Better peak and prime: Nate thurmond vs Rick barry

[falcolombardi]

Kind of a random comparision other than both starting their careers for a time in the same warriors team

But i honestly wondered who was the better of the two in 1967 when they made the finals. And in general who peaked higher or was usually the more valuable player

Both pkayers couldnt be more different in what they offer to a team which in a way makes the comparision more interesting to me

[No-more-rings]

Barry is a different caliber player.

[AEnigma]

Definitely Thurmond in 1967 (and everyone at the time agreed: players, media, Barry himself…). The Warriors managed without Barry in a way they never did when they had to play without Thurmond, but they needed each other to be competitive.

Peak or prime is much trickier. Barry led a title team at his peak… but it was arguably the weakest years in league history (the ABA was at its peak, pretty much all the top stars from the 1960s were retired, Kareem missed games and consequently the playoffs…). Thurmond dealt with injuries and never really separated himself from all the other top centres of that period (in a given year he was at best third), but was a monstrous defender in an era where that was at its greatest importance. I probably have them around even, but that title is a nice advantage for Barry, as is his clearer translation to later eras, so I expect him to fare quite a bit better in this poll.

[70sFan]

I think Thurmond was better in 1967.

Peak is interesting, I can see the case for both players. Barry had less weaknesses and his offense is highly underrated by boxscore numbers. Thurmond was a top tier defender, but his offense wasn't strong. I can see a case for either, to be honest I have never compared these two before.

Career-wise, I have Barry a bit ahead. Both were far from durability monsters, but I think Barry did a bit more in his career than Nate.

[70sFan]

Barry is a different caliber player.

Why do you think so? Thurmond was better than Barry when they played together.

[penbeast0]

Haven't seen anything close to 75 Barry from Thurmond as a huge floor raiser. Thurmond's mediocre offense generally took away from his stellar defense where Barry could raise his defensive game when he cared which he too frequently didn't. Prime is reasonably close but peak, to me, is clearly Barry.

[70sFan]

Haven't seen anything close to 75 Barry from Thurmond as a huge floor raiser. Thurmond's mediocre offense generally took away from his stellar defense where Barry could raise his defensive game when he cared which he too frequently didn't. Prime is reasonably close but peak, to me, is clearly Barry.

That's because Warriors didn't face any great team in 1975, compared to 1967 Sixers, 1972 Bucks or 1973 Lakers. Barry earned a lot of respect for that title, but I don't think 1975 Warriors would have won the title in any of 1967-74 years.

I also don't agree that Thurmond's bad offense took away his defense. We have some WOWY numbers for him and they look incredible. His defense was way too impactful to be negated by his bad shooting efficiency. He wasn't Ben Wallace on offense either, he had his value there.

[penbeast0]

Didn't take it away as he was one of the great all time defenders, but I got the feeling his offensive rating in his prime years was a net negative though certainly not Ben Wallace level bad.

[Dutchball97]

I'm not doubting Thurmond's defensive impact in the slightest but I do wonder why his defensive WS were relatively underwhelming. His rebounding numbers were almost just as insane as Russell and Wilt, while the Warriors were constantly the 2nd or 3rd best defense throughout the 60s. Thurmond's peak DWS is 6.7 in 1973. Bill Russell eclipsed that number in every single year but his rookie season with him even peaking at 16 DWS in 1964. Wilt has 7 seasons with more DWS than Thurmond's best with a peak of 10.7 WS in 1968. Is it mainly because of the Warriors being a middling team for pretty much Thurmond's entire time there?

While WS is clearly not a definitive stat, I do think it'd help people accept Thurmond as the all-time great defender he was if his DWS reflected that more closely.

[Owly]

I'm not doubting Thurmond's defensive impact in the slightest but I do wonder why his defensive WS were relatively underwhelming. His rebounding numbers were almost just as insane as Russell and Wilt, while the Warriors were constantly the 2nd or 3rd best defense throughout the 60s. Thurmond's peak DWS is 6.7 in 1973. Bill Russell eclipsed that number in every single year but his rookie season with him even peaking at 16 DWS in 1964. Wilt has 7 seasons with more DWS than Thurmond's best with a peak of 10.7 WS in 1968. Is it mainly because of the Warriors being a middling team for pretty much Thurmond's entire time there?

While WS is clearly not a definitive stat, I do think it'd help people accept Thurmond as the all-time great defender he was if his DWS reflected that more closely.

DWS, especially at that point, has very limited data, wouldn't put too much stock in it.

Russell on the Celtics is a very high bar. (Fwiw, Russell probably didn't have that much internal competition on the boards, which might help at the margins).

Versus Wilt. Well remember what WS is. The 0 baseline ... notionally at a 0 win level. Anything above that is positive. The worst defensive teams have been net positive Win Shares. So being out on court at nearly any level helps.
And there we circle back to Chamberlain. Thurmond sometimes played a lot. Chamberlain played more.
Thurmond's peak DWS year is his peak minutes year (3419).
Wilt plays less than that total thrice. Once when he was out with a serious knee injury otoh ('70), his rookie year when the team played 75 games and he played 72 ... and '65 where he misses some games around the time of the trade. Otherwise rounded to the nearest 100 Wilt always plays 3500 (once 3469 otherwise always actually over) and gets to a high of 3882.
Otoh I'd say Lee and for a spell Lucas were likely a lot tougher rebounders than most of Wilt's internal rival bigs without looking to each year (and acknowledging Hairston).

I'd suggest the impact numbers, limited though they are, have a better vision of what each did for their teams defenses.


To me Barry is fuzzy. If you buy more into his ABA stuff (peaks strong statistically in its weaker era but not healthy and a teams wins a title without him - stats not as good later) or think the playmaking makes for a great offensive player when he comes back despite pedestrian efficiency (for me, if the two were paired together at once that's more dangerous) or buy in on his D (don't have a good handle here, think I'm cynical versus the norm, see him as average, ordinary on this end). Think some who aren't just working back from a "star" title have him a lot higher than I think I do overall so try to respect and be open to that possibility.

[Dutchball97]

I'm not doubting Thurmond's defensive impact in the slightest but I do wonder why his defensive WS were relatively underwhelming. His rebounding numbers were almost just as insane as Russell and Wilt, while the Warriors were constantly the 2nd or 3rd best defense throughout the 60s. Thurmond's peak DWS is 6.7 in 1973. Bill Russell eclipsed that number in every single year but his rookie season with him even peaking at 16 DWS in 1964. Wilt has 7 seasons with more DWS than Thurmond's best with a peak of 10.7 WS in 1968. Is it mainly because of the Warriors being a middling team for pretty much Thurmond's entire time there?

While WS is clearly not a definitive stat, I do think it'd help people accept Thurmond as the all-time great defender he was if his DWS reflected that more closely.

DWS, especially at that point, has very limited data, wouldn't put too much stock in it.

Russell on the Celtics is a very high bar. (Fwiw, Russell probably didn't have that much internal competition on the boards, which might help at the margins).

Versus Wilt. Well remember what WS is. The 0 baseline ... notionally at a 0 win level. Anything above that is positive. The worst defensive teams have been net positive Win Shares. So being out on court at nearly any level helps.
And there we circle back to Chamberlain. Thurmond sometimes played a lot. Chamberlain played more.
Thurmond's peak DWS year is his peak minutes year (3419).
Wilt plays less than that total thrice. Once when he was out with a serious knee injury otoh ('70), his rookie year when the team played 75 games and he played 72 ... and '65 where he misses some games around the time of the trade. Otherwise rounded to the nearest 100 Wilt always plays 3500 (once 3469 otherwise always actually over) and gets to a high of 3882.
Otoh I'd say Lee and for a spell Lucas were likely a lot tougher rebounders than most of Wilt's internal rival bigs without looking to each year (and acknowledging Hairston).

I'd suggest the impact numbers, limited though they are, have a better vision of what each did for their teams defenses.

To me Barry is fuzzy. If you buy more into his ABA stuff (peaks strong statistically in its weaker era but not healthy and a teams wins a title without him - stats not as good later) or think the playmaking makes for a great offensive player when he comes back despite pedestrian efficiency (for me, if the two were paired together at once that's more dangerous) or buy in on his D (don't have a good handle here, think I'm cynical versus the norm, see him as average, ordinary on this end). Think some who aren't just working back from a "star" title have him a lot higher than I think I do overall so try to respect and be open to that possibility.

My problem with pre-1997 impact metrics is that there is a lot of guesswork involved due to limited sample sizes, limited play by play data and no line-up data. I'm honestly not sure if you can even call it impact numbers at that point when there is such a sizeable gap in quality between them and the newer models.

Though tbh maybe I'm just not aware of the right ones? There is WOWYR but there is no offense/defense split nor does there seem to be a 1-season sample size and many small tweaks that make the entire project pretty confusing. There is also Estimated Impact but that dataset is seemingly unavailable now and unlikely to be revisited. CORP might be useful but it's behind a paywall as far as I can see. APM and PIPM don't go back as far as the 60s.

In terms of WOWYR I've seen different versions with some putting Thurmond ahead in terms of career value, while other versions have Barry ahead. What I think is the most complete version has them at +5.2 and +5.1 respectively for their career so that'd imply them at least being similar caliber players.

[Owly]

I'm not doubting Thurmond's defensive impact in the slightest but I do wonder why his defensive WS were relatively underwhelming. His rebounding numbers were almost just as insane as Russell and Wilt, while the Warriors were constantly the 2nd or 3rd best defense throughout the 60s. Thurmond's peak DWS is 6.7 in 1973. Bill Russell eclipsed that number in every single year but his rookie season with him even peaking at 16 DWS in 1964. Wilt has 7 seasons with more DWS than Thurmond's best with a peak of 10.7 WS in 1968. Is it mainly because of the Warriors being a middling team for pretty much Thurmond's entire time there?

While WS is clearly not a definitive stat, I do think it'd help people accept Thurmond as the all-time great defender he was if his DWS reflected that more closely.

DWS, especially at that point, has very limited data, wouldn't put too much stock in it.

Russell on the Celtics is a very high bar. (Fwiw, Russell probably didn't have that much internal competition on the boards, which might help at the margins).

Versus Wilt. Well remember what WS is. The 0 baseline ... notionally at a 0 win level. Anything above that is positive. The worst defensive teams have been net positive Win Shares. So being out on court at nearly any level helps.
And there we circle back to Chamberlain. Thurmond sometimes played a lot. Chamberlain played more.
Thurmond's peak DWS year is his peak minutes year (3419).
Wilt plays less than that total thrice. Once when he was out with a serious knee injury otoh ('70), his rookie year when the team played 75 games and he played 72 ... and '65 where he misses some games around the time of the trade. Otherwise rounded to the nearest 100 Wilt always plays 3500 (once 3469 otherwise always actually over) and gets to a high of 3882.
Otoh I'd say Lee and for a spell Lucas were likely a lot tougher rebounders than most of Wilt's internal rival bigs without looking to each year (and acknowledging Hairston).

I'd suggest the impact numbers, limited though they are, have a better vision of what each did for their teams defenses.

To me Barry is fuzzy. If you buy more into his ABA stuff (peaks strong statistically in its weaker era but not healthy and a teams wins a title without him - stats not as good later) or think the playmaking makes for a great offensive player when he comes back despite pedestrian efficiency (for me, if the two were paired together at once that's more dangerous) or buy in on his D (don't have a good handle here, think I'm cynical versus the norm, see him as average, ordinary on this end). Think some who aren't just working back from a "star" title have him a lot higher than I think I do overall so try to respect and be open to that possibility.

My problem with pre-1997 impact metrics is that there is a lot of guesswork involved due to limited sample sizes, limited play by play data and no line-up data. I'm honestly not sure if you can even call it impact numbers at that point when there is such a sizeable gap in quality between them and the newer models.

Though tbh maybe I'm just not aware of the right ones? There is WOWYR but there is no offense/defense split nor does there seem to be a 1-season sample size and many small tweaks that make the entire project pretty confusing. There is also Estimated Impact but that dataset is seemingly unavailable now and unlikely to be revisited. CORP might be useful but it's behind a paywall as far as I can see. APM and PIPM don't go back as far as the 60s.

In terms of WOWYR I've seen different versions with some putting Thurmond ahead in terms of career value, while other versions have Barry ahead. What I think is the most complete version has them at +5.2 and +5.1 respectively for their career so that'd imply them at least being similar caliber players.

Agree the WoWY family is super noisy.

Can't speak to the cutting edge or any paywall stuff (and honestly may understand even the public stuff less than some). Ben Taylor did do a spreadsheet that had season by season stuff.

I think what I'd say is ... DWS is working with such limited data that if you're citing that as an all in one ... between the limitations on source data and the aforementioned low baseline you're adding little value and maybe in a worse position then going and looking at the source data for it and putting it together bit by bit (though that's hard to do at any scale).

I think most would take WoWY with a pinch of salt. At the same time some prime Thurmond data (67-69) has some big numbers that are big enough that you go "it seems likely that he was a having a fairly large impact and if so it seems likely that he did so on the defensive end". 70 is more "solidly good" to my -limited- eye, but combined together with the earlier spell, maybe takes away some upside but gives a greater sample and greater confidence that Nate, despite his shooting, was impactful.

So it's hard to compare numbers in a vacuum but in this instance (and especially this framing where raw DWS were compared) WoWY seemed valuable because it adds new information. Whilst there's value to consistent methods of aggregation I think DWS could give a false sense of authority as an all-in-one where source info is very limited.