1. We have a pool of Nominees you are to choose from for your Induction (main) vote to decide who next gets on the List. Choose your top vote, and if you'd like to, a second vote which will be used for runoff purposes if needed.
2. Nomination vote now works the same way.
3. You must include reasoning for each of your votes, though you may re-use your old words in a new post.
4. Post as much as they want, but when you do your official Vote make it really clear to me at the top of that post that that post is your Vote. And if you decide to change your vote before the votes are tallied, please edit that same Vote post.
5. Anyone may post thoughts, but please only make a Vote post if you're on the Voter list. If you'd like to be added to the project, please ask in the General Thread for the project. Note that you will not be added immediately to the project now. If you express an interest during the #2 thread, for example, the earliest you'll be added to the Voter list is for the #3.
5. I'll tally the votes when I wake up the morning after the Deadline (I don't care if you change things after the official Deadline, but once I tally, it's over). For this specific Vote, if people ask before the Deadline, I'll extend it.
Here's the list of the Voter Pool as it stands right now (and if I forgot anyone I approved, do let me know):
Spoiler:
AEnigma Ambrose ceilng raiser ceoofkobefans Clyde Frazier Colbinii cupcakesnake Doctor MJ Dooley DQuinn1575 Dr Positivity DraymondGold Dutchball97 eminence f4p falcolombardi Fundamentals21 Gibson22 HeartBreakKid homecourtloss iggymcfrack LA Bird JimmyFromNz lessthanjake ljspeelman Lou Fan Moonbeam Narigo OhayoKD OldSchoolNoBull One_and_Done penbeast0 rk2023 ShaqAttac Taj FTW Tim Lehrbach trelos6 trex_8063 ty 4191 ZeppelinPage
Alright, the Nominees for you to choose among for the next slot on the list (in alphabetical order):
Does anyone, by chance, have data regarding how many extra shot attempts and/or rebounds Mikan’s Lakers had compared to the rest of their league? Would be quite helpful, as I try to think a few things through.
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.
cupcakesnake wrote:For the people debating Kobe>West due to era related concerns, who are saying 60s guards can't be ranked over 2000s guards... Where do you rank guys like West and Oscar? What's the cutoff, and how many modern guards do you rank ahead of them based off the same criteria? Is it a tiebreaker type of criteria, or much more important than that?
I think the specific question really only applies to ceiling raiser.
But more generally, I share Positivity’s sentiments that Kobe matches or exceeds all their accomplishments while playing in a better league. To Colbinii’s more facetious question, that is not really true of Dwyane Wade, who had four all-time seasons and a few more seasons as a star but ultimately does not have the career body of work to keep up. Nash similar, although I like his extended prime more than Wade’s (because of how quickly Wade broke down) and think his enduring legacy was hurt by bad luck with teammate availability in the postseason.
Harden has solid longevity, but unlike Wade and Nash, I am not sure he has ever been a true top three player to compete for a title (best bets are 2019 or 2020 when one of the two guys usually locked above him were out of contention with injury, but even then you still need to deal with Kawhi and Giannis’s ascendancy). Same issue with Paul, although he has several extra years over Harden. Durant has fewer years than Paul and because of missed seasons in 2015 and 2020 is not far off from Harden, but he accomplished a bit more and at least had a few years where he was a top two or three player.
In the peaks project I talked about how I am not confident that prime Julius Erving was definitively better at basketball than someone like prime Jimmy Butler today… but what has Jimmy Butler really accomplished in this league? Was he the second best player of a decade the way Erving was? Multiple years as a top player? Fifteen years of some level of star play? Consistently leading deep postseason runs against tough competition? No? Okay, so he is down in the 60-80s and Erving is securely in the top twenty. But if someone comes in and says, “I am not voting for Elgin Baylor or Clyde Drexler over Jimmy Butler,” then I will probably have little to dispute even if that is not my personal approach to this project.
I honestly do think there will be a lot of healthier discussion with Kobe off the board now, he’s just such a polarizing player, and it’s hard to avoid overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative personal feelings getting in the way of objective discussion sometimes.
I think Oscar/West/Dirk/Mikan are all very reasonable choices here. Robinson’s longevity is pretty weak imo, hard for me to see him this high. I’m surprised K. Malone hasn’t been nominated yet…his longevity as a star player is insane, and he won MVP with Bulls Jordan still around, so his peak isn’t too shabby either. I think he’s got a good case to just be voted in at this point, let alone nominated.
EDIT: and the great Dr. J isn’t nominated yet either! Lol, so many awesome players that you could make a great case for, including more modern guys like Paul, Nash, Wade, and Harden.
Dirk vs Drob vs West vs Oscar. Interesting enough. I really want D-Rob to come ahead, but I think I need to put some thought into it. Dirk's ratings have spiked up since his Top 30 days. West and Oscar have generally been Top 15 picks for a long time now.
VOTE: Oscar Robertson Alternate Vote: George Mikan
NOMINATE: Julius Erving AltNom: Karl Malone
Will edit in my previous comments on Oscar and West, but easy to see what this #14 result will be.
AEnigma wrote:Oscar for his career played an extra five thousand minutes. Relatedly, for as much is made of Oscar missing the playoffs in the eastern conference for four years of his career, West of course was also injured and unable to contribute at all to his team’s postseason hopes in 1967, 1971, and 1974 (Oscar did miss the end of the 1972 conference finals, but you know, he at least stayed healthy enough need to reach that point).
I could see West if he had some Hakeem-esque tendency to defeat superior teams, but he did not; if anything, Oscar is the one with the best upset / individual win — but Oscar also has the worst loss (1962 Pistons), so maybe that evens out. I could have an easier time seeing West if he looked like the more impactful player, but he does not. I could have an easier time seeing West if he looked demonstrably more “productive”, but to me at least he does not when adjusting for the fact Oscar immediately was confronted with the best teams while West tended to avoid them best teams until the Finals, where he also lost (if he beat the teams that beat Oscar, the conversation has a lot more room to shift). And on that note, I could have an easier time seeing West if he had won more, or more clearly won as a leader, but he did not.
DQuinn1575 wrote:Since the argument is West vs Oscar, I guess we are lucky in that they played against each other. https://stathead.com/tiny/jtzzZ 87 games - Oscar 28.5 to West 27.7 For games with stat totals West: 53.5%TS/5.8 reb/7.0 asst Oscar: 53.7%TS/7.2 reb/9.6 asst So Oscar outscored West with better TS%, outrebounded him and has a lot more assists. Head-to-head 87 games. Oscar played 20% more RS minutes than West, due to West playing 118 less games- so Oscar winds up with 189.1 winshares versus West's 162.6
West is lauded for his superior post season play. In 14 years, he only had one win against a team with a better record: 2 wins less than the 1970 Hawks, in a season where Wilt only played 12 games. So he really never beat a better team in the playoffs. Mostly they were able to make the finals because he had a better team the the Royals, and he played in the conference opposite Boston.
Oscar’s best win without Kareem was in 1963 against the 3.8 SRS Syracuse Nationals (2nd in the league), coached by Alex Hannum. He was a 2.5 SRS underdog, with a six win disparity actual and expected.
West’s best win without Wilt was also in 1963, against the 1.4 SRS Hawks. The Lakers were 1.3 SRS favourites. I reiterate, West’s best win without Wilt was against a 1.4 SRS team. And even in those first two years with Wilt, the best team they beat were the 2.1 SRS Hawks in 1969.
Against Bill Russell in the postseason, these are their respective averages: Oscar — 31.4/10.2/7.5 on 54.09% efficiency, 35.3% win rate (34.9% win rate if including the two series losses to Wilt’s 76ers) West — 33/5.7/4.9 on 55.15% efficiency, 36.8% win rate
If West’s postseason scoring and defence make up for Oscar’s superior playmaking, longevity, and health, fine. I disagree, but it is a common enough opinion and not one we can exactly pour over film to challenge.
But to say, “Oh, Oscar lost earlier to Russell (or Wilt) than West did” is just not something I think should be taken seriously at all. If Jerry West were in the same conference as Russell, he would never have made the Finals either.
From 1961-68 (i.e. before Wilt joined), West’s Lakers went 328-223 (.595), which is a 48.8-win season on average. Oscar’s Royals went 336-268 (.556), which is a 45.6-win season on average. And again, Oscar was in the tougher conference. I feel like it should be pretty clear that the guy with Baylor and a functioning defensive frontcourt had better support, but just to add to that observation, the 1960-68 Lakers were .386 (31.6-win pace) without West, and the 1960-68 Royals were .239 (19.6-win pace) without Oscar.
What Jerry West had was the league’s best co-star, better defensive support than Oscar, and a conference bracket which would not pit him against any of the other three best players in the league. That is the entire disparity in postseason results. Team success should absolutely not be what puts West ahead here.
None of that is me really “hating” on West, and I can kind-of see the writing on the wall for that collective vote at #14 or whatever, but a lot of the reasoning given to excuse those absent postseasons and lesser time played to me reads as perceiving a meaningful playoff advantage where I do not see any.
AEnigma wrote:
falcolombardi wrote:I am open to the idea of west being a level above kobe on defense as i am not high on kobe defense. Albeit i am skeptical of older guards defense as they played in a enviroment with so little spacing and limited ball handling rules.
And even there he doesnt seem to me on tape like he accomplishes anythingh close to the smothering someone like frazier (who i see as a clear outlier defensively for the era and my bench mark for needle moving defense at the guard spot) does to opposing ball handlers.
Will echo this. While I appreciate the efforts to showcase contemporary commentary and all that, if we are honest, you can do pretty much the exact same thing with Kobe. Except with Kobe we know most of the “impact” data and even some of the more granular defensive tracking is nothing too complimentary. West is spared all that. A few days ago someone shared a comment on how 2016 Kobe “figured out” how to guard Steph or whatever, and we can all chuckle at that a bit, but if we pulled that same anecdote from fifty years earlier about West, it seems like a lot of people would lose their minds over it, like, “Oh wow even as a shell of himself in his final season, he was able to figure out and bother the league MVP and top guard!!!” Talk about how West would have double digit all-defensive nods like Kobe does not have the all-time record on that front.
It is not just Kobe of course. A lot of people believe Jordan was the best wing defender ever, was better than Pippen, was better than Lebron, was a legitimate and deserving DPoY, etc. And that is not solely because of anecdotes (will get to that), but those anecdotes are a massive part of the mythos. Also true for Gary Payton, even as much of this forum has developed some criticisms of him (again based on increased data and access to film). Also true for John Stockton for that matter (including commentary from Payton himself lol), although Stockton at least has those nice impact indicators that can tell us he may well have been a 1990s Pat Bev ( ). Manu had some highlight defensive plays on Harden which could go into a fable about his defence (and this is not the first time I have analogised Manu and West). And so on.
Anyway, what if we throw away the anecdotes. Just watch the film. Well, now we have something a little more concrete, but a) we are not going to all agree with interpretations of that film, and b) what film is available may be overly positive. There are scores of Kobe defensive highlights one could show to support him as an all-time guard defender. Gary Payton has those 1996 Finals we can always show, plus no shortage of flashy steals and other disruptive defensive plays. Jordan is one of the all-time highlight reel players, such that you get teenagers today preaching his evangel after watching a couple of compilation videos. However, most of us also recognise those are all incomplete portrayals, so doing that exercise for West again seems to be giving him a lot of extra benefit of doubt for basically playing in an era where film is limited.
For my part, my eye test is not overly impressed with West’s defence to the degree necessary to take him over Oscar as a player or to even crown him the best defensive guard of the era. Oscar was not as good defensively as Jerry West, but I think it is important to remember that for all the glowing talk about how Jerry West was “the best defensive player in basketball” there is only so much meaningful impact disparity between an excellent defensive guard and a good one.
My personal West analogy — relative to era — would be more in the line of Dwyane Wade than Kidd or Jrue, and while Wade was an impressive guard defender and possibly the best short shotblocker ever (I take him over West in an absolute sense no question), I would not celebrate Wade as some defensive pinnacle who was such an outlier that he must have been better overall than guards like Kobe or Nash, or as someone whose shotblocking made him more of an overall defensive presence than guards like Kidd or Tony Allen. [Strictly speaking my exact era-relative comparison for West would be a blend of Manu and Wade, but that does not change the general premise of what I am saying.]
I agree with Unibro that West’s athleticism in a vacuum does not jump out so much as it is an athleticism advantage relative to a lot of guards at the time, and that too can inflate a perception while not actually having too much to do with his court-mapping or defensive focus or true ability to handle most top opponents. And part of me finds myself wondering whether there is something a little extra propelling the characterisation of West as this uniquely cerebral defender who always made the right play and just had special awareness for the game. You know, relative to someone like Don Chaney as a fellow shooting guard, or even to K.C. Jones and Al Attles as exceptionally intelligent (but smaller) point of attack guards who could wreak havoc on similarly sized handlers like Hal Greer. If we want to mark a disadvantage with the point guards as being more applicable to their size, we can do that, but then we are back to West being on the smaller side himself and not actually having some significant boost from defence the way you see with elite defensive wings or forwards.
For all that defensive advantage, West has not been the guy who comes across as more impactful to his teams. Now, people can favour West regardless because of lesser ball dominance and whatever, but looking at two contemporary guards, I would not automatically conclude that the better guard defender was outpacing the better offensive engine without some stronger overall indicators — just as I do not conclude Frazier was secretly the best guard of the era because of how those three Finals between West and Frazier went (even while West was first-team all-defence for each of those seasons).
lorak wrote:
Dipper 13 wrote:
lorak wrote:Some people were asking about Oscar's defense. I recently did video with Russell's passes from all available playoffs games with him and that includes 2 games against Royals with Robertson. Overall that's just 29 defensive plays for Royals, but if you don't want or don't have time to watch whole games that's good starting point:
VIDEO REMOVED
3:00 good double and then recover, Sigfried unable to drive by Oscar and then his shot is blocked by Robertson 3:15 next play, again double and recover and KC is unable to drive by Oscar 5:21 after the switch Oscar guards Russell and Bill is unable to post up Robertson! 7:05 transition D, he defends two players and contest the shot very well
Overall he looks like very smart and fundamentally sound defender, almost always in position to help (and often he was main helper on his team), doesn't buy on fakes, even bigger players can't back him down and smaller aren't fast enough to drive by him even when he isn't in perfect position after recovering from double teaming. That all actually suggest that he was very good defensively, the only "problem" was that he wasn't (just like on offense) flashy player, so for example didn't have a lot of blocks or steals and maybe that's why so many people underrate him on defense?
I recall a Sonny Hill story on his radio show of how Earl Monroe told him after his rookie year he had to bulk up in the off season after playing against Oscar, who could physically control him on the defensive end to the point where he couldn't do anything effectively. In 1971, Bullets coach Gene Shue even picked him as the Finals MVP. His defense, which is badly underrated, was a big reason for the easy sweep. Bucks coach Larry Costello said he was on par with Frazier defensively.
He did this while remaining a high level offensive player.
1971 Finals:
23.5 pts, 5.0 rbs, 9.5 ast, 52.3% FG, 59.4% TS
April 26, 1971
Oscar Robertson seemed to be everywhere as the Milwaukee Bucks crushed the Baltimore Bullets 102-83 Sunday and took a 2-0 lead in the National Basketball Association's best-of-7 title series.
Under the policing of Robertson, Monroe only made 4 of 18 from the field.
"Oscar has helped us on defense as much this year as on offense," Milwaukee coach Larry Costello said. "He plays defense as well as Walt Frazier of New York."
"He's as good as Frazier, and stronger. You didn't see Monroe get the ball in low like he did against the Knicks."
"Oscar should have been on the league's all-defense team," said Baltimore coach Gene Shue. "He got my vote. Oscar is strong, and he holds a little - let me get that in."
May 1, 1971
Oscar, still unstoppable at 32 years of age and giving perhaps the finest defensive effort of his career, pumped in 21 of his 30 points in the first half of the nationally televised finale as the Bucks surged ahead 60-47 by intermission, and never looked back.
Although the 7-3 Lew Alcindor was selected the Most Valuable Player in the championship series, Robertson had his own backers.
"The MVP? Oscar," said Coach Gene Shue of the Bullets, without hesitation. "He was the leader, he controlled the offense, he hit the open man and he played tremendous defense. I said when they got him they would be the best team in basketball."
I haven't watched whole series (1971 finals), so I don't know what were defensive matchups, but both Bullets guards shot terrible (Monroe 34.7 FG%, Loughery 37.3 FG%), so seems like Bucks backcourt did very good job and of course Oscar was big part of that backcourt.
rk2023 wrote:Does anyone, by chance, have data regarding how many extra shot attempts and/or rebounds Mikan’s Lakers had compared to the rest of their league? Would be quite helpful, as I try to think a few things through.
Basketball reference has this data - FGA, rebounds - beginning in the '50-51 season.
I believe given the nature of their positions you often want the absolute best offense you can usually get from a point guard. I am not sure if West and Oscar are THAT close in terms of offense. I believe playmaking and floor generalship is much more underlooked than shooting these days, and even defense.
Oscar was very close to West as a scorer based on what I've seen. They both have highly resilient games, can score large in mass, and can create their own shot. West does kill Oscar as an off ball player, but given their positions I think it's not much of a big deal (extra points for West due to positional versatility though).
We have data that suggest that the Royals were the best offense pretty much every year, even when they were butt. It didn't help that their margin for error was very small because they were in the tougher conference. 1964 could have been their year but peak Celtics said "uh uh".
I have been very impressed with what I have read and seen from Jerry West defensively. I have given West my vote and nominations over Oscar up until now. But I do think fundamentally I love the "idea" of West more than what he may have actually been. There just isn't enough evidence to properly rate how powerful his defensive impact is in a direct comparison with another player of his caliber. I fully buy him being a top 3 defensive PG, but again, given what we know about the nature of point guards I find myself wondering "isn't better to just get the premium on offense?".
I use this line of thinking to often put Bill Russell over defensive giants with better scoring like Robinson and Olajuwon. I think to myself, getting a 10/10 in defense over a 9/10 is worth it if you're a center, even if you're giving up volume scoring. That's because I believe outlier capabilities that try to "break" basketball are what makes superstars, superstars (see Steph Curry who was just voted in).
However, I will be conflicted later because I often go back and forth between Nash and Paul. Nash is the better offensive player, isn't that more valuable than a sizable gap in their defense given their positions?
Not really sure about that, but for now it's Robertson time!
Alternate Vote: Jerry West
I already mentioned in prior threads, but I feel that West is essentially a slightly better version than Bryant on offense, and much better on defense. Playoff resilience is well in West's favor too, which is a big reason why I am very high on him.
With Bryant off the board I'll compare him to someone who was about his equal from his era, Dirk. Lazy boy analysis is basically, I think West is pretty comparable to Dirk as an offensive player (elite efficient scorer, and also a good playmaker) while being a very valuable defender while Dirk didn't give you much.
My nominations is for Nikola Jokic(I'm very peak oriented and he has enough seasons where it is pretty easy to see he is no fluke, he is probably better than some of the players on the top 10 list already)
Alternate nomination is for Julius Erving (I think Dr.J's skill set on paper makes it easy to rip him him apart, but he clearly made it work. If you start treating ABA titles as "world titles" he is a 3 time champion...who was the anchor on 2 of them, including an underdog run, and pretty much 1a/1b for his last one. He went to the NBA ECF/Finals a million times also, he's plenty successful despite being branded a loser).
I'm very open to switching my vote to West instead of Oscar (I voted for him two threads ago), however, I'll say if you mention things that imply one is a winner and one is a loser, or one has a sourpuss personality then I'll likely not take your other points as seriously (the horror, I know!)
Vote for #14: Jerry West This is between West, Oscar, and Mikan for me and West gets my vote. West is clearly the best perimeter shooter of the group. He was also an excellent slasher, drawing more fouls than Kobe or Mikan and roughly the same FTr as Oscar. Oscar is clearly the best PG passer of the group, although West did well enough in this role to lead the league in assists in 72. West's biggest drawback to me is his lack of durability in comparison to Kobe and Oscar.
West has a clear advantage on defense. There is no question in my mind that if blocks and steals were recorded, West would have far more than Oscar or Kobe. Wilt once made the statement that if blocks were recorded, he believed that there would be some years in which West would have been third in the league behind only himself and Russell. Do I believe that? No, but to finish in the top ten in a much smaller league seems entirely possible. And the idea of a PG even sniffing the top ten in blocks, in any era, seems remarkable. We know that steals weren't recorded until the 73-74 season, West's final year. As a largely broken down 35-year old, West only managed to play in 31 games that season. We know that West is credited with 2.6 steals/game that season, which would have been good for second in the league if he had enough games to qualify. We know that on December 7, 1973 West recorded 10 steals in one game against Seattle (the NBA record is 11). We have no way of knowing what West's steal numbers would have looked like; we only have guestimates. Roland Lazenby made one such attempt by analyzing the top 20 players in career steals, calculating the trajectory/percentages of how their SPG rose and fell between the ages of 22 and 35 (to match West's playing career), and applied that to West retroactively based on his final season (the only one we have official stats for). The all-time season record is 4.12 by Don Buse (ABA) in 76. Lazenby has West matching that number in 64. A player has averaged 3.0 SPG only 11 times in history (since steals were first recorded); Lazenby has West achieving that mark 9 times by himself. Lakers scorekeeper John Ratcliffe said that if steals had been recorded, West would easily be the all-time leader with little hope of anyone else ever catching him. I have no reason to doubt him.
Obviously blocks and steals don't tell the complete story of a player's defense. While announcing a Bucks/Lakers game in 71, Bill Russell was asked to compare Oscar and West. While he politely declined to say which one was "better", he just said that Oscar is a much better offensive player than he was on defense and West was a much better defensive player than he was on offense. Which caught the questioner off-guard (I can't remember his name) but he said West is "much" better on defense? He reminded Russ that West was pretty fair on offense. Russell said West was absolutely phenomenal on offense but he doubled down on him being "much" better on defense. Russell then said that he thinks West is the best defensive player in the league. His partner clarified 'you mean best defensive guard'? Russell said no, he thinks West is the best defensive player regardless of position. His partner then asked "Better than you?" At which Russell just laughed and reminded him that he said West was the best defender in the league today (Russ had retired the year before). I'm pretty sure Russ intended for the compliment on West's defense to be a subtle dig at his old nemesis Wilt, but you still had guys like Thurmond, Kareem, Frazier. Hondo and DeBusschere playing. Obviously you could choose to disregard Russell's comments completely or just chalk it up to a retired guy that doesn't know much about defense, but it gives some idea of how West's impact was viewed at that time, particularly for those who never saw him play outside of Youtube.
And there is also the era component. I think era context is needed, otherwise Mikan could have already been a top ten pick. It just depends on how much you want to penalize/credit a particular player for the era he played in. Typically guys who played in the 60's will face some type of penalty for playing in that era. But in West's case, I'm not so sure that applies. I believe West played in the worst possible era for a player with his skillset - a brilliant outside shooter with no 3-point line, harsher enforcement of carrying, more violent interior play (West was a slasher and suffered at least 9 broken noses), lower percentage of assists given per basket made. For most 60's players, I assume they would score less with the slower pace of later eras. I'm not at all convinced that applies to West. The 3-point line, better spacing, changes in backcourt defense - I think West could be an even more impactful player if he were born in 1998 instead of 1938.
Alternate vote: Oscar Robertson For those of us who grew up watching them play, West and the Big O just kinda go together like peanut butter and jelly. It would just feel weird to list one and not the other. Mikan would be just after the West, Oscar, Kobe tier - still have to reconcile my bias over his era. But Big George will be getting my vote once West and Oscar are in.
Riffing on an f4p post from last thread - how would folks estimate Star+ talent distribution across the decades?
Lumping the incomplete decades in with the others, when guys entered the league, and rounding to the nearest 4% for now, my own estimations: '47-'59: 4% '60-'69: 8% '70-'79: 8% '80-'89: 16% (feels like a very talented decade that was a a leap from those prior) '90-'99: 16% '00-'09: 20% '10-'23: 28% (benefitting from the extra years a bit, if I'd stopped in '19 I might have split off 4% somewhere else)
*Noting that the '10-'23 period will be less prevalent on a top 100 careers list like we're doing due to lack of longevity vs lacking talent.
therealbig3 wrote:I honestly do think there will be a lot of healthier discussion with Kobe off the board now, he’s just such a polarizing player, and it’s hard to avoid overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative personal feelings getting in the way of objective discussion sometimes.
I think Oscar/West/Dirk/Mikan are all very reasonable choices here. Robinson’s longevity is pretty weak imo, hard for me to see him this high. I’m surprised K. Malone hasn’t been nominated yet…his longevity as a star player is insane, and he won MVP with Bulls Jordan still around, so his peak isn’t too shabby either. I think he’s got a good case to just be voted in at this point, let alone nominated.
EDIT: and the great Dr. J isn’t nominated yet either! Lol, so many awesome players that you could make a great case for, including more modern guys like Paul, Nash, Wade, and Harden.
Agree on the discussion being better. Don’t agree on Robinson’s longevity being meaningfully behind the other candidates. I mean first off, Mikan is obviously not even close to D-Rob. Of the other guys:
D-Rob: 11 prime seasons, 1 playoff injury, 2 sub-prime seasons
West: 11 prime seasons, 2 playoff injuries (one where he misses most of the season), 1 sub-prime season
Oscar: 13 prime seasons, 1 sub-prime season
Dirk: 13 prime seasons, 1 playoff injury, 7 sub-prime seasons
That’s really decisive for you? I mean unless you’re impressed by Dirk putting up BPMs of 2.5 or less on do nothing teams, I don’t see how anyone has a meaningful longevity edge over D-Rob. And he has the best box stats while playing by far the best defense with all-time impact numbers even from ages 32-37.
Yes, his era was weak and he probably wouldn't be Joel Embiid level in today's game. But you can only meet the challenges given to you and he is arguably the most dominant player in the history of the game. Russell type winning (for less years), Wilt/MJ type statistical dominance, Mikan is more deserving than Jerry West, who was nearly as dominant -- for a guard -- as Mikan but in an era where centers were significantly more valuable than anyone else on the floor. He's more deserving than Kobe, who was a terrific player for a long time but never really stood out from his peers to anywhere near the same degree, not as a scorer though he was playoff resilient, not as a playmaker/rebounder/defender. Mikan is the last true dominant player left and while his era was one of racism and relatively low athleticism (much of which is due to playing over boards laid over ice rinks or concrete, in canvas sneakers, with questionable understanding of training techniques), it was still NBA basketball, the best in the world.
Alternative: Jerry West All the arguments for Kobe can be made in a stronger fashion for Jerry West except for Rings, longevity, and modernity. Kobe was a great and playoff resilient scorer; West was significantly better as a scorer relative to the guards of his day (only Oscar, and in the later part of his career, Walt Frazier, came close) and stepped it up in stronger fashion in the finals (his main argument over Oscar). Kobe was (when he wanted to) a strong defensive guard, West was a much more consistent and from everything I understand, higher peaking defender as well. Kobe was a decent playmaker, West was a better one who started as a score first combo guard but by the end of his career, was also leading the NBA in assists. Great player, smart player, tough player, very high intangibles and leadership from everything I have ever read.
NOMINATE: I am going to throw a couple of current names out there to see what response they get. I may go back to Karl Malone and Julius Erving depending on what people think.
(a) Kevin Durant -- yes, his social media issues show a lack of maturity and leadership and many people hate him for going to the Warriors; if feels like bullying. But he is an incredibly efficient scorer with great size who has been one of the best in the league for a decade.
(b) Giannis -- short prime and I think that's a major issue, but I have his career as slightly better than Jokic's to this point though Jokic is more unique.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
Vote for #14: Jerry West Alternate Vote: Oscar Robertson Nomination: Moses Malone Alternate Nomination: Nikola Jokic
To me, this vote comes down to West or Oscar. To me, Mikan is just from an era that I can’t vote for a player from yet. Dirk just was not really close enough to the best player of his own era to get a vote from me now. And Robinson was probably about as good as West and Oscar, but his longevity as a top-tier player was a bit smaller IMO.
So why West over Oscar? Honestly, I don’t feel strongly about it. Both were scoring efficiency gods of their era. I think if we look at team offensive efficiency, it’s reasonable to think that Oscar was the superior offensive player. But then I also think West was the superior defensive player. West probably upped his game even more in the playoffs, as compared to Oscar—which contributed to the Lakers getting to all those finals, even in seasons where their regular season performance wouldn’t make you think they’d get there. Both guys won a title on one of the greatest teams of all time—which is something I value a lot. However, I think West was closer to being the #1 guy on the 1972 Lakers than Oscar was on the 1971 Bucks—which is a notable positive. West didn’t play well in those playoffs though, which is a bit of an irony, so perhaps that’s a wash. Both guys actually played with an all-time big man (Kareem and Wilt) for several years and only got one title out of it. Ultimately, they’re very close, but I think I take West due to him seeming like he had a different gear in the playoffs that Oscar may not have had.
As for the nominations, I’ve explained those in my voting post in the last thread (and, for Moses, in multiple prior threads too), so I’ll just refer back to that.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
As I've outlined a fair bit, D.Rob has the highest peak of the remaining players, combining a GOAT level defensive player in his prime with a superb if slightly flawed offensive player. He's just so far above the remaining candidates in that respect, that I don't care about his longevity; he has "enough" longevity that I'm just not fussed. I do go back and forth between him, Dirk and Dr J. But only one of those other candidates is available to me here, and for now I'm sticking with D.Rob. Dirk is the only other modern player left who actually plays like a modern player in most respects, and he's an easy #2 for me. If voting gets tight I'll switch, but on merit it's these two by far.
More on D.Rob:
Spoiler:
One_and_Done wrote:Since Dirk has just edged past D.Rob for the nominee, I want to say a few words about D.Rob's impact. I can see if people think he didn't have enough longevity. Personally I'd take KD over him if Durant had enough support, and I can see the Dirk/K.Malone/Dr J arguments too. However in terms of peak D.Rob, he's better than any of those guys.
D.Rob was one of the GOAT defensive players, combining incredible instincts and timing with pogo stick, quick twitch athleticism. The guy ran the floor like a deer. When Tony Parker came to the Spurs, D.Rob was old and slow. Parker assumed he had always been that way. One day after practise someone showed Parker a video of a young Robinson running the floor. He couldn't believe how fast he was. They told him about the time David Robinson claimed he could walk on his hands the length of the practise court, being gymnast in college. The coach, incredulous, told him if he could do it everyone would get practise off. D.Rob proceeded to walk the length of the court on his hands, and the team took the day off. His dexterity at over 7 feet tall was basically unheard of.
Robinson's impact was clear from the day he joined the league. He came into a 21 win team, and turned them into a 56 win team. The team had a 11 point SRS turnaround. The Spurs were a contender for the first 7 years of D.Rob's career, during which time they averaged 55 a wins a year. Then at age 31 D.Rob had an injury and was never wholly the same again, and gradually degraded in impact. But that first 7 year impact is right up there with the top peaks. If D.Rob was merely a GOAT defensive player, he would be worthy of discussion here even if he was just an average offensive player. Unfortunately he was superb offensive player, who even though he had his shortcomings still did more than enough to warrant inclusion here. I set out his stats on page 1.
So who do I think we should nominate next. I’m torn between several candidates. First is KD, who would be my first choice for the reasons set out below. We now have nomination preferences so there's no reason not to just nominate KD every time until he gets in, with an alternate.
Spoiler:
As for Durant vs Kobe I don’t understand the argument for Kobe. Durant was a better scorer, better defender, and a better complementary piece who fit in more easily with others. His longevity is enough that any minor advantage Kobe has is negated.
Let’s just look at a peak to peak comparison to start with. Because KD has the consistency of a metronome (when he’s on the court), a number of different years can be advanced as his “peak”. But 2014 seems to have the strongest case. So let’s look at 2014 KD v.s 2008 Kobe (which is often advanced as Kobe’s best year).
KD: 41.8 pp 100, 9.6 rp 100, 7.2 ap 100, 123 Ortg, 104 Drtg, on an insane 635. TS%
Kobe: 36.5 pp 100, 8.1 rp 100, 6.9 ap 100, 115 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 576. TS%
KD is better in literally every, single category, and not by a small margin. But let’s be fair to them and look at a bigger, more representative sample.
Here’s KD from 2010 to 2023, a 13 year stretch if we exclude 2020.
RS per 100: 38.2, 10, 6.3, 120 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 631. TS%
So again, KD is basically beating him in every single category except for a trivial defensive rating difference, which could just be noise given how close it is and the sample size. He’s scoring more, and scoring more on insane efficiency. Even his assists are similar, despite Kobe’s supposed passing advantage (which FYI isn’t much of an advantage if you don’t like passing). The difference in Ortg is insane. KD is just cooking him.
On the defensive end KD is almost 7 feet tall with crazy long arms, so he can to a limited extent provide rim protection and switch on to bigger guys, all of which was key to his time on the Warriors. KD fits so much better than Kobe in so many situations, needing a lower usage and complementing other guys. KD was also misused to some degree in OKC, with it now being apparent in hindsight that Westbrook was not an optimal co-star for KD (to put it lightly). He often played with poor spacing in OKC, and thrived anyway.
But let’s turn to the one thing Kobe supporters can maybe argue, which is longevity. I don’t buy this, because KD has had enough longevity to score almost 27K points despite playing through several seasons cut short by COVID and lock outs, so at that point I’d say he has “enough” longevity that unless the person he’s being compared to is a comparably good player longevity isn’t enough to move the needle. But then I’m not even sure we can criticise KD’s longevity too much. Kobe has basically 12-13 healthy-ish, prime type seasons. His last few seasons were negative value add, and the early part of his career is mostly not adding too much. If we took out those years Kobe actually only has 28k+ points, so barely different to KD (who isn’t done yet either).
But what of KD? He was healthy from 2010 to 2014. That’s 5 prime seasons right there. 2016 healthy. That’s 6. 2017 and 2018 he was being rested and was out by design basically, I count those as healthy seasons. KD is up to 8 prime seasons. 2019? He was healthy all the way to the finals, then had an injury. I don’t dock him for that because it’s absurd. It would be rewarding guys like Kobe for getting bounced out in the first round, before they had a chance to injure themselves. That’s 9 prime seasons. In my mind that’s enough to overcome Kobe’s longevity easily. But I also feel KD added good value from 2021 to 2023. In those 3 seasons some of the games he missed were for rest, or due to reasons having nothing to do with injury; if he and the team were keen on him playing more, he could have. He was also healthy for the playoffs in 2021 and 2023 when it mattered (which is what he was being rested for).
I just don’t see what Kobe’s argument over KD would be. KD is just flat out better.
I’d also be interested in Karl Malone, who has more longevity than most if not all remaining candidates, and whose case v.s Kobe I discussed below. Moses Malone has a lot of longevity also, but I am doubtful about how his game would translate today. He feels like a player who was built for a different era, and that holds him back a little.
Spoiler:
I am looking at the stats, and I'm not really seeing Kobe's case.
From 88 to 98 Malone's per 100 stats were 36.6/14.5/4.5 with 591 TS%.
From 00 to 10 Kobe's per 100 stats were 36.9/7.6/6.9 with 558 TS%
But Karl gets worse in the playoffs right? Um, ok a little bit, but not enough that his production drops below Kobe.
From 88 to 98 Malone's per 100 PS stats were 35.2/14.9/3.9 with 534 TS%.
From 00 to 10 Kobe's per 100 PS stats were 35/7/6.6 with 545 TS%
Then leave the stats aside. Karl Malone is a huge force on D, clearly more impactful than Kobe on that end. Malone certainly led the Jazz to successful seasons. He just didn't have the fortune to play with the stacked teams Kobe did. Kobe also juices his stats by playing alot of his prime during the post 2004 rule changes; Malone is doing it under less favourable scoring rules. Malone has a big longevity advantage too.
It seems like the Mailman just flat out delivered, regular season or not
Dr J seems to have peaked higher than Kobe, who has already been nominated, as I discuss below.
Spoiler:
I've already had threads discussing Malone and D.Rob's case, but let's look at Dr J. Underrated due to injuries later in his career that slowed him a little, and forced to take less shots to help manage the egos on his early NBA teams. However there's really no doubt in my mind he peaked higher than Kobe and had longer longevity than people think at first. He also has size, length, hands and athleticism that let him do stuff on both ends that Kobe never could.
1976 PS Erving: 37.4 pp 100, 13.6 r, 5.3a, 2.1, 2.2, 128 Ortg/103 Drtg, 610 TS%, and a title.
1976 ABA was as strong or stronger than 1976 NBA in terms of top teams.
There’s also D.Rob, who doesn’t have great longevity, but arguably has “enough” that it doesn’t matter. Giannis is another player in this category. Yeh, sure, Giannis only has 10 years in the league; but when Jordan first retired he only had 9 and people were already calling him one of the greatest ever. In today’s game would Jordan really be more impactful than Giannis? I have my doubts. Just comparing Giannis/D.Rob/Dirk/Kobe’s best seasons, here’s how they come out:
So the first observation is that Giannis is the best of the bunch and it’s not close. The only reason not to take him yet is if you don’t think he has “enough” longevity. He isn’t just a force offensively, he’s one of the best defensive players you could have in the modern era. Defense is something that’s hard to measure, but I think we can all agree D.Rob and Giannis are 2 of the best defensive players ever. Then on the other end they’d only need to be solid to be in discussion here. But they’re not just solid. Giannis is flat out better than the rest on offense, and while D.Rob is the “worst” of the 4 in the playoffs on O, he’s still close enough that I don’t know that the others have much of a case over him given his all-time defensive anchoring ability. If you’re taking Dirk or Kobe it’s got to be on longevity. Kobe looks the worst on balance by far. He’s 2nd of the group on volume scoring, but he does it by having bad efficiency which is probably part of why his TS% is the worst of anyone except playoffs D.Rob, and his Ortg is the worst of the bunch on balance (because regular season isn’t worthless, your performance there adds a lot of value). Then factor in this is literally Kobe’s very best stretch. If we’d run this from 00-10 for instance, he’d look so much worse (see above comparison with KD).
Dirk’s high end run in the 2011 playoffs is a level of impact neither D.Rob nor Kobe had during a singular playoff run, putting up 39.1 pp100, 11.5 rp100, 3.6 ap100 on 115 Ortg/105 Drtg, and 609 TS% while taking out Kobe’s Lakers, KD’s Thunder, and Blazers, and the first incarnation of the Heatles, is crazy impressive. Yeh, they’d have gone down to the 2012 Heatles once they balanced the team a little and figured out the line-ups to play, etc, but nobody expected them to win that year. They weren’t even supposed to beat the Lakers, and they ka-rushed them. Check out the stat-line of 32 year old Kobe v.s 32 year old Dirk. It’s not pretty. Kobe had 23.3 ppg, 3rpg, 2.5 apg on 519 TS%, v.s Dirk’s 25.3ppg, 9.3 rpg, 2.5apg on an insane 673 TS%.
On Kobe generally:
Spoiler:
I’ve talked a lot about the higher quality of modern basketball a lot throughout this project.
To my mind a fair amount changed in the NBA even between 2010 and 2011. By 2015 it had begun the process of turning into an almost different sport. In that sense, Kobe is no more of a modern player than Bird, because his entire prime happens before the changes to the league that warped it into a new sport. He was there for the introduction of the new rules that hyper-charged offenses from 2005 onwards, and he was there for the introduction of the new strong side defensive concepts which came in from 2008 onwards, but it’s notable that his prime appears to end in 2011, the same time that both concepts were adopted by a single team in the Mavericks (albeit to a limited extent).
By 2015 the Hibbert’s and Tony Allen’s of the NBA were finding they had no place, and the playstyles of inefficient Iso-kings like Melo had become untenable. I think Kobe was quite lucky his career ended when it did, as if he had been 5 years younger I think the flaws in his game would have received far more criticism; much like an elderly Kobe got over his final 2 years in the league.
This touches on something not sufficiently discussed, which is that Kobe was a terrible team mate who for a “modern” player had a play-style that was often the antithesis of today’s league. Look at him shooting his team out of the 2004 finals by refusing to pass to Shaq, because he was gunning for finals MVP. Look at his dreadful shot selection in 2008, and even 2010 where he relied on Pau to bail him out. Look at the horrid 2011 series where Dirk completely outplayed him. Kobe was a “my way or the high way” sort of guy, who caused a tonne of on-court and chemistry issues for his teams over the years with an attitude that would have seen him labelled as a cancer in today’s game. His game 7 v.s the 2006 Suns, where he deliberately refused to shoot in the 2nd half as a response to criticism that he should share the ball more, stands out as particularly Kyrie like in it’s childishness.
In order to be a player who could transcend the weaker eras of the NBA, you need to really stand out. Guys like Duncan, Hakeem, Shaq, and even Bird or D.Rob, pass this test. You can see the way Bird and D.Rob were the catalyst for the greatest team improvements in NBA history. You can see the floor raising of Duncan in 01-03, or Hakeem in 94, to lift bad teams into contender status. Then there’s Kobe. He starts getting minutes on a stacked Laker team, and in his years with Shaq we see a disturbing discrepancy. The Lakers play like a 60 win team in games Kobe misses, but Shaq plays. Invert that and Kobe is not even leading the Shaqless Lakers to 500 ball. We finally get to see Kobe without Shaq in 05-07, and it’s a disaster for his rep. He shows very limited floor raising compared to the all-time greats in discussion here. Then from 08 onwards he’s got a team so stacked they could win 50 games without him. Then his prime ends and that’s it. I walk away feeling confident that Kobe was not a great floor raiser. He was a complementary piece. Unlike a lot of complementary pieces like KG or Durant, you also need to be extra careful about how he’s deployed so he’s not a bad fit (and doesn’t feud with his team mates).
Kobe isn’t going to be in my top 20. He’s just not enough of an impact player, and that means longevity can only get him so far. Then there’s the question of how much longevity he even has. His fans only give him 10 prime years (00-10 is usually the proposed time frame, with 05 often excluded due to him supposedly being too injured). He adds some value in the other years, but he honestly doesn’t have that much longevity given the superior players he’s being compared to. Some guys like the Malones actually have more longevity than him, and KD is pretty similar.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
I find the notion D. Robinson peaked over the likes of West and Robertson a hard sell (let alone Mikan).
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.
Vote: David Robinson This is a man so dominant that he has 3 seasons by PER and 4 seasons by WS/48 better than peak Mikan, a player who was literally playing against plumbers in a regional league that admitted it's first black player after he was already in the league. Robinson was more dominant against top competition from all around the world than Mikan was against roughly 10% of the player pool.
But his box score contributions weren't even his strength!!! That would be his incredible defense. He led the Spurs to the 3rd best defense in the league in 1996, then without him the next year, they were dead last, and when he returned the following year, they went to first! The DRtgs were 103.5, 112.3, and 99.4. Yeah, a rookie Tim Duncan helped some in 1998, but that's still absolutely massive defensive impact. If you were going to make a list of players who's actual value exceeds their box score contributions, Robinson would have to be close to the top of the list.
We can see this in his later years in the league, when his box score numbers aren't what they were previously and he still posts fantastic impact numbers. We only have full play-by-play data for the final 6 seasons of Robinson's career and in those years he had an on/off of +6.1 in the regular season and +18.9 in the playoffs. Those postseason numbers easily beat LeBron and are some of the best all-time. The regular season numbers while less impressive are still very good. Luckily, there's also extra PBP data compiled from his 3 peak years of 94-96 which also shows an on/off over +18, again on par with the very best of all-time.
Robinson is sometimes criticized for not showing up in the playoffs, but aside from the incredible impact during the Spurs run to multiple championships that was shown above, his box numbers in the playoffs were very underrated as well. Here's how he compares to the other players currently nominated over a 12 year prime:
Again, only Mikan is meaningfully better by a box score playoff metric (which will naturally fail to account for Robinson's defensive value) and he was playing in a regional league against almost exclusively white players with only 4 years of playoff data available. By age 31, he looked washed against the only slightly superior competition of 1956.
I really don't see a case against Robinson. He's the best defensive player by a mile. He has easily the best box score profile and he has a very similar number of prime seasons to anyone currently nominated except for Mikan who lags far behind. What we can see of his impact profile in his later years only shows that he's much better than the incredible box score numbers would indicate. I think he's overdue and belongs with the other elite 2-way players of the game in the top 10.
Alternate: Dirk Nowitzki Probably has the best single season peak of any of these players when he led the Mavs to the 2011 title even if he didn't maintain it for as long as Robinson. Also has the best longevity even if there's not a lot of value outside of his 13 prime seasons.
Nomination: Nikola Jokic Originally had him as an alternate behind Giannis, but the fact that he has more VORP in both the regular season and postseason in less games is very compelling, as is his all-time peak. He has the best season all-time by BPM and 3 of the top 5. He also has the best season all-time by PER and 3 of the top 15. He's 2nd all-time in career PER, 1st all-time in career playoff PER, 1st all-time in career BPM, and 2nd all-time in career playoff BPM. His impact numbers and truly advanced stats basically break math they're so ridiculous and show a much larger gap between him and the rest of the league than even the box numbers do. I honestly think he probably has the 3rd best peak all-time behind only LeBron and Jordan.
Alternate nomination: Giannis Antetokounmpo By PER, he has the 3rd, 4th, and 19th best seasons of all-time. All of them clear any season from anyone currently nominated in this project. By BPM, he has the 12th, 15th, and 26th best seasons which would clear all seasons except for '94 Robinson. He's been a top 10 defender in the league by all-defense voting shares 5 seasons in a row and has an incredibly impressive playoff run where he capped the title with a 50/14 game with 5 blocks on .749 TS%. I think it's time to give him a look.
lessthanjake wrote:West probably upped his game even more in the playoffs, as compared to Oscar—which contributed to the Lakers getting to all those finals, even in seasons where their regular season performance wouldn’t make you think they’d get there.
West literally never beat a team with a higher SRS, and the only team he ever beat on the road was the 0.3 SRS 1970 Hawks (after Wilt missed the entire regular season for the Lakers). He played exactly to his conference expectations.
). Manu had some highlight defensive plays on Harden which could go into a fable about his defence (and this is not the first time I have analogised Manu and West). And so on.
