Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #13 - 2020-21 Giannis Antetokounmpo

[Colbinii]

I've been traveling a lot and haven't had consistent access to my laptop which is why I haven't been posting here.

I would go 94 Robinson of the 3.

[falcolombardi]

I think i forgot to vote

Woukd vote giannis (21,22) here

[mdonnelly1989]

64 Robertson was the most versatile player of all time behind Lebron. So him.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Forgot to vote I think, 2021 Giannis same reasoning as my other post for him

[capfan33]

94 Robinson

[MyUniBroDavis]

After all this talk, let me just do a Giannis play-by-play film review.

Watch on YouTube

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any publicly available full-game stuff from the 21 Nets series, which was my preference. The only complete, easily-accessible quarter I could find was the end of Bucks vs Suns Game 6.

Context:
Does this Overrate Giannis? this is Giannis’ single best series ever, and this game in particular is also one of Giannis single best playoff shooting games ever. There’s reason to think this film study would overrate him.
Does this Underrate Giannis? It’s the very last minutes of the 21 playoffs, so Giannis and… well, everyone … might be more fatigued and more conservative than usual. So it’s his best series ever, one of his best playoff-games ever, but certainly not his best quarter ever. Not sure how those factors balance out.

Format: X:XX Minute mark in video, Offense/Defense, [short summary], then longer summary.

0:00 Defense [okay]
Good defensive positioning. Could be more aggressive with help if he new the shot was going to go up (Booker doesn’t have the passing to pass behind him through the double), but sound positioning since he wasn’t going for the hard double.

0:17 Offense [Mistake early on, great later on]
Not crazy about that early-shotclock off-ball stuff. It’s off-ball screen to force a switch, but neither Bucks players do the action quick enough to actually pressure the defense. And here’s why I’m a touch lower on the off-ball gravity (compared to reputation, it’s still great) — Giannis’ old defender gets to sit in the lane with the worse spacing, which forces the long-midrange rather than the rim attempt. Inefficient shot, and it misses.
But, to Giannis’ credit, absolutely great off-ball movement at the end to get positioning, great pass to get it to him, and love the dunk through the defense.

0:27 D [okay]
Mostly unforced turnover from Paul.

0:32 O [Mistake]
2 on 2 in transition. Giannis Decision making: again, I actually think he could go for the score here. Check out the footwork of the Suns player by Giannis right before the pass… he’s in no position to defend, and neither is Booker. Still, if you’re ever going to be slightly too conservative, it would be at the end of a finals series when you’re up in the 4th quarter. Not perfect, but perfectly understandable.
But… at the end of the shot clock, look at the defense. Giannis defender is sagging of Giannis by almost 10 feet. This lack of shooting threat prevents middle penetration, forces the midrange shot, which misses

0:52 D [good]
Nothing highlight-worthy, but you could argue this is similar to the Gobert/Russell defensive “Anti-gravity”. Giannis sags off in the right spot to prevent middle penetration, forcing the Suns to go baseline. Giannis doesn’t end the defensive position but good positioning is good positioning.
Side comment, here we see how good Giannis' teammates are defensively compared to others in this tier.

1:35 O [Bad Mistake]
The kind of play that I seem to be harsher on than others. Giannis is triple teamed by the side. There’s a layup pass, a corner 3, and two more 3 pointers who are being zoned by 1 poor defender. Does he pass? No. Giannis does a Dream-shake-spin into a fadeaway midrange which misses.
To me, this shows my decision making concerns with Giannis and my playoff efficiency concerns with Giannis (his efficiency from medium midrange, long midrange, and 3 point land all get worse in playoffs).

1:52 D [Okay]
Again, Giannis isn’t quite as active on defense. If you’re favorable to him, you could say Giannis’ intimidation dissuades Booker from the iso, but it seems like the entire point of the Suns play was to get a post-mismatch for Ayton, which they get with little trouble. Giannis just sits in position after the switch.
Can we be forgiving from context? Sure. It’s tiring at the end of the playoffs. Here’s where I wish we could get that Nets series, which might (?) be more favorable to Giannis' motor.

… welp, they skipped a minute. So much for showing the Entire “Final 6:40” in this video. Alas, false advertising from the YouTube Name lol

2:15 D [mistake, then makes up for it]
Giannis is just a bit behind the best defensive minds (e.g. Russell/KG) in terms of predicting the switch. The quicker mind might have prevented the pass… Booker’s maybe 5 feet past the screen when Giannis recognizes he needs to rotate. Still, it’s far from slow (quite quick when comparing Giannis to non all-time defenders)… but he still gives up inner position. Also not a fan of the fact that Giannis bit on the pump fake. This could have been a layup from a more athletic/taller opponent.
But, he uses his size advantage well here. Once the triple comes, it looks like Giannis’ hands force the steal. Nice! Fine rebounding... Ayton does push Giannis slightly out of rebounding position occasionally in this game, but doesn't matter here.

2:40 O [Good triple team, bad pass... is this a mistake?]
Like that he’s attempting to be the pick n roll screener. Still, the screen doesn’t produce any advantage and booker (weak defender) recovers without any issue.
Giannis ISO, and wow what a difficult leaning pass! This is the second jump-pass that Giannis has done (maybe he picked up this habit from MJ highlights?). Produces an open 3 with his fantastic rim gravity, and the shooter misses. Full credit Giannis, full blame teammate?

But: Here’s where my earlier point comes in. I suggested his sub-optimal (among all-time greats, not among normal humans) passing may make it harder for teammates to benefit from Giannis’ rim gravity. Check out where placement of the pass is… it’s way outside the shooter’s pocket. Does the shooter miss? Sure thing, fault to the shooter. But does Giannis’ passing give the shooter the bess chance of success? I wouldn’t say so…

2:55 D [eh]
Giannis isn’t in position to get back in transition. Hard to blame him, he did produce an open 3 while falling out of the other baseline, but the Suns’ 2 on 1 does give the opponents a point.

3:08 O [mistake/negative]
Again, we get the off-ball concerns I have with Giannis. His lack of shooting lets his defender sag in, forces Middleteon to change direction, but more sagging in the paint forces… yet another midrange attempt from bucks, which gets knocked out.

3:45 D [okay]
Yet again, Giannis isn’t too active, but if you’re favorable to Giannis, you could say it’s intimidation of his man defense. Good man defense from Giannis’ teammates. Not great box-out from Giannis against paul who sneaks in, but doesn’t really matter.

5:15 O [good!]
I like the off-ball screen, which does produce some separation. A better shooter could use that, but Bucks don’t get anything. Pass to Giannis, cross-screen hand off to Middleton on the move. The non-giannis screen actually does create an advantage, and Middleton makes the shot on his own off the hand-off.
Good Bucks offense. Although Giannis didn’t produce or really help the made shot, I love the driving quickness and energy off-ball during Middleton’s midrange attempt. He gets himself in good position as a rollman and a rebounder.
This shows some of the off-ball improvement that Giannis didn’t really have quite as much in the first 2 rounds (including against the Nets, at least from memory), but did have for the last 2 rounds.

5:55 D [okay]
None of the 3 Bucks defenders (including Giannis) are quick enough to get around the off-ball screen or call the switch to prevent an open 3. Suns get an open 3, down only 6. Not great from Giannis, but not terrible… they all 3 had moments where they could have prevented this.
That said, good positioning for the rebound.

7:00 D [mistake]
The suns are down 8, 40 seconds left. They might be looking to make a 3. Giannis sags off too much from Chris Paul for my taste and CP3 takes the 3.

… another time skip. Shame, it’s a fun watch.

8:07 D ["intentional mistake"]
Doesn’t provide any rim protection when he could, but it's clearly intentional… they’d rather give up a layup, avoid an unnecessary foul on paul, and get possession in the final minute.

8:50 O [eh, not great]
First free-throw attempts for Giannis. Makes 1/2 for 50%. This is a chance to talk about Giannis’ Free throw shooting. It’s far from good historically among all-time players, and it declines in literally every single playoffs Giannis has been it. We’ve debated whether that’s just a rather consistent unlucky/cold streak or causal (e.g. because he has more fatigue in the playoffs). His FT% in the 2021 Regular season was 68.5%, his FT% in the 21 Playoffs was 58.7%, and his FT% across 3-year playoff run was 61.5%.
Using this game to talk about his 2021 playoff numbers are ironic, since he actually had a bit of a hot-free throw shooting stretch at this point in the playoffs. He made a surprising amount in this game specifically. But on average, it still wasn't great. Thinking Basketball once said unexpected hot-shooting can massively increase your value in small samples. I wonder how much this hot streak was good shooting luck vs just getting into the right mentality, and how much they boosted his playoff plus/minus numbers?
Regardless, credit. After this shot, Giannis is a champion. I have him lower than most people all-time, but he's still better than 99.99% of NBA players ever.


Overal:
-Offensive pros: Rim gravity pops up, just like everybody (even me haha!) have been saying. His rim scoring also pops up. His improved off-ball ability in the 2nd half of the 2021 playoffs (vs first half of the 2021 playoffs or the 2020 playoffs) was also visible.
-Defensive pros: Good positioning, arguably some amount of defensive intimidation.

-Offensive cons: My concerns with his shooting and spacing showed up just like I thought. The decline from midrange and free throw was visible, as was the poor perimeter gravity making it harder on Giannis' teammates. My playmaking concerns also appeared. A few moments of sub-optimal decision making and passing (great for an average player, not great for an all-time offensive player).
-Defensive cons: To my eye, he clearly has worse rim protection and had slightly less overall impact than the Robinson/Walton tier. His defensive activity was down compared to them. If you're favorable to Giannis, would you explain this away using arguments for his intimidation, 4th Quarter fatigue, or era differences? Or is this a sign that he actually is a tier lower than them?

Let me know what y'all think! I've been accused of pretty heavy bias and dishonesty in this thread, so if anyone thinks this film-analysis is unfair, don't hesitate to (respectfully) let me know where you disagree

I can’t lie lol these are reaches

0:00 - why would he hard double 1 pass away from CP3?

1:52 - the bucks weren’t running a hard show and recover scheme, my recollection is their coverage was switching most ball screens or dropping but they don’t blitz or show and recover iirc, giannis didn’t mess up the coverage here. If the switch is seen as a negative then it’s middletons fault for getting screened like that, giannis breaking their game planned pick and roll coverage for no reason wouldn’t make sense

2:15 - calling it a mistake that Suns weakside action worked is kind of wild, the vast majority of players don’t get back into this play at all, this is a pretty great defensive play, and Giannis wasn’t late at all on this. I guess maybe you can argue that there are times where guys would have done so earlier but there are also times when people would have scored on them as well, but weakside action where someone dies on a screen usually ends in a bucket lol

5:55 - if he goes for the contest you have ayton on holiday or Grayson Allen, and watching it this is clearly on either of those guys to fight over the screen

7:00 - dude come on lol

Offense

0:16 - this is not a mistake lol, jrue should have hit giannis and it’s him under the rim vs mikal behind him

0:32 - while I agree he probably should have went for the shot, portis should have gone for the shot off of the Giannis pass as well (cp3 closing out on portis is basically no defense lol), calling this a mistake is really harsh. There’s a difference between sagging off and a team playing a more conservative shell defense, by that logic cp3 is sagging off the strong side corner against portis

1:32
The pass to Allen is covered by paul without any off ball action preventing him from helping on the skip pass, and in that situation advantage is virtually gone without much favorable switches, at the end I agree he should have found portis, but calling it a huge mistake is harsh

2:40
The first screen they went under, the second was most definately just to get the ball to reposition Middleton at the wing and then get it to giannis above the break, and then does a great pass to portis for a wide open three, this is a good play and not remotely close to a mistake

3:08
He’s kinda stunting strong side corner, and while you don’t help strong side corner you’re not like glued to your man unless he’s a Curry or anything, I mean I guess you’re not supposed to usually help strong side but he wasn’t really even helping here



Defensive activity can be limited by how the offense plays, there’s pretty much no situation on defence here where Giannis effecting the action when he didn’t makes any sense

A modern day Bill russell on defense here wouldn’t really change anything, this isn’t a case of low defensive activity it’s a case of teams playing around a great defender

[Doctor MJ]

I'd vote Giannis 2021 of the 3.

Edited to give an actual 3-man ballot since I didn't get around to doing this before:

1. Julius Erving '75-76

An absolutely golden year with some of the largest impact on a champion we've ever seen.

2. Giannis Antetokounmpo '20-21

Gave us the proof in the playoff pudding we were waiting for. Over time my assessment of this year (or whatever year ends up being seen as Giannis' best) will likely continue to vary. Giannis is often talked about as the best player in the game today, and I have no strident objection to this, but I think we're still learning whether he's truly bulletproof-ed himself against playoff strategy or not.

3. Bill Walton '76-77

So, first, there's another thread comparing Walton to Jokic right now that I just wrote a post on and I welcome to see the thoughts of others. These were the two guys I was considering hardest here.

I'm long on record for being very high on Walton - I think people have typically underestimated how big of a deal his offensive play was, and how well it could scale in the playoffs, as well as often underappreciated the scale of his defensive dominance. The combination of these things is why I tend to give him the nod over David Robinson peak vs peak.

Jokic of course, has now taken us "off the charts" on whatever chart Walton was maxing out before offensively, and that makes it a distinct possibility he has passed up Walton's peak, but Walton's defensive edge remains significant.

The other guys on my mind in general remain West & Oscar. The comparison between these perimeter players and the 3 bigs I just mentioned (Walton, Jokic, Robinson) is tough and there's a part of me that thinks I should have the '60s guards ahead of all 3, but there is a certain completeness to Walton's peak that makes me inclined to give him the nod over them, and so if others are ahead of him, then they'd end up against of West & Oscar.

I will say that on a peak level, I tend to favor West over Oscar. While Oscar has a great case for the superior career in terms of total impact produced, he also played in a context that allowed him to maximize this better than West who was tied for most of his prime to someone who seemed to insist on shooting more and shooting worse with the team management not intervening.

When we see years though where West is putting up mega-playoff numbers leading to high team performances, while also having the clearly superior defensive reputation, it's hard for me to ignore. Add in West's superior shooting and the fact that he took to VBK's motion offense with such ease, and there's not much doubt in my mind that I'd be drafting West before Oscar in today's game.

Last guy I'm going to mention is Connie Hawkins, who I wasn't planning to bring until I saw another poster mention. I'll reply to his post to speak more on the subject.

[trex_8063]

There is a circular tie between 21 Antetokounmpo, 64 Robertson, 94 Robinson so we have a runoff between the three seasons. If you didn't vote for any of these seasons or you haven't voted in this round at all yet, please do so before 9am ET tomorrow. If there is still a tie as at the end of the runoff, a winner will be determined according to the tiebreak rule in the project thread.

I'll vote for '94 Robinson. Splittin' hairs with '95 Robinson.
Does this system work against players who had a number of "peak-level" seasons (where there's less consensus on which one is best; e.g. Giannis, LeBron, Kobe, Kareem, Karl Malone, and to a lesser degree guys like Robinson, Nash, Dirk), and favour those players with distinct peak years (e.g. Shaq, McGrady)?

[Doctor MJ]

01 Erving 75-76: 28.7 PER | .569 TS% | 110 TS+ | 17.7 WS | .262 WS/48
01 Erving 75-76 Playoffs?!?: 32.0 PER | .610 TS% | 3.7 WS | .321 WS/48
[a peak so high the NBA absorbed a whole other league to get this guy under their banner. Doctor turned in a top tier do it all regular season, then followed it up with one of thee largest postseason efficiency increases of all time.]

02 Hawkins 67-68: 28.8 PER | .597 TS% | 124 TS+ | 17.5 WS | .273 WS/48
02 Hawkins 67-68 Playoffs?!?: 30.0 PER | .651 TS% | 4.0 WS | .310 WS/48
[for what amounts to spot #13 on my ballot I'll go with maybe thee unluckiest player in basketball history, robbed of his collegiate & early NBA career by completely spurious gambling allegations, then derailed by a knee injury which occurred amidst the ABA Championship in this very season.

but there was never any doubt Connie could ball from the outset as one of the original NYC greats at Rucker Park & being named the best high school player in the country in 1960. As for his 67-68 peak, the Hawk simply did everything. Topped the brand new ABA in PPG on monster efficiency, 2nd in the league in RPG, 3rd in the league in APG. Then took his game to a whole other level in the playoffs, hurting his knee during the Championship series & returning to lead his team to the top in heroic fashion even before Willis Reed (or Giannis) did it.

I get it, the 67-68 ABA is probably the 2nd weakest competition level to receive a vote so far besides 49-50 Mikan, but Hawkins had no alternative, it was the best league available to him due to his illegal blacklisting from the NBA & he thoroughly dominated it across the board. Also think that Connie's peak game works in any era with his mix of size, athleticism and all around skillset.]

***I have a tier break here which goes from #14 to #25 with the following seasons under consideration (in chrono order) 63-64 Oscar, 65-66 West, 82-83 Moses, 94-95 Admiral, 03-04 Garnett, 05-06 Wade, 05-06 Nowitzki, 08-09 Kobe, 16-17 Kawhi, 16-17 Durant, 20-21 Giannis and 21-22 Jokic.***

So the #1 thing here I want to say to you SickMother is this: You are awesome for bringing up Connie Hawkins!

I'm a huge fan of the Hawk, and I'll say flat out that if he showed up in the modern league, I think he'd seem like the most unique player we've ever witness. He may actually be the most unique player in all of basketball history from some perspective, but the further back you go, the more alien the way players played and in the end, Hawkins is still a man of the '60s.

In Hawkins you had at peak had the aerial game of Dr. J before Dr. J, while being taller and longer, and who then went through a unique transition as a result of his time with the Harlem Globetrotters. While other players went from the Globetrotters to the NBA previously (Sweetwater Clifton & Wilt Chamberlain), Hawkins played on the team in a very different Globetrotter era than young Sweetwater did, and he played for much longer than Wilt did.

Additionally, while he was on the Globetrotters, he made a point to continue playing against top actual competition in the parks of NYC which at the time were still often frequented by NBA stars. In doing so, he applied the crucible of real opponents to Globetrotter trickery and figured out what he could truly use and what he couldn't.

And to give a better understanding of specifically what that entailed, you have to understand the Globetrotter tradition of giant handed pivots. Here's an image of Goose Tatum from the '40s:



You can see how this was made use of for basketball entertainment, and while real defenders wouldn't be so easy to trick, there are aspects of this approach that absolutely apply to a competitive space:

1. You can alter your decisions almost instantaneously without provide any large body hints for others to read. All you have to do is not let go of the ball when you start a passing motion and you've effectively "faked" your man. I put the quotes in there because with this kind of capacity for rapid improvisation, you don't have to plan to trick your man. You can fully intend to pass, and simply plan to react to whatever your defender does, because your defender has to move more of his body in order to protect against the pass, and thus cannot delay his final choice as long.

2. The speed of this process can also allow you to pull off more than one of these "fakes" in rapid succession, and there are accounts of Hawkins faking to the right, then to the left, and then just dribbling to the cup because the defenders had leaped out of the lane to stop the pass.

3. The grip allowed by big hands effectively extends your wingspan at times. If I don't have to keep both hands on the ball, then my reach is not limited to how far I can reach my opposing hand across my body.

4. And of course, as exemplified amply by Dr. J & MJ, having a big hand allows you to alter your shot more in the air. You can simply move your hand to the side of the shotblocker, let go from wherever you want, and even put many kinds of spin on the ball with ease.

On the practical matter of where to rank Hawkins' peak, what I've generally said in the past - and at this point how I'm still thinking - is this:

While I think you can make an argument for peak Hawkins over peak Erving (or West or Oscar), I tend to go no further than to say that I think Hawkins was the best player born between Oscar & West in 1938 & Kareem in 1947. He may have been even better still, but there are reasons to be more skeptical than this too.

Key limitations I see:

1. He had issues on defense. He didn't make great decisions, his tended to get distracted, and he could get bullied in the post by not just other bigs but a rock-solid guard like Oscar. The litheness of his body had everything to do with why he was so quick and could leap with such explosion, which in combination with his length led him to be a terrifying scoring threat and a very capable shotblocker and thief, but Hawkins was someone who could be exploited defensively first and foremost for reasons not unrelated to his strengths.

2. He was effectively "raised by wolves" as a basketball player. This is a man who prior to his time with the Phoenix Suns, had spent more of this competitive league time in high school leagues than anywhere else...and who played more out in the schoolyards than he did with the high school team even in high school. Had he been able to have a normal college career, he probably would have been a more normal state-of-the-art player - more fundamentally robust, but also not as interesting. As it was, I've read things that to me indicate that he really struggled with some of the more formal concepts that NBA coaches took for granted players understood. On top of that, Hawkins didn't get much of a scholastic education in high school, so you're probably not talking about a guy who was not used to memorizing the facets of complex structures for later usage. He grew up on the court reading & reacting, and it seems like he needed to be allowed to play that way to thrive.

(Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I push back at the idea that playing a "read and react" style is necessarily something that requires more talent than playing in a more structured scheme. They require different capacities, but it's not to me that one is harder to come by in humans than the other. All we really know is that when a league is full of players who are used to more structured schemes, there are players who struggle when given more agency...but that the opposite sure seems to be true as well.)

All this to say, I think there's good reason to believe that Hawkins' impact was likely very dependent not just on context as we typically think of it, but based on whether he could even understand and remember what the coach wanted him to do. I'd expect that Erving, and especially West & Oscar, would be considerably more reliable & portable in their impact than Hawkins was.

But I'll end with more positive toward Hawkins:

I think one thing that really hammers home how effective Hawkins was in that first year in the ABA is the fact that he his team in assists and rebounds while leading the entire league in scoring...yet was only 3rd in FGA on his team, and was 10th in FGA/36.

People tend to imagine Hawkins playing like Erving, but the truth was that Hawkins was a much stronger passer who could be argued to focus as much on playmaking for others as he did try to score (by this age at least, seems pretty clear he was more scoring-oriented as a teenager), who also drew fouls with an incredible FGA/FTA ratio. For perspective on this:

In the ABA MVP year:
Hawkins was 1st in FTAs and 12th in FGAs.

Hawkins was 3rd in FTAs and 11th in FGAs, while the only guys ahead of him on free throws were:
West who was 1st in FTAs and 5th in FGAs, and
Kareem who was 2nd in FTAs and 2nd in FGAs.

Erving never ranked so high in FTAs in the NBA, but when he was this high in the last 3 years in the NBA, he ranked:

'73-74: 2nd in FTAs and 1st in FGA
'74-75: 2nd in FTAs and 2nd in FGA
'75-76: 3rd in FTAs and 1st in FGA

I think it might make sense to kinda see Hawkins a bit like James Harden on this front, though to be clear, I don't think Hawkins was able to rely on actually tricking the referees the way Harden and other modern players do.

[ardee]

Of these three, I would vote for 1964 Oscar.

+4.3 offense in the RS with the supporting cast he had is honestly very impressive, lead to him winning MVP over close to peak Wilt and Russell. Easily the best offensive player of that era and arguably the top offensive peak in league history until Magic and Bird came along.

He eviscerated the Sixers in the Playoffs: 30/8/11 on 65% TS (!!!... In the SIXTIES). Wasn't super efficient against the Celtics but remember that the '64 Celtics were a -10.8 team on that end.

To me, he's not all that much worse than Kobe and Wade, I'd likely have him in the 15-18 range.

[falcolombardi]

01 Erving 75-76: 28.7 PER | .569 TS% | 110 TS+ | 17.7 WS | .262 WS/48
01 Erving 75-76 Playoffs?!?: 32.0 PER | .610 TS% | 3.7 WS | .321 WS/48
[a peak so high the NBA absorbed a whole other league to get this guy under their banner. Doctor turned in a top tier do it all regular season, then followed it up with one of thee largest postseason efficiency increases of all time.]

02 Hawkins 67-68: 28.8 PER | .597 TS% | 124 TS+ | 17.5 WS | .273 WS/48
02 Hawkins 67-68 Playoffs?!?: 30.0 PER | .651 TS% | 4.0 WS | .310 WS/48
[for what amounts to spot #13 on my ballot I'll go with maybe thee unluckiest player in basketball history, robbed of his collegiate & early NBA career by completely spurious gambling allegations, then derailed by a knee injury which occurred amidst the ABA Championship in this very season.

but there was never any doubt Connie could ball from the outset as one of the original NYC greats at Rucker Park & being named the best high school player in the country in 1960. As for his 67-68 peak, the Hawk simply did everything. Topped the brand new ABA in PPG on monster efficiency, 2nd in the league in RPG, 3rd in the league in APG. Then took his game to a whole other level in the playoffs, hurting his knee during the Championship series & returning to lead his team to the top in heroic fashion even before Willis Reed (or Giannis) did it.

I get it, the 67-68 ABA is probably the 2nd weakest competition level to receive a vote so far besides 49-50 Mikan, but Hawkins had no alternative, it was the best league available to him due to his illegal blacklisting from the NBA & he thoroughly dominated it across the board. Also think that Connie's peak game works in any era with his mix of size, athleticism and all around skillset.]

***I have a tier break here which goes from #14 to #25 with the following seasons under consideration (in chrono order) 63-64 Oscar, 65-66 West, 82-83 Moses, 94-95 Admiral, 03-04 Garnett, 05-06 Wade, 05-06 Nowitzki, 08-09 Kobe, 16-17 Kawhi, 16-17 Durant, 20-21 Giannis and 21-22 Jokic.***

So the #1 thing here I want to say to you SickMother is this: You are awesome for bringing up Connie Hawkins!

I'm a huge fan of the Hawk, and I'll say flat out that if he showed up in the modern league, I think he'd seem like the most unique player we've ever witness. He may actually be the most unique player in all of basketball history from some perspective, but the further back you go, the more alien the way players played and in the end, Hawkins is still a man of the '60s.

In Hawkins you had at peak had the aerial game of Dr. J before Dr. J, while being taller and longer, and who then went through a unique transition as a result of his time with the Harlem Globetrotters. While other players went from the Globetrotters to the NBA previously (Sweetwater Clifton & Wilt Chamberlain), Hawkins played on the team in a very different Globetrotter era than young Sweetwater did, and he played for much longer than Wilt did.

Additionally, while he was on the Globetrotters, he made a point to continue playing against top actual competition in the parks of NYC which at the time were still often frequented by NBA stars. In doing so, he applied the crucible of real opponents to Globetrotter trickery and figured out what he could truly use and what he couldn't.

And to give a better understanding of specifically what that entailed, you have to understand the Globetrotter tradition of giant handed pivots. Here's an image of Goose Tatum from the '40s:



You can see how this was made use of for basketball entertainment, and while real defenders wouldn't be so easy to trick, there are aspects of this approach that absolutely apply to a competitive space:

1. You can alter your decisions almost instantaneously without provide any large body hints for others to read. All you have to do is not let go of the ball when you start a passing motion and you've effectively "faked" your man. I put the quotes in there because with this kind of capacity for rapid improvisation, you don't have to plan to trick your man. You can fully intend to pass, and simply plan to react to whatever your defender does, because your defender has to move more of his body in order to protect against the pass, and thus cannot delay his final choice as long.

2. The speed of this process can also allow you to pull off more than one of these "fakes" in rapid succession, and there are accounts of Hawkins faking to the right, then to the left, and then just dribbling to the cup because the defenders had leaped out of the lane to stop the pass.

3. The grip allowed by big hands effectively extends your wingspan at times. If I don't have to keep both hands on the ball, then my reach is not limited to how far I can reach my opposing hand across my body.

4. And of course, as exemplified amply by Dr. J & MJ, having a big hand allows you to alter your shot more in the air. You can simply move your hand to the side of the shotblocker, let go from wherever you want, and even put many kinds of spin on the ball with ease.

On the practical matter of where to rank Hawkins' peak, what I've generally said in the past - and at this point how I'm still thinking - is this:

While I think you can make an argument for peak Hawkins over peak Erving (or West or Oscar), I tend to go no further than to say that I think Hawkins was the best player born between Oscar & West in 1938 & Kareem in 1947. He may have been even better still, but there are reasons to be more skeptical than this too.

Key limitations I see:

1. He had issues on defense. He didn't make great decisions, his tended to get distracted, and he could get bullied in the post by not just other bigs but a rock-solid guard like Oscar. The litheness of his body had everything to do with why he was so quick and could leap with such explosion, which in combination with his length led him to be a terrifying scoring threat and a very capable shotblocker and thief, but Hawkins was someone who could be exploited defensively first and foremost for reasons not unrelated to his strengths.

2. He was effectively "raised by wolves" as a basketball player. This is a man who prior to his time with the Phoenix Suns, had spent more of this competitive league time in high school leagues than anywhere else...and who played more out in the schoolyards than he did with the high school team even in high school. Had he been able to have a normal college career, he probably would have been a more normal state-of-the-art player - more fundamentally robust, but also not as interesting. As it was, I've read things that to me indicate that he really struggled with some of the more formal concepts that NBA coaches took for granted players understood. On top of that, Hawkins didn't get much of a scholastic education in high school, so you're probably not talking about a guy who was not used to memorizing the facets of complex structures for later usage. He grew up on the court reading & reacting, and it seems like he needed to be allowed to play that way to thrive.

(Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I push back at the idea that playing a "read and react" style is necessarily something that requires more talent than playing in a more structured scheme. They require different capacities, but it's not to me that one is harder to come by in humans than the other. All we really know is that when a league is full of players who are used to more structured schemes, there are players who struggle when given more agency...but that the opposite sure seems to be true as well.)

All this to say, I think there's good reason to believe that Hawkins' impact was likely very dependent not just on context as we typically think of it, but based on whether he could even understand and remember what the coach wanted him to do. I'd expect that Erving, and especially West & Oscar, would be considerably more reliable & portable in their impact than Hawkins was.

But I'll end with more positive toward Hawkins:

I think one thing that really hammers home how effective Hawkins was in that first year in the ABA is the fact that he his team in assists and rebounds while leading the entire league in scoring...yet was only 3rd in FGA on his team, and was 10th in FGA/36.

People tend to imagine Hawkins playing like Erving, but the truth was that Hawkins was a much stronger passer who could be argued to focus as much on playmaking for others as he did try to score (by this age at least, seems pretty clear he was more scoring-oriented as a teenager), who also drew fouls with an incredible FGA/FTA ratio. For perspective on this:

In the ABA MVP year:
Hawkins was 1st in FTAs and 12th in FGAs.

Hawkins was 3rd in FTAs and 11th in FGAs, while the only guys ahead of him on free throws were:
West who was 1st in FTAs and 5th in FGAs, and
Kareem who was 2nd in FTAs and 2nd in FGAs.

Erving never ranked so high in FTAs in the NBA, but when he was this high in the last 3 years in the NBA, he ranked:

'73-74: 2nd in FTAs and 1st in FGA
'74-75: 2nd in FTAs and 2nd in FGA
'75-76: 3rd in FTAs and 1st in FGA

I think it might make sense to kinda see Hawkins a bit like James Harden on this front, though to be clear, I don't think Hawkins was able to rely on actually tricking the referees the way Harden and other modern players do.

Is that george mikan defending him?

[trelos6]

94 Robinson

[Doctor MJ]

Is that george mikan defending him?

lol, I think you're right. Funny to me that that wasn't specified by the source and that I didn't notice it.

The man in question seems too short to be Mikan - Tatum was 7 inches shorter than Mikan - but Mikan's face is pretty dang distinctive with those glasses, and the man in question is not standing for maximum height, so it's probably him.

Also, as I look at the source, they say that this was 1952, and the Globetrotters did lay the Lakers in 1952. The Lakers won 84-60, their 5th straight win over the Globetrotters after losing their first two in the '40s.

[SickMother]

There is a circular tie between 21 Antetokounmpo, 64 Robertson, 94 Robinson so we have a runoff between the three seasons. If you didn't vote for any of these seasons or you haven't voted in this round at all yet, please do so before 9am ET tomorrow. If there is still a tie as at the end of the runoff, a winner will be determined according to the tiebreak rule in the project thread.

If the runoff is just vote for 1, I've got 21 Giannis. If it's vote for all three in order I've got 64 Oscar 2nd and 94 Admiral 3rd.

[SickMother]

People tend to imagine Hawkins playing like Erving, but the truth was that Hawkins was a much stronger passer who could be argued to focus as much on playmaking for others as he did try to score (by this age at least, seems pretty clear he was more scoring-oriented as a teenager), who also drew fouls with an incredible FGA/FTA ratio.

Thanks for the additional context on Connie, DrMJ, much appreciated.

The Hawk was before my time, but I was kind of thinking that his peak season had shades of 66-67 Wilt where he wasn't the primary shot taker on his team, in favor of playing more of a point center facilitator style, but was by far the primary shot maker due to some of thee most insane efficiency of all time.

[trex_8063]

This is the first discussion where I've heard Gianni be labeled as a "poor playmaker." Learning new things every day I guess.

No way giannis is a poor playmaker

He creates so many quality shots for teammates and almost always makes solid reads and knows when to pass

I'm certainly not stunned, but I will say that---although I generally agree with you both about Giannis, btw---I'm discouraged that this criticism of Giannis drew scorn from two posters, while a statement that David Robinson is a "bad scorer" flew by without complaint.


I want to tell a story of a poster named Moonbeam and the stat he created which he called "Score+".....

Score+ was basically "TS Add" long before TS Add was a thing offered on bbref. But he framed his Score+ to be points added [above league-avg shooting efficiency] per 100 possessions (whereas bbref's TS Add is season cumulative).

Although it was an interesting and useful jumping point for some insight on scoring/scorers, I had some gripes with his creation.....

For one [because it was per 100 possessions], Score+ drew no distinction between low-minute and high-minute players. If two guys have identical shooting efficiency and TSA rates, they will have an identical Score+ (even if one guy plays 12 mpg and the other guy plays 40 mpg).

And secondly, it's so zeroed in on the degree to which one is above [or below] league avg TS%, that volume is sometimes lost in the shuffle.
For example, suppose Player A is only a very opportunistic shooter [let's say a strictly catch-and-shoot 3&D player] who averages just 11.0 pts/100 on +1.5% rTS, while playing 18 mpg.
Player B is a 1st-option scorer averaging 35.0 pts/100 on +0.2% rTS while playing 36 mpg.

Score+ would "rate" Player A the very marginally better scorer.
It would, for example, say players like Royce O'Neale or prime Tristan Thompson are marginally better scorers than some years of prime Carmelo Anthony or Allen Iverson (or '10 Kobe Bryant, too).

That seemed wrong [to me], to put not too fine a point on it.

So it prompted me to massage his creation a little, manipulate the formula [in admittedly arbitrary fashion] to give a little more emphasis to scoring volume (not too much, though: I didn't want to reward volume [even at low efficiency] just for volume's sake too much), and also to give some accounting for playing time (reason being: if two guys are scoring at same volume and efficiency, the guy doing it MORE per game is doing more good [or bad]).

I called my off-shoot creation "Modified Score+". It still doesn't factor in turnover economy at all (an aspect of offensive efficiency which is frequently ignored when comparing scorers); but I felt it otherwise did a better job of rating the relative scoring chops of players than did Score+.

Playing around with it, I set out identify the best peak-scoring seasons ever [as rated by Modified Score+], which I'll share a little below (each player is only listed once, much like this peaks list: LeBron might have multiple seasons better than the peak of player #10, but we're only listing him ONCE, based on his single highest/best season; same on the list below).

For the regular season.....
I believe I've identified the top 50 or so players all-time [or since '52: first year we have minutes recorded].

No one has matched what Steph Curry did in '16. He "broke the game" with how he was scoring that year. His '16 rs campaign has a Modified Score+ rating of +12.77.
The highest ANYONE else [i.e. the 2nd-place individual] has ever achieved was '14 Kevin Durant at +10.33, just to give an idea how big the gap between Curry and anyone else is.
3rd was '88 Charles Barkley at +10.32.
*4th was '69 Rick Barry at +10.13 (*Big asterisk by this one because it was in the ABA [early ABA, no less] and only a 35-game sample; and he never remotely approached this figure in any other season, either; his second-best was a +7.27 in '70 [also in ABA, and just 52-game sample]; the best he EVER achieved in the NBA was +5.88 in '67 [which would be outside the top 50, fwiw])
5th was '83 Adrian Dantley at +10.10.
6th is '14 LeBron James at +9.92.

Anyway, I can share more of the list upon request, but that gives you an idea who occupies the highest ground.

David Robinson ('95 is his best rs campaign by Modified Score+) is 32nd all-time at +7.37.
That is: there are only 31 players who have EVER [since '52] achieved a better Modified Score+.
His closest company? The half-dozen closest to him are Dirk Nowitizki ('07), Ray Allen ('01), George Gervin ('80), Tiny Archibald ('73), Rudy Gobert ('22**), and Walt Bellamy ('62).
(**I know you're wondering what the heck is Gobert doing in there; suffice to say that nearly +17% rTS [on higher than average volume and significant playing time] still sort of "breaks" the equation. Maybe I'll massage it more later, though for our purpose here: even if I did [emphasize volume more and/or downplay efficiency more] it's not going to alter Robinson's position significantly......he's simply too good on BOTH fronts, nice balance of the two)

In the playoffs that year, he was still averaging 32.6 pts/100 [well above league avg] while playing 41.5 mpg, shooting efficiency dropping to -0.7% rTS [at least, relative to rs league avg; might have been basically +/- 0 for the playoffs]. And bear in mind that was while facing Dikembe Mutombo for 3 games, then Vlade Divac for 6, then Hakeem Olajuwon for 6 (so 1 good defender, and 2 GREAT ones), and also getting double/triple-teamed regularly (since the Spurs didn't have much for ancillary scorers).


Anyway, my point being: looking at that degree of scoring in the playoffs [and in those circumstances], while also having the 32nd-best peak rs Modified Score+ of all-time in the same year.........not very accurate to call that a "bad scorer".

All-time tier? No, certainly not.
But "bad"? Come on now....

[letskissbro]

94 Robinson

[eminence]

I haven't voted yet, and don't intend to regularly, but if you still need a tiebreaker when you next go to count I'll go with '64 Oscar here. These two bigs I think have relevant enough PO offense issues for me to bump them just a little bit lower down the list. Oscar I think still has an okay case for offensive GOAT in his prime (LeBron has probably left him behind for career value at this point), in particular I think it's overlooked that he has a case for best scorer in NBA history (not at peak, hail King Curry). I've never had any particular problems with Oscars D.

[LA Bird]

Here are the results for round 13

Winner: 21 Antetokounmpo

There were 15 voters in this round: CharityStripe34, Dutchball97, f4p, capfan33, Samurai, SickMother, trelos6, mdonnelly1989, ardee, iggymcfrack, AEnigma, trex_8063, Ron Swanson, DraymondGold, Proxy

A total of 29 seasons received at least 1 vote: 06 Bryant, 06 Wade, 08 Bryant, 09 Wade, 17 Leonard, 20 Antetokounmpo, 21 Antetokounmpo, 21 Jokic, 22 Antetokounmpo, 22 Jokic, 58 Pettit, 59 Pettit, 62 Pettit, 62 Robertson, 63 Robertson, 64 Robertson, 65 Robertson, 65 West, 66 West, 67 West, 68 Hawkins, 68 West, 69 West, 76 Erving, 77 Walton, 83 Malone, 94 Robinson, 95 Robinson, 96 Robinson

Top 5 seasons
21 Antetokounmpo: 1.000 (27-0)
64 Robertson: 0.964 (27-1), loses to 21 Antetokounmpo
94 Robinson: 0.963 (26-1), loses to 64 Robertson
66 West: 0.889 (24-3), loses to 21 Antetokounmpo, 64 Robertson, 94 Robinson
22 Antetokounmpo: 0.885 (23-3), loses to 21 Antetokounmpo, 64 Robertson, 94 Robinson

H2H record
21 Antetokounmpo vs 64 Robertson: 6-5
21 Antetokounmpo vs 94 Robinson: 5-5
21 Antetokounmpo vs 66 West: 6-4
21 Antetokounmpo vs 22 Antetokounmpo: 6-0
64 Robertson vs 94 Robinson: 5-4
64 Robertson vs 66 West: 5-2
64 Robertson vs 22 Antetokounmpo: 5-4
94 Robinson vs 66 West: 5-3
94 Robinson vs 22 Antetokounmpo: 5-3
66 West vs 22 Antetokounmpo: 4-4

Tiebreaker
Antetokounmpo: 5 (f4p, falcolombardi, MyUniBroDavis, Doctor MJ, SickMother)
Robertson: 2 (ardee, eminence)
Robinson: 2 (Colbinii, letskissbro)

[trex_8063]

After the runoff started, I count four runoff votes for Giannis, and FIVE for Robinson.

Here are the results for round 13

Winner: 21 Antetokounmpo

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