Even though I voted Davis over, and even though he definitely had more voting bloc support overall (every Nash supporter voted but not every Davis supporter voted), I was kind-of hoping Nash would squeeze that out for positional reasons.
1. Steve Nasha.) 2007 b.) 2006 c.) 2005 d.) 2010 Along with Russell and Walton, Nash is one of three all-time peaks players who to some extent defy box score impact. People more readily recognise that box scores can fail elite defenders, and in Russell’s case especially without available steals or blocks, but with Nash it is apparently much more confusing how a player could showcase all-time WOWY(R) and top of the line RAPM almost entirely off his offence without that jumping out at you on a stat-sheet. The other difference of course is that Russell and Walton both lead their teams to a title, and Nash sadly did not — although I believe he could have with some better luck in 2006 or 2007, or with some better front office decisions throughout his prime.
What Nash did do was consistently spearhead contending teams in a manner that I feel would translate well across eras. Nash’s passing, much like Magic’s, is a brilliant magnifier and maximiser of existing talent — but that is not something that you find in the boxscore, or at least not until BBR buys access to Elgee’s passer model. I also think Nash is an easy top eight shooter in the history of the sport, with a decent claim to second. His shot and shot percentages are every bit as good as anyone’s, they maintain into the postseason, and he created those shots for himself far more than any other top shooter did. This was a massive advantage in his time, but with the spacing revolution I think his gravity would take another leap. (Note: I am not suggesting he would be a regular high volume scorer in the modern league, which is a claim I think grossly misinterprets the value and intent of his playstyle; simply going more to his playoff volume and increasing the proportion of threes taken would already represent a notable jump and would even further strain defences that have become hyper-aware of the effects of that type of spacing.)
I came across plenty of good commentary reading through past projects and RealGM threads — I may re-post some later to drive conversation — but I am not sure Nash’s peak case is all that mysterious anymore. That Backpicks profile was what, five years ago now? Everyone should have seen those arguments and statistics, even if not everyone is inclined to accept them. His downside is that he is a small guard with at best uninspiring defence, and although that was hardly disastrous in his time, he would certainly be picked on more today (that said, his play awareness should keep him well above the Trae/Isaiah/Lillard tier of abject liability). Like I said when we were comparing him with Jokic, it seems intuitively easier to build a defence with a weak guard than it is to build a defence with a weak big, even if that big provides a higher baseline defensive value than the guard (sadly, running a team of slower-footed giants does not seem to stack as well as you may hope, and teams have yet to develop the approach of abandoning small guards entirely). I think the 2006 Suns have a strong shot at making it past the Mavericks (at which point they would be up against notorious pnr defender Shaq) if they simply had a healthy Kurt Thomas (I encourage people to check Phoenix’s net ratings with Nash on-court and Amar’e off-court; not exactly struggling, are they?). Nash does not need stars or hot shooting or favourable matchups to do well in the postseason; at his peak, all he really needed was some healthy support.
As an addendum, the recent support for 2008 Paul over Nash is outright absurd to me. A demonstrably more successful and impactful contemporary at the same position playing essentially the same opponents should never be losing out in a direct comparison like that.
Nash was leading better teams that were also more dependent on him than the 2008 Pelicans were on Paul. That was true in 2008 too, by the way, but there at least we can say Paul performed a lot better against the Spurs than Nash did. Maybe the argument is that the surrounding roster was so much worse. First, not everyone thought so. Second, the 2006 and 2010 Suns are pretty obvious counters. I doubt anyone is actually arguing from that angle, but I have read plenty of weirder claims.
That leaves postseason performance. Again, that works pretty well for the 2008 postseason specifically, but no one is voting for 2008 Nash in large part for that reason. If 2008 Nash had a better series then I would mark it as an easy alternate year, because in the regular season he was as good as ever. Compared to 2005-07 Nash, though, 2008 Paul looks like a clear step down.
2008 Paul (full postseason): 24.1/11.3 on 56.5% efficiency 2008 Paul (Spurs): 23.7/10.7 on 55.5% efficiency 2008 Paul (Mavericks): 24.6/12 on 57.9% efficiency
2007 Nash (Spurs): 21.3/12.7 on 60.5% efficiency 2006 Nash (Mavericks): 20.7/10.2 on 62.6% efficiency 2005 Nash (Spurs): 23.2/10.6 on 57.5% efficiency 2005 Nash (Mavericks): 30.3/12 on 63.9% efficiency 2005/07 Nash (Spurs): 22.2/11.7 on 59% efficiency 2005/06 Nash (Mavericks): 25.5/11.1 on 63.4% efficiency 2005-07 Nash (full): 21.2/11.3 on 60.2% efficiency
If you want to vote for Paul’s 2009 regular season production and impact, fine. Most of you are too scared off by the Nuggets series to do that, but at least his regular season can start a conversation. Voting for his impact and defence and shooting during his years with the Clippers? Still disagree, but whatever. However, 2008 should be dead in the water in a direct comparison with Nash.
2. Patrick Ewing (1990) Basically 1982 Moses Malone with defence. Ewing sadly had no true chance at MVP that year with peak-ish Magic and Jordan in the league, nor was he fortunate enough to be traded to a 1982 76ers equivalent. However, he did go on his own monstrous scoring run and pull off an unexpected upset of Bird’s Celtics, where Ewing won three straight elimination games averaging an efficient 36/13/5, including a road win in the league’s toughest road environment. Shortly after, with Pat Riley as his coach and a better but still unspectacular supporting cast, he came the closest to beating each of the 1992 Bulls, 1993 Bulls, and 1994 Rockets in their respective title years. If he had been his 1990 self, instead of a few years on with degrading knees and overall athleticism, maybe he could have broken through (almost certainly in 1994). Timing is such an under-appreciated element of how legacies are built in this sport.
Here are some of the best posts and articles I was able to find about that season. I do not agree with every claim (e.g. calling Ewing a better pnr defender than Hakeem), but for the most part I think this all does a better job of detailing his season than I could on my own:
Hardwood Hype wrote:Already a bona fide star, the 1989-90 season is the one in which Ewing catapulted himself into SUPERstardom.
Ewing hit on 55.1% of his shots and a career-high 77.5% of his free throws en route to 28.6 points per game, third-best in the league and a career-high. For good measure, 10.9 rebounds per game, which was fifth in the league, was his best to date, as were his Assist (10.0%) and Turnover Rates (12.4%).
Twenty-one times he scored at 35 points in a game – in no other season did he do so more than eleven times. Eleven times he went for at least 40 – it’s the only time he reached 40 more than four times in a season. He set a single-season high with twelve games of 30+ and at least 15 rebounds. On ten of those occasions he scored at least 35 – he never did this more than five times in any other season. Eight times in his career Ewing scored at least 30 and grabbed at least 20 rebounds. He did it three times in ’89-‘90 – it’s the only season in which he did it more than once. Two of these were the only 40-20 games of his career. By Basketball Reference Game Score, this is the season in which he turned his top four (and five of the top-ten) individual performances, regular and postseason. Only once since 1983-84 (the date from which B-R has Game Scores) has a center topped four such games in a season.
This is a breakout season of volume greatness and performances, by a short-lived version of Patrick Ewing. Beyond the goofy great statistics and but special, historic performances (more on this in a sec), this is a different Ewing than the Dream Teamer, let alone, the one who anchored the contending Knicks teams to come.
Consider the first of those 40-20s. A month into the season, during the Knicks’ annual visit to Oakland, Ewing positively battered the Warriors, making 17 of 27 shots on his way to 44 points, while grabbing 24 rebounds – ten of them offensive –blocking three shots and handing out four assists in an easy win.
And the hits just kept coming. Three nights later in Phoenix, he had 41, 8 and 4, with five blocks. Two weeks after that, on December 16, it was 30, 14 and six blocks in a home win over the Sonics. Three nights after that, 41, 15 and four blocks in another win, this time over the Jazz.
By the numbers, that night in northern California remained the best regular performance of his career… for about five weeks. On January 7 he basically replicated the feat at home against the Clippers, again scoring 44, this time with 22 rebounds, seven blocked shots, four assists and a pair of steals. Two nights later he hung 35 on the Bullets, before putting a 33 and 12, with five assists and eight blocks on the Bulls at MSG.
And so it went… 38, 15 and four blocks in Dallas… 24, 11 and nine against Miami… 35, 13 and seven the next night in Orlando… 33, 13 and six in Houston… a pair of 41s in wins on either side of the All-Star break, with a combined 25 rebounds and eleven blocks… 37, 13, six assists and three blocks against the defending champion Pistons… 30, 18 and six blocks against Philly… and on… and on…
The game at the Garden on March 24 was always going to be an event, as any visit from the Celtics was in those days. Though the Knicks ultimately fell by five, it was another milestone for Ewing, who grabbed a whopping 18 rebounds to go with a career-high 51, and looked completely unstoppable doing it.
The next time out it was 41 and 12 with four blocks against the Bullets. Four days later it was 37, 21 and six against Denver. This is one of ten 35/20/6 performances recorded since 1973-74 – it was Ewing’s second of the season, and remains the most recent. He went for 37 twice more in the week that followed, first with 17 rebounds in Washington, and two nights later, with 19 rebounds and nine blocks in a home win against Philly. Six times since 1973-74 has a player has scored 35, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked nine shots in a game. Only four times has it been done in regulation. This is one of them. No one has done it since.
fatal9 wrote:Some context around the 1990 Knicks: The Knicks started out 34-17 before making the Strickland/Cheeks trade. Then finished the season 11-20 for a combination of reasons. I wish I had game 3 of the Celtics series on my computer because Peter Vecsey does a decent job in a halftime segment of showing all the chemistry issues the Knicks had in the last couple of months of the season (these issues were why Knicks were given no chance to beat the Celtics). From making the Strickland trade, to Mark Jackson getting booed on the court and benched for 33 year old Cheeks, to Oakley fracturing his left hand and missing games, to Kiki V coming back and joining the team. These are a LOT of lineup changes for a team to endure mid-season, Knicks had a different starting PG, a different starting PF (Oakley out), a different starting SF (all of whom were defensive downgrades) in the last month of the season than they did when they were winning and putting up one of the best records in the league. I don't think it's a coincidence how the team performance changed so much just as the Knicks began encountering instability in their lineup. Unfortunately this stretch thwarted Ewing's MVP campaign as well (he was in the convo with Magic, Barkley, MJ for it). That was a 50+ win team disguised by the issues at the end of the season, so I would say Ewing was doing a great job of getting the best out of what he was given.
Some posts here seem to be have no sense of context surrounding his season, no analysis of his game (probably haven't bothered to watch any games), just going off a very very superficial analysis of "let me check PER and team defensive rating" and draw conclusions. This type of analysis is only going to produce outrageous statements such as "90 Malone was better than Ewing" or that Ewing "wasn't even on par with Dwight".
This is a peak project, I have a feeling people are letting their bias from mid/late 90s Ewing (who I have issues with offensively too) cloud their judgement on how good he was this year. I had a similar bias, but then I began watching his games from that season (about 15 or so) and what I'm seeing a dominant defender (his defensive versatility is better here than later in the 90s, my one gripe defensively would be that he was more prone to foul trouble this season than he would be later) with an offensive package like we've never seen Ewing put together at any other point of his career.
Why was he so much better offensively? As I've been mentioning, he had more variety in his offensive game, this was something everyone in the league was talking about. He went from being a predictable offensive player who was easy to game plan for, to being a lot more well rounded who mixed up and expanded his scoring repertoire. He was better at creating space on his shots, got that extra bit of separation he wasn't quite getting later as the years went on and a result he was having a lot of success as a one on one scorer in the post. He was at his physical peak in the NBA, insane stamina, a lot more athletic, moved better, had a bit more spring in his legs, which naturally allowed him to have a better conversion rate around the basket. His aggressiveness is completely different, he wasn't content to bail you out with fadeaways all game, he attacked the defense more often ever and consequently posted the best FTA numbers of his career (combined with a career best FT% which further raised his efficiency). His passing also took a big leap that year. While he wasn't Shaq or prime Hakeem, he was competent at reading doubles, this is another observation that is obvious to me from watching games and also reading/listening to what people around the league were saying.
This isn't a guy who saw an increase in his averages because he just upped his numbers and feasted on bad defenses either (like say D-Rob in '94), he was lighting up everyone. Here he is putting up 41/15 on Eaton:
His offensive numbers against good defensive teams/centers were very good over the course of the entire season.
Here's a Sports Illustrated article midway through the season (when Knicks were 25-10) talking about Ewing's amazing improvement on offense and how surprised everyone was by how much he improved:
But what the NBA is seeing these days, and is likely to be seeing through a good bit of the next decade, is much, much more. Some of the old images of Ewing are dated. He has buried them under an avalanche of soft, turnaround jump shots. "The book on him always was, Make him shoot over you, make him earn it," says Boston's backup center, Joe Kleine. "Well, now he's earning it." The power, the intimidation, the fearlessness are still there, but so are grace and finesse and economy of movement, terms previously associated with Houston's Akeem Olajuwon, Ewing's yardstick through most of the '80s, and San Antonio rookie David Robinson, the only other NBA center currently mentioned in the same breath with Ewing and Olajuwon.
Ewing's play has been an even more important component of New York's success. "He might be the best in the game right now," Los Angeles's Mychal Thompson told the New York Daily News after Ewing scored 29 points in a 115-104 loss on Dec. 3. "He and Magic [Johnson] are shoulder to shoulder."
"I know what people are saying now," says Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, "but when he came out of college, I don't recall anybody thinking he would score like this."
"I worked on some things this summer, just like I always do. I wanted to get better on coming into the lane with my left hand, and I've done that. I'm getting to the foul line more [his eight attempts per game are about two more than last season], and that's helped my scoring. But I haven't changed my jump shot. It just got better.
Ewing gradually improved under Pitino, but only recently has the whole package been unwrapped. It reveals an agile seven-footer whose turnaround jumper is accurate up to 20 feet; a heady player who discourages double-teaming with canny passes; an outstanding athlete who has somehow figured out the exotic fast-break passing strategies of point guards Mark Jackson and Rod Strickland, both of whom never make a simple move when 13 complicated ones will do; and a defensive intimidator whose 3.7 blocks per game at week's end were second only to Olajuwon's league-leading 4.2.
''He has taken his game to another level,'' Johnson continued, ''a level I've never seen him play at before. He's dominating offensively and defensively, but he's also making the right plays at the right time. He's leading his team, as opposed to before, when it seemed he'd just as soon let somebody else lead. That's the real mark of an MVP.'
And people are questioning this guy's defense? Come on...this is '92-'94 Ewing but with way better knees. I mean every game I've seen of his from this season, it's the type of combo of scoring variety, defense and athleticism, Knicks fans always wished he had. He was seen as a better center than Hakeem that year, made the all-NBA first over him and had coaches around the league saying he was the best center in the league.
Parish said that Ewing "is a better player today because he has variety of shots, just doesn't throw the fadeaway jumpshot, he gives you the jump hook and his spin move on the baseline is the toughest thing for me to guard" (so this isn't exactly the fadeaway jumpers all game long offensive version of Ewing we remember most). From what I've read guys say about him, he took a big leap in his post game that season but declined as the 90s went on because his knees got worse and worse (and of course he aged, he was in his 30s during '92-'94...and consequently shot jumpers wayyyyyy more often), and as a result so did his efficiency. Even in something like FT shooting, it's way above his career average and his best year ever. He is doing a lot of heavy lifting offensively...must be turning the ball over a lot like he always did, but nope, while putting up the scoring numbers he did, he also posted the third best TOV% of his career. It's not like Ewing is inexperienced here either, he is 27-28 which is usually when players peak so career trajectory wise, it makes sense.
Knicks were still above average defensively considering the following things: a rookie head coach (Stu Jackson, fired 15 games into next season...and only coached one other team after that, the 6-33 Grizzlies), the second best defender on the team missing 21 games, a bad defensive backcourt particularly when Kiki joins the team. I would say he's making pretty good impact here (and we know he can probably make a lot more if he is on a championship caliber team where he doesn't have to score as much). This is one of the great interior defenders of all time, he didn't learn defense when he was 30 years old just like KG didn't magically learn to play defense when he joined the Celtics. His comparison was Bill Russell coming out of college, he was seen as one of the finest defensive talents ever. The questions weren't "can he defend?" but "can he add enough to his post game?" (and he did in 1990). In terms of interior defense, he's ones of the best ever, anything you threw around the basket was going to get challenged, no easy baskets even it meant you put him on a poster. He's second in the league in blocks behind Hakeem, I know averages aren't everything but this isn't Javale McGee we are talking about, but a fundamentally sound defensive player, who plays great post defense and whose block averages reflect his ability to absolutely lock down the paint. I'm going to guess a better moving version of the guy who was anchoring historic defenses a year and a half later was still pretty damn effective on defense. Seems like a reasonable conclusion.
Regarding the Ewing Theory. It refers to the mid/late 90s version of Ewing (in his mid 30s) who is 5+ years away from the year in question here and a CLEAR step down offensively. Even if it were true, it's not very relevant. It's like using Kobe's impact last couple of years to define his impact in '08.
One thing I kind of wish there was more of an argument for was D-Rob (who I think went a few spots too high) vs. Ewing. Would people really take '95 D-Rob in a playoff series over '90 Ewing? Has D-Rob ever taken over offensively for his teams in the playoffs like that? Could D-Rob give the bad boy Pistons defense 45 point game and then come back and drop 30 points in the second half of the next game? And don't forget the intangibles, Ewing was intimidating on the court, a better leader, a guy who has an impact over the entire mentality of the team. I think a great argument I read for D-Rob was that he'd be a great second banana offensively on a championship team but would still be the best overall player on the team...could the same thing not be said about '90 Ewing?
lorak wrote:Another great post by fatal and I agree with you 100% (even youtube video you posted was uploaded by me, because I was so impressed by Ewing's play).
And Ewing theory is completly BS... at least until he was 36 years old. In 1986 he missed 32 games and NYK without him were worse by 6.2 efficiency pts (Ewing improved offense by 1 and defense by 5,2).
1987: 19 games missed, -7 without Ewing (0.4 offense, 6,6 defense)
1996: 6 games missed, -10.6 without Ewing (he improved defense by 12.2 drtg! but offense was worse with him by 1.6)
1998: 56 games missed, -5.4 without Ewing (he improved defense by 7.3 but offense was worse with him by 1.9)
1999: 12 games missed, NYK were better without him by 2.7 eff pts (but still defense was better with Ewing by 1.5)
2000: 20 games missed, team worse by 1.1 with Ewing (but with him offense was better by 3.5 and defense worse by 4.6)
So we see that through almost whole career he was great defensive player and during his early years, before knees were destroyed by injuries, he was also slightly positive player on offense. I really see no reason to put him so much behind DRob whose profile and impact on the game are very close to Ewing's.
E-Balla wrote:1990 Patrick Ewing - This season is spectacular. Ewing was legitimately up for MVP along with Barkley and Magic for most of the season prior to his team making some moves that hurt them. In the first 52 games of the season the Knicks went 34-17 (55 win pace) with Ewing averaging 27.8/10.2/2.3 (4.9 combined blocks and steals) on 58.7 TS% with a 114 ORTG. After the trade the Knicks went 11-20 which would make one assume Ewing didn't play well but he actually played better with the team around him falling apart. He averaged 30.0/12.1/2.1 (4.9 combined blocks and steals) on 61.9 TS% with a 116 ORTG in the last 31 games.
At one point they had a 1-9 stretch where Ewing averaged 32.1/12.5/1.3 (5.0 blocks and steals combined) on 64.5 TS%. His career high was in that stretch, a 51 point performance in a loss to the Celtics.
Then the playoffs came and Ewing went off. In game 1 vs Boston they lost pretty handedly and in game 2 they allowed Boston to break the playoff record for points with 157 (a record that still stands). Following that embarrassment at Boston they were facing elimination in game 3. Ewing and Oakley really turned on the defense and dominated the glass with Ewing grabbing 19 boards in the 3 point win. They followed that with a game 4 blowout win where Ewing played what's probably his best game ever with 44 points, 7 steals, 5 assists, and shooting 75% from the field. Now they were tied up in the series attempting to become the 2nd [sic] team to comeback from being down 0-2 and at the same time hoping to break a 28 game losing streak in Boston (the last time they won in Boston was in 84). The Knicks won that closely contested game with the momentum shifting towards the end of the game with Larry Bird missing an easy dunk and Ewing shortly after making his iconic turnaround 3 pointer.
On Larry Bird missing that dunk this is from SI's article on that series:
When Larry Bird missed the dunk—a point-blank dunk at crunch time in a do-or-die playoff game in Boston Garden—he did so not as a result of any strange astrological occurrence or the Massachusetts budget crisis or even tough defense.
He did so, by his own account, because he was worried. "I wasn't going to dunk it," he explained after the game. "But I thought Patrick was coming, so I tried to. And then I jumped too high, if you can believe it."
Believe it, as hard as it may seem. It is not the business of Boston Celtics to feel shadowy presences, least of all for Larry Legend to feel one from a New York Knick in the building in which New York had lost 26 straight times and hadn't won in the playoffs since the Nixon administration. This was the Garden, and the ghosts are supposed to be friendly. But: "I thought Patrick was coming."
If the truth be told, at the time of Bird's misguided dunk attempt, any Celtic was entitled to be wary of these Knicks. A little more than four minutes remained in Sunday's fifth and final game of these teams' first-round Eastern Conference playoff series, and the Patrick in question, a certain Mr. Ewing, had just feathered in a jump-hook to give New York a 103-99 lead. Ewing did just about everything asked of him in this game. He finished with 31 points and 10 assists, and those figures are stark testimony to how shrewdly he picked apart Boston's double teams with opportune passes and drives.
Following that series they were completely outmatched by the Pistons but Ewing wasn't. He had some stinkers but overall averaged 27.2 ppg on 56 TS% which is more PPG than anyone outside of MJ (who was only as efficient as Ewing one of those 3 years) averaged against the Pistons in a series between 88 and 90.
EDIT: I punched the numbers. MJ averaged 30.0 ppg on 56.0 TS% against the Pistons from 88 to 90. He averaged 25.4 points per 36. Ewing averaged 26.2 points per 36 against them on 56.0 TS%. So his scoring performance against them was right there with MJ's average scoring performance against them.
Overall that's a pretty great season, but it's not the most impressive left on the board so why 90 Ewing? Well here's how I see his game:
Scoring - 28.6 ppg on +6.2 rTS% speaks for itself. Post merger only Moses (in 81), Robinson (in 94), and Shaq (in 94, 95, 00, and 01) have scored more ppg as a center. Only Shaq in 94, 00, and 01 did it on higher efficiency. In the playoffs he showed he could consistently score on that level scoring 29.4 ppg on 57.9 TS% in the playoffs. Post merger only Shaq (in 98, 00, and 01), Hakeem (in 88 and 95), and Kareem (in 77 and 80) scored more ppg than Ewing in the 90 playoffs. Only Kareem in both years, and Shaq in 98 did it on higher efficiency.
Then you look at his skillset. He had a robotic but effective post game with a predictable but at times unstoppable running hook shot, great speed and strength, the best jumper for any true C I've seen outside of KAT, and his one weakness was probably his small hands which at times limited him on lobs and lead to easy misses of his signature finger roll. There's a solid argument to be made that outside of the true greats (Kareem, Hakeem, Wilt, Moses, Shaq) he's the best scoring C ever. I think his scoring game would suit the modern game amazingly too. Ewing got most of his buckets back then off quick actions and turnaround jumpers, things that would be more valued in today's league at his size.
His passing and rebounding on the other hand were never strong. His passing was below average and his rebounding was mediocre at best for his size.
There's been a lot of discussion about his defense this year. Discussion I don't really understand. Ewing was still an elite defender in 1990 and I don't really have any reason to think he improved after 1990. Played better? In 1992, definitely, but outside of that the biggest change in the quality of the Knicks defense those years was due to his support and most of all the coach. The coach's effect on defensive ratings is always overlooked but there's no great defenses that don't have great defensive coaches and his supporting cast was Oak, Wilkins, and a bunch of scrubs in 1990.
On that end he was a beast out on the perimeter capable of sticking with smaller guys, super athletic and capable of blocking shots at their apex, the best PNR defender of all the Cs of that era (DRob, Hakeem, Deke, and a little later Zo) and he had fast hands capable of stopping drives. Can anyone actually say what he improved at under Pat Riley? I mean performances aren't consistent which is why I think he was better defensively in 89, 92, etc. but why believe Ewing was a meaningfully better defender in the mid 90s just because he finally got a supporting cast that was dominant on that end and a great defensive coach?
I think tons of people just aren't used to seeing young Ewing so they see the numbers and can't connect it to him being legitimately better, and assume he had to have improved later when in reality he lost a ton of his athleticism and really didn't add much to his game. 93/94 Ewing isn't locking down Edwards on the perimeter, forcing Isiah to pick up his dribble and rush a pass (causing a turnover) after a switch in the PNR, drawing a charge on Isiah all the way at the dotted line with his quick reaction and movement (it was called blocking but he's clearly there in time), stopping 3 on 1 fast breaks because no one wanted to go up with it with him around, and at the end of the game blocking Isiah's layup from the other side of the basket.
3. Dwight Howard (2011) Put simply, I think he is the best remaining defender in contention (perhaps depending on whether Thurmond qualifies as a contender, which he might), and while I have some issues with his offensive profile in the postseason and with that profile’s ability to translate dynamically across different teams, his intense rim gravity gives him a pretty fair floor. He was a top player on par with several already (or close to) admitted — 2009-11 Wade, 2009-11 Dirk, 2005-11 Nash — and has a theoretical framework of “Rudy Gobert with legitimate scoring pressure”. As with Ewing, also worth considering just how much timing affects our assessments: could the 2011 iteration of Dwight and a healthy Jameer Nelson have won the title in 2009?
MyUniBroDavis wrote:Some people are clearly far too overreliant on data without context and look at good all in one or impact numbers and get wowed by that rather than looking at how a roster is actually built around a player
1st ballot: Chris Paul '15 (>'08 > '13 > '14 > '09 > '16...[so many good seasons that are nearly on the same level]) I'm going with '15 over '08 because, while his athleticism/explosiveness is lesser by '15, I think his defense was more refined by '15 (and he hadn't yet slowed to the point where he was no longer an elite PG defender [like say by '20 or so]). His mid-range shooting was also more impeccable by '15 [FT shooting notably better, too]. His on/off splits and RAPM are also so notably better than '08 [though priors are no doubt drawing his PI RAPM in '08 down a bit]. Still, his impact metrics are just bonkers really straight thru '14-'16. He did miss a couple games in the playoffs in '15, which could be used against '08, though was healthy all thru the rs.
It's close, but I've always just felt '15 was his best all-around version.
2nd ballot: Charles Barkley '90 (> '93) I know many go for '93, but I like '90 best because he was still closer to his athletic peak and utilizing his inside game optimally, just on constant attack. '93 is probably his best playmaking season, and arguably one of his better defensive ones [though not any better than '90, I don't think].......but his increasing penchant for shooting in the mid-range [or from trey]---where he was merely mediocre---is a big strike against '93 compared to '90: he was the worst 2pt% season since his rookie year in '93, while also taking more 3's than ever before [hitting just 30.5% (and worse in the playoffs)], AND '93 also sees his [by far] lowest FTAr of his career to that point.
3rd ballot: '22 Joel Embiid (> '21) Honestly, on a per-minute basis, I think Embiid is a bit better/more valuable than anyone left on the table. It's simply the missed games/durability concerns (in BOTH rs and playoffs) combined with relatively restricted minutes that slides him just behind a couple players for me.
4th: '03 Tracy McGrady 5th: '90 Patrick Ewing (> '94 Ewing) 6th: '97 Karl Malone (> '94 > '98) --- I think his peak is slept on a bit, but certainly deserves to be in the conversation around here. Could even see moving it ahead of TMac and Ewing (though not into my top 3). Am reading some of the discussions, if not actually participating in them. Somewhere around here [with or just after these HM's] I'd put guys like Nash and Howard, too.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
One of the most complete (skill-set wise) point guard seasons in NBA History. When factoring scoring ability, playmaking and manipulation, passing ability, and defense - I only believe Jerry West to be more well-rounded on an all time scale (not equating those are two best point guards at their apex, for clarity).
Offensively, Paul didn't have as much bounce / ability to get to the basket as healthier Hornet variations of himself, but he was a far more poised perimeter and mid-range shooter (around 50% on MR shots, a level seen by likes of MJ, Dirk, Durant). Even with low frequency, Paul could post around 21 Points/75 with a TS mark 6.2% above league average. Some metrics view 08/09 as a better creator, but 15 Paul was no slouch in this regard with 11.3 Assists /75 with very favorable Turnover economy. Passiveness relative to other ATG playmakers like Magic/Nash/LBJ accounts for this, but CP3s manipulation, decision making, and "pick your poison" approach out of the MR makes him a top 4 playmaker in league history for my 2 cents.
Defensively, Paul - although not close to how DBPM may state his value - was a tenacious guard defender. He could play his man, the passing lanes (very high Steal rates on an all time scale), and defend in the post / take a charge occasionally.
Impact wise, many metrics paint Paul as best in the league or top 2 (behind a historic season from Stephen Curry) in the 2014-15 year. ESPN's RPM and Wins Added, 538's RAPTOR and WAR, and AuPM/APM via Back-picks all support this notion. Furthermore, Paul was the primary engine on a team offense which performed better (6.8 rORTG) than Curry and LBJ's engined teams respectively. In the playoffs, a lot may remember Paul's hamstring injury and the Clippers' collapse against the Harden-led Rockets in round 2. In spite of missing time and nursing his hamstring injury, Paul rose as a scorer with both volume and efficiency in the post-season (including against a very stellar Spurs defense).
Passiveness, durability, and monopolizing possessions may be gripes with CP3s game both within and outside of his peak, but I think the production on both sides of the floor, impacting offense globally (although overstated depending on parameter) and his ability (in theory) to serve as an ATG co-pilot and secondary offensive option for a championship team - as seen with flawed players such as Harden and Booker in his twilight - give him the nod for my "best remaining" vote.
I will be more concise for the other two and perhaps elaborate more moving down the peaks list contingent on the vote this round...
2. Steve Nash, 2006-07: Phoenix Suns
One of the most under-regarded offensive players in NBA History (in my view, Nash was comfortably the best offensive player in the league from 2005-07 and deserving of the MVP awards in this span) with a very complete game / checking all the boxes offensively, maybe aside from scoring volume. The box-score grossly undersells Nash's offensive impact and profile, and there is a reason --- why in Thinking Basketball, Ben Taylor utilizes Nash and the 7SOL Suns offenses as a case study for global offensive impact. Whether it is the APG at face value, Box Creation, PlayVal, or WOWY crunching - every sign points towards Nash being the engine and primary force behind some of the best team offenses in league history (+7.4 rORTG in 2007).
3. Tracy McGrady, 2002-03 Orlando Magic
While similar superstar perimeter players of the 2000s (the Wades and Bryants) receive a lot of credit, rightfully so, for carry-jobs / ATG floor raising efforts, 2003 MCGrady is right there himself - on/offs for all 3, both offensively and overall is one indicator of this. Just looking at the 2003 Magic Roster, it might have a "WOAT" level argument of support for casts around a star in their prime. Production wise, McGrady was a phenomenal scorer with one of the highest scoring rates of all time this particular season (31.5 Points/75). While his efficiency was slightly above league average, McGrady was very content on Mid-Range and 3-Pointers and less set on attacking the rim - puzzling giving his build and athleticism. Defensively, McGrady always had showed flashes and great signs as a wing-defender. With the load and offensive responsibility, he was good enough to be a clear positive but nothing really to write home about this year.
Regarding Chris Paul, meant to say "low rim frequency" around the points made on his scoring
Mogspan wrote:I think they see the super rare combo of high IQ with freakish athleticism and overrate the former a bit, kind of like a hot girl who is rather articulate being thought of as “super smart.” I don’t know kind of a weird analogy, but you catch my drift.
Proxy wrote:1. 2015 Chris Paul -Will probably actually add on him when he gets more traction, but I feel he deserves some mention. I have my reservations when it comes to his offensive ceiling in a PS setting(Think he was too conservative in his decisions on offense and had to basically run everything through himself in his head at least until Houston even with other capable decision makers on his team). Which with his injuries(and others), and in the end, being an only 6'0, limited, guard heavily overrelied on in these situations being part of reasons the Clippers constant PS collapses).
His value seems mostly overstated in the RS - his extreme ball dominance paired with the collinearity in Docs' lineups being one reason why(https://alexwainger.github.io/NBASubstitutionPatterns/), but he's still pretty impressive in pretty much any approach you try - just not looking like a t10 player ever rivaling Steph/Bron in their primes like some APM stuff would lead you to believe(http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm5?id=2031507149) IMO.
Though with his pretty strong offense(I find it somewhat hard to drop him below like a t20 ish offensive player at his peak with his success, at least New Orleans Paul), paired with very strong defense this year(clearly all-defense for a G IMO) I decided give him the edge over my upcoming picks for now even if I feel them to be more reliable offensively. The large defensive edge being why I chose Clippers Paul over New Orleans Paul(I don't see that version as much more than a slight positive vs this one being clearly all-D caliber for a guard to me), I think the offensive gap between those two versions is somewhat notable but really not all that big.
Leaning McGrady or Nash next, with probably some mix of Frazier, Moses, Karl, Barkley, Ewing, Mourning(need to think on this one and no shot I vote him in before Ewing), and Embiid after. Penny, Dwight, Harden, and Luka also in mind but I doubt I vote them in before anyone from that first group besides Zo rn. We'll see.
2. 2003 Tracy McGrady I guess the main comp for this season would be the floor raising efforts by players like Kobe(2006, Voted 19th), and Wade(2009, Voted 18th) - more similarily to Kobe(and somehow he ended up higher than him in one of the projects lol).
I don't think his situational value was really all that far off of those two, and I feel he was arguably in an even worse situation. I'd also say his game translated to the PS fairly well(seriously though, the expectations for some of those squads should be basically none), and there isn't really something I can point to from a skillset perspective that would cause me alot of concern in most runs, but the sample size for this Tmac is just sooo small - even right after in 2004 he was in an even worse situation and basically gave up on defense. Also by that point back problems started affecting his performance more and more.
RS to PS (2002 - 2005, unless i'm reading the multi year PS stuff wrong, but still just like 3 playoffs series) (via backpicks.com) 29.2 Inflation Adjusted Pts/75 -> 31.7 +1.6 rTS% -> +4.8% (also only a 6.9 Creation adjusted TOV% in the RS(!) 8.4 Box Creation -> +10.1 7.28 Passer Rating -> 6.3 +1.2 PlayVal -> +1.1 +1.1 ScoreVal -> +1.7
I will say that even though the numbers do paint the idea of him being a playoff riser, I think his performance in high leverage/clutch situations is kinda uninspiring relative to some of his peers(possibly due to fatigue), but reasons like that, the "flukiness" of the season, and the playoff sample size are all reasons that I think the gap between him and players like Kobe/Wade is fairly justified.
He is not the best offensive player remaining to me(Nash definitely and maybe Chuck, Penny, Harden, and Luka all better), but I view him as a positive impact player defensively in most cases so he slips past my next picks. (On a side note I think both and 2006 Kobe are somewhat underrated in that their defense on/off splits are hurt by teams slanting defensively when they leave the court).
3. 2007 Steve Nash Clearly the best offensive player remaining IMO and one of the most misrepresented players ever by his box score(I view him as comparable to how I view Oscar, Larry, Shaq, and Jokic - who were all voted in comfortably t20, and have arguments for at least being a t5 offensive peak ever) - both the highest level of individual impact as well as some of the most impressive team results ever(for ex: from 05 to 07 the Suns had a mindboggling +11.49 PS rORTG).
I'm not the biggest believer of his defensive quality(I don't really think he is all-time bad or anything, I peg him as a somewhat small but clear negative, prolly the worst out of any player i've voted so far), it was enough for me that I didn't vote him in earlier with the margins being so small. I'd be a bit surprised if he fell below 30 ish in this project with people familiar with his arguments. He's already been talked about to death so I don't think I need much more.
4. 1997 Karl Malone (1998, 1992) Honestly I could see the argument for him even being a top 20 ish regular season peak ever, but I generally have my gripes with him in a playoffs setting. Even with those though I don't think it's all too damning for Karl to drop him below here and I believe his impact translated better than his box numbers(more specifically scoring efficiency) would have you believe.
ElGee wrote:Using this post to piggy-back some thoughts off of:
-The notion of someone being a "postseason" performer is currently unsubstantiated. I've seen a small amount of evidence to suggest that a very small handful of Reggie players Miller can Reggie Miller raise their Reggie game in the Miller playoffs. But I've yet to see the study that demonstrates a statistically significant change. Malone has a huge TS% falloff relative to the other greats, and still, there's huge evidence that the Jazz wilted around him offensively and he simply took on a larger burden (e.g. the team ORtg correlates to his strongly, his teammates TOV% plummets in the PS, Stockton has a massive decline in postseason numbers).
-I would agree -- independent of some of the box numbers being thrown around -- that Malone is not as good of an offensive players (RS or PS) as West or Dirk or Barkley. But Malone is a mirror to one's rankings criteria. He will lose, by a small but clear amount, most peak-to-peak battles against every other player in this range. So what? If you value career value, this is literally irrelevant. I think this is where having a clear ranking rubric is paramount, not for anything to do with egos or fandom of rankings but so you are clearly communicating what exactly you are ranking.
Ironically, Dr. J is in the runoff with West and I would not quickly concede that Malone is a worse offensive player Erving. I think Erving's defense is phenomenal -- think peak LeBron as an athletic force -- but there are some issues with his offensive game that are not readily overcome with incredible slashing. Malone, OTOH, is probably the most misrepresented player statistically I can think of on real gm. Even from 92-98, he was a 27 ppg player at +1.8 TS% against 103.9 defenses in the PS. Malone played 85 prime games against sub-105 defenses, averaging 23/36 on 52.5% TS with 2.9 ast/36 and 2.4 tov. (+2.3 OBEV). Compare that to other all-timers:
Finally, while it's true that a 30 ppg/60% TS can be an average offensive player, a player can also be a 25 ppg/50% TS and be an elite offensive player. He does this with creation. With passing. With spacing. By bearing a role around teammates that sees him take more shots late in the clock, etc. By shooting more in the half-court (where expected pts/pos are lower). By not stopping the ball for no reason and by not passing the ball late in the clock when he's the best option. As a good example, in 2005, Tracy McGrady (an excellent creator himself) led a +6.3 offense (after the Wesley trade) while averaging 27 ppg and 53.2% TS, 0.3% over league average. Malone, of course, was a phenomenal passer.
The only bigs left on the board who could do more with that offense -- Dirk and Barkley -- give something back on defense anyway.
6. 1990 Charles Barkley (1989, 1993) Probably the 2nd best offensive peak remaining to me(after Nash). To be brief: asurd combination of scoring efficiency(partially inflated by ball stopping issues) and ridiculous rim pressure, all-time offensive rebounding, and one of the better big playmakers of all-time(I do think he peaked in this regard in Phoenix). Chuck averaged 24/75 on +8.7 rTS% in the PS from 1989 - 1991 with almost 5 offensive rebounds per 75. The pollack Sixers on/off numbers said he had about a +10 swing on offense(around neutral on defense) these 2 years in the RS, and they were probably his finest defensive ones as well(though I can't see any real reason to believe he was a net positive there - I'd say he was clearly a negative if anything for a power forward).
Philly those years had some pretty strong offenses(+5 in both regular seasons) but their defenses were just not that good, and they also didn't hold up completely on offense in the playoffs either.
Otoh later in Phoenix(I think he was a similar level player offensively)
Elgee wrote:After a statistical dip in 1992, Barkley was traded to Phoenix for All-Star scorer Jeff Hornacek and two rotation players. Philadelphia grew even worse, while Phoenix, already one of the best offensive teams in the league, was able to improve on its 1992 season with Barkley aboard. On offense, the Suns posted an elite +7 rORtg during 52 full-strength games. More impressively, in 32 games without all-league guard Kevin Johnson, but with Barkley, they engineered a +5.2 rORtg while playing at a 58-win pace.9 Barkley took more 3s than ever, and as a result, his offensive rebounding declined. However, the slight improvement in his passing largely made up for his drop in efficiency, as he set a career mark for estimated creation.
This team actually wasn't actually terrible defensively(above average actually, without a substantial change in his skillset or anything) and the floor raising effort here was extremely impressive(Phoenix's offenses actually held up in the PS, around +7.5 ish but their defenses where again abysmal, almost 3 points worse than average). I believe his defense is still not worse than the other "glass cannon players"(ex Harden, Luka, Penny), so with similar offensive quality he ends above them.
7. 2022 Joel Embiid(?) Will add later
Honestly he might even be better than those 3 above already, but the health thing is hard to balance. I may still slide him higher later but I might also decide to not put him on at all(not sure he's really been better in the PS than Luka for example), but he's GOOD.
Anyways, after these players i'm leaning some group of Frazier, Zo, Penny, Dwight, Harden, and Luka.
AEnigma wrote:Arf arf.
trex_8063 wrote:Calling someone a stinky turd is not acceptable. PLEASE stop doing that.
One_and_Done wrote:I mean, how would you feel if the NBA traced it's origins to an 1821 league of 3 foot dwarves who performed in circuses?
27. Steve Nash 2007. Engine of an amazing offense (+7.5 team rOrtg) and was a lights out shooter. He was 19.8 ppg on +11.3 rTS%.
28. 2007-08 Chris Paul. CP3 was an elite offensive initiator AND point of attack defender. Advanced stats love this season. 13.2 OWS, 4.6 DWS. Had a strong argument for MVP going up against a peak Kobe season.
29. James Harden 2019. Hard to pick a year. 18 v 19. Both were great. In 18-19 he was 36.2 pp75!!!! At +5.9 rTS%. Team rOtg was +5.1. Not to mention the assists he generated for teammates. Harden was the modern definition of a solar system offence.
rk2023 wrote:1. Chris Paul, 2014-2015: Los Angeles Clippers.
One of the most complete (skill-set wise) point guard seasons in NBA History. When factoring scoring ability, playmaking and manipulation, passing ability, and defense - I only believe Jerry West to be more well-rounded on an all time scale (not equating those are two best point guards at their apex, for clarity).
Offensively, Paul didn't have as much bounce / ability to get to the basket as healthier Hornet variations of himself, but he was a far more poised perimeter and mid-range shooter (around 50% on MR shots, a level seen by likes of MJ, Dirk, Durant). Even with low frequency, Paul could post around 21 Points/75 with a TS mark 6.2% above league average. Some metrics view 08/09 as a better creator, but 15 Paul was no slouch in this regard with 11.3 Assists /75 with very favorable Turnover economy. Passiveness relative to other ATG playmakers like Magic/Nash/LBJ accounts for this, but CP3s manipulation, decision making, and "pick your poison" approach out of the MR makes him a top 4 playmaker in league history for my 2 cents.
Defensively, Paul - although not close to how DBPM may state his value - was a tenacious guard defender. He could play his man, the passing lanes (very high Steal rates on an all time scale), and defend in the post / take a charge occasionally.
Impact wise, many metrics paint Paul as best in the league or top 2 (behind a historic season from Stephen Curry) in the 2014-15 year. ESPN's RPM and Wins Added, 538's RAPTOR and WAR, and AuPM/APM via Back-picks all support this notion. Furthermore, Paul was the primary engine on a team offense which performed better (6.8 rORTG) than Curry and LBJ's engined teams respectively. In the playoffs, a lot may remember Paul's hamstring injury and the Clippers' collapse against the Harden-led Rockets in round 2. In spite of missing time and nursing his hamstring injury, Paul rose as a scorer with both volume and efficiency in the post-season (including against a very stellar Spurs defense).
Passiveness, durability, and monopolizing possessions may be gripes with CP3s game both within and outside of his peak, but I think the production on both sides of the floor, impacting offense globally (although overstated depending on parameter) and his ability (in theory) to serve as an ATG co-pilot and secondary offensive option for a championship team - as seen with flawed players such as Harden and Booker in his twilight - give him the nod for my "best remaining" vote.
I will be more concise for the other two and perhaps elaborate more moving down the peaks list contingent on the vote this round...
2. Steve Nash, 2006-07: Phoenix Suns
One of the most under-regarded offensive players in NBA History (in my view, Nash was comfortably the best offensive player in the league from 2005-07 and deserving of the MVP awards in this span) with a very complete game / checking all the boxes offensively, maybe aside from scoring volume. The box-score grossly undersells Nash's offensive impact and profile, and there is a reason --- why in Thinking Basketball, Ben Taylor utilizes Nash and the 7SOL Suns offenses as a case study for global offensive impact. Whether it is the APG at face value, Box Creation, PlayVal, or WOWY crunching - every sign points towards Nash being the engine and primary force behind some of the best team offenses in league history (+7.4 rORTG in 2007).
3. Tracy McGrady, 2002-03 Orlando Magic
While similar superstar perimeter players of the 2000s (the Wades and Bryants) receive a lot of credit, rightfully so, for carry-jobs / ATG floor raising efforts, 2003 MCGrady is right there himself - on/offs for all 3, both offensively and overall is one indicator of this. Just looking at the 2003 Magic Roster, it might have a "WOAT" level argument of support for casts around a star in their prime. Production wise, McGrady was a phenomenal scorer with one of the highest scoring rates of all time this particular season (31.5 Points/75). While his efficiency was slightly above league average, McGrady was very content on Mid-Range and 3-Pointers and less set on attacking the rim - puzzling giving his build and athleticism. Defensively, McGrady always had showed flashes and great signs as a wing-defender. With the load and offensive responsibility, he was good enough to be a clear positive but nothing really to write home about this year.
Regarding Chris Paul, meant to say "low rim frequency" around the points made on his scoring
fwiw (as you appear new to the project), if the consensus on Paul is '08 [or other season], your vote [for '15 Paul] will NOT transfer to another season for him unless you specify (e.g. '15 > '08 > '13 > '09 > '16....), or whatever. See project thread [linked in OP] for summary of methodology.
Same with Nash (e.g. '07 > '05 > '06 > '10).
With TMac, yeah.....there's not much other than '03 that's worth consideration here.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
1. 2008 Chris Paul - Chris Paul played at a MVP level throughout the entire season. Even though he didn't end up winning the award I still believe he probably should've and would at the very least also have been a deserving candidate. While CP3 now has a reputation for coming up short in the play-offs, his 2008 campaign is far from that. It was his first ever post-season and in his first game he had 35/3/10/4/1 on great efficiency, while being a +16 against the Dallas Mavericks with prime Dirk. Even when he had lesser scoring performances you could always count on double digits assists with minimal turnovers and good defense for his size.
1b. 2015 Chris Paul
2. 1961 Elgin Baylor - At this point the margins are becoming extremely small in my eyes. There are a bunch of other guys like Nash, Harden, Barry and Barkley that I could've went with as well but I'm a bit surprised Baylor isn't getting more traction yet. Of course Pettit and Mikan are higher on all-time lists so it isn't a surprise they come up earlier here as well but for a one year peak I'd take early 60s Baylor over them. This season is pretty similar to Harden's 18-20 period but despite Baylor's reputation for unefficient offense later in his career, he's actually a more consistent scorer in the early 60s than Harden ever was in the post-season. In 62 his play-offs were arguably even better than the year before but he missed too much time in the regular season.
3. 2019 James Harden - I think Harden does not get enough credit for how consistent he was in the post-season in 2019 (and 2020). In his other top years like 2015 and 2018 he had some incredible stinkers but in 2019 and 2020 he managed to turn even his worst shooting nights into solid overall performances. Overall we're now getting to a group of players who were MVP level in the regular season but didn't quite have the post-season runs to put an explanation mark after it. We've still got Barry but I'm not as high on his individual performance in a pretty weak season so he drops behind a couple of non-title winners for me, there is Mikan as well but I can't get over just how weak that era was and how Mikan fell off pretty quickly even if that was due to injuries. I've got Nash, Barkley and Pettit next up. I'll have to take a good look at AD as well if he doesn't get voted in this round.
1992-93 Charles Barkley (HM: 1989-90) Ultimately went with Barkley because I like his playoff "resilience" (I'm honestly starting to hate this term though) much more than the next group of guys I have on my ballot outside of maybe Dirk (Malone, D-Rob, CP3). If not for Jordan going supernova in the Finals, I think the perception of Barkley and his peak would be closer to Top-10 than Top-20. I'm particularly impressed by the fact that the Suns offense didn't have any drop-off (113.3 vs. 113.0 RS/PS) against a very good defensive Bulls team and unfavorable forward matchup (Scottie & Horace). It's also good to get some lineup data of old Barkley post-1996 that shows us he was still anchoring good offenses (+12.0 on/off his age-34 and 35 seasons). My alternate season (1990) ironically also ended due to an insane postseason performance by Jordan (41/7/6/4 on 61.6% TS) which is kind of a microcosm of his career, and why I think his is one of the very few exceptions where I think the lack of championship success is forgiving.
2007-08 Chris Paul (HM: 2014-15) I'm firmly in the camp of having no issue quantifying an under age-24 season as an ATG player's peak (I anticipate voting for 2014-15 Davis soon), and 2008 Paul might be the most convincing example of this. Perfect intersection of young, athletic CP3's scoring prowess and efficient play-making volume (22 PPG on +3.5 TS, nearly 5/1 AST/TO ratio), while elevating a collection of talent that had no business being a Top-5 offense without his floor generalship (Chandler, West, Peja) to the tune of +15.2 points-per-100 in the RS and +14.3 in the postseason. Only nit-pick that caused me to consider Clippers Paul instead, is that his defense wasn't nearly as good in New Orleans, but considering I don't weigh PG defense as super impactful, and they were a Top-7 defense anyways, it's not much of a factor for me. Besting prime Dirk and taking the Duncan Spurs to a Game 7 definitely scores him some brownie points. I just feel that even at 22-23 years old, this was Paul's most complete season and what honestly should have won him the MVP over Kobe (Lakers literally won just one more game than the Hornets).
2020-21 Joel Embiid (HM: 2021-22) This might be the lowest sample size peak I vote for in this project (62-games total RS/PS combined), but on a per-game basis I think it's tough for me to choose a lesser player just because they played slightly more (I'd just argue that in an 82-game season he would have played 70+ combined games anyways). While his defense wasn't as stout as previous years, just an absolute offensive carry-job (+10.5 points per-100 RS, +17.6 PS). And from a pure shot-making perspective, this might have been the best ever performance from a 7-foot Center we've seen in the modern era of shot-tracking (33 points per-36 on 63.6% TS). A near 50% mid-range shooter plus 37% from 3 stacks up with almost any prime Durant season. After being a career low-40s midrange and low-30s from 3PT distance guy, Embiid has been damn near automatic the last two years. Ultimately couldn't take 2022 even though he played more games, because I just can't handwave the borderline atrocious Heat series away.
As i have said before i dont think there is a right answer to the mikan question of how to evaluate a player who dominated nba early stages when talent pool, game advancement, rules and segregation made it such a different league
But i feel like if we are gonna include him in the project he deserves a placing that more closely indicates how much he dominated the league when he played, otherwise i would prefer to keep pre shot clock seasons out of the project
2-2007 steve nash (2006)
I pick 2007 over 2006 because oh his rather absurd spurs serie but i think either year is a great pick, 2006 has the most impressive regular season leading the suns to a great offense even without amare
I have talked about nash before in this post to explain why i think he may be a (very marginally) better offensive player than curry
Going more in depth. I think criticisms on nash ball dominance or "heliocentrism" are way overstated
Botg because he dominated the ball a lot less than people imagine (people seem to imagine he must have "ball hogged" as much as a luka currently) and because suns offense was way more dinamic than people (and me before rewstching nash suns games) remember it like
If you watch nash suns they are sort of like a reverse motion system.
Instead of having a "static" guy on ball while everyone else cuts/screens the way a team like the warriors do. Nash pushes the pace and makes quick decisions to drive/shot/pass....and he often cancels mid action to improvise somethingh else as everyone else reacts to the advabtage he created
Think running into a leaning jump forward jumper (like a floater but in a 2-handed jumpshot motion) and either hitting it smoothly or throwing a perfect dime on the jump to a cutter who just saw nash do start his jumper and started cutting just in case he gets a pass
Or driving past a big, stopping to freeze the defend, put the big in jail with his back and doing a hand off 2 meters off the rim to a running stoudamire who quicly realized the chance for a hand off dunk
He was not -quite- curry/reggie off ball movement wise but even though he was a on-ball player he was almost always running until he gave up the ball
you rarely saw him walk up the ball slowly or run a slow set. He would always be applying constant pressure in some way and making consistently great quick reads for passing and scoring off the chaos he created
The motion thingh i mention is because diaw,richardson, grant hill, barbosa, marion amd even (and perhaps surprisingly, mainly) stoudamire would "read and react" to nash quickly and cut/spot timely and accurstely to nash moves and then do quick decisions to shoot/pass or drive after receiving his passes
The whole thingh is just so smooth and contradicts the idea that on-ball quarterbacks turn role players into nothingh but lob or 3-point finishers. The suns are a constant moving machine around nash on-ball play in a similar way warriors best offense is a constant movement machine around curry off ball threath
Where a chris paul is like peyton manning running perfectly executed sets, nash is more like a lamar jackson or patrick mahomes. He can run, pass, run pass and you never know which is coming as he is always moving.
That is the best way to describe nash, he is always moving, he just does it more on ball than curry and more than your usual ball handler
You dont create the arguably goat offense relative to era with "just" a 6 foot guard playing pick and roll as everyonr else spots up. Nash is not big enough to just do a lebron through teams and get to the paint to score nonstop. He is a bit too small for that. Instead he achieves this by creating openings consistently that all of his twammates or himself later in the play can exploit to score
Where lebron and curry always "start with white" so to speak. Aka curry and lebron sort of compromise the defense before the play even starts cause their shooting or driving threat is so big that teams react preventively to take that option away. They always play chess with 1 move advantage as far as compromising the defense goes
Nash instead doesnt cause either effect (maybe if he shot mpre 3's today?) As teams didnt guard his 3 as tightly as curry's and he obviously is not lebron going to the paint.
Instead he maximizes his skillset to the max exploiting every small advantage by pushing the pace, using his handles and size to sneak in the paint and put the defense in an awkward position to stop his passing and because he is a more gifted passer/decision maker than curry and even bron. He makes it work. He does thinghs then reacts mid move to the defense reaction and finds somethingh ovet and over.
His motor/agressiveness may be low key as valuable as his mind, handles or jumper. And all these 4 thinghs combine for a perfect package that wouldnt work nearly as well if only one of the 4 thinghs was lesser
I think both are incresible offensive players who created absurd results when they got a coach (D'Antoni and kerr) who had a revolutionary approach based on their skillset.
But of the two it is nash who has the overall better offensive results relative to era and resiliency in my opinion. I suspect because he is faster at adapting to the defense and finding the best way to change the team approach than curry
I think he is a negative in defense due to his small size and frame making him a permanently (negative) mismatch on any player he guards but he ammeliorates this with good effort and rotations
3-2019 james harden (2018, 2020)
one of the best one man army offense players in league history. Notable playoffs drop but he drop down from very high regular season highs. At his best was able to be both an all time level "floor raiser" and combine well results wise with another ballhandlers and offensive co star in more shared roles
I think he is a ok enough defender in that he is not the best off ball defender but holds his own 1vs1 and has surprising ability on "mismatches" in the post against bigger players which has tactical usefulness
My biggest worry i suppose is that unlike other helios (nash, lebron to a lesser degree paul) his team offensive results just seem to fall a notch below and he seems to take a bigger hit in the playoffs. Still his durability in his iron man years puts him over paul for me
As i have said before i dont think there is a right answer to the mikan question of how to evaluate a player who dominated nba early stages when talent pool, game advancement, rules and segregation made it such a different league
But i feel like if we are gonna include him in the project he deserves a placing that more closely indicates how much he dominated the league when he played, otherwise i would prefer to keep pre shot clock seasons out of the project
2-2007 steve nash (2006)
I pick 2007 over 2006 because oh his rather absurd spurs serie but i think either year is a great pick, 2006 has the most impressive regular season leading the suns to a great offense even without amare
I have talked about nash before in this post to explain why i think he may be a (very marginally) better offensive player than curry
Going more in depth. I think criticisms on nash ball dominance or "heliocentrism" are way overstated
Botg because he dominated the ball a lot less than people imagine (people seem to imagine he must have "ball hogged" as much as a luka currently) and because suns offense was way more dinamic than people (and me before rewstching nash suns games) remember it like
If you watch nash suns they are sort of like a reverse motion system.
Instead of having a "static" guy on ball while everyone else cuts/screens the way a team like the warriors do. Nash pushes the pace and makes quick decisions to drive/shot/pass....and he often cancels mid action to improvise somethingh else as everyone else reacts to the advabtage he created
Think running into a leaning jump forward jumper (like a floater but in a 2-handed jumpshot motion) and either hitting it smoothly or throwing a perfect dime on the jump to a cutter who just saw nash do start his jumper and started cutting just in case he gets a pass
Or driving past a big, stopping to freeze the defend, put the big in jail with his back and doing a hand off 2 meters off the rim to a running stoudamire who quicly realized the chance for a hand off dunk
He was not -quite- curry/reggie off ball movement wise but even though he was a on-ball player he was almost always running until he gave up the ball
you rarely saw him walk up the ball slowly or run a slow set. He would always be applying constant pressure in some way and making consistently great quick reads for passing and scoring off the chaos he created
The motion thingh i mention is because diaw,richardson, grant hill, barbosa, marion amd even (and perhaps surprisingly, mainly) stoudamire would "read and react" to nash quickly and cut/spot timely and accurstely to nash moves and then do quick decisions to shoot/pass or drive after receiving his passes
The whole thingh is just so smooth and contradicts the idea that on-ball quarterbacks turn role players into nothingh but lob or 3-point finishers. The suns are a constant moving machine around nash on-ball play in a similar way warriors best offense is a constant movement machine around curry off ball threath
Where a chris paul is like peyton manning running perfectly executed sets, nash is more like a lamar jackson or patrick mahomes. He can run, pass, run pass and you never know which is coming as he is always moving.
That is the best way to describe nash, he is always moving, he just does it more on ball than curry and more than your usual ball handler
You dont create the arguably goat offense relative to era with "just" a 6 foot guard playing pick and roll as everyonr else spots up. Nash is not big enough to just do a lebron through teams and get to the paint to score nonstop. He is a bit too small for that. Instead he achieves this by creating openings consistently that all of his twammates or himself later in the play can exploit to score
Where lebron and curry always "start with white" so to speak. Aka curry and lebron sort of compromise the defense before the play even starts cause their shooting or driving threat is so big that teams react preventively to take that option away. They always play chess with 1 move advantage as far as compromising the defense goes
Nash instead doesnt cause either effect (maybe if he shot mpre 3's today?) As teams didnt guard his 3 as tightly as curry's and he obviously is not lebron going to the paint.
Instead he maximizes his skillset to the max exploiting every small advantage by pushing the pace, using his handles and size to sneak in the paint and put the defense in an awkward position to stop his passing and because he is a more gifted passer/decision maker than curry and even bron. He makes it work. He does thinghs then reacts mid move to the defense reaction and finds somethingh ovet and over.
His motor/agressiveness may be low key as valuable as his mind, handles or jumper. And all these 4 thinghs combine for a perfect package that wouldnt work nearly as well if only one of the 4 thinghs was lesser
I think both are incresible offensive players who created absurd results when they got a coach (D'Antoni and kerr) who had a revolutionary approach based on their skillset.
But of the two it is nash who has the overall better offensive results relative to era and resiliency in my opinion. I suspect because he is faster at adapting to the defense and finding the best way to change the team approach than curry
I think he is a negative in defense due to his small size and frame making him a permanently (negative) mismatch on any player he guards but he ammeliorates this with good effort and rotations
3-2019 james harden (2018, 2020)
one of the best one man army offense players in league history. Notable playoffs drop but he drop down from very high regular season highs. At his best was able to be both an all time level "floor raiser" and combine well results wise with another ballhandlers and offensive co star in more shared roles
I think he is a ok enough defender in that he is not the best off ball defender but holds his own 1vs1 and has surprising ability on "mismatches" in the post against bigger players which has tactical usefulness
My biggest worry i suppose is that unlike other helios (nash, lebron to a lesser degree paul) his team offensive results just seem to fall a notch below and he seems to take a bigger hit in the playoffs. Still his durability in his iron man years puts him over paul for me
Been watching footage of him in 1990 when he was at his physical peak....and is dissapointing even for the low expectatives i went with
He has this awkward combination of lacking the timing to be a help rim protector like wade while playing the pf position which would normally go to a player with rim protection ability
His rotations whether to help at the rim or off ball reacting to a cut or curl were awful very often
The issue is not as bad as with a bad defensive center. But is still notable. And he is too bad at navigating screens or reacting to off ball movements to play the 3 effectively in defense
Honestly i thought he was a passable 1 on 1 defender with lenght and athletism making him potentially switchable defender and his defensive reboundign was good (not nearly as much as his offensive rebounding)
But otherwise i am unsure if defensively i would rather have him over -steve nash- who is a motr exploitable small body but is easier to hide and much better at off ball defense
He is a offense monster wirh his rebounding, passing and scoring....but the defense is even worse than i expected.... i am gonna seriously be looking into players like reggie miller and scottie pippen over him and i didnt expect that at all coming into this project
Is not that his defense is not good, is that is actively a clear negativr from what i looked
1.90 Ewing I'm not very familiar with Ewing overall, but I do know he was a historically great defensive anchor who anchored some of the greatest defenses ever. AEngima's posts in the previous thread are largely the reason for this vote, as he showed how 1990 for Ewing was actually a legitimate outlier for him due to an improved offensive skillset while still maintaining his athleticism, and I suspect that the better defensive results in 93 and 94 are more due to roster construction and coaching than Ewing himself. In a general sense, I like his skillset quite a bit, a legitimate top-10 defensive anchor ever who also had outside shooting touch and athleticism to play in the pick and roll. It plays well in many teams in any era, and as such I'm unexpectedly voting for Ewing here.
2. 07 Nash Nash is probably a top-5ish offensive player ever with outlier impact numbers and team results. He was an incredible passer and shooter, top 10 all time in both (at worst). His results seem relatively resilient in the postseason and he did so on 2 pretty different teams. I would say Harden is probably my next pick but I'm not sold at all on that, and I like Nash's offensive significantly more than Hardens.
3. 19 Harden Very difficult choice, really didn't know who to go with. Ultimately going with Harden because this year his playoff performance was better, specifically against the Warriors. While I'm not a huge fan of his postseason resiliency and general playoff consistency, he was incredible in the regular season and still very good in this playoffs to the point where I like him more than anyone else here. Dwight is the other major player I'm looking at here but I think Harden pushing the Warriors as hard as he did is a little more impressive than anything Dwight did.
falcolombardi wrote:He is a offense monster wirh his rebounding, passing and scoring....but the defense is even worse than i expected.... i am gonna seriously be looking into players like reggie miller and scottie pippen over him and i didnt expect that at all coming into this project
Is not that his defense is not good, is that is actively a clear negativr from what i looked
That's going too far I think. Reggie wasn't a good defender either, and Pippen's offense is too limited to take him over someone like Barkley. Not really a Barkley fan in general, but he still led some great offenses and was a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs.
falcolombardi wrote:He is a offense monster wirh his rebounding, passing and scoring....but the defense is even worse than i expected.... i am gonna seriously be looking into players like reggie miller and scottie pippen over him and i didnt expect that at all coming into this project
Is not that his defense is not good, is that is actively a clear negativr from what i looked
That's going too far I think. Reggie wasn't a good defender either, and Pippen's offense is too limited to take him over someone like Barkley. Not really a Barkley fan in general, but he still led some great offenses and was a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs.
I would rather have miller in the sg spot than barkley in the pf spot defensively wise
And i think in the playoffs reggie offense is a lot closer to barkley than people think imo. Close as a scorer. Less of a creator but with ridiculous spacing as a trade off
Pippen is legitemely a game changer defensively where i believe barkley is a bit of dead weight which closes the offense gap a lot
falcolombardi wrote:He is a offense monster wirh his rebounding, passing and scoring....but the defense is even worse than i expected.... i am gonna seriously be looking into players like reggie miller and scottie pippen over him and i didnt expect that at all coming into this project
Is not that his defense is not good, is that is actively a clear negativr from what i looked
That's going too far I think. Reggie wasn't a good defender either, and Pippen's offense is too limited to take him over someone like Barkley. Not really a Barkley fan in general, but he still led some great offenses and was a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs.
I would rather have miller in the sg spot than barkley in the pf spot defensively wise
And i think in the playoffs reggie offense is a lot closer to barkley than people think imo. Close as a scorer. Less of a creator but with ridiculous spacing as a trade off
There's also Barkley's offensive rebounding to factor in [obviously a sizable edge over Miller]. And in the same vein of thought that says we generally expect more from our PF's defensively than we do from our SG's [you sort of implied that in the first sentence above], we generally expect less offensively from the PF position [than we do from the SG], too.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
No-more-rings wrote:That's going too far I think. Reggie wasn't a good defender either, and Pippen's offense is too limited to take him over someone like Barkley. Not really a Barkley fan in general, but he still led some great offenses and was a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs.
I would rather have miller in the sg spot than barkley in the pf spot defensively wise
And i think in the playoffs reggie offense is a lot closer to barkley than people think imo. Close as a scorer. Less of a creator but with ridiculous spacing as a trade off
There's also Barkley's offensive rebounding to factor in [obviously a sizable edge over Miller]. And in the same vein of thought that says we generally expect more from our PF's defensively than we do from our SG's [you sort of implied that in the first sentence above], we generally expect less offensively from the PF position [than we do from the SG], too.
Barkley offensive rebounding is in great part already "accounted" for in his scoring and creation ( a lot of his scoring and assists come off ofensive rebounds)
but yeah, offensove rebounding is a edge over reggie still which is the main reason why i still would take barkley over reggie offensively
I am as high as it gets on barkley offensive rebounding. Is just that i think -most- (not all) of it alreadt is valued in his efficient scoring and excellent creation
As for the last point...i dont think is nearly as simetrical. Is true that shootinh guards usually are bettet offensively than power forwards. But you can rely offensively in a star big or in a star guard.
Barkley at the 4 heavily limits your defensive ceiling in a position on the court where a goof defensive player can have a big impact. You are sacrificing a fair amount of defense to get charles offense
You are not sacrificing any defense by having and average-ish defensive shooting guard playing shooting guard.
I think both are fairly portablr ofgensively with other talent (barkley rebounding vs reggir off ball game and spacing) but barkley at the 4 is a bigget sacrifice of potential defense even if both werr equally weak on D (i think miller is better)
Voters typically defer to accomplishment and in-league status (which tends to look to point production), and that has always secured Barkley against guys like Penny or Pippen, but I do not see it as an obvious advantage independent of that type of reasoning. Pippen was also the clear second best piece on arguably the greatest teams in league history and showed at his peak he could drive 3-SRS teams pretty much on his own. Barkley is better on offence, sure, but funnily enough Pippen’s 1994 Bulls showed better offensive resilience in the postseason than any of Barkley’s solo act 76ers years, and that was in tandem with being arguably the best non-big defender in league history.
Barkley has an argument as a floor raiser… but then again, are the rosters he lifted in 1990 and in 1993 without KJ that much more impressive than Pippen’s lift without Jordan (or Penny’s without Shaq)? Barkley had a better/longer prime… maybe sustained his peak-ish play longer too… (1989-93 versus 1994-97)… but was certainly tougher to build around. Inserting a forward onto a random team, I might prefer Pippen’s versatility.
Perhaps much like Moses joining the 76ers, there is a disconnect with how good those pre-trade teams were. 6.8 SRS in 1989, 7.1 in 1990, 6.5 in 1991, 5.7 in 1992. They were a flawed roster which never really pushed for a title, so to an extent those SRS numbers are overstated, and adding Barkley made them more of a true contender — gave the 1993 Bulls a good push, and then lost in seven games twice to Hakeem’s Rockets — but again what is the real distinction relative to other options. Well, I suppose the distinction is that “first option” status. Pippen and Penny only had that briefly… but then again, the same is true of Westbrook.
Reggie does feel like a tougher case. He has elite postseason offensive results. That and his “port” are pretty much the entire argument, but I have read plenty of worse voting justifications. He too led his team to the Finals, losing in six games to what this board consistently marks as a top three peak. And that was a few years removed from his true peak. Led his team to a game 7 against Jordan. No MVP love, no towering box score production, but the accomplishments are there. I would rather have Penny. Luka, despite the oddly underwhelming impact. Again, maybe if voters stick around long enough to push for an expansion to fifty rather than to forty.
MyUniBroDavis wrote:Some people are clearly far too overreliant on data without context and look at good all in one or impact numbers and get wowed by that rather than looking at how a roster is actually built around a player
DraymondGold wrote:Expanding my ballot a bit, since there's more uncertainty the closer the peaks get together: 1. 1949 Mikan (1950/1951) 2. 2014 Chris Paul (2015, 2009) 3. 2007 Steve Nash (2006, 2005) Edit: 4. 1998 Karl Malone (1997, 1993/1992) Edit: 5. 1990 Charles Barkley (1993, 1989, 1991)
Mikan: He's clearly the most dominant of anyone here by any (few) stats we have, and by any (limited) film we have [see my previous conversation on the topic]. The big question is how much to discount him for his competition or from a "goodness" perspective. I'm honestly not sure what the answer is. I put him here, approximately around the boundary between two Tiers of peaks. I think there'll definitely be some arbitrariness in when he gets voted in though. I just wish we had more info on him!
Paul: I suspect he'll be given the Robinson treatment. His regular season impact is clearly just as good as anyone here. The concern for him is playoffs. And while I think the constant harping about him as a "choker" is overrated (and often health related), he does show a decline in the film and in the stats (BPM/PIPM/AuPM) even in the playoffs where he's relatively healthy. Add some scalability concerns, and he gets discounted a bit, but stays above those who seem to be a small tier below him.
Edit for Paul: in a parallel thread, people are looking at relative Offensive Rating when a player's on the court since 1997/2001ish. 2015 Paul's on-court rORTG peak is the 3rd best peak, in the same tier as 2016/2017 Curry or 2005/2007 Nash.That's crazy good offense! His 2018 rating is also top 10, and his 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016 ratings are all also in the upper echelon.
In this metric (which is just one metric that could benefit from more context, but still), Paul seems to come out ahead offensively over Harden and even Dirk, Shaq, and LeBron (in the same tier as Durant, below Nash/Curry). It's regular season-only, so this might not assuage the postseason concerns, but it reinforces just how good Paul is in the regular season. Give Paul clearly better defense over Harden (who also isn't the better postseason performer, health aside) or Nash (who's a larger negative on defense), and Paul's case over the other guards starts to build. Source: Sprees Opening post and my post (#19) in the on-court rORTG thread (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2222668).
I also think Nash is an easy top eight shooter in the history of the sport, with a decent claim to second. His shot and shot percentages are every bit as good as anyone’s, they maintain into the postseason, and he created those shots for himself far more than any other top shooter did. This was a massive advantage in his time, but with the spacing revolution I think his gravity would take another leap. (Note: I am not suggesting he would be a regular high volume scorer in the modern league, which is a claim I think grossly misinterprets the value and intent of his playstyle; simply going more to his playoff volume and increasing the proportion of threes taken would already represent a notable jump and would even further strain defences that have become hyper-aware of the effects of that type of spacing.)
