RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #19 (Karl Malone)

One_and_Done · Post #21 » by **One_and_Done** » Sat Aug 26, 2023 9:15 pm

Colbinii wrote:
One_and_Done wrote:
KD from 2010-23, K.Malone 88-98, Dirk 05-11 (so we filter Nash out)

Can you explain the rationale for filtering Nash out but not Curry/Stockton/Westbrook/Kyrie?

Since Dirk is gone now it's moot, so I should edit that part out next time. It's not like Dirk's whole prime numbers were better, it was just a remnant of a debate with 70sfan. We used Dirk's whole prime numbers later in the thread, which were also inferior to KD.

Colbinii · Post #22 » by **Colbinii** » Sat Aug 26, 2023 9:28 pm

The comparison of Durant/Malone/Erving is fascinating. All 3 had 0 overlap with their primes [and Erving/Malone overlapped for just 2 seasons in 1986 and 1987], so it really is a comparison of 3 guys, from 3 different generations, who are eerily similar.

Durant (2010-2023 RS): 6.8 OBPM [7.8 BPM, 75.2 VORP], 151.7 WS, 63.1 TS%, 120 IOrtg, 38.2 PP100
Malone (1990-2000 RS): 5.6 OBPM [6.6 BPM, 71.5 VORP], 162.2 WS, 59.2 TS%, 116 IOrtg, 36.9 PP100
Erving (1974-1984 RS): 5.2 OBPM [7.0 BPM, 72.1 VORP], 141.0 WS, 56.4 TS%, 112 IOrtg, 32.1 PP100

At first glance, Erving lags behind as a volume scorer to Durant/Malone, which isn't surprising for a couple reasons.

1) Erving's offensive game wasn't always predicated on being the pure scorer both Durant and Malone were. He was a GOAT level slasher--something neither Malone nor Durant were--which diced up defenses as early as his rookie season in Virginia. But, in combination with his Slashing game was an approach to Basketball which was Humble to the utmost degree.

2) Erving wasn't the physical finisher/rim attacker that you may have assumed he was. His FTR isn't something that rivals a Wade, and instead comes in behind Durant [and further lagging behind Malone]. He had a ton of finesse to his game when attacking, sometimes shying away from contact more than you would want from a 6' 7", spry specimen.

Now, this comparison isn't fair--it isn't meant to be fair--but it should shine some light into the longevity advantages both Erving and Malone have over Durant. Durant has 14 seasons selected [Really 13 since he missed 2020] while Erving was a major impact player in 1972 and 1973. Malone was a major impact guy 1989 and 2001 [and still all-star level good in 1988, 2002 and 2003].

Defensively, there is no argument I can see where Durant approaches either Malone or Erving. I actually have Erving as the best defender of this bunch here in terms of value. He was disruptive on the perimeter and an excellent rim protector and paint deterrent--an invaluable asset for a 3/4 wing.

All this said, and you still have Chris Paul lurking, a peak rivaling Magic Johnson and longevity rivaling anyone remaining. In comparison to Durant, CP3 has 11 seasons > 6 BPM [Durant has 11] and 2 seasons > 10 BPM [Durant has 2].

How do we even go about Malone/Durant/Erving and then where does CP3 go?

iggymcfrack · Post #23 » by **iggymcfrack** » Sat Aug 26, 2023 9:29 pm

f4p wrote:
rk2023 wrote:The Box Score is far from an end-all, be-all here.. but in BBR's "Big Three",

The death of the box score has been greatly exaggerated.

We know the PC board tends to eschew the box score. Perhaps it gets a passing mention before we venture into "better" stats like impact metrics and WOWY or before we venture into the realm of film study and issues like leadership and winning. I mean, for goodness sake, the box score barely even accounts for defense, and it's half the game! So let's look at our project so far. All the sophisticated arguments, all the ink spilled, all the hours spent debating fellow posters. With the wisdom and varied views of basketball beyond the box score, surely the deviations from a simple box score ranking would be fairly extreme.

Now as it just so happens, I have a simple box score ranking. It goes from ages 22-31**, so it's only a 10 year peak measure (so no longevity considered), and it uses the BBRef "Big Three" and it's weighed 75/25 postseason to regular season (**karl malone and steve nash are 27-36 and 26-35 respectively because they have such late peaks, and I included Dr. J in the ABA). Also, note that I removed Jokic (short career), Kawhi and AD (injuries) and Dolph Schayes (era) who clearly were not going to get traction in this project up until now for reasons other than people not believing their box score numbers reflect how good they were.

If we include all of the current nominees plus the closest nominee from last time (Barkley), that gets us to 24 players. So how many players in the Top 24 comes from say, spots 101-200 on the box score list?

Well, here it is, with the players who have been inducted bolded:

Code: Select all
101 Draymond Green 102 Tom Heinsohn 103 Gary Payton 104 Rajon Rondo 105 Bailey Howell 106 DeAndre Jordan 107 Hersey Hawkins 108 Rik Smits 109 Jeff Hornacek 110 Maurice Cheeks 111 Chris Webber 112 Fred Brown 113 Mike Conley 114 Steve Smith 115 Paul Millsap 116 John Havlicek 117 Paul Westphal 118 Marcus Camby 119 Antonio Daniels 120 Bob Cousy 121 Terry Cummings 122 Dominique Wilkins 123 Bob Dandridge 124 Jerome Kersey 125 Mark Aguirre 126 Sidney Moncrief 127 Mark Price 128 Rasheed Wallace 129 Kerry Kittles 130 Maurice Lucas 131 Charlie Ward 132 Joakim Noah 133 Neil Johnston 134 Robert Parish 135 Rashard Lewis 136 Wes Unseld 137 Clifford Ray 138 Dave Cowens 139 Zelmo Beaty 140 James Posey 141 Serge Ibaka 142 Bam Adebayo 143 LaMarcus Aldridge 144 Gail Goodrich 145 Roy Hibbert 146 Lou Hudson 147 Jack Sikma 148 Robert Horry 149 Lamar Odom 150 Kyle Lowry 151 Rod Strickland 152 Kiki Vandeweghe 153 Carlos Boozer 154 John Salley 155 Karl-Anthony Towns 156 Chet Walker 157 Tony Parker 158 Josh Smith 159 Sam Perkins 160 Jerry Lucas 161 Bill Laimbeer 162 Bryon Russell 163 Peja Stojaković 164 Alvan Adams 165 Tobias Harris 166 Vlade Divac 167 Earl Monroe 168 Kirk Hinrich 169 Bob Lanier 170 Mookie Blaylock 171 Yao Ming 172 Paul Arizin 173 Hassan Whiteside 174 Paul Pressey 175 Otis Thorpe 176 Artis Gilmore 177 Tristan Thompson 178 Pat Connaughton 179 Tracy McGrady 180 Jrue Holiday 181 Michael Cooper 182 Ed Macauley 183 Richard Hamilton 184 Jason Terry 185 Harry Gallatin 186 Grant Hill 187 Tyson Chandler 188 Anthony Mason 189 Domantas Sabonis 190 Montrezl Harrell 191 Nate McMillan 192 Darryl Dawkins 193 Tayshaun Prince 194 Phil Chenier 195 Rolando Blackman 196 Boris Diaw 197 Pascal Siakam 198 Khris Middleton 199 Hal Greer 200 Joe Dumars

Hmm, no bolded names. But ok, that's spots 101-200, how much deviation were you expecting? Surely spots 51-100 will be a target-rich environment.

Code: Select all
51 Jamal Murray 52 Shawn Kemp 53 George Gervin 54 Patrick Ewing 55 Jimmy Butler 56 Kevin McHale 57 Anfernee Hardaway 58 Gus Williams 59 Clint Capela 60 Paul Pierce 61 Blake Griffin 62 Carmelo Anthony 63 Bobby Jones 64 Frank Ramsey 65 Isiah Thomas 66 Terry Porter 67 Scottie Pippen 68 Steve Nash 69 Marc Gasol 70 Allen Iverson 71 Walter Davis 72 Larry Foust 73 Damian Lillard 74 Bill Sharman 75 Kevin Johnson 76 Brad Daugherty 77 Vern Mikkelsen 78 Paul George 79 Ben Wallace 80 Al Horford 81 Alonzo Mourning 82 Jayson Tatum 83 Willis Reed 84 Cedric Maxwell 85 Chris Bosh 86 Kevin Love 87 Don Nelson 88 Shawn Marion 89 Tim Hardaway 90 Horace Grant 91 Elvin Hayes 92 Bob McAdoo 93 Marques Johnson 94 Toni Kukoč 95 Jason Kidd 96 Deandre Ayton 97 Deron Williams 98 Doc Rivers 99 Devin Booker 100 James Worthy

Hmm, ok, I guess we'll look at 41-50. Surely a few names will be there.

Code: Select all
41 Clyde Drexler 42 Chauncey Billups 43 Sam Jones 44 Rick Barry 45 Clyde Lovellette 46 Russell Westbrook 47 Vince Carter 48 Rudy Gobert 49 Amar'e Stoudemire 50 Adrian Dantley

31-40?

Code: Select all
31 Manu Ginóbili 32 Elgin Baylor 33 John Stockton 34 Walt Frazier 35 Moses Malone 36 George Yardley 37 Dwight Howard 38 Joel Embiid 39 Pau Gasol 40 Kyrie Irving

Well, we've got 24 names, so they must at least start by position 24. So where does the first inducted person finally come in on the box score list?

1 Michael Jordan
2 George Mikan
3 LeBron James
4 Wilt Chamberlain
5 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
6 Giannis Antetokounmpo
7 Chris Paul
8 Shaquille O'Neal
9 Tim Duncan
10 Kevin Durant
11 Hakeem Olajuwon
12 Jerry West
13 Charles Barkley
14 Magic Johnson
15 David Robinson
16 Oscar Robertson
17 Dirk Nowitzki
18 James Harden
19 Julius Erving
20 Stephen Curry
21 Kevin Garnett
22 Larry Bird
23 Karl Malone
24 Kobe Bryant
25 Ray Allen
26 Dwyane Wade
27 Bill Russell

27th. And of course it's Bill Russell. Not only the biggest outlier in NBA history in so many ways, but a guy who is hamstrung by the fact the box score didn't keep track of his biggest outlier stat (blocks) when he played and there was no BPM, a stat I feel like he would do very well in. He is almost certainly jumping DWade and Allen if he has all of his stats. The other 23 players are literally squished into the top 24. So with longevity factored in and some winning bonuses/demerits factored in, basically the box score rankings hold amazingly firm and have just been shuffled around a little.

Takeaways?

1. James Harden has to be nominated quite soon. Can't nominate everyone who is great by the box score and just skip one guys.
2. Ray Allen? Well, he was genuinely amazing from age 22-31 in the playoffs, with his numbers soaring; however, he only had 4 playoffs and it only encompassed 37 games. Almost 80% of his playoff games come from after he turned 31 so this is just an example of the fact that any hard-coded criteria will probably let someone slip through. His 2008-2010 playoffs do not show the same resiliency.
3. The Steve Nash talk I've seen in recent threads seems quite premature. No has been selected outside of the box score top 27 so far. And arguably his nearest comp, Magic Johnson, was 14th and, with even better elite longevity than Nash, he was only Inducted at 10th. Nash is at 68th. You could probably remove 5 or 6 names that will not be considered for one reason or another and get him into the lower 60's, but that's a very far leap up the board for someone who didn't have exceptional longevity (or even above average longevity), didn't win a title, does very poorly by actual vs expected titles, does very poorly by playoff resilience, and who has no real defining WCF/Finals series (not that he was terrible) that usually boost lower longevity type players.

I find it interesting that CP3 ranks ahead of Durant by your purely box score measure even though Paul consistently overperforms box score numbers more than anyone in history while Durant underperforms them by more than any modern player nominated so far. Paul also has better longevity which is not accounted for in your formula. He even got one game closer to winning a championship as the best player.

HeartBreakKid · Post #24 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Sat Aug 26, 2023 10:07 pm

iggymcfrack wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:I'm considering putting CP3 over Dr.J but I have to say, what Dr.J did in the ABA still feels undersold.

ABA's competition doesn't even matter. His teams were objectively not the best and they all overachieved multiple times. We are talking about a guy who played for the Virginia squires and was still winning series every year.

If a supplementary or major argument against Dr.J is that he had the weakest competition in a pre merger era then you can counter by saying he had the worst teammates by far - and you can't even begin to contest that. I mean Kevin Durant is on the list for god sakes, you really want to compare Durant's teammates to the Nets and the Virginia Squires? (I'm bolding it because it just sounds so scrubby, kind of like how people always cite Smush Parker).

Dr.J was a dominant enough force that teams filled with not only NBA All-stars but All-NBA level players still couldn't defeat the Nets. That is really powerful. Multiple players from Kentucky and Denver have made the top 100 in the past and will probably make it here as well.

How else can you explain the Nets winning other than Dr.J having some out of this world impact? He must be comparable at some level to guys like Nowitzki and Wade.

Seriously, someone explain it to me because I feel like this kind of trumps all the other (legitimate) questions about Dr.J.

I did a comparison a thread or two back, but Chris Paul’s years in New Orleans line up age-wise with Dr. J’s ABA years and he put up very similar numbers against much better competition. He didn’t have the same playoff success in a team level, but he did beat Dirk 4-1, narrrowly lost to the Duncan Spurs 4-3, and then had another big series in a loss to the championship Pau/Kobe Lakers. Whereas the best player Dr. J had to go up against was Artis Gilmore.

Peak Artis Gilmore was a top player. Pau Gasol is not better than Artis Gilmore. If you are mentioning Pau to show that the Lakers had more than one good player then why not do the same for Kentucky? Louie Dampier (a player who was insanely ahead of his time and was held back by coaching), Dan Issell, and Artis Gilmore is a legitimate big 3 in a league that did not have nearly as many players to deal with that type of star power. You phrase it as if the Nets beating the Colonels is a lesser feat than losing to the 2011 Lakers (who were already declining).

Kentucky and Denver had a lot of good players. They were not just one person teams. Also, Dr.J had terrible teammates, so him having worse opponents isn't all that relevant. The Hornets were usually not very good, but it isn't a wash.

One_and_Done · Post #25 » by **One_and_Done** » Sat Aug 26, 2023 10:23 pm

Gilmore and Pau are actually not too far from consideration.

trelos6 · Post #26 » by **trelos6** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 12:00 am

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.

19. Kevin Durant

Looking at my alternative, I think if I'm a little higher on a few Chris Paul seasons, he rockets up my big board. Some of his seasons were borderline MVP - weak MVP to me, so if I give him a slight bump, He's right up there with KD.

20. Chris Paul

Nominations.

Steve Nash Nash is the creation GOAT, alongside Magic. Fantastic floor general, creating easy shots for his teammates.
James Harden Harden was very good for a 5 year stretch. I have him at 5 MVP seasons which is up there with KD, Giannis and CP3 in terms of highest peaks of the current group. His problem is longevity, which I sadly don't see him adding too many more great seasons to his resume.

Samurai · Post #27 » by **Samurai** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 12:26 am

Repeating my vote from previous round.

Vote for #19: Chris Paul. Again, no complaints with others choosing the other nominees 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: Moses Malone. Sure, he had his limitations as a player. But he was so elite in his strengths that the sum of his parts is hard to ignore. GOAT-level offensive rebounder. Excellent scorer with a surprisingly soft touch out to 15 feet. Outstanding longevity - not only 8th most career minutes but I read his total of 49,444 as forty-nine thousand and fo, fo, fo! Three-time MVP, Finals MVP, four-time All NBA First team, four-time All NBA Second Team, and two-time All NBA Defensive Team (one first team and one second team).

One_and_Done · Post #28 » by **One_and_Done** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 2:08 am

Debating switching my alternates to Dr J and Harden.

Post #29 » by **penbeast0** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 2:28 am

HeartBreakKid wrote:
Peak Artis Gilmore was a top player. Pau Gasol is not better than Artis Gilmore. If you are mentioning Pau to show that the Lakers had more than one good player then why not do the same for Kentucky? Louie Dampier (a player who was insanely ahead of his time and was held back by coaching), Dan Issell, and Artis Gilmore is a legitimate big 3 in a league that did not have nearly as many players to deal with that type of star power. You phrase it as if the Nets beating the Colonels is a lesser feat than losing to the 2011 Lakers (who were already declining).

Kentucky and Denver had a lot of good players. They were not just one person teams. Also, Dr.J had terrible teammates, so him having worse opponents isn't all that relevant. The Hornets were usually not very good, but it isn't a wash.

I agree that Kentucky had a terrific big three though they didn't win until they took offensive primacy away from Issel and gave it to Gilmore. Denver had Bobby Jones with Ralph Simpson and either Mack Calvin or rookie David Thompson as a second scorer.

But Erving had decent teammates in New York. Looking at 75 and 76, Billy Paultz was a solid center (there is a quote in Loose Balls about how everyone know Erving was good but they were surprised by Paultz being NBA level), Larry Kenon was an athletic forward who was great at finishing on the break, Brian Taylor was arguably the best defensive guard in the ABA and a good percentage shooter, and John Williamson was . . . well, if you like the Iverson/Isiah type of guy who can get his shot anytime without worrying too much about how often it goes in.

Then they dealt Paultz and Kenon to San Antonio for Sven Nater, a lead footed rebounding machine, and Rich "House" Jones, who was a stretch 4 scorer. Talentwise a bad deal, but they were a big disappointment in 75 and in 76 they won the title so it worked for that year at least.

OldSchoolNoBull · Post #30 » by **OldSchoolNoBull** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 4:28 am

This is the first thread so far where I come in unsure of who I'm going to vote for. All five players have obvious strengths and obvious weaknesses.

Strengths

Durant - Best/most efficient pure scorer of the bunch.

Malone - Best longevity of the bunch, by consensus here anyway.

Dr. J - Best resume of the bunch with six finals appearances, three titles, and four MVPs across the two leagues, and in some estimations the highest peak of the bunch in his ABA years.

CP3 - Perhaps the most impactful at running a team offense of the bunch while also not being a liability on the other end.

Giannis - The best two-way impact of the bunch.

Weaknesses

Durant - Doesn't look good defensively based on DRAPM, and there are questions about one-dimensionality and his overall impact.

Malone - Perhaps the weakest playoff performer of the five, certainly in terms of scoring efficiency, and while he made some all-defensive teams and some of you continue to argue he was a positive defender, I still haven't seen any stats - impact, box, or otherwise - to back that up.

Dr. J - Just a difficult player to analyze - his NBA numbers, particularly TS and what little +/- we have, are underwhelming, and it seems like if he's going to be voted in this high it will largely be on the strength of his ABA peak years, which people seem to have differing opinions on and for which essentially no video exists to look at.

CP3 - One of the least efficient RS scorers in the group - only Doc is worse by career average rTS, by my count - and there are questions about how much he can be trusted to show up when it counts.

Not looking at his New Orleans years because they weren't really ever close to winning anything.

In 2016, the Clippers were tied 2-2 with the Blazers in the first round, with HCA, and CP3 goes down and misses the next two games and they lose both.

In 2017, the Clippers go to game 7 with the Jazz, without Blake Griffin(who got hurt), and CP3 goes 6/19 from the field in a 13 point loss.

In 2018, the Rockets are up 3-2 over the Warriors when CP3 gets hurt and misses the last two games.

In 2019, the Rockets are tied with the Warriors when KD sustains his initial calf injury and misses the remainder of the series. The Rockets lose two games in a row to the Durant-less Warriors, with CP3 putting up 11 points on 3/14 shooting in Game 5.

In 2022, in the Suns/Mavs Game 7, the whole team imploded in an embarrassing blowout, and as part of that he only scored 10 points(though on 8 shots, to be fair, I'm sure he was benched early when the loss became obvious).

In 2023, he gets hurt in Game 2 of the Nuggets series and misses the remainder of the series.

Giannis - Even as someone who doesn't weight longevity that much, he doesn't have enough years of elite play - he's got ten years, but only the last five, maybe six have been at an all-NBA level - and he's the worst shooter of the bunch. That doesn't mean he's the least efficient - his average rTS is in the ballpark of Malone - but rather that his efficiency comes mostly from a high volume of "at rim" shots that he hits a high percentage of. BBRef's shooting splits are broken into five categories based on distance from the basket, with "at rim" being the closest. I've taken a look at the combined percentages for all non-"at rim" shots for a selection of seasons(I just didn't want to do it for every single season for every single player) for the current nominees(except for Dr. J for whom the splits don't exist):

Giannis(last five years)
2018-19 - 31.2%
2019-20 - 35%
2020-21 - 35.7%
2021-22 - 36.5%
2022-23 - 33.1%

Durant
2011-12 43.9% (Year Thunder went to Finals)
2015-16 42.9% (Year Thunder almost beat Warriors)
2016-17 45.3% (First GS Title Year)
2017-18 46% (Second GS Title Year)
2022-23 51.1% (This past season)

CP3
2010-11 44.6% (Year Pelicans took two games off 2x champion Lakers)
2013-14 43.3% (Two of the best Lob City years)
2014-15 47.1%
2017-18 44.2% (Year the Rockets nearly beat the Warriors)
2020-21 48.6% (Year the Suns went to the Finals)

Malone(All eight seasons available)
1996-97 44.4%
1997-98 45%
1998-99 39.9%
1999-00 43.7%
2000-01 29.7%
2001-02 39.6%
2002-03 39.2%
2003-04 39.2%

(Incidentally, we can see that Malone's efficiency fell off in his last 4-6 years, which puts a small dent in his longevity argument. His overall box FG percentages from his pre-databall years suggests the everything-but-at-rim percentages for early years would be more in line with 97 and 98.)

So Giannis is a notably worse shooter than the others from beyond the rim. This isn't earth-shattering news, of course, but it relates to why his current lack of longevity may be an issue. Because what happens when his athleticism starts naturally eroding with age and he can't get into the paint/to the rim quite so easily anymore? Giannis is a year and a few months from turning 30. One can see a reality where as Giannis gets older, if his athleticism slips at all and his shooting doesn't improve, his overall offensive impact could diminish to the point where he becomes primarily a defensive player. And that's if he doesn't sustain any serious injuries.

So anyway, I'm undecided as of yet. Though I lean towards either Durant or Dr. J.

OhayoKD · Post #31 » by **OhayoKD** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 8:53 am

Gibson22 wrote:Generally, I don't like the direction where this project as far as:
1) Modernism. It was always understood that the point of these rankings was to measure the impact they had in their career, not to judge if 60s players were as good as superstars of today.

This isn't really true. There has always been a degree of modernism in the lists. Bird and Magic were not getting goat votes based on "what they achieved in their time". Oscar certainly wasn't. If we look back to the 2014 project...
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1330968
Modernism was not only a factor, but arguably, the biggest factor in the #1 Vote with several voters outright acknowledging Russell was the impact king but ignoring him for concerns of era. Russell's empirical supremacy was not quite as recognized as it is now, but modernism was ultimately the biggest hammer when Bill was outvoted 22-10.

Russell's impact was not expected to translate across era like Jordan(or Kareem), thus he landed 3rd. What you might also note is there are no posts using modernism against Mike. No one was willing to champion a more modern player on the grounds that the players of the 2000's or 2010's were better.

Era-relativity actually gained traction in later projects, but over the last year there have been a couple of shifts
-> The idea that basketball peaked 30-40 years ago has lost significant traction
-> The idea that contemporary players would look better translated back than older players would look translated forward has gained significant translation
-> As in 2014, posters have begun to champion modernism, and, as we can see in the pre-project list for this iteration. even era-relativists have acknowledged that modernists have a point
-> It is now not so undisputed that the proper way to translate players is to give them a new set of parents and conditions to grow up in(aka "build-a-player")
-> The "how" regarding era-translation is now more developed. It's no longer a matter of speculating whether raw box-production goes up or down

And ultimately, I would say, with no consideration of convenience or difficulty, on purely philosophical grounds, "impact across time" is the most proper way to compare players. DNA is no more a matter of choice than when you actually play. The justification for era-relativity is convenience. If you are doing it for "fairness" you are just drawing arbitrary lines. Why cherry-pick what is circumstance and what is fair to consider when you can just compare the players themselves?

It also might lead to more productive discussions, because right now, with era-relativity, some of the debates are just one side appealing to uncertainty when convenient to muddy up otherwise straightforward comparisons. At least at the top, alot of this is pretty set/obvious. Not so set/obvious with translation being a factor.

Regardless, if you wish to maintain strict-ish era-relativity because it's easier, fair. Pretending it is "proper" is silly. As is, your list is probably not strictly era-relative. Was Russell in your top 3? Was mikan in your top 10?

2) The point of longevity isn't about it being enough to assess how good a player was, it's about determining who added more cumulative marginal value to their team. Like, i see somebody saying like, ok, 8 seasons is enough for me to judge bla bla bla. the point is not about the player being in enough situations and doing enough stuff for us to judge and to understand if he was a fraud or not, it's about the damn cumulative value. if you do good things for 17 seasons it's better than if you do for 11, that's it.

Why not both? If we are going to factor concepts like cieling-raising and how players would look in different situations, then a player being able to retain impact in various circumstances should play a factor. Additionally, a player being ahead of the trajectory early or late tends to correlate with them being ahead in the middle.

Unless you think there isn't uncertainty regarding how good different players are, I'd say it's pretty fair to look at how the rest of their basketball playing compares when trying to assess who is "better'. Better players likely peak higher, regardless of if it's apparent over a specific frame.

So the project i think is getting too influenced by these 2 bad concepts that i feel were always clear but now aren't anymore, as much.

I think both concepts are good but you are probably overstating the influence. Mostly longevity and modernism have been used as tie-breakers. Kareem moved to #2 because the board sees his best years as better than they used to. It may not be so apparent just reading the voting posts, but multiple posters who explicitly had kareem peaking higher decided to not mention that because

A. Kareem being similarly valuable was sufficient to justify his longevity as a tie-breaker
B. They did not want to spark unnecessary controversy

In 2014, Kareem was near unanimously viewed as a decisively worse player at his best than the likes of jordan, wilt, and shaq. Now some believe he was better. When a player is possibly better and has the longevity it becomes difficult to rank them below. That is why Lebron took #1 in 2020, and that is why Kareem has jumped up.

Ditto for KG vs Magic. And yeah, I think looking at what KG did in Boston when assessing what he was capable of when he was much better earlier is pretty fair. I'd honestly be very skeptical of any evaluation of Garnett's prime that didn't at least consider that. Just like alot of us were pretty skeptical when posters were arguing what Hakeem did in his 30's when finally given phil jackson lite and the triangle lite should have no bearing on evaluating what he was capable of before, even when he literally led a championship level team in 86 with a cast that was below par(or par by record) without him.

HeartBreakKid wrote:I think you're being influenced by a loud minority for #1. It's just one guy saying the same thing.

Eh, I'd say most voters here are factoring it in to a degree. I and some others have decided to use it merely as a tie-breaker, but it has explicitly been mentioned as a factor by several posters and even people who don't explicitly mention it, vote as if they do.

Two people are super vocal about it, but they are hardly alone. I imagine your own list has some inklings of this and even the stipulations of what should be considered for this project inevitably are applying a degree of modernism.

Post #32 » by **tsherkin** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 9:21 am

OldSchoolNoBull wrote:CP3 - One of the least efficient RS scorers in the group - only Doc is worse by career average rTS, by my count - and there are questions about how much he can be trusted to show up when it counts.

I had an immediate reaction to this idea that Chris Paul was inefficient, that he was "worse" and so forth, until my brain processed who it was who remained in the voting pool, heh.

Paul's a +3.3 rTS guy on his career. Given his size and his health issues, not so surprising. Rose again as his 3PAr came up, but he didn't have anything like the separation Durant or Malone got. Giannis is only at +3.93, so he's right in that same space on his career... But if you look at the four years prior to 2023, he's obviously gaining a different level of separation (+8.4, +4.8, +6.1, +6.7). And all of that is on top of the large differences in volume that those three managed versus what Paul was doing.

70sFan · Post #33 » by **70sFan** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 9:31 am

Regardless, if you wish to maintain strict-ish era-relativity because it's easier, fair. Pretending it is "proper" is silly.

I don't know if it's "silly". I understand that most people have some kind of unconscious system of era adjustment, but I think (dealing with absolutes for a moment) rejecting actual impact for "modern era impact projections" is actually way worse attempt to evaluate players for a number of reasons. I don't think you can defend this approach and while strict era relativity might be "unfair" to more modern players, at least it is a coherent logical system. We don't have enough data to project into the future unfortunately.

In reality, I think most people do a combination of both things and they only weigh them differently.

One_and_Done · Post #34 » by **One_and_Done** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 9:47 am

People spent many pages defending it in the lead in to the project, particularly in the criteria thread. It's really not complex to see why I view it as fairer. I would argue it is much fairer, less subject to personal bias, and seeks a better outcome. It's just not the outcome you want.

OhayoKD · Post #35 » by **OhayoKD** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 10:34 am

Tbh, I'm pretty impressed wit how creatively you're applying ad-populum, but I'd say there are a couple issues here.

We know the PC board tends to eschew the box score. Perhaps it gets a passing mention before we venture into "better" stats like impact metrics and WOWY or before we venture into the realm of film study and issues like leadership and winning. I mean, for goodness sake, the box score barely even accounts for defense, and it's half the game! So let's look at our project so far. All the sophisticated arguments, all the ink spilled, all the hours spent debating fellow posters. With the wisdom and varied views of basketball beyond the box score, surely the deviations from a simple box score ranking would be fairly extreme.

Issue #1. Just because you put a "the" before "box score" does not mean that there is a singular way to interpret it(or a singular set of things we can track and count as "box score" in the first place). If I replaced your simple-box with IBM's methodology, the difference increases greatly. Shaq and Drob dominate. Rodman graded out as bitw. Yet Shaq is below multiple players from that same period of time just like Drob and rodman appears to be on no one's radar.

As you are making popularity/traction the central justification, we started multiple degrees removed from what we're actually trying to assess. On top of that, this indirect means of validation requires us to subjectively define what qualifies "as the box-score". This is a lot of extra steps simply to assess "perception".

Now as it just so happens, I have a simple box score ranking. It goes from ages 22-31**, so it's only a 10 year peak measure (so no longevity considered), and it uses the BBRef "Big Three" and it's weighed 75/25 postseason to regular season (**karl malone and steve nash are 27-36 and 26-35 respectively because they have such late peaks, and I included Dr. J in the ABA). Also, note that I removed Jokic (short career), Kawhi and AD (injuries) and Dolph Schayes (era) who clearly were not going to get traction in this project up until now for reasons other than people not believing their box score numbers reflect how good they were.

Ah, but your box-score rankings were by average not career. We are adding a second subjective filter now which doesn't even line up cleanly with what you are using as a proxy. So much work just to get to "rough approximation of how people perceive things on the pc board", but we're not done...

If we include all of the current nominees plus the closest nominee from last time (Barkley), that gets us to 24 players. So how many players in the Top 24 comes from say, spots 101-200 on the box score list?

Issue #3

Here's a question that is just as epistemologically valid:

How many players in the top 2 come from spots 1-3 on the box-score list?

0

How many players in the top 2 come from spots 1-4 on the box-score list?

1

How many players in the top 5 come from spots 1-5 in the box-score list?

3

How many players in the top 10 come from spots 1-10 in the box-score list?

6

Hmm. Maybe not dead, but it doesn't look all that healthy either...

1. Downplaying the box score doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. In fact, these very rankings don't downplay it at all and hew quite closely to it.

Well, "these rankings don't downplay it at all" is just dead-wrong. It is certainly downplayed to a degree. And even if, for whatever reason, what "makes sense" should be determined by the opinions of the board(rather than the merits of what is argued regarding whoever is specifically being compared), you still need to define "hew closely" and what degree of downplaying would "not make sense" based on this super-official interpretation of board ranking-"the boxcore" correlations.

Clearly a degree of downplaying is justified. Without establishing "how much" downplaying makes sense, this intellectual endeavor of yours doesn't have much practical application. Of course, I imagine this was mostly an attempt to make your views on nash and harden seem super-justified.

A for effort?

2. James Harden has to be nominated quite soon. Can't nominate everyone who is great by the box score and just skip one guy.

The irony here is fixating on conventional box-score(which is more inclusive of scoring than creation) hard-caps Harden's ceiling. Multiple voters, myself included, have specifically advocated for Harden's behalf against a currently nominated player on the basis of playmaking. If your goal was to hype not-king James, you chose maybe the worst approach. Harden's numbers when he played the Warriors to a draw were not outstanding. Especially if you account for opposing defensive quality(2019). Harden's big point of separation from the Durants and the Kawhis is what he creates, not his scoring and PER.

And on that note...

Blah blah blah box score top 27 blah blah blah elite longevity blah blah blah didn't win a title blah blah blah actual vs expected titles blah blah blah playoff resilience blah blah blah

Imma let you finish but

1. Here's how Nash's advanced(box) creation compares to this project's #1, #4, #10, #11, and #12:

Spoiler:

2. Here's how Steve Nash's offenses compare with this project's #1, #4, #8, #10, #11, and #12:

Spoiler:

3. Canada

Spoiler:

/thread

One_and_Done · Post #36 » by **One_and_Done** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 10:44 am

On a different note here is some footage of prime Karl Malone in action.

https://youtu.be/Y1PQ0r9Yug8?si=WUzImbsbgKNbHuDn

It's crazy to see his mixture of strength and soft touch. He'd be incredible in today's game.

rk2023 · Post #37 » by **rk2023** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 1:03 pm

One_and_Done wrote:On a different note here is some footage of prime Karl Malone in action.

https://youtu.be/Y1PQ0r9Yug8?si=WUzImbsbgKNbHuDn

It's crazy to see his mixture of strength and soft touch. He'd be incredible in today's game.

In todays league, I could see him using his combination of strength, fundamentals, and Jedi mind-tricks (eg. Pulling chairs, charge taking) to make himself the best prison athlete since Paul Crewe in The Longest Yard

Post #38 » by **trex_8063** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 2:17 pm

(slight edits)

VOTE: Karl Malone
Alternate: Chris Paul

I have Malone #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.

Also:

Spoiler:

trex_8063 wrote:
Joao Saraiva wrote:For the guys saying Malone played bad on some losses... I'll give you that. He did.

But it's not always the case, we're not talking about a guy who always did that.

Just to cite a few examples of him playing reasonably well to good in [mostly] later rounds in [mostly] pressure series situations:

Game 3 '92 WCF (down 2-0, basically "must-win"): 39 pts @ 67.9% TS, 7 reb, 7 ast, 2 stl, 4 tov. Jazz won by 8.

Game 4 '92 WCF (down 2-1 in series): 33 pts @ 71.2% TS, 12 reb, 3 ast, 4 tov. Jazz won by 9.

Game 5 '92 WCF (series tied): 38 pts @ 58.2% TS, 14 reb, 2 stl, 1 blk, 3 tov. It wasn't enough; Jazz lost by 6. That's three consecutive games of 33+ [at no worse than 58.2% TS] in a late-playoff setting.

Game 5 '95 WC1 (elimination game, against eventual champ Rockets): 35 pts @ 58.7% TS, 10 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl, 3 tov. He played reasonably well. It wasn't enough; Jazz lost by 4. Worth noting that in their game 3 win of this series, Malone had 32/19/5.

Game 3 '96 WCSF (series tied): 32 pts @ 59.1% TS, 11 reb, 6 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk, 0 tov.

Game 5 '96 WCF (elimination game, down 3-1 in series): It was noted that he had a stinker in their game 7 to lose this series. It's true. Might be worth noting that there wouldn't have been a game 6 or 7 if not for this game 5: 29 pts @ 52.3% TS, 15 reb, 2 ast, 2 stl, 1 tov, in a 3-pt overtime win.

Game 6 '96 WCF (elimination game): 32 pts @ 61.6% TS, 10 reb, 7 ast, 4 stl, 1 tov. Jazz blow the Sonics out by 35.

Game 5 '97 WCF (series tied): 29 pts @ 56.8% TS, 14 reb, 4 ast, 1 blk, 3 tov. (Barkley had 10/7/5, fwiw). Jazz won by 5 pts.

Game 3 '97 Finals (down 2-0 in series, basically a "must-win"): 37 pts @ 55.4% TS, 10 reb, 3 ast, 4 stl, 2 tov. Jazz won by 11.

Game 4 '97 Finals (down 2-1 in series; defensive grudge-match where neither team scored 80, and Michael Jordan had just 22 pts @ 40.7% TS with 4 reb, 4 ast and 3 tov): 23 pts @ 53.1% TS, 10 reb, 6 ast, 1 blk, 2 tov. Jazz won by 5.

Game 5 '98 Finals (facing elimination): 39 pts @ 65.8% TS, 9 reb, 5 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk, 1 tov. An astounding +21.2 BPM and +38 net rating, in a 2-pt victory to stave off elimination.

Game 6 '98 Finals (facing elimination): His crucial turnover has been pointed out in the last thread as a sort of fatal flaw/error. But players will make errors in any/every game, no matter how great or "clutch" they are. With that game, my contention was that if not for the blown shotclock calls earlier, that turnover wouldn't have mattered [and that's not fair]. BUT, even inclusive of that turnover, he had a good all-around game.
5 turnovers, yes; otherwise: 31 pts @ 65.0% TS, 11 reb, 7 ast, 1 stl, +15.5 BPM, +14 net rating. He played well. It wasn't enough. They lost by 1 pt under dubious circumstances.
His starting backcourt [the other two that make up their "big three"] combined for 27 pts @ 54.8% TS, 5 ast and 6 tov.
Ostertag was out, and the ENTIRE center rotation [in 42.8 minutes total playing time] COMBINED for 11 pts @ 50.6% TS, 4 reb, 2 stl, 0 ast, 0 blk, 2 tov, 6 personal fouls. (In Per 36 minutes figures, their centers were collectively averaging 9.3 pts @ -1.8% rTS, 3.4 reb, 0 ast, 1.7 stl, 0 blk, 1.7 tov, 5.0 pf per 36. That’s a severe handicap against a good team when one of the five guys out there at pretty much all times is that putrid a performer.)

Anyway....
I'm not going to deny he probably had more stinkers in the playoffs than good/great games, compared many other all-timers. Though even his "stinkers" are often like 23/9/4 statlines that "stink" because of something like 47% TS. And part of the reason he's got a lot of them to cite, is because they were ALWAYS in the playoffs, and OFTEN making deep(ish) runs, and he was NEVER absent [until his final season]. So there's a ridiculous amount of playoff sample to cherry-pick from (he's tied for 11th all-time in career playoff games).

Though the one other thing I wanted to comment on is a subsequent statement that Joao made, that Malone is a top-10 rs [all-time] performer/resume. He is. And that matters (to some of us, at least).

I've read people stating "all that matters is how they help you win a championship" or something to that effect. I don't agree. While I'll concede that is the ultimate goal, it would seem to diminish [or try to] anything that is done or "accomplished" outside of a legit contending run.
I, otoh, believe there is "glory" to be found in lesser competitive encounters......including in the rs. For me, player comparisons is comparing to ALL of one's professional peers; not just a handful of the better ones who get increased chance to gameplan against you.
Maybe that comes from having a very extended ATL (out to ~350), it makes me consider all levels of competition more, and not just the playoffs.

That's not to say I don't weight a playoff game heavier than a rs one; I do. But will I, for example, weight a 10-game playoff sample as more relevant than an 82-game rs sample? Absolutely not. Will I weight a 22-game playoff sample [part of a title run] as heavily as an 82-game rs sample? idk, close. Point being: how they perform against ALL of their professional peers (even the lesser ones) is relevant to me.

Malone's rs resume is rather easily top-10 all-time with longevity factored in. How far you want to dock him for a less stellar or robust playoff resume is up to you. But let's not denigrate his career more than is reasonable. The bullet-points of his career MORE THAN make him a relevant inclusion at this stage; let's not pretend it is otherwise.

As to CP3.....
Will try to write more later, but am out of town, and might not get to it. Suffice to say he’s been really good (probably underrated by many/most in mainstream) for quite a long time.

Nomination #1: Charles Barkley
Alt. Nomination: John Stockton

homecourtloss · Post #39 » by **homecourtloss** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 4:58 pm

OldSchoolNoBull wrote:This is the first thread so far where I come in unsure of who I'm going to vote for. All five players have obvious strengths and obvious weaknesses.

Strengths

CP3 - Perhaps the most impactful at running a team offense of the bunch while also not being a liability on the other end.

Weaknesses

CP3 - One of the least efficient RS scorers in the group - only Doc is worse by career average rTS, by my count - and there are questions about how much he can be trusted to show up when it counts.

Not looking at his New Orleans years because they weren't really ever close to winning anything.

You make some good points about the players, but I want to focus on these comments made about Chris Paul.

“… while also not being a liability on the other end” is an incredible understatement. Not only was he “not a liability,” he is one of the greatest PG defenders in NBA history who can still QB defenses through his super high IQ and communication skills at an advanced age. Having a strong plus defender at the point guard position is a huge advantage since most point guards are defensive liabilities, especially when that point guard is an all-time great offense creator who also doesn’t turn the ball over.

You only see wings and bigs anywhere near -2 in JE’s career RAPM with confidence levels. Lowry is at -1.6. This is including when Paul is 35+ years old.

As for “Not looking at his New Orleans years because they weren't really ever close to winning anything.” Well, that wasn’t Chris Paul’s fault.

It’s apparent to me that a tremendous playmaker who doesn’t turn the ball over, who can also score in volume efficiently, who also is one of the best defenders at his position in NBA history would be incredibly Impactful and every single era of basketball. You have a player who came into the league making impact right away EVEN as a rookie PG (how many rookie point guards are plus defenders? Almost none, but Chris Paul was) did not need to learn any system or have any system cater to him, because his core skills made him a plus player both on offense and defense. The personnel around him in New Orleans, and in Los Angeles, and in Oklahoma City, and in Phoenix, and in Houston were all different, but he showed that he could make impact on both sides of the ball, regardless of who was on the court, and regardless of who was the coach, and regardless of what the system was in, regardless of what the league style of basketball was.

Vote: Chris Paul
Alt: Dr. J
Nominate: Steve Nash

Post #40 » by **penbeast0** » Sun Aug 27, 2023 5:11 pm

If Paul didn't have injury problems, particularly in the playoffs, I'd have voted for him already. As it is, I have him a little below Stockton who you could always count on to be there although a healthy Paul is a better player.