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 Joao Saraiva 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):
Going with the Suns tandem for my nominations. Excluding LBJ/Bid, I think Barkley is the second best PF of all time on offense - but of course, a problematic defender. Pretty stellar prime length with a fair-share of MVP/Weak-MVP years. Nash is similar ITO being a defensive - , but (sans Jokic) he's clearly the best offensive engine out of anybody whom hasn't been enshrined in a project where Steph and Magic were voted at 11 and 9 with their respective prime-for-prime offensive excellence being a key reason why. Albeit Nash doesn't have as many upper echelon offensive campaigns as the two - but his 2005-10 span is very, very good. I'd reckon he has more MVP level seasons than Wade and Giannis/Jokic (for now, in case of the latter two).
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: Dirk Nowitzki Nominate: Nash/Moses AltNom: Nash/Moses (will decide order based on other ballots)
In addition to that linked Grantland article, going to share a few posts I have bookmarked for their Dirk commentary:
Texas Chuck wrote:I think Dirk was better than Bird offensively. Ducks.
I think too often when we talk about Dirk we hear phrases like well the only thing he did better than player X is shoot/score. Which is reductive and shows a real lack of understanding how offenses work. Obviously Larry Bird is one of the greatest passers of all-time. His vision, his creativity, his size, his ability to throw any pass with either hand. Just an absolute wizard and a joy to watch. Dirk probably still created more wide open looks for his teammates mostly in possessions where he picks up no stat in a box score. I mean forget even Nash. A Jason Terry/Dirk PNR meant Terry was going to shoot a wide open 15 footer, Dirk was going to shoot an open 18 footer, or a teammate was going to shoot an open corner 3. Figure how how to slow that down, fine Dirk moves to the high post with a live dribble and now you're screwed again. Typically guarded by a big who has no hope of contesting the jumper anyway and now is in danger of Dirk driving past him(see 11 Finals in 2 key moments), or maybe you try a small because hey that one time it worked for GSW--he just laughs and drains FT jumpers. But if you double him he always made the right pass and on time. Dirk just didn't turn the ball over.
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Despite Dirk staying put in Dallas the team changed around him a lot. And 3 very different coaches. And despite playing largely with rotating role players, prime Dirk meant 50+ wins and Dallas had 4 legit contending teams, 3 of them post-Nash. That's portable AF.
And Dirk succeeded with offensive talent around him -- the Nash years, balanced talent--the Avery years, and mostly defensive talent--the 11 team. He didn't need some magic formula. He meant winning. His record of consistent team RS success was going toe to toe with Duncan in the same division at the same time. Obviously Duncan and the Spurs were better so they got the best of Dallas most of the time, but still really impressive what Dirk and Dallas were able to do.
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While Dirk does have the 06 Finals followed by the 07 1st round where he deserves much of the blame, mostly he performs at an absurd level while his teammates really wet the bed. Dirk is brilliant in the playoffs in 04 against the Kings and all his celebrated offensive teammates(in the best offense ever ) were awful. Dirk is 27/12 with 3 blocks on 45/47/86 with 6 turnovers in 5 games. Everyone else is under 50% TS.
Or look at Dirk from 08-10 sort of the lost years for the Mavs after the 07 collapse:
27/12/4 59% TS 27/10/3 64% TS 27/8/3 64% TS
He's not fallen off offensively at all. We do see his rebounding numbers drop as he ages, but he can still really go. Let's look at his best teammate, Jason Terry:
16/5 60% ts 14/2 51% TS 13/2 50% TS
And this from a guy who in the RS was a consistent 17/4 57% TS guy.
limbo wrote:You can say Malone peaked higher than Dirk as a passer in the final 9 seasons of his career, but before that i'd definitely take Dirk as a playmaker, easily, and that's due to his spacing advantage opening the game up far more for his teammates. And his turnover rate was always elite.
Malone didn't have the capacity to carve teams open as a playmaker with his passing. He made some nice reads to shooters/cutters form the post, but he definitely wasn't going to just generate tons of open looks for his teammates. In that case, just give me the guy who's a better scorer and turns the ball over less, while providing better spacing.
Erving's prime is more complicated to rank due to a chunk of his best seasons coming in a 10-team ABA.
I think Dirk was a demonstratively better offensive player consistently during his prime. From like 00 to 11 he was the best/main offensive player for offenses that on average performed +4.58 better then the relative ORtg (if you wanna take the stacked early 00's Dallas teams w/ Nash out of the equation; then the number is still an impressive +3.48 rORtg)
Since joining the NBA, Dr.J was leading an average offense of +1.64 rORtg... including below average offenses in '79 and '80. He peaked at +4.1 rORtg in '78 which was impressive, but kind of an outlier at the same time (also Dirk led offenses peaked higher than +4.1 a bunch of times; +4.2 in '05, +5.6 in '06 and +4.8 in '07... this is only post Nash).
We could argue supporting casts (and other factors) each had that influenced those numbers, but i think it's important to note that Dr.J's casts got exponentially more talented from 1980 onwards... including teaming up with Moses in 1983 and then also getting Barkley (though when Moses and Dr.J were clearly declining) but Erving still couldn't match what Dirk was doing in the mid 00's with Terry, Josh Howard and Stackhouse as his main help.
O_6 wrote:#1. I think maybe all those old Dirk years at the end made people forget the kind of athlete he was in his prime. Dirk was a legit 7ft, with a strong frame, and could really run the floor when he was younger. He was one of the better transition bigs in the league when he hit his prime. Take a look at where Dirk ranked in terms of FastBreak Points from 2000-2016.
Dirk had a 7 year stretch from 2000-06 where he ranked 28th or better every single season. 4 seasons where he finished Top 20 in Fastbreak points. 3rd in '01, 7th in '02, clearly peaking as one of the very best transition players in the league those years. And still staying respectable in transition points until his body started breaking down.
#2. Dirk ranked 34th in Mid-Range Field Goals Made in 2001, and he ranked 9th in Mid-Range FG% among the top 100 players who took the most mid-range FGAs. This is where he ranks through his prime...
2001: 34th in FGM -- 9th in FG% (among Top 100 in FGA) 2002: 18th in FGM -- 4th in FG% 2003: 11th in FGM -- 25th in FG% 2004: 3rd in FGM -- 7th in FG% 2005: 1st in FGM -- 37th in FG% 2006: 2nd in FGM -- 5th in FG% 2007: 1st in FGM -- 4th in FG% 2008: 1st in FGM -- 4th in FG% 2009: 1st in FGM -- 3rd in FG% 2010: 1st in FGM -- 9th in FG% 2011: 1st in FGM -- 1st in FG% 2012: 1st in FGM -- 8th in FG% 2013: 9th in FGM -- 7th in FG% 2014: 2nd in FGM -- 2nd in FG% 2015: 2nd in FGM -- 6th in FG% 2016: 2nd in FGM -- 16th in FG%
You can see how it differs from the transition points chart for Dirk. As he got older, he simply mastered the mid-range shot and became the best in the league at it during his prime. Check out that stretch from '07 to '12, 6 straight years with the most Mid-Range FG's made while being Top 10 in FG% every year among those who qualified. Leading the year in both mid-range FGM and FG% in his 2011 championship season.
During the 13 year span from '04-'16; Dirk finished 1st in FGM 7x, 2nd in FGM 4x, 3rd in FGM 1x, and 9th another time. He finished Top 10 in FG% among those who qualified 11/13 of those years. Just an insane combination of volume and efficiency lasting over a decade.
Dirk was called a 7ft SG in his early 20s because he'd be moving off ball, he'd be attacking off of a face-up, he'd be running the floor hard, etc. Dirk being significantly more mobile on top of being a better shooter also allowed him to be a more diverse type of shot-maker, as he was much more adept at shooting on the move. Dirk wasn't just "Jokic without the passing" as some people think. He was a different kind of athlete and player. Better shooter and more athletic.
I have him #13 on my personal list, and am thinking of moving him up to #12, displacing Larry Bird believe it or not. But in the 13 years of '89-'01, Malone had a 25.8 PER, .235 WS/48, and +6.5 BPM [for 13 f***ing years!], while playing the equivalent of 1.5 seasons more than Bird did in his entire career. And Malone has other value-adding years ('87, '88, '02-'04 [he's even an All-Star level player some of these]).
Playoff drop-off is a concern, though in that same 13-year span he was a 23.1 PER, .162 WS/48, +5.4 BPM (in >40 mpg) in the playoffs. That's still a pretty substantial player. Did I mention the guy missed 6 games total in those 13 years (rs + ps)? He was 2nd in the league in rs AuPM in '94, 5th in '95 and '96, 14th in NPI RAPM in '97 (that includes playoffs), 8th in PI RAPM in '98, 16th in '99, 19th in '00. So his impact profile lags slightly behind his box-based profile......but only slightly.
And if the reffing gaffs I'd previously mentioned didn't occur, and Karl Malone had a title and FMVP in '98 (not a sure-thing, but a better than coin-flip chance)........not a single poster would blink at me for putting him in the top 15 (or the top 12), even if his playoff performances were exactly the same. In fact, I'm pretty confident in saying he would not still be on the table at this point if those things had happened, despite how many claim team results do not play a lot into their thinking.
Seriously, putting a..... *2-time MVP (8th all-time in total shares) *who is 2nd all-time in career rs pts (8th all-time in playoffs) *and 8th all-time in career rs reb (7th all-time in playoffs) *a PF who's primarily known as a scorer, but who's also 61st all-time in rs assists (44th all-time in playoffs), and made 3 All-D teams *and who won a title as the best player, winning FMVP.....
....putting him in the top [edit] 17? Madness!!!
I don't want to get into his personal life or how well you like the guy (and yes, I'd speculate those things leave a small imprint on his ranking for some, too, as has even been implied in other threads). I don't like him either. And while there have been cautions about not telling others what this list is or isn't, I'm fairly certain how much we personally do or do not "like" a guy is not intended to be a component of criteria. The guy was really good at basketball, for a really long time, and almost never missed any games until his 19th and final season. That's the consideration that matters. Honestly puzzles me how he could fall as far as 19th or 20th, though that looks like what may happen.
As to Dirk..... Helluva scorer, provided a lot of spacing floor warping by being a 7'0" PF/C whose range extended to the 3pt line. Wasn't a great passer, but he didn't make stupid passes either. His mid-range shooting ability allowed him to be a high efficiency volume scorer while also reaping the benefit that mid-range based attack often provides: low turnover economy. This is a factor I'm going to bring up again when arguing for guys like LaMarcus Aldridge at a later stage. Posters will harp on "lowest efficiency shot in basketball" type of arguments, while they seemingly fail to recognize the benefit: if not attacking the congested paint area, there are fewer opportunities to turn it over. Consequently, Dirk [and LaMarcus] are in the GOAT-tier among big-men in terms of turnover economy. A mid-range shot may be "lower efficiency" that a shot at the rim; however, it is infinitely better than a turnover.
And once Dirk refined his go-to move (that rolling one-legged fade-away).....damn, he was just about unstoppable. That's one of the most indefensible shots we've ever seen, imo. And again, his longevity is great. Can't go wrong with either pick.
Nomination #1: Charles Barkley Alt. Nomination: John Stockton
"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
Vote for #18: Karl Malone Alternate Vote: Kevin Durant Nomination: Moses Malone Alternate Nomination: Nikola Jokic
Karl Malone
I’ve explained a fair bit of this in recent threads. It feels to me like this thread will come down to Dirk or Karl Malone. To me, I just always regarded Dirk as more a top 5-10 guy in the league, rather than a consistent top 5 guy in the league. And it’s hard for me to get over that here, when I regarded Karl Malone much more consistently as a top 5 guy in the league. Dirk had a lot of longevity, but that’s not an advantage over Karl Malone. Playoff success and performance is the real kicker here, with Dirk having an advantage. But I’ll just quote a post I made in the last thread on this, where I basically explain why I don’t weigh this super highly in Dirk’s favor (with the short answer being that the Mavericks didn’t really do much better in the playoffs than the Jazz, despite the two teams being very similar as RS teams while Malone was outplaying Dirk in the RS):
Spoiler:
More generally, I think we can look at box stats and say Dirk was a better playoff performer than Karl Malone, but it gets a bit complicated when we try to see how that translated to team success. The Mavericks made the conference finals only three times (compared to five for the Jazz). They only even got out of the first round 7 times (compared to 9 times for the Jazz). If the Jazz had won one of those two finals, they’d have clearly had more playoff success than Dirk’s Mavericks. And that’s despite the Mavericks and Jazz being essentially equal in terms of how good they were in the regular season (where there seems to be general agreement that Malone was the better performer). So it doesn’t feel to me like Dirk’s advantage in individual playoff performance/box-numbers actually translated much to superior playoff team success. If Karl Malone was the better RS performer and Dirk was the better playoff performer, and yet their teams were essentially equally good in the regular season, then we’d expect the Mavs to have done much better in the playoffs than the Jazz. It didn’t really happen. Instead, the only real difference is just that the Mavs won in 2011, but I find it hard to weigh that *super* highly, given that the 1997 Jazz had to face a 10.7 SRS team in the finals (far better than any team the 2011 Mavs faced) and played them close. It’s hard for me to be super convinced that one player is better than another because he won a Finals with a +2.8 net rating against a 6.76 SRS team, while the other guy lost a Finals with a -0.8 net rating against a 10.70 SRS team. It’s a positive for sure, but the context makes me not weigh it super highly in this comparison.
Of course, I think one counterpoint to the above is perhaps that the Mavs were in a loaded conference so they weren’t getting that far because they were facing great teams. But that wasn’t always true (see, for instance, 2007). And the Jazz beat some really good teams, and when they lost it was typically to really good teams. In the 14 years starting in 1990, the Jazz only lost to 4 teams that had an SRS below 6.36, and 2 of those 4 teams were the eventual champions (and another was above 5.50 SRS). And, in their careers, the Mavs only beat 1 more team that had above a 5.00 SRS than the Jazz did (which would make them equal in this regard if the Jazz had pulled off one of those Finals—again, that’s really the difference in team playoff results).
I just find it hard to weigh superior playoff performance all that highly when it didn’t really result in all that much more playoff team success on teams that were equally good in the regular season (especially when that equally-good-in-the-regular-season occurred with the other guy being a better RS performer, so you’d expect the team results to flip significantly if the opposite were true in the playoffs). There’s a lot of stuff that box numbers don’t account for. Is the argument going to be that Stockton was a big playoff riser that made up for the fact that the gap between Malone and Dirk totally flipped in the playoffs? Or maybe the gap didn’t flip as much as box numbers might make it seem.
Alternate Vote
In terms of an alternate vote, I’m not particularly married to the Durant vote. My feeling is that he’s a guy left that I actually regarded as a consistent top 3 guy for a while. And I don’t downplay his achievements with Golden State as much as others do—since I think the ability to be a major factor in making a team *that* great shouldn’t be undervalued. I also think that, at this point, what he did in OKC looks pretty good as compared to the other guys in the mix. I think I’d probably be voting Dr. J as my alternate if I’d not seen the 76ers on-off data that puts me off. The confounding factor here is the ABA stuff—where Dr. J was better than he was in the NBA—but I don’t quite know what to do with the ABA and ultimately don’t put as much weight on what happened there. Chris Paul feels to me like the person that probably had the highest “impact” by impact metrics—he’s actually quite elite in that regard. And honestly, I could probably be convinced he was the best player left on the board (besides Karl Malone), but in a measure of greatness, it’s just hard for me to take him over the other guys left on the board. He’s probably the one I’m most torn over whether to put in my alternate spot though (along with Dirk).
Nomination
I’ve explained the nomination votes before. At this point, I honestly think it’s a bit crazy for Moses Malone to not have been nominated. We are way past the point where we are nominating people who were never really the best player in the league for any meaningful time period, and Moses Malone was the best player in the league for a half-decade (1979-1983). It’s kind of nuts not to have him nominated yet.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
In the case of D.Rob, the big argument in his favour is being a GOAT candidate on D, the fact he can also league the league in scoring is just a nice add on benefit that pumps him up even further. But with Dirk and Malone their case over KD is heavily reliant on how their offense holds up compared to his, and it’s a comparison they lose by huge margins. I think Dr J honestly has a better case over KD than those guys. I don’t buy his case, but at least it exists. KD is a solid defender when he wants to be too. Not as impactful as Karl, but certainly more than Dirk. I just feel there is not enough discussion about how KD should be in already.
I feel like KDs playoff results are better than these guys too, especially Malone.
KD is faster, longer, more athletic, and a better shooter and defender than Dirk on the eye test. Stats and the way each did and didn't drive various upper degrees of high level winning seem to back that up. I would say KD had a better handle and was a better passer too, which the stats also back up.
Kobe is in already, but look how he compares to KD. Clearly inferior.
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.
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%.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
Vote for #18: Chris Paul. Again, no complaints with others choosing Dirk, Mailman, Doc or KD here - they are all very close for me. But I go back to my vote for Oscar at #15 and since I see CP3 as being the most stylistically similar player to the Big O, I ask myself 'if Oscar, then why not Paul?' They are both arguably the best quarterback in a set offense, both could run the break but are better in the half-court offense, both two of the best mid-range shooters among guards. CP3 is the better defender while Oscar is much bigger and stronger. I understand that some will knock Paul for the scarceness of his jewelry collection and his lack of durability compared to others. But I still feel that it just feels right to me that he be given serious consideration right around the Big O's level.
Alternate: Karl Malone. Elite longevity with 62,759 total minutes played (third most in NBA history). But The Mailman did more than just 'hang around' for a long time. He finished 19th in All NBA Voting Shares in just his second season at age 23; and he finished 17th in his second to last season at age 39. In between he was All NBA First Team 11 times, All NBA Second Team twice and All NBA Third Team once (at age 37). Three times he was All NBA Defensive First Team and once a member of the All NBA Defensive Second Team. He was among the top 20 in points/game 16 times and among the top 20 in rebounds/game 17 times and twice named MVP. Just a remarkable display of both longevity and sustained excellence. Nomination: Giannis Antetokounmpo. My reluctance to nominate him until now has been longevity. But he has now played 10 seasons, been All NBA first or second team in 7 of them. With 2 MVP awards, a Finals MVP and DPOY trophy, he belongs in the conversation.
Vote 1 - Dirk Nowitzki Vote 2 - Julius Erving Nomination 1 - Charles Barkley Nomination 2 - Moses Malone
- Excellent consistency and longevity: played 21 seasons, made the playoffs 15 times in a 16 year stretch, 11 straight 50 win seasons - When you look at some of the rosters dirk led to the playoffs after 2011 his impact is clear - Outside of '07 he was a great playoff performer, and post '07 improved his footwork and patience to the point where he was basically unguardable. His teammates failed to step up in the '08, '09 and '10 postseasons vs. '11. - The king of the 2 man game throughout his career with Nash, Terry and Barea
'09-'11, '15-'20 which is the 9 seasons barea played at least 15 MPG in Dallas:
Dirk ON, Barea OFF 10,901 minutes, +2.02 Net Dirk + Barea ON 6,459 minutes, +4.99 Net
I mean how can you argue with that
If you want to bring up the 2006 finals, I don't have anything to comment on that. What he did to the 63 win spurs (1st in SRS) and 54 win suns (4th in SRS) that year speaks for itself:
One_and_Done wrote:KD is my vote. In terms of alternates, I haven’t seen anyone really justify why KD isn’t ahead of Malone and Dirk. Here are their per 100 stats.
I would assume people are citing Malone's durability and longevity whilst voting him over in that comparison (not saying I agree or disagree, that's something I'm thinking of - as I think Durant is a better basketball player than Malone).
As for Dirk, there's proof of concept he has floor-raised more effectively and for longer while having reached more impressive heights ITO impact at apex points (not to mention his own longevity advantage here). 70sFan elaborated upon your skill-set 'comparison' to at-least a reasonably sound degree - where there is reason to believe the offensive gap Dirk provided is >= the mild defensive gap in Durant's favor.
Like many others on here, I've seen Durant as a tangible + on defense but not near all-time levels for the forward position. He has some rim deterrence and length to make him a solid man-defender and helper at times, but I wouldn't consider him the best at positioning/rebounding (a huge feather in Dirk and Malone's cap) and general off-ball defense. Again, not saying Dirk is better than Durant on this end but I think he is better than made out to be a cone or liability.
As for data sources, Dirk grades out much better in career RAPM (1997-2022) in spite of playing more. Dirk is tied for 15th with a value of 6. Durant is tied for 27th across the database, with a value of 4.7. Dirk actually comes out with a decently higher D-RAPM split which I think is more of a testament to his scalability and flexibility as a piece to build around - where having him cover a lot of ground & create advantages in an unorthodox way while playing with a more defensive oriented team seems to be the optimal formula (due to factors many Dirk voters have mentioned like TOV economy, spacing, size and not too shabby positional awareness, rebounding).
Back to a more serious tone - I'm aware Durant has improved as a passer / capitalizing off of attention since 2014 (though not vastly), but I am unsure if he stands out ITO floor-raising and making worse talent feasible than some of his running-mates in prime Westbrook / Curry - let alone fellow peers. Most of his contemporaries exceeding in this regard are volume playmakers, to no surprise. As for Kobe and Dirk (whose track record here is something I doubt Durant has paralleled since 2014), while they aren't mega-creators through passing - I think both are decently better / reactive as on-ball threats than Durant with the process of decision making considered. Even if not great passers (certainly not Dirk's case here), both are stronger as well and not too less fluid - which gives them more bandwidth to put the ball on the floor before warping a defense and creating a hockey assist and/or power play.
Obviously citing these #s in a vacuum doesn't quite serve as an end-all, be-all but it paints the picture Dirk could be argued as the better offensive centerpiece of the two with the results in mind. That's not to say Durant hasn't impressed as a co-pilot alongside likes of Westbrook, Steph, and even a 1-O alongside Kyrie/Booker - but if you're going to mention "KD having much better than team success" than Dirk - shouldn't his support (where he's had less of a floor raising role/impact and vastly better guard play than what Dirk had to work with) be mentioned as well? I'm not using any of this to down KD's ranking here and am aware *some* of his impact may be understated playing around guys with more control - but we're never running into this scenario with Dirk.
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 is for Julius Erving - I look at Dr.J as a "bigger" Dwyane Wade (who I think is a comparable player to Dirk). He doesn't dominate in the ways that you would think a superstar should in 2023. He doesn't have overly dominant defense. Isn't a point forward or a eyes behind the back passer. Doesn't have an amazing pull up game. Doesn't have a 3 ball.
What he does have though is really good decision making and insane athleticism. I think Bball IQ is the most scalable attribute in basketball. If you make the right decision then even if you a mediocre athlete you will come out ahead. Dr.J finds ways to get to the rim and leverage his insane athleticism.
While he doesn't look as good as he should in Phily, I think a lot of that comes down with coaching. The Sixers had good talent but they were not used properly, I think this goes without saying.
Dr.J's ABA career is enough proof to me of his dominance. Nearly every year his team upset another team in the post season and often had great records despite not having a very stacked team. Even when the Nets key players left the Nets still won titles, beating the very team that those players joined (the Spurs if I can recall). If Dirk's biggest claim to fame is carrying a team to a title that shouldn't have won, then Dr.J did the same thing (and quite frankly, there was more evidence that the 2011 Mavs should have won the playoffs regardless of what mainstream media thought).
I think Dr.J gets punished because of his aesthetics really. He doesn't play like how people want their best players to play, so he is assumed to be lesser than, but it doesn't really line up with what he did. He also is not properly interpreted as a 3 time champion as people often forget that the ABA titles are just as valid as NBA titles.
Some older post about what Dr.J did in the ABA as de-facto proof of his dominance
Spoiler:
His impact must have been pretty high to do what he did in the ABA.
Even if one were to say the ABA wasn't as good competition, his teams were still not supposed to do what they did. Off the top of my head, I think one Dr.J team was upset or underachieved, the rest more or less exceeded expectations.
Even going back to Virginia, they are a terrible club that had barely any money in it. Dr.J took them to the playoffs twice even winning a series (going to the playoffs in a small league is nothing special, but both seasons Virginia did not have a losing record). The year after he left they were 28-56 (2nd to last in standings), which is about right for a team like that.
The year Dr.J joins the Nets they not only improved from a 30 win first round playoff team to the champions, but they swept an incredibly talented Kentucky team (and swept Utah in the finals as well).
The final ABA season the Nets aren't expected to do much. They had a huge collapse in the year prior in the post season, and then lose both their 2nd and third leading scorers due to financial troubles if I can recall. They beat the same team that inherits those players in the Spurs who have other NBA all-star level talent and a highly talented ensemble cast in the Nuggets (who would go on to be a good NBA team with many of their players intact post merger).
Now, those clubs are built much differently than Philly so it is entirely possible that the structure of Philly depressed Dr.J's impact (I think on many levels we do know that coaching was a problem for them).
It's a shame we do not have more advance data for the ABA because it seems clear that Dr.J's must have some type of incredible impact on his teams that he can carry them to defeat teams that should be way superior on paper. Maybe Dr.J is a bit like D-Wade in that he doesn't have the best impact stats but he seems to be the driving factor for winning games in a more crude manner.
Alternate vote is for Dirk Nowitzki
I think Dirk's consistency is incredibly valuable. He has the proper correlation between elite teams and the core of many successful teams during his long career. He has a dominant run in 2011 that wasn't all that flukey, as he had shown signs of his dominance during that very RS (great RAPM if I can recall, maybe even topped it) and had been an under-the-radar beast in 08-10.
Karl Malone's offense falls off a rock via scoring. While his passing and defense are quite nice, they aren't all time level, so he doesn't really have an attribute that feels "all-time" other than longevity which I do not rate very high on my criteria.
Durant looks good on paper but I think Dirk rates better in the data ball era. Dirk kinda does the things that go underappreciated. He isn't the most boxscore heavy player, but what he does clearly makes his teammates lifes easier on offense. Durant, while hyper efficient and scores a lot of points doesn't play as effortlessly with other players as he should. He dominated in GSW with other stars simply because he was able to go 1 on 1 or was even unguarded because of a super stacked team.
CP3 is an interesting thought. I usually do not punish for injuries, but it is worth noting that Chris Paul can fall off due to injuries that consistently happen annually. That is something you do not have to worry about with Dirk. I could be convinced that CP3 > Nowitzki, but for now I'm going with the more conservative bet.
[My nomination 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)
Transplanting to new thread (though only responding to one point)......
HeartBreakKid wrote:
trex_8063 wrote:It doesn't, and I don't think that is what Owly intended to imply. But such considerations may play a role in the thinking of people inclined to rank Malone slightly ahead ("had more seasons as a top 10 player" or whatever is relevant to their criteria).
You are basically correct that their effective longevity is comparable. Malone 19 years, Nowitizki 21. However, Dirk's first and last seasons are of no consequence (even to me); I'd likewise say Malone's rookie year is of no particular consequence. So it's more like 19 to 18 in effective "seasons that matter". Their respective primes, and/or what I call "extended primes", are similar (maybe marginal edge to Malone, by like 1 season). Malone's availability/durability was marginally better, but that's mostly splitting hairs (especially in prime years). So yeah, it's pretty comparable.
Dirk has more influence in terms of stretching, bending, or "warping" defenses with his shooting range and iso ability. His turnover economy is superior. And his scoring is definitely more playoff resilient.
otoh, Malone has advantages as a passer [they often utilized him as a secondary playmaker from the post, elbow, or sporadically the high-post], as a transition scorer, and on defense, while being a pretty good half-court scorer in his own right. It's pretty close overall; I tend to side with Dirk as the slightly better peak, mostly on the strength of his playoff resiliency. However, I think he was the BETTER rs player, for the most part: peak vs peak, or avg prime year vs avg prime year (or full career), I think he was better than Dirk in the rs. What that means to you is up to each of us individually. I'd gauge him as marginally more consistent from year-to-year, though that's close.
Ultimately, I have these guys (Malone, DRob, Dirk) sitting #13-15 on my list; so we're overdue with all three as far as I'm concerned. And I've toyed with the order some here and there, though pretty consistently come out with Malone on top (only recently bumped Robinson ahead of Dirk). Can't go wrong with any of them here.
As a last counterpoint to Malone's detractors, some would try to say that you can't win a title with him as your best player, but I don't believe that to be true. And as I've mentioned a number of times, I think we more or less saw this in '98 (even as Stockton arguably slipped OUT of his prime). In a more fairly/correctly officiated game 6 universe, the Jazz likely come out as champs more often than not [imo].
You may disagree on some points, and that's fine. Just trying to shed a little light on why some might have him higher. I don't see valid reason to have him A LOT higher. I don't see valid reason to have Dirk A LOT higher either. Wherever they reside on one's list, they should be close; I believe that fairly strongly.
Owly did not say that, lessthanjake did. (unless I am going crazy, which is possible)
Dirk was a top ten player for much longer than the media generally perceives him as. So using the MVP point kind of like a supplement of the longevity argument doesn't really work in this comparison. Dirk was just as good for nearly as long as Malone.
While I don't value the RS enough for it to make a difference for me in this comparison I am not sure if Malone > Nowitzki in the RS is actually true, or if it's just a stereotype that we got used to repeating. Is it that Karl Malone who is a big time boxscore stuffer falls off in the post season so much that it just gives the impression that his RS is better? (kind of like how in peak comparisons players with outlier peaks like McGrady might get voted over guys who are more consistent and do not really have outlier years like Bryant etc). At a glance there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between them in the RS, it would seem they are roughly the same caliber of player while one retains their value in the post season the other drops off.
Yeah, I'll admit the difference is a little less than I was remembering. Though if we look at a statistical comparison over a broad stretch of their respective careers, a 14-year "very extended prime" sampling ('89-'02 for Malone, '01-'14 for Dirk).....
Malone per 100 poss: 36.4 pts @ +5.7% rTS [2,890.7 total TSadd], 14.1 reb (3.3 oreb, 10.8 dreb [23.8% DREB%]), 5.1 ast, 1.9 stl, 1.2 blk, 4.2 tov in 37.9 mpg [and missing only 8 games total in that span]
Dirk per 100 poss: 33.7 pts @ +5.3% rTS [2,260.7 total TSadd], 12.0 reb (1.6 oreb, 10.4 dreb [22.4% DREB%]), 3.9 ast, 1.3 stl, 1.4 blk, 2.7 tov in 36.6 mpg [missing 73 total games]
(note: I pro-rated the TSadd in shortened seasons for both.)
So Malone is scoring at a higher volume [+2.7 per 100] on marginally better shooting efficiency, while rebounding more (NOTE: he edges Dirk in defensive rebounding [where Dirk's proponents typically label him "elite"] in both per 100 and DREB%--->and does so in an era where the general DREB% was lower), assisting more, coming marginally ahead in stl+blk, and in marginally more playing time AND greater availability. Between his superior volume, shooting efficiency, and on-court availability, he's AVERAGING 45 more TSadd per season than Dirk. To put that in perspective: Klay Thompson (a fair/decent scorer, who's played in a relatively favourable circumstance his whole career) only has four seasons where he exceeded the AVERAGE difference between Malone and Dirk. Allen Iverson and Richard Hamilton only have ONE season each. And Isiah Thomas and Russell Westbrook don't have any!
It's just my opinion, but I would also wager Malone contributes more defensively in terms of things NOT showing up from this box comparison: I remember him being better in rotational defense, absorbing charges, and his patented "pulling the chair" maneuver (none of which show up in the box).
The things Dirk offers to balance this out is 1.5 fewer tov per 100, and better spacing effect. I'm just not sure it's enough.
I believe Malone shakes out marginally higher in his average league rank in those metrics as well. For example, in PER [fwiw] Malone is in the top-5 of the league in 13 of 14 seasons, and top-2 in FIVE of them. Dirk is top-5 in the league only five times, and top-2 just TWICE. Dirk does compare somewhat more evenly in ranks for WS/48 and BPM; sort of depends how you evaluate it. For example, Dirk THREE times led the league in WS/48 (Malone never did); however, they have the same number of top-2 finishes [3 each], and Malone has nearly twice as many top-5 finishes.
So while peaks look closer than I remembered, and I may have to back off a peak rs vs peak rs conclusion, I'll stand my original statement that Malone's average prime/extended prime year is slightly better than Dirk's in the rs (especially with availability as a tie-breaker).
"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
rk2023 wrote:Vote - Dirk Nowitzki Alt Nominee - Steve Nash
Re-Nash:
From Doc's RAPM Chronology Google Sheet, which I lost the link for (dating from 1998 - 2012) -
Nash's top-two seasonal scaled O-RAPM values of 10.22 and 9.82 from 2007 & 08 have only been paralleled (precisely) by 2010 Wade (10.65) and James (9.95). His 5 year sum of top O-RAPM values comes out to be 45.39, first in the 15 year database (second is James with 40.7). According to Thinking Basketball's, Nash's 5-year RAPM (I'd assume the Offensive value > the full RAPM value) of 6.8 is 7th all time. I'd assume the latter is citing Engelmann - in which he grades highly in multiple parameters there too.
Nash grades out very highly in WOWY/WOWYR/GPM studies as well to parallel his perceived impacr. Of-course, such measures are going to favor volume playmakers and defensive big-men whom are more or less a "1 man army" on that end - but when offense is more contingent on the other quarter of players on-court.. it does speak to the indispensableness of GOAT level and clear stand-out offensive value accrued by such a tangible scoring-advantage over the pack and/or outlier levels of creation (As one would expect: Magic, Oscar, West, Curry, LJ, MJ all stand out heavily too - with various types of roster construction across the boards).
With this snippet of a case study in mind, I think It's quite interesting / telling and a testament to make sure to conduct a holistic analysis of pragmatic/team, tracking/film and efficacy, catch-all 'standardized' impact, and box production when analyzing players - more or less in that exact order. The Box Score of 17-11 (spanning 2005 through 2010) for Nash far from tells the whole story.
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.
Again, between Dirk and Malone, this is fairly easily Dirk. It is true that Malone's box RS numbers look better:
34.4 per 100/13.9 per 100/.205 WS/48/5.1 BPM/+4.3 rtS vs 31.9 per 100/11.6 per 100/.193 WS/48/4.5 BPM/+3.3 rtS(though Dirk's lousy final season drags that rTS down from +3.96, much closer to Malone)
But that's where his statistical advantages end. Dirk is superior in the playoffs:
Dirk: 32.8 per 100/12.9 per 100/.188 WS/48/5.9 BPM/57.7% TS vs Malone: 32.6 per 100/10.7 per 100/.140 WS/48/4.1 BPM/52.6% TS
The biggest difference being the scoring efficiency.
And here are their full RAPM sets(Malone's first three from Squared):
You tell me whose RAPM sets look better. Particularly on the defensive side.
And I maintain that Malone never defeated teams in the playoffs as good as the 2006/2009 Spurs, 2006 Suns, 2011 Lakers, 2011 Thunder, and 2011 Heat.
Secondary Vote: Julius Erving
I've gone back and forth between Dr. J and KD, and I'm giving the nod ATM to Dr. J on the strength of his ABA peak. If it were based only on his NBA years, then I may well lean KD.
Nomination: Charles Barkley
I'm thrilled Sir Charles is getting some traction finally, and will absolutely add my vote to the pile for his tremendous offensive efficiency during his prime and his GOAT-tier rebounding.
Secondary Nomination: John Stockton
It was either him or Nash. I could be persuaded to change this one.
Vote: Chris Paul Here's a little data comparison for the current candidates who played during the data-ball era:
26 year RAPM Chris Paul 8.1 (3rd) Dirk Nowitzki 6.0 (16th) Kevin Durant 4.7 (28th)
25 year RAPM Chris Paul 4.84 (4th) Dirk Nowitzki 3.89 (13th) Kevin Durant 3.54 (21st)
Career minutes played Dirk Nowitzki 51,368 (4th) Chris Paul 41,785 (30th) Kevin Durant 36,181 (70th)
Raw regular season on/off Dirk Nowitzki +9.0 Chris Paul +6.2 Kevin Durant +5.7
Raw postseason on/off Chris Paul +6.2 Kevin Durant +3.5 Dirk Nowitzki +2.0
It seems pretty clear to me that CP3 > Dirk > KD by a significant margin pretty much anyway you look at it. RAPTOR's an even more limited comparison since only CP3 and KD were in their primes while it was available, but CP3 has the 4th, 8th, 14th, 18th, and 21st best season since 2014 while KD's best season since 2014 ranks 50th. Basically, Chris Paul is an impact god and is well ahead of any of the modern candidates currently nominated.
Karl Malone's a little tougher comparison since he only had impact data for the last few years of his career, but if we look at box data (and CP3's an all-time at outperforming his box numbers), this is what we get. I'll put up Erving's numbers too for fun even though I don't think he's a serious candidate with the competition he faced:
Chris Paul (RS): 24.3 PER, .236 WS/48, 7.1 BPM Karl Malone (RS) 23.9 PER, .205 WS/48, 5.1 BPM Julius Erving (RS) 23.6 PER, .192 WS/48, 6.2 BPM
Chris Paul (PS): 23.2 PER, .187 WS/48, 6.6 BPM Karl Malone (PS): 21.1 PER, .140 WS/48, 4.1 BPM Julius Erving (PS): 22.1 PER, .176 WS/48, 6.0 BPM
As we can see, Chris Paul is clearly ahead of the competition any way you look at it.
Alternate: Dirk Nowitzki Top single season peak, better playoff performer than the next contenders on the list.
Nominate: Nikola Jokic By pretty much any objective measure, his last 3 seasons have been insane and are in the running for best 3-year peak of all-time. Then even beyond that, his previous 3 seasons which are often very underrated are also top 5 to top 10 seasons as well. He deserves a look.
Alternate: Giannis Antetokounmpo Incredible 6 year run as well which would be up there as an all-timer and garner even more attention if it wasn't for Jokic supernovaing even harder during the same time period.
OldSchoolNoBull wrote:I maintain that Malone never defeated teams in the playoffs as good as the 2006/2009 Spurs, 2006 Suns, 2011 Lakers, 2011 Thunder, and 2011 Heat.
Hm, I am voting for Dirk largely because of his playoff advantage, so there is an extent to which I agree with the sentiment, but this I think is an overextension.
Malone’s Jazz beat: - the #4 SRS 1991 Suns fresh off back-to-back conference finals appearances (do not remember whether this was the KJ flu year or a KJ injury year; in any case, KJ seemed to struggle with Stockton, making it less of a Malone-specific win) - the #3 SRS 1994 Spurs - the #4 SRS 1996 Spurs - the #7 SRS 1997 Rockets (I think something like 6-SRS at full-strength? And obviously Hakeem teams tend to outperform those regular season measures anyway) - the #9 SRS 1998 Spurs (very good main lineups, and a year later would be a dominant champion) - the #2 SRS 1998 Lakers (probably would have been #1 with a full season of Shaq)
On paper I do not think that résumé falls notably short of Dirk’s, although Dirk still has the two best wins. However, where I side with Dirk more is in what I would call degree of responsibility. Malone played well enough in most of those series, but against the Lakers and the Duncan-less Spurs, those opponents were utterly unable to defend against the entirety of the Jazz offence. And then Malone was nowhere near Hakeem in the 1997 Rockets series, instead relying on Stockton constantly burning Matt Maloney as part of the best six-game series of his life.
So that would be more my criticism. He beat some good teams, but not because of any performance Dirk did not exceed against similar or better teams. By raw averages he looks okay in the 1998 Finals, but as I wrote the last time I addressed that classic case of Stern-era refereeing…
AEnigma wrote: in Game 1 of that Finals, he goes 9 for 25 but the Jazz win by three points anyway. He is 5 of 16 when his team loses by five points in Game 2, scoring one point during the Bulls’ fourth quarter comeback. He is part of his team scoring 54 total points in Game 3. He is inefficient in a four-point loss in Game 4 (now down 3-1 and lucky to have not been swept). From there, he has a great final two games, but now they have no margin for error or poor refereeing. They could have won with a fairer call. They also could have choked in Game 7 anyway, and they could have won the series in five games if Malone had played better from the start.
Ultimately, Malone does not need to be an outright bad playoff performer to be less trustworthy than Dirk.
AEnigma wrote:- the #4 SRS 1991 Suns fresh off back-to-back conference finals appearances (do not remember whether this was the KJ flu year or a KJ injury year; in any case, KJ seemed to struggle with Stockton, making it less of a Malone-specific win)
Per the Barry Report
What happened? While some credit must be given to Stockton's defense, the crux of the matter was Johnson's left hamstring, which was not fully healed
Noting that injury recovery isn't purely linear and his production isn't up to his season norms.... after missing some April games and after 2 games easing back, for the final 2 RS games he averages 31 minutes (still clearly down but...) does manage to get the line 17 and 15 times ... so that suggests there had been some signs of explosion in some games after his return. He doesn't get to double digits in any game in the series though that's a high bar (26 times met in the RS of 77 so not wild that he didn't do it over 4 games even if he were healthy). Taking I think slightly more threes might be him settling though in that era you could get a significant increase just from more heaves (it's 7 attempts over 4 games; RS he takes 1 or more in 32 games).
We are into the next group that looks to me like very close to pick-em. Each player here has weaknesses as well as their amazing strengths.
Vote: Karl Malone: I could easily have gone Kevin Durant here if not for his off court issues which lead to my questioning his leadership. Karl Malone obviously had off court issues too but they didn't affect his play or his team until his final year in LA. Otherwise he was a monstrously hardworking ironman who played with consistent intensity during regular seasons and playoffs. I have both Malone and Durant over Nowitzki here, Malone for his consistency and defense, Durant for both offensive and defensive play. Erving also deserves a strong look.
Alternative: Kevin Durant: While Durant's personality and ability to elevate teammates is certainly questionable, he's been one of the NBA's all-time greatest scorers and a solid defender for well over a decade in what I classify as the strongest era in league history (albeit one that is easier to be an ATG scorer than any other). I think there's been a backlash against him that will die down a bit over time and this seems the right spot for him though, again, it's close with Julius and Dirk.
Nomination: Giannis. Alternate Nomination: Jokic Not sure these guys deserve this spot in front of guys like Frazier, Stockton, Moses, or Ewing, but not sure they don't. When in doubt, I will go with the active player knowing that sometimes I don't give them enough credit for what they've done.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
Looking at my big board I'm a little generous with the last few KD years, but even having them as a weak MVP value, I still think KD has the highest peak of the current group.
Looking at KD's scoring
Once KD enters his prime, he has a great mix of scoring in volume (high 20's pp75) and efficiency (+9 rTS%). His 3 yr PS peaks are also quite good.
18. Kevin Durant
Looking at my alternative, it's between Karl Malone and Dirk Nowitzki. (Although honestly, CP3 and Dr J are also right around here)
Karl Malone posted some great scoring seasons, with solid efficiency. His MVP years (awarded) were 30 pp75 on +6.4 rTS% and 26.3 pp75 on +6.6%. Solid numbers. In the PS, late 90's Karl Malone's efficiency drops, although his production was still good.
I have Dirk peaking higher than Karl Malone. His peak season, 26.5 pp75 + 7.1 rTS%, plus as others have mentioned, his game inherently made life easier for the others on his team. His post season efficiency was also very good, with 30 +9 from 09-11.
Karl Malone was better defensively. The early Jazz teams were monsters defensively, and perhaps he didn't offer as much rim protection because Eaton was a monster. Dirk however, wasn't as bad as people might think, being neutral to slight positive most seasons
When it's such a coin flip, Dirk with the higher peak, takes it out for me. His longevity is still very good.
Alt. Dirk Nowitzki
Nominations.
Giannis Antentokounmpo Giannis has a growing body of work, with a very high peak, and some good longevity numbers now. Steve Nash Nash is the creation GOAT, alongside Magic. Fantastic floor general, creating easy shots for his teammates.
One_and_Done wrote: KD is my vote. In terms of alternates, I haven’t seen anyone really justify why KD isn’t ahead of Malone and Dirk. Here are their per 100 stats.
I would assume people are citing Malone's durability and longevity whilst voting him over in that comparison (not saying I agree or disagree, that's something I'm thinking of - as I think Durant is a better basketball player than Malone).
As for Dirk, there's proof of concept he has floor-raised more effectively and for longer while having reached more impressive heights ITO impact at apex points (not to mention his own longevity advantage here). 70sFan elaborated upon your skill-set 'comparison' to at-least a reasonably sound degree - where there is reason to believe the offensive gap Dirk provided is >= the mild defensive gap in Durant's favor.
Just to respond to some of these and other points people have made:
I don’t know that Dirk really has proved his superior floor raising. Cuban tended to shell out to put good players around Dirk from the time he got there through to 2011. This included high payrolls and excellent support players over the years; Finley, Nash, Josh Howard and Kidd all made all-star teams during his time there. That’s before we look at a tonne of useful role players from Terry and Marion through to Stackhouse and Tyson Chandler. They didn’t always work out, but Cuban put every bit of talent he could around those teams. Yet looking at it I’m not at all sure Dirk’s teams were more impressive. From 01-11 the Mavs had the win% of a 56 win team. From 2010-2016, excluding 2015 when KD got hurt, the Thunder had a 56 win% also.
Sure, KD had some high end talent with him at times, but it was incredibly sub-optimal. Westbrook just wasn’t a good fit, which was underscored by how they each did after KD left. Even when KD was there, in the 2014 season when Westbrook was hurt they went 25-11 without him. It was KD driving their winning. Harden was gone after 2012, and was still a 6th man during his time there, and Presti’s insistence on playing Perk at the 5 cost them the finals in 2012. 2016 really underscores how bad the fit around KD was. Instead of shooters, he had a starting line-up of Adams, Ibaka, Roberson and Russell. The 2nd best shooter on the team after KD was Ibaka. That’s terrible. In hindsight it’s amazing KD was able to get them so close to taking out the 73 Warriors to begin with. The Thunder teams lacked the balance and depth those Mavs teams tended to have (and often the high end of the Mavs teams rivalled some of those Thunder teams). Yet the Mavs only got out of the 2nd round 3 times in that 11 year span. KD’s Thunder did it 4 times in that 7 year stretch, despite 2015 being a lost year due to injuries to KD.
The narrative around how they did in the playoffs seems to favour KD also. The Thunder gradually get better from 2010-2012, culminating in a finals that they lose because their coach sucks. Then Harden’s gone, and they barely take a step back in the RS anyway, but Westbrook is hurt in the playoffs and KD can’t advance past the 2nd round with the combination of no shooting and now no star power either. In 2014 they get to the WCFs and go down in 6 games to a legendary Spurs team, and even then the series was 2-2 in games Ibaka actually played. The next year is lost to injuries, and then the year after they take the 73 win Warriors to the edge. I don’t see how you can look at that and feel in any given year they didn’t meet or exceed expectations.
Yeh, KD had less rebounds, but that’s because he’s moving between the perimeter and paint so much, which is what you want in a modern forward. Dirk and Mailman’s rebounds in part reflect where they are on the court.
I don’t put a lot of stock on plus minus stats. They’re worth noting, as a useful data point, but I find stuff like “gee, the team was 25-11 without Westbrook in 2014” a lot more compelling than plus minus stats, especially when there’s so many factors that can make them misleading.
As I’ve noted, I don’t believe in a flat adjustment for TS%. It means we’d rate a guy higher just for playing in a worse league, even if he’s the exact same player.
I think Dr J is a guy I’m more inclined to see the case for over KD rather than Dirk. His high end is higher, and he adapts to the modern league really well. The athleticism and tools he had are just more valuable than what Dirk can do, and he’d actually be better in the modern day. I’m not sure what kind of support he’s going to get here though. Dirk is a worthy choice around here, but not over KD.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
Again, between Dirk and Malone, this is fairly easily Dirk. It is true that Malone's box RS numbers look better:
34.4 per 100/13.9 per 100/.205 WS/48/5.1 BPM/+4.3 rtS vs 31.9 per 100/11.6 per 100/.193 WS/48/4.5 BPM/+3.3 rtS(though Dirk's lousy final season drags that rTS down from +3.96, much closer to Malone)
But that's where his statistical advantages end. Dirk is superior in the playoffs:
Dirk: 32.8 per 100/12.9 per 100/.188 WS/48/5.9 BPM/57.7% TS vs Malone: 32.6 per 100/10.7 per 100/.140 WS/48/4.1 BPM/52.6% TS
Firstly, you noted Malone's DREBs vs Dirk's TOTAL Rebs. Malone's full-career TREBs per 100 in the playoffs is 13.9.
But secondly, I don't know that we should be comparing Malone's full-career playoffs stats here, at least without some disclaimers or mentioned details.
For example, you note Dirk is sort of being penalized in the rs samples by his final season, but do not do the same for Malone in the ps samples.
Dirk's teams didn't make the playoffs until '01, a season which could reasonably be called his prime (or at least extended prime). And they didn't make the playoffs any of his final three seasons. So basically NONE of his pre-prime, and relatively little of his post-prime is included in his playoff sample. Malone, otoh, has ALL of his pre-prime and ALL of his post-prime included in his ps sample, because he never missed the playoffs. Additionally, the league avg TS% in Dirk's playoff sample years is just marginally better than in Malone's.
So if I, for instance, included only '88 thru '02 for Malone (a 15-year sample that includes all of his extended prime, plus at least one non-prime season [now similar to the 15 years sampled for Dirk]), I note Malone is about +0.04% rTS vs Dirk's +4.46% rTS.
It's still a very significant edge to Dirk; but where it previously looked >5%, now it's <4.5% (a small nudge, almost identical to the difference betweeen 3.3 and 3.96).
If I did similar with his per 100 numbers, I note that Malone ('88-'02) in the playoffs averaged 34.9 pts, 14.6 reb, and that his BPM and WS/48 are +5.0 and .156, respectively.
I could expand the Malone sample slightly (to include either '03 or '87), and that would damage his figures somewhat, but still the gap would not be what you've shown above.
OldSchoolNoBull wrote:And here are their full RAPM sets(Malone's first three from Squared):
You tell me whose RAPM sets look better. Particularly on the defensive side.
It's important to note that those RAPM figures by Squared are from a VERY limited sample of those three seasons (reliability could be iffy). That in mind.....
Dirk, in his "extended prime" I previously established [prior post] as '01-'14, averages a +4.24 RAPM.
If we go ahead and use Squared's figures, despite sample size issue, focusing on his extended prime as previously established in prior post as '89-'02 for Malone, he averages a +3.56 RAPM for the eight seasons within that span that we have any data for.
If, otoh, we choose to use his rs AuPM for '94-'96 (rs only, but MUCH larger sample size [whole season] than Squared's data), we now have data for 9 seasons within his extended prime, and they average out to +4.46.
Or as a third option, we could use ONLY those [six] extended prime seasons we actually have full-season (including playoffs) RAPM, in which case Malone averages out to +4.07.
OldSchoolNoBull wrote:And I maintain that Malone never defeated teams in the playoffs as good as the 2006/2009 Spurs, 2006 Suns, 2011 Lakers, 2011 Thunder, and 2011 Heat.
idk, I think the Malone Jazz defeated a number of teams better than the '09 Spurs. And I think someone like the '98 Lakers is at least debatable against one or two more of the teams you mention above.
I'd also note that Dirk's Mavs never had to face a team as good as the '97 Bulls, or arguably the ‘96 Sonics (at least in a year they were actually contending).
"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
) were awful. Dirk is 27/12 with 3 blocks on 45/47/86 with 6 turnovers in 5 games. Everyone else is under 50% TS.
(dating from 1998 - 2012) - 
I'm a little generous with the last few KD years, but even having them as a weak MVP value, I still think KD has the highest peak of the current group.
