Alt vote: TBD

I just don't see either Vince or Tmac as that impactful to winning. Big stats guys and I loved VInce being one of the rare nerds to play in the NBA at his time but someone has to convince me they have great impact on top end winning like Jones has. Tmac was such a strange duck, he was incredibly talented but his coaches have called him out for poor practice habits and he never seemed to mesh well with Yao. In Orlando when Grant Hill went down and in Houston whenever Yao would go down though, it seemed like he would slip into a nearby phone booth and play like Superman for a stretch. Really not sure what to make of him.

Nomination: Adrian Dantley Easily the greatest scorer left. Amazing combination of volume and efficiency.

One of only 5 players in NBA history to have a season over .400 TS Add, something neither LeBron James or Micheal Jordan ever accomplished! Of the top 11 guys in this stat, everyone else is in except for Alex Groza whose career was ended quickly over college point shaving scandals in the 50s. And it wasn't isolated, he was consistently among the league leaders in both scoring and efficiency for his whole career.

His history with coaches is mixed. Frank Layton in Utah ripped him publicly as a selfish player though he later tried to walk it back a few times. On the other hand, Chuck Daly praised his professionalism, work ethic, and even his defense. But basically he is a serious candidate as one of the greatest wing scorers to ever play and everyone close to him in volume and efficiency is in.

Code: Select all

TS ADD LEADERS (single season) -- thanks to Owly for posting this

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 460.4
Steph Curry 454.7
Charles Barkley 433.5
Wilt Chamberlain 430.3
Adrian Dantley 404.8

Kevin Durant 394.9
Oscar Robertson 392.5
Jerry West 374.3
George Mikan 365.5
Karl Malone 362.8

+ Alex Groza '50. 377.4

trelos6 · Post #5 » by **trelos6** » Sun Jan 28, 2024 9:49 pm

It looks like this might be between Bobby and Hagan. I'm still going Big Ben as my vote.

Vote: Ben Wallace

One of the best defenders of all time, his value comes all from his defense, and it was that good, I think he was vaulted into weak MVP level for 2 seasons. He also had 14 seasons of all D level, so he has the longevity as well as the fantastic defensive peak.

Alt. Vote: Bobby Jones

Changed my Alt to Bobby Jones for a potential tie breaker with Hagan. One of the best defensive forwards of all time. He was pretty important to a Philly title run.

Nomination: Rasheed Wallace

Fantastic player for 8-9 years. He was a huge ceiling raiser on those Pistons teams.

Alt. Nom: Damian Lillard

He's still going, but I don't think he'll be racking up to many more All NBA level seasons now. Mostly all star seasons. That said, he's got a great offensive peak, especially around 2020 when he increased the range on his 3 ball.

Note: After Ben Wallace and McGrady, I have Vince Carter > Bobby Jones > Elvin Hayes > Wes Unseld > Cliff Hagan.

HeartBreakKid · Post #6 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Sun Jan 28, 2024 11:16 pm

Jones vs Unseld vs Wallace is an interesting comparison of non-scoring bigs

Post #7 » by **penbeast0** » Mon Jan 29, 2024 12:12 am

Ben and Bobby are better defensively, Ben and Wes are better rebounders, Bobby and Wes are better passers, and Bobby is a better shooter and scorer. Bobby Jones is also much more versatile player being able to guard 2-5 but plays more limited minutes. Different strengths.

Post #8 » by **trex_8063** » Mon Jan 29, 2024 6:20 pm

Induction Vote: Tracy McGrady
Save probably Bill Walton, this is the highest peak still on the table, imo.
And I want to highlight his peak in particular, simply because some have said Cliff Hagan may be the highest era-relative peak left......

TMac's '03 campaign was insane:
*32.1 ppg (*league-best; bear in mind that's in a slower-paced defensive grind era: teams average 20.5 fewer ppg than in today's league [seriously]; the guy in 5th in ppg in '03 was averaging 25.9......today 10th place is averaging 27.0. 32.1 in '03 is sort of like averaging something like 37 ppg today).

That was on +4.5% rTS, while maintaining a mTOV% of just 5.90% (to give an idea: peak ['91] Jordan had an mTOV% of 5.91%), and averaging 5.5 apg.

He did this while anchored the 10th-best offense, and a 42-win team with the following cast (descending order of minutes):
1) Pat Garrity-->11.2 PER, .091 WS/48, -1.0 BPM. Not only was this player a starter, but he played more minutes than anyone on the team save McGrady himself.
2) Darrell Armstrong-->34 years old that year
3) Mike Miller
4) Jacque Vaughn
5) Shawn Kemp--->on his last legs [final season], overweight, also playing away from his natural position of PF
6) Andrew DeClercq
7) Jeryl Sasser--->never heard of him? Thats because he played just 1,061 CAREER minutes, 1025 of them happening in this season [with a wicked 8.3 PER and -2.3 BPM]; he was waived before the next season.
8) Gordan Giricek
9) Grant Hill--->injury-hampered, just 843 total minutes [in 29 games]
10) Pat Burke--->this is a guy who only received 1293 career minutes in the NBA; 783 of them happened right here.

^^^This is everyone [aside from TMac himself] who played >750 minutes for Orlando that year.
It's an awful cast. Remove McGrady and I'm comfortable saying they don't win 25 [maybe not even 20]. Even replacing him with someone of say.....prime Klay Thompson level, and they likely struggle to top 30 wins.

I know someone will mention how they went 3-4 in seven games without him, but the devil is in the details:
*They only played ONE team with a positive SRS in those seven games (a +1.56 SRS, 44-win team......and they lost that one). Their wins were against a 25-win [-5.13 SRS] team (won by 2 pts), a 37-win [-1.61 SRS] team (again won by just 2), and a 17-win [tied for worst in league], -7.41 SRS [28th of 29 teams] Denver squad.

**He was a team-best +13.0 on/off (next-best on the team was +4.6): they were a +3.3 net rating [would have tied for 7th in the league] when he was on the court, but a -9.7 net rating [would have been worst in the league] when he was off.
His offensive on/off was a staggering +17.5.

They sucked without him, plain and simple. They made the playoffs for one reason and one reason only: because Tracy McGrady played out of his mind that year.

In the playoffs, they faced the 4th-rated defense, the one anchored by one of his fellow candidates here: Ben Wallace. Specifically guarding him were a young Tayshaun Prince and Michael Curry (the latter who only had a career at all because he was good defensively).
Still the Magic took them to 7 games with Tracy McGrady averaging 31.7 ppg and only -0.3% lesser shooting efficiency than his rs standard (that is: still +4.2% rTS).

Number of other pretty impressive years in both Orlando and Houston, too. His longevity overall isn't bad.
So he's my pick here.

Alternate vote: Vince Carter
As I've expounded upon elsewhere [prior thread], his longevity of quality is not near as awesome as his # of seasons suggests, but nonetheless still very good. Sort of similar player as McGrady (freakishly athletic scoring wing), lesser playmaker, but better defender. His peak is lower [imo]. Longevity maybe slightly better, but not by much. Very close; I very nearly have these two adjacent on my ATL.

Nomination (if allowed; I'd still be in favour of upping the candidates to six or seven): Damian Lillard
Alt nomination: Allen Iverson

iggymcfrack · Post #9 » by **iggymcfrack** » Mon Jan 29, 2024 7:04 pm

Vote: Vince Carter
Top 30 all-time in VORP, put up fantastic all-time level playoff numbers in his prime years. Solid on/off numbers throughout the course of his career.

Alternate: Tracy McGrady
33rd all-time in VORP, put up even better playoff numbers during his prime years. From age 21-25, he didn't get out of the first round once, but in 4 first round losses, he had a combined BPM of 9.4. If that were a career number, it would rank 4th all-time behind MJ, Joker, and LeBron.

Post #10 » by **penbeast0** » Mon Jan 29, 2024 8:05 pm

iggymcfrack wrote:Vote: Vince Carter
Top 30 all-time in VORP, put up fantastic all-time level playoff numbers in his prime years. Solid on/off numbers throughout the course of his career.

Alternate: Tracy McGrady
33rd all-time in VORP, put up even better playoff numbers during his prime years. From age 21-25, he didn't get out of the first round once, but in 4 first round losses, he had a combined BPM of 9.4. If that were a career number, it would rank 4th all-time behind MJ, Joker, and LeBron.

Can you expand on his being a great playoff riser? Make it a good argument, I might join you on his bandwagon, I'm looking for an alternative vote.

iggymcfrack · Post #11 » by **iggymcfrack** » Mon Jan 29, 2024 11:58 pm

penbeast0 wrote:
iggymcfrack wrote:Vote: Vince Carter
Top 30 all-time in VORP, put up fantastic all-time level playoff numbers in his prime years. Solid on/off numbers throughout the course of his career.

Alternate: Tracy McGrady
33rd all-time in VORP, put up even better playoff numbers during his prime years. From age 21-25, he didn't get out of the first round once, but in 4 first round losses, he had a combined BPM of 9.4. If that were a career number, it would rank 4th all-time behind MJ, Joker, and LeBron.

Can you expand on his being a great playoff riser? Make it a good argument, I might join you on his bandwagon, I'm looking for an alternative vote.

Here's Vince Carter in his 20s in the postseason:

Age 23: 3 GP, 4.4 BPM, -12.2 on/off- First playoff experience in his second year in the league. Wasn't ready, got swept by the Knicks. Played OK, but nothing special.

Age 24: 12 GP, 7.0 BPM, +24.4 on/off- Fantastic performance in his 3rd year in the league. Carried an extremely weak supporting cast past the Knicks that beat him the year before and went to 7 against the ultimate Eastern Conference champions.

Age 28: 4 GP, 4.2 BPM, -0.9 on/off- Again, a so-so performance in a first round loss. Played fine and had the best numbers on the team, but didn't do anything that was gonna swing the 1/8 matchup.

Age 29: 11 GP, 9.4 BPM (led postseason), +13.2 on/off- Another fantastic performance with a larger sample. Beat the Pacers in Round 1 before ultimately losing to the NBA champion Heat.

Overall: 30 GP, 7.2 BPM, +13.6 on/off

He had some good series in his 30s too, but his career averages aren't representative since the majority of his career playoff games are well past his peak as he played 46 playoff games between ages 33 and 40.

Joao Saraiva · Post #12 » by **Joao Saraiva** » Tue Jan 30, 2024 7:01 pm

Vote Ben Wallace

From undrafted to an all time defender. And guess what... those Pistons biggest upside was defense.

Relatively small but could guard big guys one on one due to being so strong, mobile enough to cover a good amount of ground and very quick hands. He belongs in conversation for the GOAT defender, and he should be voted in because he was a big part of the Pistons' success.

Yes his offensive game wasn't good. But he knew his job, and despite not being a good offensive player he knew what role to fulfill in order to be impactful enough.

Alternate
Wes Unseld

OldSchoolNoBull · Post #13 » by **OldSchoolNoBull** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 5:29 am

Induction Vote #1: Cliff Hagan

Induction Vote #2: Wes Unseld

As I've said before, I think Hagan has the highest era-relative peak on the current ballot, including a couple of playoff runs with some eye-popping box composites.

Still going with Unseld for now. Elite rebounder, efficient scorer(albeit on low volume), high-level defender, very good playmaker/passer, great leader. It's a tough field though.

HeartBreakKid · Post #14 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 5:35 am

My vote is for Cliff Hagan- Cliff Hagan has some real playoff heroics and is perhaps the biggest catalyst to the Hawks only title. He has a couple of years where he is the playoff hero. He never quite plays at that level for the rest of his career, but he is still good scorer for his era, just not eyepopping like 58 and to a lesser extent 59.

I'm going to favor someone who had a 05 Manu like run here.

My alternate vote is for Tracy McGrady – He was an all-nba player for a decent amount of time, and peaked as a top 5 guy. Awesome playmaker and great scorer - his playmaking makes up for not having supreme efficiency compared to some other scorers. Lack of a great playoff run hurts him against Cliff I think.

The others

Bobby Jones – Great hustle and powerful defender. Almost explained like a smaller Dave Cowens. It’d be better if there was more data to support how good his defense was, but I’m pretty high on him.

Vince Carter - Very well rounded high level volume scorer. Can't really think of enough holes he has that the other nominees can exploit to make grounds on him.

Ben Wallace & Wes Unseld - I like them a lot. Great defenders whos impact probably is not captured in their stats. I think there are some perimeter stars who just played at slightly higher levels.

Post #15 » by **Doctor MJ** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 6:48 am

Induction Vote 1: Cliff Hagan
Induction Vote 2: Bobby Jones

Continuing to support these two. Honestly, kinda thought I'd switch the second vote back over to Ben, but I'm feeling Bobby. The fact that he's so impressive defensively and also a positive on offense resonates with me, as does the fact that he was typically playing with amazing players and yet had a higher On per 100 than any of them, including in the magical '82-83 season.

Still putting Hagan first though. I think Hagan was a first-class superstar type that never quite got the shine that his play warranted.

falcolombardi · Post #16 » by **falcolombardi** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 6:58 am

Have not voted in a while, but if my voting is still allowed i would go with ben wallace while having considered the cousins (vince and tracy) as options

While in a vacuum vince and specially mcgrady had superior talent to become superstar offensive engines and scorer they didnt maximize it.

Vince seem to me to have peaked as a high level scorer without big defensive/passing or off ball plus-value
(a legit low end all all nba guy but not a real superstar who can take a team to a ring and seems to have had some real intangibles issues on his prime from what i understand from toronto fans who were around at the time)

Mcgrady seems like he had the tools of a trascendent skillset (size, athletism, passing vision, 3 ball) albeit for whatever reason the results didnt seem to match the eye test talent, he is a player i need to watch more to understand better before i can justify voting for him albeit i consider him a intriguing player to look into in depth (also injuries jurt him a lot)

Ben wallace is my pick because while obviously flawed to be a normal champion team best player too he seems to have the cleanest combo of longevity +intangibles + sizable impact. Not a huge ceiling player but one of the more valuable sub-mvp players of his era year after year

Vote- ben wallace

I will hold off an alternate for now as i am unsure who would i pick

Post #17 » by **trex_8063** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:00 pm

Would any of Hagan's supporters care to reply to the relative lack of positive impact indicators which I brought forth previously (in comparison to Billups [have augmented]):

Spoiler:

Post #18 » by **penbeast0** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 2:07 pm

Not a Hagan supporter but those that are primarily point to his playoffs, rather than his regular season. All your indicators seem to be about RS impact.

Post #19 » by **Doctor MJ** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 4:27 pm

Tally:

Induction Vote 1:
Ben - 4 (AEnigma, trelos, Joao, falco)
Bobby - 2 (Samurai, beast)
McGrady - 1 (trex)
Carter - 1 (iggy)
Hagan - 3 (OSNB, HBK, DOC)

No majority going to Vote 2 between Ben & Hagan:

Ben - 0 (none)
Hagan - 1 (Samurai)
neither - 3 (beast, trex, iggy)

Ben Wallace 4, Cliff Hagan 4.
Looks like we go into a runoff.

Post #20 » by **Doctor MJ** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 4:31 pm

trex_8063 wrote:Would any of Hagan's supporters care to reply to the relative lack of positive impact indicators which I brought forth previously (in comparison to Billups [have augmented]):

Spoiler:
So maybe he's got some indication of massive impact (which exceeds what you view to be lacking in Billups' case).

Well let's look at some with/without; I'll colour-code red when the team had a higher win% without him, green when better with him.....

'57: 30-37 with, 4-1 without
'58: 39-31 with, 2-0 without
'59: did not miss games (49-23 record)
'60: did not miss games (46-29 record)
'61: 50-27 with, 1-1 without
'62: 27-50 with, 2-1 without
'63: 47-32 with, 1-0 without
'64: 44-33 with, 2-1 without
'65: 43-34 with, 2-1 without
'66: 33-41 with, 3-3 without
'68 [ABA]: 32-24 with, 14-8 without
'69: 16-19 with, 25-18 without
'70: 2-1 with, 43-38 without

That's a lot of red.
Overall, his NBA teams were 408-337 [.548] with him, 17-8 [.680] without him.
His ABA teams were 50-44 [.532] with him, 81-64 [.559] without him.

NBA and ABA combined, his teams were 458-381 [.546] with him, 99-72 [.579] without him: looking at it cumulatively in this fashion, they averaged a +.033 win% edge without him (translates to a little over 2 additional wins in 82-game season). Looking at it in terms of season-by-season pro-rated wins [with and without], and then taking the average, the gap gets marginally larger (with his team still averaging better records without him).

EDIT: Could also add in a peek at what happened in the year before he arrived and the year after he left, but neither of those things reflect positively either.

Looking at Ben Taylor's WOWYR, his prime WOWYR is a fairly underwhelming +1.4 (+1.3 for career). And fwiw, comparing him to the other candidates [present and recent] here by prime/career WOWYR:

McGrady: +4.4/+2.4
Wallace: +3.6/+4.4
Carter: +3.5/+2.7
Unseld: +1.8/+1.8
Jones: +3.4/+4.6
Billups: +5.7/+4.2
Hayes: +3.2/+2.8
Gasol: +2.4/+1.9
Parish: +4.3/+2.6

For several threads now, Hagan has consistently been the guy sitting dead-last in terms of what impact indicators we actually have for him (and this in the weakest era among all candidates as well, fwiw).

jsia....

So, I have to acknowledge that I don't remember seeing this data before and that's unfortunate because it seems a pretty strong counter-argument against Hagan, who I've been voting for.

I'm not going to change my vote during the runoff, but will consider voting for others ahead of Hagan if he doesn't get inducted this thread.

Definitely curious if others have a counter to the counter.

For myself, yes, his ability to rise up in the playoffs matters a great deal, but these WOWY numbers are worse than I had realized, to the point that they open up conversation about whether there was something detrimental to the team about Hagan's style of play.