RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #77 (Rudy Gobert)

[Doctor MJ]

No Nomination vote 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:

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
WintaSoldier1
ZeppelinPage

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

Bob Cousy


Adrian Dantley


Rudy Gobert


Cliff Hagan


Allen Iverson


Dennis Rodman


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

Current List
Historical Spreadsheet

[eminence]

Rodman, Gobert were my top two from last round, need to think on whether Cousy can displace either/both.

[Samurai]

Repeating my vote from previous round:

Vote for #77: Adrian Dantley. I acknowledge that the 6-time all star can be a polarizing player. But in his prime he was an elite scorer, leading the league twice and finished in the top ten in ppg 5 times. Preferred higher percentage shots closer to the rim rather than hoisting 30-footers, finishing in the top 15 in TS% for a dozen consecutive years. He was also a magnet at drawing fouls, finishing in the top ten in FT attempts 10 times, leading the league twice.ote : Adrian Dantley. I acknowledge that the 6-time all star can be a polarizing player. But in his prime he was an elite scorer, leading the league twice and finished in the top ten in ppg 5 times. Preferred higher percentage shots closer to the rim rather than hoisting 30-footers, finishing in the top 15 in TS% for a dozen consecutive years. He was also a magnet at drawing fouls, finishing in the top ten in FT attempts 10 times, leading the league twice.

Alternate vote: Dennis Rodman. Never been a big Rodman fan but can't see picking the other nominees over him. Elite defender with seven All Defensive First Team selections and one second team. Led the league in rebounds/game seven times and might be the GOAT offensive rebounder (toss-up with Moses for me). And of course, that photo of him in the list of nominees diving for the ball is just classic!

[Doctor MJ]

So as I've said, unless I made a mistake, no Nomination this time around, but I realized I didn't talk about Kevin Johnson at all previously, and I feel compelled to mention one of my other fave simple stats:

# of Playoff Series Victories as a Top 5 minute guy for the team. So here's that tally for everyone receiving votes last time, along with KJ. Note that these are hand tallied and could have errors:

Nominee list:
Dennis Rodman 20
Bob Cousy 16
Adrian Dantley 8
Cliff Hagan 6
Allen Iverson 6
Rudy Gobert 2

Candidates for Nomination:
Sam Jones 19
Kevin Johnson 11
Shawn Marion 10
Jayson Tatum 10
Sidney Moncrief 8
Larry Nance 5
Bill Walton 4
Baron Davis 3

As always with simple stats this isn't intended to be anything like a "We should vote for them in these order", but worth discussing. To just bullet point some thoughts:

* Clearly guys from the deeper past are at a disadvantage here, else Cousy & Sam would lead the pack here.

* Rodman has a pretty huge number and we understand why. I think he is a Top 100 guy and have considered him much higher in the past. What holds me back? First, I was kinda thinking we'd see huge +/- data from him in the Bulls years when we got it, and we really didn't - Toni Kukoc actually looks like the sneaky 3rd star more than Rodman. Second, there's the matter that he didn't simply fit in at every opportunity. In both San Antonio & the Lakers he really didn't work out. The ratio doesn't both me so much as the fact that I think those were GREAT opportunities that he shouldn't have screwed up, and and the places where he succeeded there was completely outlier levels of structure forcing him to fit in.

* Dantley had more playoff success than we tend to realize when you look at him next to Iverson & Gobert.

* Over to the second list we note how much KJ won. 11 is not an insane number, but for a guy known for poor longevity it really makes you realize how much winning he was doing before Barkley ever showed up.

* I look at a Moncrief next to KJ, and while I see the case for Moncrief over KJ, the reality is that both had shortish careers and while Moncrief in general can claim to have some solid playoff success, KJ tops him here.

* A perspective like this tends to favor Marion (among others) over Baron and I think we should keep it in mind. Now, with Baron, him having even this much success was about the team overperforming the RS so we shouldn't see this as anything that makes him suspect, but in terms of how much his career adds up, it's a bit soft. Marion, despite him sabotaging his best situation for impact, still had a lot of playoff success.

* There's Tatum already quite high on this list. We can definitely see arguments for others over him here, but I'm just emphasizing that the idea that "he's young, he hasn't done that much yet" doesn't really hold. I think we'd see him very differently if he'd been able to lead the Celtics over the Warriors for the title, and it should hurt him some that he didn't, but should it hurt him relative to some of these other guys?

* Nance is another player who has a soft landing here. As with Baron I don't think it's Nance's fault and he should be taken seriously as a candidate.

* Finally Walton who doesn't shine here but honestly I could see jumping on his bandwagon at any time. He gets hurt by this metric because the Boston success doesn't show up, but it was pretty clear that whenever this dude was healthy he had a pretty profound affect on things.

[OhayoKD]

* Finally Walton who doesn't shine here but honestly I could see jumping on his bandwagon at any time. He gets hurt by this metric because the Boston success doesn't show up, but it was pretty clear that whenever this dude was healthy he had a pretty profound affect on things.

Just going to say I'm very open to Tatum here and would probably be willing to give him at least an alternate if enough support materialises.

Walton looks like he'll be a major candidate here and I think his peak demands at least being at the table

[AEnigma]

VOTE: Dennis Rodman
Alternate: Allen Iverson

Iverson and Rodman are my last inclusions on a sort of modified NBA top 75 (distinct from a pure CORP top 75). For Rodman, in addition to being a top three presence on two distinct dynasties (of a sort), I think his 1992 season qualifies as a top 100 peak. He has one of the highest career win percentages across an eleven-year stretch of quality play and is one of the league’s most notable rebounders and non-big defenders. With Rasheed and Bobby the favourites for the next two or three spots, I think Rodman fits in well as a strong tertiary piece on teams with title aspirations.

Much like with Isiah, I am surprisingly one of the first to back Iverson. Iverson had a pretty nice 10-to-12-year prime before his rapid decline. His cultural legacy outpaced his real impact, but his ability to shoulder massive minutes and scoring loads did have a notable lift on his team. The 76ers went from a -9.5 SRS team to a -5.5 team (factoring his missed games) upon his arrival. From 1997-2007, they won at a 33-win pace without him and a 42-win pace with him. That is not overwhelming improvement, but it is a lot of value provided over eleven years. His effect in Denver was more tepid — unsurprising given the scoring overlap with Carmelo — but I think he deserves credit for helping them reach what to that point was a new high mark in wins and SRS, and as I believe I have detailed elsewhere, the difference between the 2008 team and the 2009 team tends to be overstated (although Billups was indeed better for that team).

[AEnigma]

I realized I didn't talk about Kevin Johnson at all previously, and I feel compelled to mention one of my other fave simple stats:

# of Playoff Series Victories as a Top 5 minute guy for the team. So here's that tally for everyone receiving votes last time, along with KJ. Note that these are hand tallied and could have errors:

Nominee list:
Dennis Rodman 20
Bob Cousy 16
Adrian Dantley 8
Cliff Hagan 6
Allen Iverson 6
Rudy Gobert 2

Candidates for Nomination:
Sam Jones 19
Kevin Johnson 11
Shawn Marion 10
Jayson Tatum 10
Sidney Moncrief 8
Larry Nance 5
Bill Walton 4
Baron Davis 3

As always with simple stats this isn't intended to be anything like a "We should vote for them in these order", but worth discussing.

I suspect Al Horford and Dennis Johnson would fare particularly well here.

[OhayoKD]

I realized I didn't talk about Kevin Johnson at all previously, and I feel compelled to mention one of my other fave simple stats:

# of Playoff Series Victories as a Top 5 minute guy for the team. So here's that tally for everyone receiving votes last time, along with KJ. Note that these are hand tallied and could have errors:

Nominee list:
Dennis Rodman 20
Bob Cousy 16
Adrian Dantley 8
Cliff Hagan 6
Allen Iverson 6
Rudy Gobert 2

Candidates for Nomination:
Sam Jones 19
Kevin Johnson 11
Shawn Marion 10
Jayson Tatum 10
Sidney Moncrief 8
Larry Nance 5
Bill Walton 4
Baron Davis 3

As always with simple stats this isn't intended to be anything like a "We should vote for them in these order", but worth discussing.

I suspect Al Horford and Dennis Johnson would fare particularly well here.

Klay, Iggy(bit of an rapm darling fwiw), and Grant as well

[Doctor MJ]

I realized I didn't talk about Kevin Johnson at all previously, and I feel compelled to mention one of my other fave simple stats:

# of Playoff Series Victories as a Top 5 minute guy for the team. So here's that tally for everyone receiving votes last time, along with KJ. Note that these are hand tallied and could have errors:

Nominee list:
Dennis Rodman 20
Bob Cousy 16
Adrian Dantley 8
Cliff Hagan 6
Allen Iverson 6
Rudy Gobert 2

Candidates for Nomination:
Sam Jones 19
Kevin Johnson 11
Shawn Marion 10
Jayson Tatum 10
Sidney Moncrief 8
Larry Nance 5
Bill Walton 4
Baron Davis 3

As always with simple stats this isn't intended to be anything like a "We should vote for them in these order", but worth discussing.

I suspect Al Horford and Dennis Johnson would fare particularly well here.

Indeed:

Al Horford 15
Dennis Johnson 25

And just to list other guys I've tallied with high numbers not yet Inducted or listed here:

Guys with 20+

Tony Parker 29
Derek Fisher 26
Horace Grant 25
Klay Thompson 24
James Worthy 23
Robert Horry 22
Jim Pollard 22

Other Top 100 candidates that come to mind:

Jeff Hornacek 17
Mo Cheeks 16
Bill Laimbeer 15
Mel Daniels 14
Joe Dumars 14
Roger Brown 13
George McGinnis 12
Dan Issel 12
Chris Bosh 12
Bob Davies 12
Bob Dandridge 12
Zelmo Beaty 11
Jack Sikma 11
Dave DeBusschere 11
Bill Sharman 11
Al Cervi 11
Terry Porter 10
Gus Williams 9
Buck Williams 9
Vlade Divac 8
Shawn Kemp 7
Hal Greer 7
Chris Webber 7
Chet Walker 7
Tiny Archibald 6
Penny Hardaway 6
Paul Westphal 6
Gail Goodrich 6
Chris Mullin 6
Lenny Wilkens 5
Bob McAdoo 5
Alex English 5
Mookie Blayolock 4
Marques Johnson 4
LaMarcus Aldridge 4

[iggymcfrack]

I don’t like any of the candidates here. I was about to vote for Dantley by default and I was even writing up a description to that effect. That maybe he just never found the right fit to take advantage of his elite scoring skills.

But I forgot how many chances he had. Buffalo, Indiana, LA, Utah, Detroit, Dallas. He had a million chances to find a coach to “use him right”. When it doesn’t work out that may times, it’s not a them problem, it’s a you problem. And by and large when he changed teams, the team adding Dantley stated the same or got worse while the team getting rid of him stayed the same or got better. Apparently he’s also got a negative WOWY within seasons too as his teams had a 0.0 SRS in games he played and a 1.1 SRS in games he missed. That’s enough for me to dismiss whatever numbers he put up. He’s in the Kyrie Irving zone. He’ll just never be a top 100 player for me.

I also have no interest in voting for either AI or Hagan. One player’s only real skill is every inefficient volume scoring and has an underwhelming impact profile while the other has poor impact signals even against incredibly weak competition.

So I guess I’m between Cousy, Rodman, and Gobert. I have to be honest. I don’t feel good about voting for any of them. Every time I lean toward one, there’s something that knocks me back. Rodman has terrible BPM without any real strong impact signals to counteract it. Cousy has worse box numbers than Hagan against the same weak competition. Gobert I literally just don’t trust in the postseason whatsoever. Guess I’ll have to read the thread more and try to find something positive that sways me.

[iggymcfrack]

So as I've said, unless I made a mistake, no Nomination this time around, but I realized I didn't talk about Kevin Johnson at all previously, and I feel compelled to mention one of my other fave simple stats:

# of Playoff Series Victories as a Top 5 minute guy for the team. So here's that tally for everyone receiving votes last time, along with KJ. Note that these are hand tallied and could have errors:

Nominee list:
Dennis Rodman 20
Bob Cousy 16
Adrian Dantley 8
Cliff Hagan 6
Allen Iverson 6
Rudy Gobert 2

Candidates for Nomination:
Sam Jones 19
Kevin Johnson 11
Shawn Marion 10
Jayson Tatum 10
Sidney Moncrief 8
Larry Nance 5
Bill Walton 4
Baron Davis 3

As always with simple stats this isn't intended to be anything like a "We should vote for them in these order", but worth discussing. To just bullet point some thoughts:

* Clearly guys from the deeper past are at a disadvantage here, else Cousy & Sam would lead the pack here.

* Rodman has a pretty huge number and we understand why. I think he is a Top 100 guy and have considered him much higher in the past. What holds me back? First, I was kinda thinking we'd see huge +/- data from him in the Bulls years when we got it, and we really didn't - Toni Kukoc actually looks like the sneaky 3rd star more than Rodman. Second, there's the matter that he didn't simply fit in at every opportunity. In both San Antonio & the Lakers he really didn't work out. The ratio doesn't both me so much as the fact that I think those were GREAT opportunities that he shouldn't have screwed up, and and the places where he succeeded there was completely outlier levels of structure forcing him to fit in.

* Dantley had more playoff success than we tend to realize when you look at him next to Iverson & Gobert.

* Over to the second list we note how much KJ won. 11 is not an insane number, but for a guy known for poor longevity it really makes you realize how much winning he was doing before Barkley ever showed up.

* I look at a Moncrief next to KJ, and while I see the case for Moncrief over KJ, the reality is that both had shortish careers and while Moncrief in general can claim to have some solid playoff success, KJ tops him here.

* A perspective like this tends to favor Marion (among others) over Baron and I think we should keep it in mind. Now, with Baron, him having even this much success was about the team overperforming the RS so we shouldn't see this as anything that makes him suspect, but in terms of how much his career adds up, it's a bit soft. Marion, despite him sabotaging his best situation for impact, still had a lot of playoff success.

* There's Tatum already quite high on this list. We can definitely see arguments for others over him here, but I'm just emphasizing that the idea that "he's young, he hasn't done that much yet" doesn't really hold. I think we'd see him very differently if he'd been able to lead the Celtics over the Warriors for the title, and it should hurt him some that he didn't, but should it hurt him relative to some of these other guys?

* Nance is another player who has a soft landing here. As with Baron I don't think it's Nance's fault and he should be taken seriously as a candidate.

* Finally Walton who doesn't shine here but honestly I could see jumping on his bandwagon at any time. He gets hurt by this metric because the Boston success doesn't show up, but it was pretty clear that whenever this dude was healthy he had a pretty profound affect on things.

I'd completely forgotten about KJ! He's somebody that usually ends up top 10 or so on my point guard list. He should definitely go soon. I'd happily take any one of him, Moncrief, Davis, or Tatum over the current crop.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

* Rodman has a pretty huge number and we understand why. I think he is a Top 100 guy and have considered him much higher in the past. What holds me back? First, I was kinda thinking we'd see huge +/- data from him in the Bulls years when we got it, and we really didn't - Toni Kukoc actually looks like the sneaky 3rd star more than Rodman. Second, there's the matter that he didn't simply fit in at every opportunity. In both San Antonio & the Lakers he really didn't work out. The ratio doesn't both me so much as the fact that I think those were GREAT opportunities that he shouldn't have screwed up, and and the places where he succeeded there was completely outlier levels of structure forcing him to fit in.

I said this before, but I think his Spurs years are misrepresented. His rebounding prowess was every bit as good as it was in Chicago. He put up +8.7 and +7.4 on/offs in his two years there. People complain about his behavior during the 1995 playoffs(that shot of him sitting on the sideline with his shoes off), but by the box that was one of his best playoff runs(.166 WS/48, 1.2 BPM, 55.7% TS, playoff career highs of 8.9ppg and 14.8rpg over 14 games). He was scapegoated for a WCF loss that didn't really have all that much to do with him.

(Devil's advocate, as I mentioned before - the Spurs didn't lose a single step after they traded Rodman to the Bulls, in terms of SRS and Net Rtg.)

I too have taken notice of Kukoc's impact numbers during those years, and frankly I raise an eyebrow. I appreciate and respect the hell out of Squared's work, but sometimes I see things that I just can't wrap my head around. In Squared's 95-96 RAPM(in which the Bulls have a near-complete 70+ game sample), Kukoc is the 5th highest RAPM in the league. Not only that, but his D-RAPM is 2.41, as compared to Pippen's -0.14 and Rodman's -1.29. 1998 is similar, with 1997 being more even(Kukoc lower, Pippen/Rodman higher). This simply doesn't compute. Who ever thought of Kukoc(a guy I love) as a great defender? Who ever thought of Scottie as a negative defender? And I know Rodman wasn't the defender then that he'd been in Detroit, but still.

* Dantley had more playoff success than we tend to realize when you look at him next to Iverson & Gobert.

Which I pointed out in my vote for him last night.

* Over to the second list we note how much KJ won. 11 is not an insane number, but for a guy known for poor longevity it really makes you realize how much winning he was doing before Barkley ever showed up.

Yeah, I had a post in the last thread talking about KJ and his very solid combination of box stats, on/off, playoff success, and even impact signal between 88 Suns and 89 Suns(tempered by the fact that it was also Chambers' first year there). I'm in on him.

* I look at a Moncrief next to KJ, and while I see the case for Moncrief over KJ, the reality is that both had shortish careers and while Moncrief in general can claim to have some solid playoff success, KJ tops him here.

Not as sure about this. Moncrief seems like more of a two-way player. As for playoff success, Moncrief has three ECFs and KJ has two WCFs and a Finals run. Regular season and playoff box composites for both in their three peak playoff success seasons:

Moncrief
.233/5.4, .198/4.1, .219/4.9 RS
.116/2.8, .155/4.1, .054/0.1 PO
vs

KJ
.184/4.2, .200/5.0, .148/2.0 RS
.193/5.4, .148/6.1, .085/1.0 PO

Moncrief has a bit of an overall edge in RS, KJ probably with overall edge in playoffs. Could go either way.

Also worth pondering how much credit you want to give KJ for the 1993 Finals run, when that was a down year in his career. In the playoffs, his box composites weren't close to the top in team ranking, despite him being #3 in minutes played behind Barkley and Thunder Dan.

* A perspective like this tends to favor Marion (among others) over Baron and I think we should keep it in mind. Now, with Baron, him having even this much success was about the team overperforming the RS so we shouldn't see this as anything that makes him suspect, but in terms of how much his career adds up, it's a bit soft. Marion, despite him sabotaging his best situation for impact, still had a lot of playoff success.

I am not as sold on Marion's overall impact(his post-Suns career leaves something to be desired, and he has negative on/off on the 2011 Mavs), and Baron has both a longevity issue and the issue of his signature playoff success being leading the We Believe Warriors to upsetting the Mavs in 2007, only to get beaten pretty easily by a Deron Williams/Carlos Boozer Jazz team that would be described as good but not great in the second round.

[OhayoKD]

Rodman has terrible BPM without any real strong impact signals to counteract it. Cousy has worse box numbers than Hagan against the same weak competition. Gobert I literally just don’t trust in the postseason whatsoever. Guess I’ll have to read the thread more and try to find something positive that sways me.

Why does it matter Rodman has terrible BPM when he's led the league in IBM multiple times?

[Owly]

Rodman has terrible BPM without any real strong impact signals to counteract it. Cousy has worse box numbers than Hagan against the same weak competition. Gobert I literally just don’t trust in the postseason whatsoever. Guess I’ll have to read the thread more and try to find something positive that sways me.

Why does it matter Rodman has terrible BPM when he's led the league in IBM multiple times?

Assuming this is a reference to the IBM award he won it once, in 1992.
cf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Award (this also includes the formula if anyone wants to compare the measures' relative merits - at first glance it's basically linear weights everything to 1 as a proportion of their team's production [same weights] with a bump for team wins)

[OldSchoolNoBull]

So, I want to talk a bit about a guy who hasn't really been discussed in any depth yet this time around, but who did make the last list(barely, #99). He probably doesn't have much chance of making it this time - a position I agree with - but I did want to touch on him. Walt Bellamy.

I have tended to champion the hyper-efficient volume scorer - from Jordan to Magic to Barkley to Oscar and West to Gervin to Reggie to Ray Allen to Dantley to Sharman, Mullin, and Walker - throughout this project. You've probably taken note of this if you've been participating in this project. So you'd think Bellamy would be up my alley. The guy played 13* years and put up 9 100+ TS Add seasons, 5 200+ TS Add seasons, and two 300+ TS Add seasons. He has a +6.2 rTS for his career.

(*I'm not counting the 14th season where he played one game.)

But I'm not sure any player in NBA history has ever accomplished less with those types of scoring credentials than Walt Bellamy.

These are his team W/L records and SRSs for his thirteen season career. It's absolutely brutal.

18-62 / -7.54
25-55 / -3.63
31-49 / -1.59
37-43 / -1.97
30-50 / -2.31
36-45 / -2.74
43-39 / 1.78
32-50 / -2.79
31-51 / -2.94
36-46 / -1.30
36-46 / -1.94
46-36 / -0.15
35-47 / -1.47

He had a positive SRS once - the 1968 Knicks. He had 40+ wins twice.

There is also the matter of the Knicks becoming an ATG team as soon as he was traded. It's not just that they went from 1.78 SRS in 68 to 5.48 SRS in 69, or that they went from 43 wins to 54 wins. It's that within the 1969 season, in the games Bellamy played, they were 18-17(not bad, but only one game over .500) and in the games post-trade, with DeBusschere instead of Bellamy, they were 36-11. And Frazier/Reed/Bradley missed a combined total of only 2 games that season(both Frazier). And Frazier and Holtzman were both there in 1968, so it's not that either.

As I was looking into him, I kept thinking "the Dantley of centers". I even googled the phrase to see if anyone else had made the comparison - one other person had, though not here on RealGM.

As someone who has been supporting Dantley, the difference I see is that Dantley at least has some strong playoff runs and was part of a great team that nearly won a championship(and the statistical evidence shows he was only a positive), whereas Bellamy was more often than not a playoff faller, and sometimes a big one.

So I am leaning no on him. Interested if anyone wants to champion him.

[Doctor MJ]

* A perspective like this tends to favor Marion (among others) over Baron and I think we should keep it in mind. Now, with Baron, him having even this much success was about the team overperforming the RS so we shouldn't see this as anything that makes him suspect, but in terms of how much his career adds up, it's a bit soft. Marion, despite him sabotaging his best situation for impact, still had a lot of playoff success.

I am not as sold on Marion's overall impact(his post-Suns career leaves something to be desired, and he has negative on/off on the 2011 Mavs), and Baron has both a longevity issue and the issue of his signature playoff success being leading the We Believe Warriors to upsetting the Mavs in 2007, only to get beaten pretty easily by a Deron Williams/Carlos Boozer Jazz team that would be described as good but not great in the second round.

Good points in general but wanted to hit this last point pertaining to the Jazz quickly.

While the Jazz won that series with relative ease, they did not do so by shutting Baron down. By Game Score, Baron was the top player in that series. Now I'm not one to argue too much off of that stat, but there was a time when Deron would have been considered the much stronger candidate here compared to Baron, but it's hard to look at the data from that series and conclude that Deron was clearly the stronger player.

[WintaSoldier1]

I'm going to jump in here poster to poster, first noting that I applaud your attempt to find common ground with someone you disagree with here.

I'm going to mostly look to ask you questions in this post:

1. If we can agree that an approach raises floor and lowers ceiling relative to another approach, how do we determine when one approach is better than another from a perspective of ranking Player A vs Player B? I'll say up front that I think the answer to this is subjective and we should seek to understand how we as individuals differ, but I am interested in your perspective specifically.

2. What specific basketball actions/skills/etc do you believe Iverson was better at than Lowry?
3. What specific basketball actions/skills/etc do you believe Lowry was better at than Iverson?

4. If the holistic comparison can be boiled down to something as simple as: Iverson's scoring advantage overwhelms Lowry's superiority in other parts of the game, how do determine that? What threshold do you look at decide? (And of course, if you don't believe Iverson's scoring-based impact alone is what does accomplishes this, Why not? and What else is making the difference?)

5. Do you agree that for a given player, because you get more defensive attention the more you shoot in general, there exists a "sweet spot" that will achieve maximal impact, and thus there are players who shoot too much? If so, what do you look to in order to identify these players?

One last thing to keep in mind:

This is not a rhetorical situation where you're debating with Person A but you're really looking to convince everyone but Person A - and thus discrediting them or their methods might be the optimal approach. You're jumping into a group of people who have a common vocabulary and expectation of logical rigor, and so you have to expect to rebut rather than dismiss if you want to have an effect on the list itself.

Rebuttal means first grounding your arguments first using the same argumentative space as the person you're responding to and then making specific points to steer toward a different conclusion.

If you can't or won't do that, don't expect to get anywhere.

What about if you're sure these other people are wrong but you don't understand their methods? Well, you can simply present what is compelling to you and thus at least make sure your viewpoint is represented for posterity. You can also ask sincere questions to help better understand their viewpoints.

I don't recall if you and I have had this conversation before, but when it comes to Iverson, there's a history to this debate that involves some of us going from a viewpoint you would concur with to the one you now take issue with. There was a time when Iverson was my favorite player and I thought he deserved his MVP. Gaining access to better data changed my assessment of the situation, but I still understand quite clearly how one might think Iverson was the MVP.

Hence, I believe it's unlikely you're going to point anything out I haven't thought about. I could be wrong of course because I'm fallible, but the objectively true thing here is that this is well-trodden ground and if you're coming in thinking that we're missing something obvious, you're probably overestimating how original your thought process is.

1.Consistency/Diversity & The way it effects the players around you(Psychological ramifications of these actions)… I think that the pure phenomena of having this player as a teammate vs having this player as a teammate[ in reference to ability, and thus excludes external factors] is the best way to measure floor raising v ceiling raising in a given scenario.

What do I mean by this? Essentially, the way this players presence purely based on their abilities empowers or discourages teammates to do certain actions they wouldn’t normally do.

This paired with the absolute range of the team with the additional or subtraction of a player [ Realistically how many wins are we guaranteed with with Iverson over Lowry(Or Vice Versa), Vs What is our maximum wins possibility we can have with Lowry over Iverson( Or Vice Versa)]


I think these are fundamentally solid+ basis of understanding when taking one player over another.

Makes sense. So then, why does this help Iverson in your eyes?

2. Offensive Gravity, Scoring Volume & Ability, Pressuring Opposing teams Psychologically, Offensive Load Capacity, Shot Creation( kinda repetitive), Finishing
3. Facilitation, Shooting, On-Ball Defense, Help Defense, Rebounding[ Lowry Boxout> Iverson Jump], Understanding of the Game[ BBALL IQ]

4. I’d my response to one is of similar value here, But at some level I’d say this is a battle between creation vs consistency for the most part… Quantity v Quality in some sense…

I just think when looking at the Free[Iverson] vs the discipline[Lowry]

So I'll note to your answer on #2, you're talking about effect rather than cause. Everything you describe here can be put under the category of "scoring volume & ability", and so you're basically agreeing that Lowry has the advantage in every other part of the game, and is also a better shooter.

I'd thus also be tempted to think that the way you separated out all of those things rather than just saying "scoring" indicates how focused you are in evaluating players first and foremost based on scoring.

Do you object to this assessment?
Do you understand why someone who completely agrees with you that Iverson was better at scoring but Lowry was better at literally everything else in the game, might end up concluding Lowry was overall the more effective player?

5. Yeah, there’s definitely a sweet spot of volume to effectiveness if this is the theory you’re projecting… I think a good identification for a sweet spot is how many shots does it take for the defense to direct attention to you, that under normal circumstances is not warranted and also prohibits you from scoring effectively but also allows for your teammates to roam more freely on the offensive side and thus set up more opportunities for teammates to score.
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Yup we're mostly on the same page here.

The other factor though has to do with a sense of how good you are at shooting a particular shot, and this is something that at the very least Iverson was hampered for reasons pertaining to the 3-point shot. Simply put, if you were on a shot diet that included a lot of long 2's, you were doing that wrong. And while that was true of everyone back in the day, the questions of Iverson's efficiency original relative to his contemporaries.

But it's also just the case that there were other guys better at shooting in general. Iverson needed to take some of those shots to keep the defense honest against him to be sure, but what Iverson really excelled in was using his GOAT-level quickness off the dribble to get close to the rim and get fouled.

1. I think generally Iverson’s presence has much more weight than Lowry for a team[ at least on the floor] and I think his floor raising capacity is more valuable than Lowry’s ceiling raising capacity. Makes him feel more compelling as a player, than Lowry for me.
2. I separated all of these mostly due to scoring gravity bias[ I often analyze in capacity not actual capability] which makes me value some attributes over others because I could envision a reality where the gravity is utilized in a way that makes the player better than they actually are. This doesn’t only apply to scoring but since basketball at its core is about creating offensive opportunity, I value individuals with lots of scoring gravity a lot.

I think effective as in “most desirable result” for Lowry over Iverson is fair. There’s lots of games where Iverson’s game is so limited due to a tough shot diet. I can get around the idea that Kyle Lowry can create more desirable results consistently, but I don’t think he can create as many desirable results as Iverson( Reiteration of my earlier rhetoric)

[trelos6]

Gobert is the only guy on this list which I have in my top 100.

Vote: Gobert

97-24 RAPM data with Playoffs has Gobert as a +0.7 on O, and -5.1 on D, for a +5.8 overall.

That's on par with Jimmy Butler, just behind Rasheed Wallace and Paul Pierce, and just ahead of Mutombo and Giannis. He had 6 straight regular seasons where he was amazing on D, and I don't think his playoff numbers are all that terrible, considering the team he was on. 2016-17, the other good defensive players were Hayward and Ingles, and they got swept by the KD Warriors after knocking out the Blake / CP3 Clippers in 7.

17-18 they Beat the PG / Westbrook Thunder in Round 1, and his best teammates were rookie Mitchell and Jingles. Before losing in 5 to the Harden Rockets (which was another very good team).

18-19, lost to the Harden Rockets again in 5. Not the best team to match up with. Still, he was a net positive in this series.

19-20, lost to the Nuggets in 7. I think he held up fairly well in this series, and a strong performace in G7 with 19/18/2, +6 in a game they lost by 2.

20-21, beat the Morant Grizzlies, lost to the PG/Kawhi Clippers in 6. Again, held up well, considering the opponent.

Basically, in every playoff series, Gobert has shown to be the best player on the Jazz, with not much help outside of Donovan Mitchell. They lost to good teams who were mostly expected to beat them.

Alt vote: Cousy

Don't like any of the other players, but Cousy was at an ALL STAR level for 12 seasons, so I guess that's worth something.

[homecourtloss]

Vote:Rudy Gobert
Alt vote: Dennis Rodman

As Trelos points out in the post above, Rudy Gobert is one of the very few dominant defensive big men who is also not a complete zero or negative on offense.

[iggymcfrack]

Vote: Dennis Rodman
Best impact signals among the remaining candidates. Was a key part of 5 championships across 2 franchises. Plus maybe give him some bonus points for being the best rebounder of all-time.

Alternate: Bob Cousy
Not crazy about him at all, but he did at least have some big playoff series and was somewhat pioneering as a point guard while also helping to build the Celtics’ dynasty.