RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #21 (Julius Erving)

[lessthanjake]

Spoiler:

I meant Option B, but I was basing that on a memory of having done prior calculations weeks or months ago, and I think maybe my prior calculations must’ve been Option C. Because you’re right that Moses and Cheeks basically have identical on-off in the timeframe Moses was there. I do think the fact that Cheeks’ on-off in his non-Moses years with the 76ers were pretty mediocre suggests that his on-off being quite good in those years with the 76ers is probably in large part just a function of randomness (and perhaps having a lot of minutes overlap with Moses). But you’re right that what I said was a little misleading, since it’s true if we look at players’ whole time with the 76ers but not entirely true if we just look at the years Moses was there. Either way, though, the on-off data we have for Moses is impressive, and the fact that they’re so much higher than guys like Dr. J suggests this isn’t likely to just be a function of rotations but rather is reflecting real impact from Moses specifically.

Cheeks on-off is certainly significantly weaker in the "after Moses" years. In the before though he's better than Erving in the same span [79-82, indeed managing a very slightly higher raw plus minus despite playing about 300 fewer minutes each year] I believe so I wouldn't, myself call it "mediocre" (it's not great as a rookie presumably with the bench unit but not bad for a rookie in that context and ramping up going into the "with Moses" spell - maybe one could argue Erving's are that poor that it still is mediocre?), nor necessarily write it off as with Moses collinearity (or more particularly describe it in the single-direction manner as here, though because of the significant gaps in '85 and especially the larger gap, this time in Cheeks favor, in '86 collinearity looks a bit less of a factor than if the numbers were more tightly aligned). I think Cheeks' numbers are solid enough over a large sample to be reasonably confident in his impact.

Not that I'm the biggest advanced stat guy, but there was no plus minus in Moses career, so I assume you're using some kind of micro-sample of it here. I'd question how much that tells us.

No, there was, because there was a guy affiliated with the 76ers (not sure the guy’s exactly job/background) that tabulated plus-minus stuff for the 76ers starting in 1977:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/edit#gid=631667261

So basically, if someone played for the 76ers from 1977 onwards, we actually have full on-off data for them in those years. Which is actually extremely relevant to this thread, where we have Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Charles Barkley all as nominees.

[One_and_Done]

1 guy says he did it. How reliable is that?

[MyUniBroDavis]

Vote for #21: Moses Malone
Alternate Vote: Giannis Antetokounmpo
Nomination: Nikola Jokic
Alternate Nomination: Steve Nash

I’ve set forth my reasoning regarding Moses for a while while trying to get him nominated. Basically, the way I see it, Moses was fairly straightforwardly the best player in the NBA for a 5-year stretch (1979-1983), and no other nominee can really say that (though Giannis gets close and that’s a good part of why he’s my alternate vote). During that 5-year span, Moses showed both incredible floor raising and ceiling raising ability. Specifically, he took a mediocre team to the finals in 1981 (beating the Magic/Kareem Lakers along the way), and also led one of the greatest teams ever in 1983. Beyond those peak years, he has a lot of longevity, with a whole bunch of all-NBA and all-star level years. We also have good impact signals from him. We know that his on-off in his time with the 76ers (which was mostly post-peak) was over +12 and comfortably above his teammates overall. We also know that when he left Houston, his team plummeted to become one of the worst teams in NBA history (after having made the Finals with Moses just a couple years before). The Squared RAPM data for 1984-1985 (the only year Squared has any significant RAPM data for Moses, I believe) has him 3rd in the NBA, behind only Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—and that’s not even a peak year for Moses (though to be fair, it’s not for Kareem either). In terms of skill set, he’s also probably the greatest ever offensive rebounder, to go along with a great post game, a good jump shot, and great post defense. He tended to get the better of Kareem when they faced each other, as Kareem found Moses’s physicality difficult to deal with. The knock on Moses is his limited passing ability, but that didn’t stop his teams from having some really impressive defenses—including his Houston team posting what was, at the time, the highest rORTG in history. Overall, I just don’t think anyone else matches Moses’s combination of peak, longevity, floor raising, ceiling raising, and impact.

Giannis gets the nod from me for the alternate vote. I see him as the only other guy left who has actually been the best player in the NBA for any remotely significant period of time. And, while he’s had some fairly stunning playoff failures at times, he won a title with a team that I frankly don’t regard as very good (and that shot absolutely horribly throughout much of those playoffs). I don’t think anyone else I could use my alternate vote on here has a similar playoff accomplishment. Kevin Durant probably would be the closest to me for this vote. He’s got longevity over Giannis for sure, and while it was a very different context, I do actually weigh his achievements with the Warriors more than others do, because I see the unstoppable quality of that team as in part reflecting his ability as a ceiling raiser. But I can’t quite get myself to a conclusion that Durant was ever as good a player as Giannis has been the last half decade.

As for the nominations, I’m using my nomination and alternate nomination on two players that I regard as being top 5 offensive players of all time. And they’re also just two of my top few favorite players of all time. Jokic gets the nod for me over Nash. I think Nash is probably a better offensive player than Jokic, but to me there’s actually a pretty significant gap between Jokic’s defense and Nash’s. Nash wasn’t quite as bad a defender as people suggest, but when you add together the fact that his defense was on the weak side and the fact that maximizing his offense probably required making significant compromises to the team’s defense at other positions (particularly center) while Jokic can actually be surrounded by a pretty defensive-minded roster, and I just think Jokic has the slightly higher ceiling for where he can take a team.

I mean, Jokic easily clears nash, but how does this make sense? Why would a strong off ball roll man big be inherently a bad defender lol

The issue is that an extremely athletic big that can run on the break, roll to the basket and finish extremely well, and also make jump shots to stretch the floor some (the sort of things necessary to optimize Nash’s offense) doesn’t generally coincide with being a great defender unless we are talking about legitimate all-time great big men. Like, I actually made a thread recently asking what people think would’ve happened if Nash played with David Robinson, because I think Robinson is exactly that type of player. So I am obviously not saying it's impossible or some inherently mutually exclusive thing. It’s not. It's just that that sort of player that would tick all the boxes is just not common to have because not many have existed in NBA history. What happened in reality (and what was generally very likely to happen with Nash unless he got *extremely* lucky) was that the team would need to make a compromise, where he ended up with someone like Amare Stoudemire—who ticked the offensive box but not the defensive one—or perhaps with a more capable defensive big that probably would've prevented Nash from producing the kinds of all-time-level offenses that he produced (he had that to some degree with Kurt Thomas). And I just don't think that Jokic presents as much of a conundrum in terms of roster construction. My intuition is that, if we assume a somewhat realistic amount of talent on the roster (i.e. we don’t give them a prime David Robinson-level sidekick), you can get all-time-level offense from Jokic without compromising team defense as much as you'd need to with Nash. That said, if you did give Steve Nash a prime David Robinson on his team, then I’m open to the idea that that could make a team that is as good or probably better than what could be created around Jokic. I just think that’s not the most realistic scenario (nor is it what happened in reality).

I don’t think a strong roll man and being a good defensive big are mutually exclusive things at all

They don’t need to be able to shoot, that’s an issue more vs drop + over but there are certainly other ways to beat that

There are some attributes in a perfect roll man you need similar to ones you need in a perfect pick and roll ball handler but I don’t think you need to find one that hits every mark, i mean drays an example of a guy that fits well with Curry as his roll man despite probably not being a great one in some other situations

[One_and_Done]

It's time to start talking about an 11 time all-star and MVP big man who led his team to a title. No, not Pettit, I'm talking about Artis Gilmore. The A-Train. The funny thing about Gilmore is unlike Pettit he'd be better today, not worse. Defensively he's what you get when you combine Gobert and Dwight, but more mobile. Strong, fast, an ideal shot blocking rim roller, who is athletic enough not to get abused on the perimeter.

Gilmore gets a bad rap because of the trade to the Bulls teams, which were destitute of talent, but in Kentucky he led the team to an average of over 56 wins a year over 5 years, including 68 wins one year and a title when the ABA was probably stronger than the NBA.

Gilmore also has a tonne of longevity, and was an iron man. It's not usual that I'm championing a player from way back, but honestly I think he'd look better. It's also striking how per 100 you can compare him and Moses at their peaks and come away wondering who was better. I'm not quite ready to nominate him, but definitely time to start discussing him.

Moses per 100 from 1979-84: 31.6/18.2/2, 2 blks, 115 Ortg/103 Drtg, 578 TS%
Gilmore per 100 from 1975-79: 27.5/17.1/3.4, 3 blks, 113 Ortg/97 Drtg, 601 TS%

Yeh, Moses scores a bit more, because of a play style he wouldn’t be able to replicate today. Otherwise though I’m not seeing much difference between him and Gilmore, except Gilmore’s style would be even more valuable today, and his team mates and situation was in general far worse than Moses. Moses doesn’t even really have Gilmore beat on longevity. Gilmore played 1329 games and was an all-star still at age 36. Moses last all-star season was at age 33, and if we take away his completely irrelevant final 3 seasons he drops from 1455 games down to 1372 games, though I guess Gilmore’s last few seasons weren’t terribly relevant either. Moses has maybe more longevity, depending on how you look at it, because he started earlier. But it’s not enough to matter.

I think Pippen should get some discussion soon too.

[lessthanjake]

I mean, Jokic easily clears nash, but how does this make sense? Why would a strong off ball roll man big be inherently a bad defender lol

The issue is that an extremely athletic big that can run on the break, roll to the basket and finish extremely well, and also make jump shots to stretch the floor some (the sort of things necessary to optimize Nash’s offense) doesn’t generally coincide with being a great defender unless we are talking about legitimate all-time great big men. Like, I actually made a thread recently asking what people think would’ve happened if Nash played with David Robinson, because I think Robinson is exactly that type of player. So I am obviously not saying it's impossible or some inherently mutually exclusive thing. It’s not. It's just that that sort of player that would tick all the boxes is just not common to have because not many have existed in NBA history. What happened in reality (and what was generally very likely to happen with Nash unless he got *extremely* lucky) was that the team would need to make a compromise, where he ended up with someone like Amare Stoudemire—who ticked the offensive box but not the defensive one—or perhaps with a more capable defensive big that probably would've prevented Nash from producing the kinds of all-time-level offenses that he produced (he had that to some degree with Kurt Thomas). And I just don't think that Jokic presents as much of a conundrum in terms of roster construction. My intuition is that, if we assume a somewhat realistic amount of talent on the roster (i.e. we don’t give them a prime David Robinson-level sidekick), you can get all-time-level offense from Jokic without compromising team defense as much as you'd need to with Nash. That said, if you did give Steve Nash a prime David Robinson on his team, then I’m open to the idea that that could make a team that is as good or probably better than what could be created around Jokic. I just think that’s not the most realistic scenario (nor is it what happened in reality).

I don’t think a strong roll man and being a good defensive big are mutually exclusive things at all

They don’t need to be able to shoot, that’s an issue more vs drop + over but there are certainly other ways to beat that

There are some attributes in a perfect roll man you need similar to ones you need in a perfect pick and roll ball handler but I don’t think you need to find one that hits every mark, i mean drays an example of a guy that fits well with Curry as his roll man despite probably not being a great one in some other situations

I’m not saying it *is* mutually exclusive. In fact, I specifically said it isn’t. It’s just that for a player to hit all the offensive boxes that a guy like Amare could hit *and* to be a really good defender would put the player in question in absolutely elite all-time territory. Nash was extremely unlikely to get a teammate like that, and indeed he never did. He produced incredible offenses, but it was with rosters (and specifically big men) that fit really well with him offensively and were extremely offensively talented. Those rosters were not nearly so good defensively, and for them to be really good defensively while retaining the kind of offensive greatness Nash produced, I think we’d have to posit that Nash had one of the few super elite, highly athletic all-time two-way big men on his team. If Nash had that, I think he would’ve waltzed to many titles to be honest. (And that intuition is why I made a thread talking about what might’ve happened if Nash had DRob—I think it would’ve been unstoppable). But he didn’t have that in reality, and he was very unlikely to get that. And I just think with a more realistic roster construction/talent, you’re a bit more likely to find success with Jokic.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

With regards to Nash, while it is fair to argue he might've done better if he had better defenders his frontcourts, I think it is worth pointing out that he had a remarkable string of bad luck during his peak championship contention years.

In 2003, Dirk got hurt two games into the WCF.

In 2005, Joe Johnson missed the first two games of that Spurs series with an eye injury.

In 2006, Amare missed the whole year after microfracture surgery.

In 2007, the Robert Horry hip-check and subsequent suspensions de-railed that Spurs series.

I think the championship was winnable for Nash in all of those seasons if those things - none of which were his fault or in his control - hadn't befallen him.

[lessthanjake]

With regards to Nash, while it is fair to argue he might've done better if he had better defenders his frontcourts, I think it is worth pointing out that he had a remarkable string of bad luck during his peak championship contention years.

In 2003, Dirk got hurt two games into the WCF.

In 2005, Joe Johnson missed the first two games of that Spurs series with an eye injury.

In 2006, Amare missed the whole year after microfracture surgery.

In 2007, the Robert Horry hip-check and subsequent suspensions de-railed that Spurs series.

I think the championship was winnable for Nash in all of those seasons if those things - none of which were his fault or in his control - hadn't befallen him.

Oh, a championship was definitely winnable for Nash. If it wasn’t then I don’t think we’d be considering him right now at all! At the very least, the 2005 and 2007 Suns were definitely good enough to win. In the end, if you did those Spurs series over again a bunch of times, I think they probably lose to the Spurs more often than they win, but they were definitely capable of beating the Spurs and winning the title. No argument from me on that! I’ve never rooted for a basketball team more than I rooted for that era’s Suns, and I really did think they were capable of beating the Spurs, and I still do. For purposes of these arguments, a player being capable of leading a team to a title isn’t mutually exclusive with being below Jokic though.

[MyUniBroDavis]

The issue is that an extremely athletic big that can run on the break, roll to the basket and finish extremely well, and also make jump shots to stretch the floor some (the sort of things necessary to optimize Nash’s offense) doesn’t generally coincide with being a great defender unless we are talking about legitimate all-time great big men. Like, I actually made a thread recently asking what people think would’ve happened if Nash played with David Robinson, because I think Robinson is exactly that type of player. So I am obviously not saying it's impossible or some inherently mutually exclusive thing. It’s not. It's just that that sort of player that would tick all the boxes is just not common to have because not many have existed in NBA history. What happened in reality (and what was generally very likely to happen with Nash unless he got *extremely* lucky) was that the team would need to make a compromise, where he ended up with someone like Amare Stoudemire—who ticked the offensive box but not the defensive one—or perhaps with a more capable defensive big that probably would've prevented Nash from producing the kinds of all-time-level offenses that he produced (he had that to some degree with Kurt Thomas). And I just don't think that Jokic presents as much of a conundrum in terms of roster construction. My intuition is that, if we assume a somewhat realistic amount of talent on the roster (i.e. we don’t give them a prime David Robinson-level sidekick), you can get all-time-level offense from Jokic without compromising team defense as much as you'd need to with Nash. That said, if you did give Steve Nash a prime David Robinson on his team, then I’m open to the idea that that could make a team that is as good or probably better than what could be created around Jokic. I just think that’s not the most realistic scenario (nor is it what happened in reality).

I don’t think a strong roll man and being a good defensive big are mutually exclusive things at all

They don’t need to be able to shoot, that’s an issue more vs drop + over but there are certainly other ways to beat that

There are some attributes in a perfect roll man you need similar to ones you need in a perfect pick and roll ball handler but I don’t think you need to find one that hits every mark, i mean drays an example of a guy that fits well with Curry as his roll man despite probably not being a great one in some other situations

I’m not saying it *is* mutually exclusive. In fact, I specifically said it isn’t. It’s just that for a player to hit all the offensive boxes that a guy like Amare could hit *and* to be a really good defender would put the player in question in absolutely elite all-time territory. Nash was extremely unlikely to get a teammate like that, and indeed he never did. He produced incredible offenses, but it was with rosters (and specifically big men) that fit really well with him offensively and were extremely offensively talented. Those rosters were not nearly so good defensively, and for them to be really good defensively while retaining the kind of offensive greatness Nash produced, I think we’d have to posit that Nash had one of the few super elite, highly athletic all-time two-way big men on his team. If Nash had that, I think he would’ve waltzed to many titles to be honest. (And that intuition is why I made a thread talking about what might’ve happened if Nash had DRob—I think it would’ve been unstoppable). But he didn’t have that in reality, and he was very unlikely to get that. And I just think with a more realistic roster construction/talent, you’re a bit more likely to find success with Jokic.

Dude it’s basically

Is athletic + can catch and finish
Can pass in the short roll

Can beat mismatches too but nash is good on those anyways

[lessthanjake]

I don’t think a strong roll man and being a good defensive big are mutually exclusive things at all

They don’t need to be able to shoot, that’s an issue more vs drop + over but there are certainly other ways to beat that

There are some attributes in a perfect roll man you need similar to ones you need in a perfect pick and roll ball handler but I don’t think you need to find one that hits every mark, i mean drays an example of a guy that fits well with Curry as his roll man despite probably not being a great one in some other situations

I’m not saying it *is* mutually exclusive. In fact, I specifically said it isn’t. It’s just that for a player to hit all the offensive boxes that a guy like Amare could hit *and* to be a really good defender would put the player in question in absolutely elite all-time territory. Nash was extremely unlikely to get a teammate like that, and indeed he never did. He produced incredible offenses, but it was with rosters (and specifically big men) that fit really well with him offensively and were extremely offensively talented. Those rosters were not nearly so good defensively, and for them to be really good defensively while retaining the kind of offensive greatness Nash produced, I think we’d have to posit that Nash had one of the few super elite, highly athletic all-time two-way big men on his team. If Nash had that, I think he would’ve waltzed to many titles to be honest. (And that intuition is why I made a thread talking about what might’ve happened if Nash had DRob—I think it would’ve been unstoppable). But he didn’t have that in reality, and he was very unlikely to get that. And I just think with a more realistic roster construction/talent, you’re a bit more likely to find success with Jokic.

Dude it’s basically

Is athletic + can catch and finish
Can pass in the short roll

Can beat mismatches too but nash is good on those anyways

Amare also had a good jump shot (and of course so did Dirk), which helped space the floor for Nash’s drives and also forced teams to respect the pick and pop option. So it’s definitely more than that. You don’t get the full offensive package Amare was bringing to the table for Nash AND really good big man defense without it being a really rare player. Just as an exercise, please tell me what big men that played in that era could’ve provided something similar to what Amare did on the offensive end while also being a great defender?

[MyUniBroDavis]

I’m not saying it *is* mutually exclusive. In fact, I specifically said it isn’t. It’s just that for a player to hit all the offensive boxes that a guy like Amare could hit *and* to be a really good defender would put the player in question in absolutely elite all-time territory. Nash was extremely unlikely to get a teammate like that, and indeed he never did. He produced incredible offenses, but it was with rosters (and specifically big men) that fit really well with him offensively and were extremely offensively talented. Those rosters were not nearly so good defensively, and for them to be really good defensively while retaining the kind of offensive greatness Nash produced, I think we’d have to posit that Nash had one of the few super elite, highly athletic all-time two-way big men on his team. If Nash had that, I think he would’ve waltzed to many titles to be honest. (And that intuition is why I made a thread talking about what might’ve happened if Nash had DRob—I think it would’ve been unstoppable). But he didn’t have that in reality, and he was very unlikely to get that. And I just think with a more realistic roster construction/talent, you’re a bit more likely to find success with Jokic.

Dude it’s basically

Is athletic + can catch and finish
Can pass in the short roll

Can beat mismatches too but nash is good on those anyways

Amare also had a good jump shot (and of course so did Dirk), which helps space the floor for Nash’s drives and also forces teams to respect the pick and pop option. So it’s definitely more than that. You don’t get the full offensive package Amare was bringing to the table for Nash AND really good big man defense without it being a really rare player.

That’s for drop and over which you c an beat other ways and honestly a midrange jumper from a big isn’t as big of a deal anymore, you want one from three but it’s not needed

[70sFan]

1 guy says he did it. How reliable is that?

This "guy" is a Harvey Pollack, who was a lifetime Sixers statistician and one of the most respected analytics of the 20th century. If you ignore his data, you can ignore basically any data from that era.

[lessthanjake]

Dude it’s basically

Is athletic + can catch and finish
Can pass in the short roll

Can beat mismatches too but nash is good on those anyways

Amare also had a good jump shot (and of course so did Dirk), which helps space the floor for Nash’s drives and also forces teams to respect the pick and pop option. So it’s definitely more than that. You don’t get the full offensive package Amare was bringing to the table for Nash AND really good big man defense without it being a really rare player.

That’s for drop and over which you c an beat other ways and honestly a midrange jumper from a big isn’t as big of a deal anymore, you want one from three but it’s not needed

If you’re positing that the Suns offense didn’t really benefit from the fact that Amare could shoot, then I think that’s just obviously wrong. It obviously helps a lot in the pick and roll. And you’re not denying that (nor could you) except to just basically say it’s possible to work around the roll man not being able to shoot. Of course that’s true but that doesn’t mean it’s not substantially better and easier if the roll man can shoot, and I think you’d really have to twist yourself into a pretzel to suggest otherwise. And it also helps space the floor when Nash would iso. Despite not possessing elite quickness, Nash would actually get a shocking number of essentially open layups with no one around off of isos, and a big part of that was floor spacing that Amare brought to the table. More generally, Amare was also simply good enough offensively that he could get given the ball in the high or low post and create his own shot with solid efficiency, which is something well beyond the capacity of someone who is just an athletic catch and finish guy. That wasn’t their main offensive strategy, but having that option you can go to a handful of times a game and get good results from is obviously very helpful as well. Overall, I just think it’s plainly wrong to suggest that Nash could’ve had some offensively one-dimensional catch and finish big man and have had the offenses be nearly as ridiculously good as they were with Amare. They’d still be good (indeed we saw a variant of that in 2006, where the Suns were still a really good offense with an offensively-limited-in-a-different-way Kurt Thomas), but it definitely would not have been as incredible. And, again, the problem is that you don’t get what Amare brought to the table offensively AND great big man defense unless the teammate in question is an absolute all-time great big man. For instance, you should ask yourself what big man who was playing in that era would’ve provided similar offense as Amare and great defense?

[One_and_Done]

1 guy says he did it. How reliable is that?

This "guy" is a Harvey Pollack, who was a lifetime Sixers statistician and one of the most respected analytics of the 20th century. If you ignore his data, you can ignore basically any data from that era.

Who audited the data? Is it available for others to inspect? Look if you want to say 'well, actually this very respected guy kept some stats he says cover this period, and they suggest xyz' then that sounds reasonable, but we can't possibly treat them with the same level of credibility as official stats that are tracked by a team of guys and reviewed and certified.

[70sFan]

1 guy says he did it. How reliable is that?

This "guy" is a Harvey Pollack, who was a lifetime Sixers statistician and one of the most respected analytics of the 20th century. If you ignore his data, you can ignore basically any data from that era.

Who audited the data? Is it available for others to inspect? Look if you want to say 'well, actually this very respected guy kept some stats he says cover this period, and they suggest xyz' then that sounds reasonable, but we can't possibly treat them with the same level of credibility as official stats that are tracked by a team of guys and reviewed and certified.

Then it seems you know very little about data collection in the NBA history I am afraid.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Amare also had a good jump shot (and of course so did Dirk), which helps space the floor for Nash’s drives and also forces teams to respect the pick and pop option. So it’s definitely more than that. You don’t get the full offensive package Amare was bringing to the table for Nash AND really good big man defense without it being a really rare player.

That’s for drop and over which you c an beat other ways and honestly a midrange jumper from a big isn’t as big of a deal anymore, you want one from three but it’s not needed

If you’re positing that the Suns offense didn’t really benefit from the fact that Amare could shoot, then I think that’s just obviously wrong. It obviously helps a lot in the pick and roll. And you’re not denying that (nor could you) except to just basically say it’s possible to work around the roll man not being able to shoot. Of course that’s true but that doesn’t mean it’s not substantially better and easier if the roll man can shoot, and I think you’d really have to twist yourself into a pretzel to suggest otherwise. And it also helps space the floor when Nash would iso. Despite not possessing elite quickness, Nash would actually get a shocking number of essentially open layups with no one around off of isos, and a big part of that was floor spacing that Amare brought to the table. More generally, Amare was also simply good enough offensively that he could get given the ball in the high or low post and create his own shot with solid efficiency, which is something well beyond the capacity of someone who is just an athletic catch and finish guy. That wasn’t their main offensive strategy, but having that option you can go to a handful of times a game and get good results from is obviously very helpful as well. Overall, I just think it’s plainly wrong to suggest that Nash could’ve had some offensively one-dimensional catch and finish big man and have had the offenses be nearly as ridiculously good as they were with Amare. They’d still be good (indeed we saw a variant of that in 2006, where the Suns were still a really good offense with an offensively-limited-in-a-different-way Kurt Thomas), but it definitely would not have been as incredible. And, again, the problem is that you don’t get what Amare brought to the table offensively AND great big man defense unless the teammate in question is an absolute all-time great big man. For instance, you should ask yourself what big man who was playing in that era would’ve provided similar offense as Amare and great defense?

I mean sure but I’m telling you right now in the pick and roll this is how it’s run for that lol. Obviously being able to shoot is good vs certain coverages but there are other viable ways to beat those coverages as well.

Having an effective midrange jumpshot as a big isn’t how Most teams try to beat drop now

[lessthanjake]

1 guy says he did it. How reliable is that?

This "guy" is a Harvey Pollack, who was a lifetime Sixers statistician and one of the most respected analytics of the 20th century. If you ignore his data, you can ignore basically any data from that era.

Who audited the data? Is it available for others to inspect? Look if you want to say 'well, actually this very respected guy kept some stats he says cover this period, and they suggest xyz' then that sounds reasonable, but we can't possibly treat them with the same level of credibility as official stats that are tracked by a team of guys and reviewed and certified.

Okay, but we also should still treat it with a high level of credibility, commensurate with the fact that it’s data produced by a highly-respected person in basketball analytics and we have no particular reason to doubt the data at all. Like, if you want to say it’s more prone to error than something done by a team of people with an audit process, then that’s fine, but are you suggesting we should throw away this data? Because I don’t see any basis for doing that, and indeed don’t see any basis for doing anything except concluding that it’s almost certainly accurate but perhaps maybe with a slightly higher margin of error than actual play by play data has (but not nearly high enough to prevent us from drawing concrete conclusions regarding relevant players’ on-off data from it).

[MyUniBroDavis]

1 guy says he did it. How reliable is that?

This "guy" is a Harvey Pollack, who was a lifetime Sixers statistician and one of the most respected analytics of the 20th century. If you ignore his data, you can ignore basically any data from that era.

I forgot, didn’t he say something about Jordan not shooting well from long twos and then people tracked it and what he said was almost certainly false? I don’t recall

[lessthanjake]

That’s for drop and over which you c an beat other ways and honestly a midrange jumper from a big isn’t as big of a deal anymore, you want one from three but it’s not needed

If you’re positing that the Suns offense didn’t really benefit from the fact that Amare could shoot, then I think that’s just obviously wrong. It obviously helps a lot in the pick and roll. And you’re not denying that (nor could you) except to just basically say it’s possible to work around the roll man not being able to shoot. Of course that’s true but that doesn’t mean it’s not substantially better and easier if the roll man can shoot, and I think you’d really have to twist yourself into a pretzel to suggest otherwise. And it also helps space the floor when Nash would iso. Despite not possessing elite quickness, Nash would actually get a shocking number of essentially open layups with no one around off of isos, and a big part of that was floor spacing that Amare brought to the table. More generally, Amare was also simply good enough offensively that he could get given the ball in the high or low post and create his own shot with solid efficiency, which is something well beyond the capacity of someone who is just an athletic catch and finish guy. That wasn’t their main offensive strategy, but having that option you can go to a handful of times a game and get good results from is obviously very helpful as well. Overall, I just think it’s plainly wrong to suggest that Nash could’ve had some offensively one-dimensional catch and finish big man and have had the offenses be nearly as ridiculously good as they were with Amare. They’d still be good (indeed we saw a variant of that in 2006, where the Suns were still a really good offense with an offensively-limited-in-a-different-way Kurt Thomas), but it definitely would not have been as incredible. And, again, the problem is that you don’t get what Amare brought to the table offensively AND great big man defense unless the teammate in question is an absolute all-time great big man. For instance, you should ask yourself what big man who was playing in that era would’ve provided similar offense as Amare and great defense?

I mean sure but I’m telling you right now in the pick and roll this is how it’s run for that lol. Obviously being able to shoot is good vs certain coverages but there are other viable ways to beat those coverages as well.

Having an effective midrange jumpshot as a big isn’t how Most teams try to beat drop now

What are you even trying to argue? Steve Nash doesn’t play now. He played in an era where the offensive attributes that Amare brought to the table were undeniably really important/helpful and you’d have to be *extremely* lucky to get a big man teammate who could provide those offensive attributes and be a great defender. In the current era, the offensive attributes from a big man that would optimize offense with Nash would surely be a bit different. We don’t know *exactly* how Nash would play today, but he’d very likely want a big man who could hit a three, rather than caring as much about a mid-range shot, for instance. Maybe it’d be easier or harder now to find a guy with the optimal offensive attributes for Nash + great defense, but I’m not really concerned with some time-machine-to-the-present-day argument—which always inevitably comes down to motivated speculation about how a player’s attributes would translate and how exactly they’d play in a different era. I don’t find those types of discussions informative, because they just get too speculative and subjective IMO. Basically, you seem to want to get into a debate about modern-day drop coverages with me, even though I’m talking about Steve Nash and therefore don’t see the point. What I’m telling you is that in Steve Nash’s general era, you weren’t going to get the big-man attributes that optimized Nash offensively while also having a great big man defender, unless the big man you got with Nash was a high-level all-time great. If he had that, it would’ve been incredible IMO. But he didn’t, and I think, within their respective eras, Jokic is easier to build a championship team with if we assume a normal talent level on the roster. If you want to argue that Nash would be easier to build around in today’s era than he was in his own era, then I guess maybe that’s an argument that could be made (though not one I’m super interested in, for reasons explained above).

[MyUniBroDavis]

If you’re positing that the Suns offense didn’t really benefit from the fact that Amare could shoot, then I think that’s just obviously wrong. It obviously helps a lot in the pick and roll. And you’re not denying that (nor could you) except to just basically say it’s possible to work around the roll man not being able to shoot. Of course that’s true but that doesn’t mean it’s not substantially better and easier if the roll man can shoot, and I think you’d really have to twist yourself into a pretzel to suggest otherwise. And it also helps space the floor when Nash would iso. Despite not possessing elite quickness, Nash would actually get a shocking number of essentially open layups with no one around off of isos, and a big part of that was floor spacing that Amare brought to the table. More generally, Amare was also simply good enough offensively that he could get given the ball in the high or low post and create his own shot with solid efficiency, which is something well beyond the capacity of someone who is just an athletic catch and finish guy. That wasn’t their main offensive strategy, but having that option you can go to a handful of times a game and get good results from is obviously very helpful as well. Overall, I just think it’s plainly wrong to suggest that Nash could’ve had some offensively one-dimensional catch and finish big man and have had the offenses be nearly as ridiculously good as they were with Amare. They’d still be good (indeed we saw a variant of that in 2006, where the Suns were still a really good offense with an offensively-limited-in-a-different-way Kurt Thomas), but it definitely would not have been as incredible. And, again, the problem is that you don’t get what Amare brought to the table offensively AND great big man defense unless the teammate in question is an absolute all-time great big man. For instance, you should ask yourself what big man who was playing in that era would’ve provided similar offense as Amare and great defense?

I mean sure but I’m telling you right now in the pick and roll this is how it’s run for that lol. Obviously being able to shoot is good vs certain coverages but there are other viable ways to beat those coverages as well.

Having an effective midrange jumpshot as a big isn’t how Most teams try to beat drop now

What are you even trying to argue? Steve Nash doesn’t play now. He played in an era where the offensive attributes that Amare brought to the table were undeniably really important/helpful and you’d have to be *extremely* lucky to get a big man teammate who could provide those offensive attributes and be a great defender. In the current era, the offensive attributes from a big man that would optimize offense with Nash would surely be a bit different. We don’t know *exactly* how Nash would play today, but he’d very likely want a big man who could hit a three, rather than caring as much about a mid-range shot, for instance. Maybe it’d be easier or harder now to find a guy with the optimal offensive attributes for Nash + great defense, but I’m not really concerned with some time-machine-to-the-present-day argument—which always inevitably comes down to motivated speculation about how a player’s attributes would translate and how exactly they’d play in a different era. I don’t find those types of discussions informative, because they just get too speculative and subjective IMO. Basically, you seem to want to get into a debate about modern-day drop coverages with me, even though I’m talking about Steve Nash and therefore don’t see the point. What I’m telling you is that in Steve Nash’s general era, you weren’t going to get the big-man attributes that optimized Nash offensively while also having a great big man defender, unless the big man you got with Nash was a high-level all-time great. If he had that, it would’ve been incredible IMO. But he didn’t, and I think, within their respective eras, Jokic is easier to build a championship team with if we assume a normal talent level on the roster. If you want to argue that Nash would be easier to build around in today’s era than he was in his own era, then I guess maybe that’s an argument that could be made (though not one I’m super interested in, for reasons explained above).

So just a misunderstanding I guess? I don’t think the way bigs were in the era is on him


I don’t think nash is better I just think Nash’s offense is pretty inherently good to build around nowadays

[70sFan]

1 guy says he did it. How reliable is that?

This "guy" is a Harvey Pollack, who was a lifetime Sixers statistician and one of the most respected analytics of the 20th century. If you ignore his data, you can ignore basically any data from that era.

I forgot, didn’t he say something about Jordan not shooting well from long twos and then people tracked it and what he said was almost certainly false? I don’t recall

No, Wilt said that to Pollack. It was early in Jordan's career and Pollack tracked 20 Jordan games and came out that it was the case. I don't think we have any shooting data from his early years.