Owly wrote:1) I do note that you say Miller gives more value. I was unsure if it was clear how much more...
Good. Yes, I think that there is a distinct addition above and beyond their shared baseline with Reggie. His ability to draw fouls is HUGE. It's what, without change, ensures that he would actually be efficient in today's game, whereas Klay hasn't been for a couple years. And then there's the value of it beyond Reggie's efficiency in terms of foul pressure. And then he had a nice rip-through dribble and drew fouls on his floater and pull-ups really well, even if he wasn't really dynamic after a dribble or two. That's more than can generally be said of Klay, for sure.
2) I think player value matters in comps. Unless you put "a broke man's ..." there's generally an implication that we're in the same ballpark or what are we doing... but then ... like people will compare Steph Curry and Abdul-Rauf and yes there are some superficial (aesthetic?) similarities they're both small, they can both generate shots, they're both great at the line but no, one is among the greatest players of all time
Well, he's top top 40-50, anyway, which is pretty impressive. He'll slide more over time, but yeah, he was quite impressive. I think he benefits at least a LITTLE from having a bunch of high-profile matchups with Jordan and with the Knicks in the late 90s, but he also aged really well and had a nice, extended prime and a graceful down arc to his career.
and otoh I'd tilt that the other wasn't ever an above average starter.
Are we talking about Klay here, or are you holding onto this SAR thing for the sake of making the point? Just looking for clarity so I know whether or not I should respond to that.
In any case, Reggie had a nice prime. Not a tier 1 type of prime, but still pretty good. He doesn't give you a lot besides his shooting, though, so he needed a lot around him. And he had it. He had Detlef Schrempf for a long time. He had Rik Smits' entire career. Most of the best years of Chuck Person's career. Then Dale Davis started to really crush it on the offensive glass for them. Then then added Antonio Davis, who was doing the same (and though on low volume, both drew fouls at a pretty good rate). Mark Jackson in the mix at the point, etc, etc. Reggie had the luxury of playing his very specific role and to not contribute much beyond that. Dunno how much that factors in, to be truthful, because you build your roster around your star in a more general sense, but there's less forgiveness the more you start dealing with someone who is essentially a lesser version of Adrian Dantley in scope... though obviously Reggie's spacing effect was quite a bit different than Dantley's.
Anyway, circling back. I thought I was being clear that Reggie was notably better than Klay. Evidently I wasn't. But yes, I see a considerable gap between the two and was drawing a mostly aesthetic comparison between the two. I'm not as bullish on Miller because he basically did one thing and offered very little beyond that, which is part of why I selected the Klay comparison as a baseline in the first place. I think it presents a certain set of limitations as a focal star. I think he was brilliant at what he did, of course, and he was clearly a very good player overall. Across Miller's career, there were only so many guys who produced as he did. 60+ GP, 18+ ppg, 5+ OBPM, for a rude measure? Miller did that 4 times. Barkley, Kobe, Drexler, KG, Magic, Jordan, Karl Malone, McGrady, Shaq, D-Rob and Nique are the only other guys to do that. Of course, several of them did it a lot more and a couple of guys got cut off from other seasons where they did it by the specifics of that timeframe. Guys like Vince, Ray Ray, KJ, Duncan, and Dirk, mainly. Not a bad list to be in, regardless of magnitude differences. His seasons are all in the bottom half of that list, but that should be no surprise given some of those names, as those are true legends of the game. This sort of helps settle the idea that he really was quite good. And, ceding that there is value to be extracted from more the just the RS of course, it is worth mentioning that 90-02, his PS OBPM was +6, which is almost 50% better than his RS OBPM over that same stretch. 7 of those postseasons were single-series affairs, of course, so that's a contributing factor, but nevertheless, impressive stuff.
Anyway, hopefully that clarifies things some.
