Ben Wallace v. other great defensive but offensively challenged bigs

[penbeast0]

Ben Wallace is universally regarded as one of the worst offensive players in the history of the league. Was Manute worse than that? Inquiring minds want to know (well, they probably don't but it's a fun comp).

Adding Mark Eaton and Tree Rollins to the comp.

[70sFan]

Manute was probably among the worst offensive players ever, as bad as Wallace was on that end, I don't think he was comparable liability.

[Owly]

Without looking too closely ...
Wallace by a huge margin.

Sometimes think Bol's impact in both directions is underestimated. I think two of his three 76ers years suggest he absolutely nuked both offenses. Otoh could be circa both offenses 15 points worse (just checked and yeah that's about right) with him on. A lot more muted in his final year, smaller sample and I have an idea his lineups may have been more controlled but, given noisy nature of +/-, early data, small samples and that last year being different I wouldn't make strong statements about "Bol is/does ...".

Nevertheless, yeah I think Bol is a horrendous offensive player.

Wallace is mostly a horrendous scorer but has some uses (offensive rebounding) and some indications that he was circa neutral, i.e. perfectly reasonable for a big https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2 (see also https://www.cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/3827/onoff#tab-team_efficiency, though this doesn't have all his prime). Otoh, there probably is a case that he played, peaked in a weak era for centers especially on the offensive end, perhaps, and if so that lowers the bar he's being compared with.

[Rich Michmond]

Can't think of a single aspect of offense that Bol would be good at. His shooting is very overrated due to some highlight videos, his actual percentages are pretty dreadful. Ben was a decent passer, cleaned up the offensive glass, and set good screens.

[wojoaderge]

I watched a decent number of 76ers games the season Doug Moe coached them. There was the 6 3s against the Suns. I also saw him make 2 slick passes from the circle in a single half. Additionally, there was a game when they blew out the Nets and Moe decided to post him up twice at the end of the game, and he threw up two of most horrendous bricks I've ever seen. I would take him over Wallace on my team because when it comes to basketball, for me entertainment >>>winning.

[penbeast0]

Bol's ts% gets nuked a bit by the offensive strategy they used for a couple of years of parking him out on the 3 point line then yelling at the refs that the other team wasn't guarding him for illegal defense fouls. He took open 3 pointers but didn't make very many. But yeah, can't think of anything Bol did better than even Ben offensively except catch a lob and dunk.

[cupcakesnake]

Watching Ben Wallace, I never felt he was quite as bad as the numbers showed. He had basically no touch or ball control, and had a problem with his wrist where it would basically dislocate on random shot attempts. But he moved around well, moved the ball quickly, and had some value as a rim runner. The Pistons ran a very functional pin-down play for Rip Hamilton using Ben as the down screener into a roll that resulted in a ton of open alley-oops. Sometimes the Pistons would get away with running in multiple times in a row.

I think Ben could participate in a 5-man offense, even if he wasn't contributing much in terms of impact (outside of offensive rebounding), and obviously he had the big negative of his FT%. He was a smart player and had good mobility. I usually felt the Pistons offense functioned better when he was involved (rather than trying to get him out of the way).

[penbeast0]

How about Ben Wallace v. Mark Eaton or Tree Rollins? Are we still favoring the Fro or is it basically just Manute that was worse?

[Owly]

How about Ben Wallace v. Mark Eaton or Tree Rollins? Are we still favoring the Fro or is it basically just Manute that was worse?

It's both. Impact stuff indicates Ben was competent. Impact stuff indicates Bol was awful (on that end).

(Very brief, non-systematic, mostly otoh overview)
So Ben then Rollins then Eaton then Bol.

Rollins is the best scorer shown by his TS% family stats and thus OSW. But he's more turnover prone, less of a passer, less of a threat on the offensive glass and less mobile. Will say Rollins year 3 puts together some of his best years in TS%, usage, oreb%, assist% and trn% for a standout offensive peak (matches Wallace's '02 OBPM peak of +1.2).

Then Eaton is probably a little less of a mess than Bol - still pretty bad/awful in all areas (well I don't know what norms are for center oreb% but in this area clearly worse than the other guys), but better than Bol in most/all. Though Eaton might do more harm on this end just by being on court more.

Mutombo might be interesting: efficient scorer (including from '96 on adequate for a big from the line, though never translating that to shooting/spacing live in games) and close on the offensive glass but worse turnovers, worse assists. Both apparently wanted to post up but guess would be Mutombo got more touches, opportunity, shot clock time. Mutombo has the clear OWS edge even after accounting for minutes, OBPM tied, 97-14 ORAPM clearly favors Wallace (has Bradley right about in the middle - Bradley being probably consensus box worst of the three [PER might like his usage, have him higher] but offers some spacing).

[penbeast0]

Shawn Bradley is another similar player with excellent defensive impact stats but a limited offensive game; I had always thought of Mutombo as a level up from any of these guys, at least prime/career if not peak.

As long as we are plumbing the drains of offensive ineptitude, there's always Mark Olberding, the Collins brothers, and the whole Jones family (Charles, Major, Caldwell in the NBA, Caldwell and Wil both did some decent scoring in the ABA in addition to the family defense) . . . oh and Julius Keye in the ABA as well.

[wojoaderge]

Shawn Bradley is another similar player with excellent defensive impact stats but a limited offensive game; I had always thought of Mutombo as a level up from any of these guys, at least prime/career if not peak.

As long as we are plumbing the drains of offensive ineptitude, there's always Mark Olberding, the Collins brothers, and the whole Jones family (Charles, Major, Caldwell in the NBA, Caldwell and Wil both did some decent scoring in the ABA in addition to the family defense) . . . oh and Julius Keye in the ABA as well.

Olberding?

[henshao]

Depending on what you consider a big you can also look at nominal power forwards such as Dennis Rodman or Otis Thorpe who could qualify as a center today

[wojoaderge]

Depending on what you consider a big you can also look at nominal power forwards such as Dennis Rodman or Otis Thorpe who could qualify as a center today

Otis Thorpe?

[cupcakesnake]

How about Ben Wallace v. Mark Eaton or Tree Rollins? Are we still favoring the Fro or is it basically just Manute that was worse?

Mutombo might be interesting: efficient scorer (including from '96 on adequate for a big from the line, though never translating that to shooting/spacing live in games) and close on the offensive glass but worse turnovers, worse assists. Both apparently wanted to post up but guess would be Mutombo got more touches, opportunity, shot clock time. Mutombo has the clear OWS edge even after accounting for minutes, OBPM tied, 97-14 ORAPM clearly favors Wallace (has Bradley right about in the middle - Bradley being probably consensus box worst of the three [PER might like his usage, have him higher] but offers some spacing).

Is the idea here that Mutombo was possibly worse than Ben due to being a higher usage player? I agree that Mutombo is clearly a worse passer. But can that really close the gap on how useless Ben was as a putter-of-the-ball-in-the-basket?

In the first half of his career, Ben was taking about 8 FGA per 100 and flirting with league-average efficiency. But in the middle of the 4 peak seasons of Ben Wallace (02-05), we see this big bump in shot attempts (13.4 FGA per 100 over 2004 and 2005) on considerably worse efficiency. His usage spikes from 10% to 15% over this span). While he never gets to shoot that often after 2005, his efficiency never bounces back. He spends the rest of his career with an adjusted TS under 90 and sometimes even under 80. We see a significant drop-off in the middle of his prime as a scorer. He goes from being a meh rim running finisher to suddenly being an unacceptably poor one.

Rookie Mutombo was a pseudo #1 option, shooting the ball at a career-high frequency (15.6 FGA per 100) and turning the ball over a silly amount (4.5 TO per 100 vs. 2.8 assists). We see him play this role a little bit in his first couple years in Atlanta too. But most of his career, Mutombo didn't do much of this. Regardless of his considerably larger offensive role, Mutombo still whoops Ben in terms of shooting efficiency. Mutombo also had a lot more rim pressure in terms of drawing fouls (and yeah, bonus that he could hit them too!).

[penbeast0]

Depending on what you consider a big you can also look at nominal power forwards such as Dennis Rodman or Otis Thorpe who could qualify as a center today

Otis Thorpe was a pretty good offensive PF and not that great on defense from what I remember.

[Rich Michmond]

I'd add George Johnson to the mix.

[henshao]

Depending on what you consider a big you can also look at nominal power forwards such as Dennis Rodman or Otis Thorpe who could qualify as a center today

Otis Thorpe was a pretty good offensive PF and not that great on defense from what I remember.

Perhaps we're both misremembering in opposite directions; Otis Thorpe was of the "scrappy PF" type (on both sides of the court) and was a good case study in how offensively good a a player can be without any jump shot to speak of

[Owly]

How about Ben Wallace v. Mark Eaton or Tree Rollins? Are we still favoring the Fro or is it basically just Manute that was worse?

Mutombo might be interesting: efficient scorer (including from '96 on adequate for a big from the line, though never translating that to shooting/spacing live in games) and close on the offensive glass but worse turnovers, worse assists. Both apparently wanted to post up but guess would be Mutombo got more touches, opportunity, shot clock time. Mutombo has the clear OWS edge even after accounting for minutes, OBPM tied, 97-14 ORAPM clearly favors Wallace (has Bradley right about in the middle - Bradley being probably consensus box worst of the three [PER might like his usage, have him higher] but offers some spacing).

Is the idea here that Mutombo was possibly worse than Ben due to being a higher usage player? I agree that Mutombo is clearly a worse passer. But can that really close the gap on how useless Ben was as a putter-of-the-ball-in-the-basket?

In the first half of his career, Ben was taking about 8 FGA per 100 and flirting with league-average efficiency. But in the middle of the 4 peak seasons of Ben Wallace (02-05), we see this big bump in shot attempts (13.4 FGA per 100 over 2004 and 2005) on considerably worse efficiency. His usage spikes from 10% to 15% over this span). While he never gets to shoot that often after 2005, his efficiency never bounces back. He spends the rest of his career with an adjusted TS under 90 and sometimes even under 80. We see a significant drop-off in the middle of his prime as a scorer. He goes from being a meh rim running finisher to suddenly being an unacceptably poor one.

Rookie Mutombo was a pseudo #1 option, shooting the ball at a career-high frequency (15.6 FGA per 100) and turning the ball over a silly amount (4.5 TO per 100 vs. 2.8 assists). We see him play this role a little bit in his first couple years in Atlanta too. But most of his career, Mutombo didn't do much of this. Regardless of his considerably larger offensive role, Mutombo still whoops Ben in terms of shooting efficiency. Mutombo also had a lot more rim pressure in terms of drawing fouls (and yeah, bonus that he could hit them too!).

Well what you think will come down to what measures you trust.

The box (Reference) stats have Wallace at best (via BPM) equal with Mutombo. The impact stat cited (97-14 RAPM) has Mutombo clearly worse. So not so much "usage", but if that impact metric were thought to be accurate Mutombo as a bad clock eater is one hypothesis (i.e. generates some decent looks for self, but doesn't for others, sometimes turns it over and has wasted too much time). I'm not saying it's right.

You are correct to note Larry Brown put the ball more in Wallace's hands, for post ups I believe based on readings, with bad results.

Yes, as above Mutombo certainly more efficient, so I was surprised that not only came out better offensive RAPM wise but clearly so.

I don't know about rotations (the following seems like a Chauncey strength otoh, and looking at it more typically over the career though not '05) but Detroit seem to be turning the ball over much less with Ben on (https://www.cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/3827/onoff#tab-team_efficiency) ... maybe their less worried about getting a really good shot up with him being able to crash the offensive glass (without killing them on defense). I don't know ... maybe he was just on the right teams for him and the data's noisy but whilst hurting his teams' shooting a bit he doesn't seem to be doing a much overall net offensive damage at all - at least per the RAPM cited. I don't know.

[kcktiny]

Ben Wallace is universally regarded as one of the worst offensive players in the history of the league.

By who? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Could he shoot? No. But he never averaged as much as even 10 FGA/g in a season, and in his career averaged just 5 FGA/g. So his misses did not really hurt his team much.

Could he score? No. But a team does not need five scorers to be successful.

But Wallace had more than three offensive rebounds for every turnover over his entire 16 year career.

That is a very valuable offensive contribution.

[Owly]

Ben Wallace is universally regarded as one of the worst offensive players in the history of the league.

By who? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Could he shoot? No. But he never averaged as much as even 10 FGA/g in a season, and in his career averaged just 5 FGA/g. So his misses did not really hurt his team much.

Could he score? No. But a team does not need five scorers to be successful.

But Wallace had more than three offensive rebounds for every turnover over his entire 16 year career.

That is a very valuable offensive contribution.

So "universally" and "in the history of our league" was a strong phrasing. I'm not sure how many people actually seriously keep that list.

And as I've noted in this thread there's evidence of an impact stat (and even a box-composite) calling him circa neutral offensively.

That said ... your argument seems to be that he shouldn't be regarded in such a way. That doesn't necessarily mean he isn't. Now as I say I don't think he should be and I don't think many people look seriously into this. That said if (or "in case") the "who" question is intended to indicate disbelief rather than to check in to the credibility of such sources (well you can check the credibility of some such sources based on the following, if meant that way) ... googling the following: worst offensive players in nba history - the first (and only) two results I've clicked on (Complex article and reddit thread) both mention Wallace. So it doesn't seem too hard to find people who do believe this.