George Gervin vs Clyde Drexler

[AStark1991]

Team success aside, who do you think was the better individual player? In general, I would say that Gervin was better offensively (4x scoring champ) and Drexler was more well-rounded (2nd all-time amongst shooting guards in both assists and rebounds)

[tsherkin]

Gervin was a better scorer, Drexler was better at basically everything else. Would tend to lean in his direction.

[Buckets22]

Drexler has D in his name...

[penbeast0]

Gervin was a better scorer, Drexler was better at basically everything else. Would tend to lean in his direction.

I agree with this but then you look at supporting casts and how far they went and, relative to their competition, it looks like Gervin may have been the more impactful player. Great very efficient for the era scoring may be more valuable to those particular teams than a more well rounded good scorer.

Gervin had a four year NBA stretch where he averaged 270+ TS Added and was top 3 in MVP voting. Drexler's primary role was as a scorer but he only barely broke 100 TS Added once and had only 1 year as top 3 in MVP voting. Gervin's career TS Added is almost 4X what Drexler's was.

[tsherkin]

I agree with this but then you look at supporting casts and how far they went and, relative to their competition, it looks like Gervin may have been the more impactful player. Great very efficient for the era scoring may be more valuable to those particular teams than a more well rounded good scorer.

It's worth considering.

In the NBA, how often did Gervin make the Finals? He didn't, right? He made the conference finals a couple times as the second series of the playoffs due to bytes, but he never made the Finals. Drexler made it twice with Portland, and then was a feature element of a title team alongside Hakeem later on.

Gervin's career started with a .500 season with Erving leading the way (though of course, only for 30 games, and as a rookie, before he was an All-Star). The year after, he gets traded for cash. They go 45-39, lose their only playoff series. Then 51-33, lose to the Pacers in their only series. 50 wins, lose their only series. Then he goes to the NBA.

So the peak of Iceman's powers, were 78-84. That's his big scoring run. 28.8 ppg, 4 scoring titles, two seasons of 30+ and all that. He was faded after 1980 in terms of the potency of his efficiency in the NBA, and that wasn't because league average changed too much. It was basically 53 - 54% after 1978.

First round loss to the Celtics (2 games, best-of-3 were so sad, I hated them). Next year, lost to the Bullets in 6. Next year, beat Philly in 7, lost to Washington in 7. Then they lost to Houston in 3 the year after. 81, they lose to Houston in 7. 82, they beat Seattle in 5, then get swept by LA. Then beat Denver in 5 the year after, lost to LA in 6. Missed the playoffs entirely in 84. 85, last year with San Antonio, second-last year of his career, lost to Denver in 5 in their only series.

In the ABA, he didn't win a single playoff series. So as far as how far he went with the team, I don't really think that favors Gervin at all.

84-94 was Drexler's Blazers career. 1st round, 2nd round, 4 straight first-round losses, Finals, WCFs, Finals, 1st round, 1st round. And then, of course, he made the Finals in 95 with Houston.

So I dunno. It's interesting to consider, but I think we know pretty well what a guy who provides only volume scoring (even at considerable efficiency) provides to a team versus a more all-around guy who is still a pretty good scorer. And Drexler did have a little peak of 27 ppg for a couple years, though obviously he was never the same as Gervin as a scorer.

Both of them excellent players and fun to watch!

[penbeast0]

My favorite Gervin year was 1980-81 with Stan Albeck as coach.

He had James Silas at 31 coming back from the knee injuries who was a decent scorer but not someone who created for other (17.7, 3.1, 3.4) at PG and his front line were 6 roughly interchangeable bigs (2 centers, 4 PFs with no real SF). The starters were rookie Reggie Johnson, Mark Olberding, and Nate Thurmond's long time backup George Johnson (fine shotblocker with no offensive skills) backed by Dave Corzine, also back from knee surgery John Shumate, and Paul Griffin. Good guard backups in Ron Brewer and waiver wire pickup rookie Johnny Moore.

They won 52 games though, as you say, lost 3-4 to NBA finalist Houston in one of the Moses Malone MVP years.

[tsherkin]

My favorite Gervin year was 1980-81 with Stan Albeck as coach.

He had James Silas at 31 coming back from the knee injuries who was a decent scorer but not someone who created for other (17.7, 3.1, 3.4) at PG and his front line were 6 roughly interchangeable bigs (2 centers, 4 PFs with no real SF). The starters were rookie Reggie Johnson, Mark Olberding, and Nate Thurmond's long time backup George Johnson (fine shotblocker with no offensive skills) backed by Dave Corzine, also back from knee surgery John Shumate, and Paul Griffin. Good guard backups in Ron Brewer and waiver wire pickup rookie Johnny Moore.

They won 52 games though, as you say, lost 3-4 to NBA finalist Houston in one of the Moses Malone MVP years.

Yeah, I mean, they faced a bunch of great teams. The 82 Lakers weren't crap, you know what I'm saying?

The point I was making wasn't that Gervin was bad, it's just that in terms of "how far he took his team," he didn't do anything like what Drexler did. There are reasons, of course, but some of that is that he was a fairly one-dimensional player.

And then of course San Antonio didn't have a stunning roster (and that's very true compared to Portland), and then the timing wasn't amazing to be in the Western Conference of the NBA, no doubt.

There's always variables like that, I was just noting that in the scope of the comparison, his team success isn't really an advantage for Gervin compared to Drexler.

[penbeast0]

No, we are basically in agreement. Just fun to celebrate Ice who was one of my favorite enemy players.

[kcktiny]

I think we know pretty well what a guy who provides only volume scoring (even at considerable efficiency) provides to a team versus a more all-around guy who is still a pretty good scorer.

To this day Drexler never seems to get the credit he deserves for being the really good defender that he was.

He was never named to an all-defensive team, but:

- from 1985-86 to 1994-95 the Blazers were the 4th best defensive team in the league (104.6 pts/100poss allowed). Only Utah, Houston, and New York were better defensively.

- over that decade they allowed only the 10th lowest 2pt FG%, 18th lowest (10th highest) 3pt FG%, but were 5th best in turnovers forced (17.3 opponent TO/100poss) with the 4th best defensive rebounding percentage (68.6%).

- that decade Drexler was - by far - 1st on the Blazers in steals (1614). no one else had more than 1152. He alone accounted for 21% of the team's steals over that time.

- that decade Drexler had the 2nd most defensive rebounds (2839) on the Blazers, only Jerome Kersey had more, and the 2nd most blocked shots (543), only Kersey had more.

- that decade among all SGs in the league Drexler had the 2nd most blocked shots (only Jordan had more), had the 2nd most defensive rebounds (to Jordan again), and the 3rd most steals (only Jordan and Alvin Robertson had more).

As for Gervin people have to realize that at the time he played he was the greatest scoring SG we had ever seen. Not once but twice in the early 80s he averaged 32+ pts/g in a season (1979-80 and 1981-82), and his per minute scoring was the best we had seen since Chamberlain two decades earlier. West never did that. Robertson never did that. Tiny scored 34 pts/g in a season but played 46 min/g to do it (but still incredibly impressive).

That's why Gervin was all-NBA 1st team 5 straight seasons (1977-78 to 1981-82). These 5 years he scored almost 2000 more points than did any other player.

[tsherkin]

No, we are basically in agreement. Just fun to celebrate Ice who was one of my favorite enemy players.

Without a doubt, a riot to watch. He was so smooth, man.

Kinda gangly, all told, but he was just... murder. Like, 77-80, that dude was good as a shooter WITHOUT the 3ball that he'd have been like a +1, +2, +2.5% rTS guy in today's game. Which is a bit insane. And of course, the finger rolls and the speed, and his size and, and, and. Ice was nasty, man. Could score in the post. King of standing just outside the paint and taking a dribble or two and then flicking up that damned finger roll. So early to his release that he was tough to block.

I remember, years ago, I used to hope that Dermarr Johnson was gonna be next like that. It was a fruitless and insane hope based entirely on body type and his shooting ability, but it was a fun moment recalling the Iceman, heh.

[penbeast0]

Today, he'd probably be shooting a lot of 3's as well. When he played, he didn't develop it but there's a story in Terry Pluto's book, "Loose Balls." San Antonio just bought Gervin from Virginia (the Squires needed to sell him to keep the doors open apparently) and he asks Terry Stembridge why they don't shoot more 3's. Then Gervin goes out and sinks 20 in a row, in street clothes without warming up. Stembridge says, "George, let me just make sure the ink is dry on your contract."

[tsherkin]

Today, he'd probably be shooting a lot of 3's as well. When he played, he didn't develop it but there's a story in Terry Pluto's book, "Loose Balls." San Antonio just bought Gervin from Virginia (the Squires needed to sell him to keep the doors open apparently) and he asks Terry Stembridge why they don't shoot more 3's. Then Gervin goes out and sinks 20 in a row, in street clothes without warming up. Stembridge says, "George, let me just make sure the ink is dry on your contract."

I'd be surprised if George couldn't bomb 3s at 36%+, for sure. He never took as many as 1 per game in a season, but he was a killer shooter with excellent FT shooting. Dude was a shooter, no doubt. I mean, he was a tall dude who exploited his size advantage at the 2 (which he would still have today, maybe even more so with all the combo guards we see) and that finger roll, but he could shoot the hell out of the ball.

He'd be FUN to watch in today's game (even more so than in his day), especially with the tempo back up and more room in the key.

[Hair Jordan]

Drexler by a fairly comfortable margin. Better rebounder, passer and defender. Gervin was a better scorer (and could get insanely hot like few others) but Drexler tends to be underrated a bit in that department. Who was better at finger rolls? That’s the real question. Ice was known for his finger rolls of course but Clyde had two of the prettiest finger rolls ever. One over the outstretched fingertips of David Robinson and the other against Houston in the ‘94 playoffs (arguably the sickest finger roll in history as it barely ripped the net.) Gervin’s signature finger roll came against LA in ‘82 when he went baseline against Michael Cooper and finger rolled an absolutely filthy reverse-bank-shot-lay-up.