penbeast0 wrote:iggymcfrack wrote:Just went back and looked. It was actually the thread for #14 where I was convinced by the discussion that I was too low on Jokic and should have him ahead of Giannis. Every other player that had a single nomination vote in that thread has been not only nominated, but inducted as well. It's crazy that he's still not even nominated. If people pick Pettit over him, that's nuts. Look at the difference in playoff stats:
Pettit: 22.6 PER on .501 TS%, .159 WS/48, 11.7 total WS in 88 games
Jokic: 29.0 PER on .614 TS%, .236 WS/48, 12.6 total WS in 68 games
Like forget the fact that Pettit played in a nothing league against ridiculously weak competition. Are you telling me you'd rather have the first guy for 11 years than the second guy for 8 even if the league strength was exactly the same?
I've been championing Jokic for quite a few threads not too but v. a lesser player than Jokic I would say:
(a) Regular season counts too
(b) 11 years in the 1950s is more difficult than 11 years now with modern medicine and training, and
(c) although I said earlier, one of the biggest knock on Pettit is that his playoff stats drop off strongly, he did have one of, if not the most amazing 4th quarter to win his team it's only championship in NBA history. Against the Celtics no less though Russell was injured which matters a lot to those who feel Russell carried that roster but probably less to those who feel that Russell was just one cog in the deep and powerful Celtic machine. Pettit scored 50 points and grabbed 23 rebounds including 19 of the Hawks 21 points to finish the game, winning it with a tip in with 15 seconds left in a 1 point victory. That performance changed his narrative from playoff choker to playoff hero, much like Dirk's performance in 2011 changed that same narrative for him.
I'd have to look at the numbers on Pettit, but box-side Nowitzki's playoff numbers look very solid (on-off less so, but that is noisy in a small sample).
Looking at it the numbers are significantly down to a degree that I'm surprised I didn't have a mental note on it given Pettit's stature ... overall on career playoff averages him versus Hagan is a pretty close call depending on one's metric of choice (PER gap in Pettit's favor a little bigger than Hagan's WS/48 edge).
Pettit is playing in an era of small playoff samples. When getting to the finals, the opposition would be of a high level. That said he's playing in an era and in the conference where the Pistons made 7 straight playoffs with an SRS between -1 and -3.5 (5 of them worse than -2.0) or in a year ('57) where positive and negative SRS split exactly along conference lines ... what I'm saying ... without a close look at each opponent is I imagine on the in-conference side those playoff numbers aren't even against great opposition. I suppose a positive spin would be perhaps it's possible he plays better against against the good teams if one looks at playoffs through that framework (though one would have to check the splits to see if he actually was playing down to opposition).
