One_and_Done wrote:I really do have to wonder if Stockton fans think Malone is overrated, or Jerry Sloan somehow misused them. Because otherwise the team results make no sense. If you're a 'secret star' then the team should play like it consistently. As I outlined on page 1; that was far from the case.
They were the second best team in the NBA over the course of one of the most competitive and star studded decades in NBA history. The refs **** them out of if not a Finals win over Jordan, at least a Game 7 at home where they would have been favored in a year where Malone and Stockton were older than Jordan and Pippen. And Malone’s only a top 20 player because of his longevity. I don’t get why you keep acting like Utah was bad or something.
The 90s was terrible compared to today. Stockton's career didn't begin in 95 either, before injuries forced him into a lesser role in 98. I noted the Jazz record from 88-94 on pg 1, which is totally incongruent with the idea of a 2 MVP team. It's also weird that the Jazz basically didn't miss a beat in 98, even as Stockton's role shrunk. If he's an MVP the team should have struggled without him alot more.
People actually running the math on this seemed to find that he was highly impactful (and one might infer that they did struggle without him, on-off and even cruder game level stuff where the Jazz start ... uncontenderlike ... without him). https://ascreamingcomesacrossthecourt.blogspot.com/2013/12/1997-98-rapm-non-prior-informed.html They were very good with him. This is with a method attempting to solve for teammates.
I also don't see posters calling for '98 Stockton as an MVP.
I guess Stockton was only MVP level in 95-97. How convenient.
I'd just add that while Eaton and Jeff Malone wouldn't translate today either, they were im fact all-stars in their day due to the garbage way teams played.
I also think it's silly to point at a guy having big stats in a terrible loss and saying 'well he must have been good. Look at those stats!' If you had 2 MVPs and got spanked by a 43 win team in the 1st round your stats are to some degree empty. If prime Lebron & AD lost in round 1 to a run of the mill 43 win team the reaction would not be 'weĺl they posted some nice stats'.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
Now that he's on the ballot, I think he has the best era-relative case given his individual statistical consistency and quality, relative longevity, and team success resume
Secondary Vote: Charles Barkley
Been pushing for him for a long time based on his astronomical efficiency and rebounding rates, not gonna stop now. Maybe this time is the charm!
In a few years, provided he continues at his current level, I'd probably move Jokic above Barkley. But not yet.
Nomination: Patrick Ewing
I think Kawhi has the highest peak of the potential nominees being discussed, but his longevity hurts him. Ewing's combination of two-way play, importance to his team's success, and decent longevity give him the edge here for me.
Secondary Nomination: John Stockton
I have been defending Stockton for awhile, but between these, I find myself unable to get past this question: Without Ewing, I'm not sure the 93 and 94 Knicks would've gotten as far as they did; can the same be said for Stockton? His impact metrics are impeccable, his longevity all-time great, but I just think Ewing was more indispensable to those Knicks teams. It's just too difficult to parse who was more responsible for the Jazz's success between Malone and Stockton, and I say that as someone who thinks this place tends to overrate Malone and underrate Stockton. Ewing was everything for those Knicks teams.
One_and_Done wrote:I guess Stockton was only MVP level in 95-97. How convenient.
I'd just add that while Eaton and Jeff Malone wouldn't translate today either, they were im fact all-stars in their day due to the garbage way teams played.
I also think it's silly to point at a guy having big stats in a terrible loss and saying 'well he must have been good. Look at those stats!' If you had 2 MVPs and got spanked by a 43 win team in the 1st round your stats are to some degree empty. If prime Lebron & AD lost in round 1 to a run of the mill 43 win team the reaction would not be 'weĺl they posted some nice stats'.
See there we go ... it didn't need to be Karl and Sloan.
Eaton got a West center nod in the same era as Steve Johnson, James Donaldson and Kevin Duckworth. I don't think that made them noteworthily good in their day. Mileage may vary on Jeff and he was very good at shooting midrangers coming of screens, perhaps off a dribble or two. Box composites rarely see any year as significantly above average, never in Utah (nor were his AS nods particularly close to his Utah career, for whatever that's worth).
You keep arguing "two MVPs" and nobody's arguing for that. It is a strawman argument.
"I guess Stockton was only MVP level in 95-97". This argument is again silly and ignores actual lines of argumentation given. I have stated Stockton's better years were earlier. Fwiw, if anyone were arguing for him as MVP caliber at points I'd be surprised if they were after '95.
I disagree that your stats are necessarily empty because the team lost. There are 9 other players on the court, minutes you are off, coaching etc. It also misrepresents the argument given. It's not good stats "therefore it must have been good" (though they probably were). It is that you say bad because team is poor, this ignores excellent production and bad counterpart efficiency and production ... it is possible that such a player ate all the clock, was not matched up with their notional matchup and defender very poorly etc. But if someone's going to point to a 25.9 PER, .230 WS/48, 12 BPM series whilst their positional opponent at the point shoots poorly and doesn't create much and argue it's evidence of the player being bad one kind of wants to see ... evidence of them being bad.
I''ll leave this here because it isn't going anywhere and engaging further seems unlikely to be productive.
Barkley & Jokic - 4 each Pettit - 3 Wade & Harden - 1 each
Eliminating those bottom three results in 3 votes transferred to Barkley, 1 to Jokic (7 to 5 lead to Barkley). That's where things stand for now, to whomever is interested.
Eliminating the bottom four transferred at least a couple more to Stockton, as I recall.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
One_and_Done wrote:I really do have to wonder if Stockton fans think Malone is overrated, or Jerry Sloan somehow misused them. Because otherwise the team results make no sense. If you're a 'secret star' then the team should play like it consistently. As I outlined on page 1; that was far from the case.
They were the second best team in the NBA over the course of one of the most competitive and star studded decades in NBA history. The refs **** them out of if not a Finals win over Jordan, at least a Game 7 at home where they would have been favored in a year where Malone and Stockton were older than Jordan and Pippen. And Malone’s only a top 20 player because of his longevity. I don’t get why you keep acting like Utah was bad or something.
The 90s was terrible compared to today. Stockton's career didn't begin in 95 either, before injuries forced him into a lesser role in 98. I noted the Jazz record from 88-94 on pg 1, which is totally incongruent with the idea of a 2 MVP team. It's also weird that the Jazz basically didn't miss a beat in 98, even as Stockton's role shrunk. If he's an MVP the team should have struggled without him alot more.
In 1998, when Stockton was 35, the Jazz were 51-13 with him in the lineup and 11-7 when he didn’t play. They had a point differential of +12.2 with Stockton on the floor and -0.2 when he was on the bench. That on/off is more than 3 points better than Harden ever managed for a season at any point in his career. Trying to use that as evidence that Stockton wasn’t very valuable is some of the most backwards nonsense logic I’ve seen in this entire project.
1) While it’s definitely a point in his favour that the Jazz were much better with him in 1998 than without him, it’s also only one side of the coin which focuses on 1998 in a vacuum. The other side considers the previous year, and asks why Stockton was able to play 6 mpg less, and miss 16 games, and the Jazz only dropped off by 2 wins and still made the finals. It suggests that while the value over replacement in 1998 was huge (because his replacement was terrible), the contrast between 97 and 98 suggests Stockton was not as irreplaceable in and of himself. It suggests Malone was the constant, and that as long as he had a decent PG the team was awesome, but if you replaced that point guard with a bum then the team was much worse.
2) Eaton was more than just “an all-star”. He was also 2 time DPOY, and finished 13th and 16th in the MVP vote. To try and dismiss Eaton because he played in the same time as James Donaldson and Kevin Duckworth is disingenuous, and disrespectful to his value at the time. I also feel like even if Eaton had been a borderline all-star 5 man (and he obviously was in one sense, since he only made it once), so what? He was there as the 3rd or 4th best player on the Jazz, not their star. How much help do 2 MVPs need? It’s a similar point RE: Jeff Malone. Yeh, sure, he was a fringe all-star type. What of it? He’s meant to be their 3rd man. The reason he wasn’t an all-star on the Jazz was because he took a lesser role, not because he had gotten worse. I don’t see that as being accurate at all, he was aged 29-31 from 91-93 and his numbers are broadly similar to his all-star years per 100 given his reduced role.
3) There’s been pushback that calling Stockton and Malone “2 MVPs” is a strawman, because “nobody is saying that”, but people are saying that. There are posters who have been calling Stockton equal to other MVP talents, and saying that he has MVP talent. Penbeast is one example, but there have been plenty of others. I feel like this is MVP territory still, and it’s too soon for Stockton.
4) I agree it is theoretically possible to have a good performance in a series your team lost, but given the results I cited on page 1 I don’t think it’s sufficient to point to Stockton’s stats. The performances just do not align with the results.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
trex_8063 wrote:fwiw, I have a quick n' dirty count as:
Barkley & Jokic - 4 each Pettit - 3 Wade & Harden - 1 each
Eliminating those bottom three results in 3 votes transferred to Barkley, 1 to Jokic (7 to 5 lead to Barkley). That's where things stand for now, to whomever is interested.
As I've sort of alluded to before in this thread and general project, yeah sure.. Stockton has great longevity at the PG position.By no means are Miller/Ewing/Pippen longevity slouches in their own right(s), however. Why I rank the other three contemporaries over Stockton is because I feel they have various seasons (respectively and each) that trump that of peak/prime Stockton. Pippen / Ewing might not be better offensive players, but I regard Pippen as my GOAT non-big defender and Ewing as a legitimate anchor big - so they each have that as a decent trump card in this comparison.
I prefer Miller as an offensive centerpiece over Stockton, and find that to outweigh the gap in defense between the two. It seems (from watching Jazz games from the 90s at-least) that I could tie the Jazz' somewhat underrated PS offensive numbers more-so to Malone than I can Stockton.
Mogspan wrote:I think they see the super rare combo of high IQ with freakish athleticism and overrate the former a bit, kind of like a hot girl who is rather articulate being thought of as “super smart.” I don’t know kind of a weird analogy, but you catch my drift.
Well, this one wasn't hard for me. Voted for him before, voting for him again. To put it in a new way:
Can we agree that Wade did more for the Heat than any of the other Nominees did for any of their teams? Not saying this alone clinches him the spot for me, but yes, I think Wade did more for the Heat in total than Giannis & Jokic have done for their respective teams to this point, as well as more than what Barkley & Harden did for any of their teams.
And yes, this is a perspective that values his role in forming the Heatles around himself, not in spite of one of those guys being better than himself, but very much helped by this fact. Understandable anyone who would choose not to consider something like this.
As I say that, I don't think it's clear cut that, say, Giannis has a higher peak than Wade in terms of how they dominated in their era. Giannis is the greater regular season player sure, but he's very much known for his playoff stumbles at this point. Wade by contrast was consistently a playoff "overachiever" in his early years to the point where the term became absurd. Dude was just a buzzsaw that was exceptionally resilient against playoff defense. And when he had that playoff motor going, I do believe that Wade had some serious defensive impact too. As much as Giannis? Eh, I won't make that claim, but impressive to the viewer and intimidating to opponents.
I won't say it's even necessarily clear cut that Jokic peaks higher than Wade, though I wouldn't want to try to make a case against Jokic at this point. What he did last season is just unreal to me.
Over to Barkley & Harden. There's something of a lost-benefit-of-the-doubt thing for both of these guys in a comparison with Wade with my criteria. I'm not going to put them below every guy who led a team to a chip because luck aside, some supporting casts are better than others. But the thing that is Heat Culture is built on the solid rock foundation of Wade, and there's a lack of professionalism in Barkley & Harden that to me makes it hard to imagine such positive aftershocks.
I do see a serious argument for Barkley over Wade on the back of his utterly unique physical talent. If you see him as having both the stronger peak and longer longevity, makes sense why you'd pick him.
I do see a serious argument for Harden over Wade based on a more 2020s-oriented criteria. I'm on record being concerned with Wade's limited shooting. But I also have concerns with Harden's reliance on trickery for foul calls, as that seems to cause his dominance to tend to decrease over the course of tight playoff series...which is not remotely how I see Wade. Wade didn't always peak late in the series, but it was like he had the ability to spike at particular moments when needed, making the gap between his outlier athleticism and mere mortal NBA playoff players all the more jaw-dropping. I don't know if this difference would be enough to make Wade better than Harden in today's league, but that's not my criteria.
Induction Vote 2: Nikola Jokic
Repeating vote:
Spoiler:
So, yeah, in a vote that will apparently come down to Chuck & Giannis, I'm punting here in favor of two guys I just rank higher.
This isn't some kind of moral high ground thing for me, I just feel I have the right to either try to have a say in the effective run-off, so speak more on a guy I rate higher. Maybe I'll do something different next time.
Part of what's going on here is that I'm honestly torn between Chuck & Giannis. If I felt really strongly there, I'd probably use my second for the guy I favor. But arguments for each over the other resonate for me.
On the other hand, Jokic's case resonates for me ahead of the other two.
The first part of that is peak. I don't think most would see it as strange to favor Jokic over Barkley by peak, and I also feel at this point that Jokic's game actually seems more bulletproof than Giannis' by a significant margin.
I also don't see Giannis as having a clear cut longevity advantage. Yes, he's played in the league longer, but he really wasn't relevant to elite conversation until his 6th year in the league.
What about Barkley's longevity? Well, there's no doubt that this is a point in Barkley's favor. The question is only whether that factor is big enough to overwhelm Jokic's advantages.
Here's a particular perspective to consider:
Jokic's duration in Denver has now match Barkley's in Philly. If we can agree that Barkley's case is based on longevity, then that's basically another way of saying that it's Barkley's post-Philly career that takes him over the top in the comparison. Looking just one year into that run, Barkley's MVP campaign seems just the thing to do the trick...but of course Jokic has already won 2 MVPs and really, really deserved the MVP this last year. That Barkley year certainly helps elevate his stature generally, but I think the MVP lens really hammers in how big the gap is between Denver Jokic and Philly Barkley. It's not close.
Barkley has a few more good years in him after that, but in terms of Top 5 seasons, he doesn't get another nod from me after that...which means he gets no such nods from me in his 30s. Doesn't mean he can't get the nod here by someone's assessment...but I wouldn't actually say Barkley's longevity-adding years hit home for me the way, say, David Robinson's years do. If Barkley's did, well, I'd expect to have him ahead of Robinson.
Nomination Vote 1: Walt Frazier
I'm going to re-post what I said last time for Frazier without spoilers because I still feel unsettled on the matter:
Yeah, so I've been agonizing over this one. Makes sense given that this is where the the structure that narrows the field in Induction stops. It's the place to consider all of the players not yet Inducted or Nominated, and of course that's the vast majority of'em.
With Frazier, the pros and cons are clear. I think his prime was really damn strong, and I think he was the keystone of the Red Holzman Knicks more so than any other player. In comparison with contemporary rivals like John Havlicek, Rick Barry & Wes Unseld, I just think Frazier was better than any of them.
He didn't last all that long though, so there's a major question of whether longevity should favor someone else. To be honest, I kinda felt myself thinking that I should pick someone other than Frazier here...but I couldn't make myself anoint any particular guy.
I probably spent the most time considering Mr. Guard longevity John Stockton, and so that means that next time he might be the most likely for me to switch my vote to.
I'll tell you though, I'm really not sure about Stockton over Reggie Miller. I kinda think Reggie was the better playoff player and extreme longevity himself.
And then there's a guy I'm already soft-championing in Manu Ginobili. On a per minute basis, I'd definitely take Manu over Reggie (or Stockton). I'm seriously considering him over them.
I'd be remiss not to mention Scottie Pippen. I rank his prime play ahead of Stockton & Miller...but his career fell off abruptly somewhat like Frazier's did. It really doesn't seem right to me to favor Pippen over Frazier based on longevity. Feels like you have to prefer Pippen to Frazier, and I just don't. I think we see a gap in shooting ability that puts them in fundamentally different tiers as scorers, and I think Frazier stacks up pretty dang well in the rest of the game too.
That's me mentioning a lot of guys I could see possibly Nominating over Frazier, and there are others as well, but Frazier's the one still standing out most as I look at this right now.
Nomination Vote 2: Scottie Pippen
So, this is me continuing with something of a quality over quantity theme in this current discussion. Like Frazier, Pippen doesn't have as good longevity as others being discussed, but I feel strong enough about his prime to - at least possibly - prefer him over the guys with longevity advantages.
An outstanding 9 years run may not sound like that much compared to what others can claim, but realistically if you're a franchise, you're going to prioritize that 9 years over anything that would come outside of it.
I will say as I select Pippen here, there's always a case for Havlicek over Pippen based on him being a similar player with much greater longevity. I've gone back and forth on this myself. I'll say two main things here:
1. When I did my recent POY Share consideration, Pippen just ended up well ahead of Havlicek. I think so much of this comes down to how impressed you are by Hondo's post-Russell years as an MVP/POY candidate. If you're placing him extremely high there, then I absolutely get coming away with an extremely high evaluation of his career holistically. I have him as a guy making the back end of my Top 5 a couple of those years and giving Cowens a bit more love than Hondo for that era.
2. I'm not that high on the '70s Celtics. They broke through winning 2 chips and that's a big deal to be sure, but I don't think beat the competition that, say, their contemporary rivals the Knicks took down. If you had a perspective that these two runs were roughly as good, then I think Hondo over Frazier starts to look like a pretty clear cut thing, but I just think the Knicks were something special in comparison. And of course, the '90s Bulls are an entirely differently. Yes Pippen had Jordan leading the way, but the Jordan-Pippen 1-2 punch was arguably the most dominant in history, and it had everything to do with the diverse package of skills Pippen brought with him.
Tough choice here but I'm going with Pettit. Jokic hasn't played quite enough for me yet, nor am I as sold on his defensive ability, which Barkley also lacks. Pettit is a solid all-around player that held up quite well in the playoffs even as guys like Wilt and Russell joined the league.
Based on my own criteria that places an emphasis on defense and rebounding, Ewing is the choice here for me. The level of defense he provides, which I think tends to go underrated, while being able to score and hit shots with that mid ranger of his is more valuable than anyone left. I have Pippen very close though, along with Havlicek and Baylor behind him--but the rim protection and defensive ability slightly edges out in Ewing's favor for me. Ewing and Pippen tend to stand out defensively when watching the film. Ewing's rim protection was definitely a factor when playing the Bulls, the Knicks' offense just couldn't go the distance (along with costly turnovers by their PGs.) Stockton isn't on my radar at all, to be honest, but among PGs I do believe Frazier should definitely be in the conversation here and I'd sooner vote him in ahead of other PGs at the moment.
ZeppelinPage wrote:Vote: Bob Pettit Nomination: Patrick Ewing
Tough choice here but I'm going with Pettit. Jokic hasn't played quite enough for me yet, nor am I as sold on his defensive ability, which Barkley also lacks. Pettit is a solid all-around player that held up quite well in the playoffs even as guys like Wilt and Russell joined the league.
Based on my own criteria that places an emphasis on defense and rebounding, Ewing is the choice here for me. The level of defense he provides, which I think tends to go underrated, while being able to score and hit shots with that mid ranger of his is more valuable than anyone left. I have Pippen very close though, along with Havlicek and Baylor behind him--but the rim protection and defensive ability slightly edges out in Ewing's favor for me. Ewing and Pippen tend to stand out defensively when watching the film. Ewing's rim protection was definitely a factor when playing the Bulls, the Knicks' offense just couldn't go the distance (along with costly turnovers by their PGs.) Stockton isn't on my radar at all, to be honest, but among PGs I do believe Frazier should definitely be in the conversation here and I'd sooner vote him in ahead of other PGs at the moment.
As someone who values defense, when would you consider Nate Thurmond, Artis Gilmore and Dikembe Mutombo?
ZeppelinPage wrote:Vote: Bob Pettit Nomination: Patrick Ewing
Tough choice here but I'm going with Pettit. Jokic hasn't played quite enough for me yet, nor am I as sold on his defensive ability, which Barkley also lacks. Pettit is a solid all-around player that held up quite well in the playoffs even as guys like Wilt and Russell joined the league.
Based on my own criteria that places an emphasis on defense and rebounding, Ewing is the choice here for me. The level of defense he provides, which I think tends to go underrated, while being able to score and hit shots with that mid ranger of his is more valuable than anyone left. I have Pippen very close though, along with Havlicek and Baylor behind him--but the rim protection and defensive ability slightly edges out in Ewing's favor for me. Ewing and Pippen tend to stand out defensively when watching the film. Ewing's rim protection was definitely a factor when playing the Bulls, the Knicks' offense just couldn't go the distance (along with costly turnovers by their PGs.) Stockton isn't on my radar at all, to be honest, but among PGs I do believe Frazier should definitely be in the conversation here and I'd sooner vote him in ahead of other PGs at the moment.
As someone who values defense, when would you consider Nate Thurmond, Artis Gilmore and Dikembe Mutombo?
I'll start to consider them as we get closer to around #40, along with Ben Wallace and Alonzo Mourning, who I also have higher than most. They're all definitely top 50 for me. With my personal emphasis on defense and rebounding and how vital it has been to winning throughout NBA history, I also place a high value on Dennis Rodman's skill set as well.
One_and_Done wrote:So, several points to respond to RE: Stockton.
1) While it’s definitely a point in his favour that the Jazz were much better with him in 1998 than without him, it’s also only one side of the coin which focuses on 1998 in a vacuum. The other side considers the previous year, and asks why Stockton was able to play 6 mpg less, and miss 16 games, and the Jazz only dropped off by 2 wins and still made the finals. It suggests that while the value over replacement in 1998 was huge (because his replacement was terrible), the contrast between 97 and 98 suggests Stockton was not as irreplaceable in and of himself. It suggests Malone was the constant, and that as long as he had a decent PG the team was awesome, but if you replaced that point guard with a bum then the team was much worse.
This is the worst argument ever. I don't get why you won't drop it. You can't understand why the Jazz only dropped from a 8.0 SRS team with Stockton playing 82 games to a 5.7 SRS team with him playing 64 games? That's proof that he wasn't valuable somehow? They got significantly worse with him missing games and he was top 5 in the league in RAPM for the season at age 35. Your standard is ridiculous here. Where was that impact logic when the Warriors actually played better without Durant than they did with him? It's OK for him to show negative impact in the heart of his prime because he scores a lot of points, but Stockton "only" shows top 5 player in the league impact at an older age than Harden and Durant are now and it's not good enough? Make it make sense.
4) I agree it is theoretically possible to have a good performance in a series your team lost, but given the results I cited on page 1 I don’t think it’s sufficient to point to Stockton’s stats. The performances just do not align with the results.
Stockton's BPM in the '89 playoffs was almost identical to Luka's in the 2021 playoffs when the Mavs lost to the Clippers in the first round. You'd have to be grasping at straws to criticize either performance. Although Stockton probably did play better due to the huge defensive gap between them.
It's kinda wild that people are voting Jokic over Harden. Harden not only has a tonne more longevity, but he has a history of owning Joker so badly that the Nuggets tanked 2 separate years to get out of the Rockets playoff bracket. The recency bias is crazy. Yeh Jokic has a title, and if Harden's 2018 Rockets had been playing in last year's down league year they'd have a title too.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
One_and_Done wrote:So, several points to respond to RE: Stockton.
1) While it’s definitely a point in his favour that the Jazz were much better with him in 1998 than without him, it’s also only one side of the coin which focuses on 1998 in a vacuum. The other side considers the previous year, and asks why Stockton was able to play 6 mpg less, and miss 16 games, and the Jazz only dropped off by 2 wins and still made the finals. It suggests that while the value over replacement in 1998 was huge (because his replacement was terrible), the contrast between 97 and 98 suggests Stockton was not as irreplaceable in and of himself. It suggests Malone was the constant, and that as long as he had a decent PG the team was awesome, but if you replaced that point guard with a bum then the team was much worse.
This is the worst argument ever. I don't get why you won't drop it. You can't understand why the Jazz only dropped from a 8.0 SRS team with Stockton playing 82 games to a 5.7 SRS team with him playing 64 games? That's proof that he wasn't valuable somehow? They got significantly worse with him missing games and he was top 5 in the league in RAPM for the season at age 35. Your standard is ridiculous here. Where was that impact logic when the Warriors actually played better without Durant than they did with him? It's OK for him to show negative impact in the heart of his prime because he scores a lot of points, but Stockton "only" shows top 5 player in the league impact at an older age than Harden and Durant are now and it's not good enough? Make it make sense.
4) I agree it is theoretically possible to have a good performance in a series your team lost, but given the results I cited on page 1 I don’t think it’s sufficient to point to Stockton’s stats. The performances just do not align with the results.
Stockton's BPM in the '89 playoffs was almost identical to Luka's in the 2021 playoffs when the Mavs lost to the Clippers in the first round. You'd have to be grasping at straws to criticize either performance. Although Stockton probably did play better due to the huge defensive gap between them.
The SRS argument is reasonable-ish, but it seems more likely it's an anomoly that can be explained in other ways. Otherwise why aren't the Jazz performing liks that with a younger and healthier Stockton from 88-94.
You also have to get that these advance stat arguments are pointless when responding to me. I've spent a long time explaining in a nuanced way my concerns with advanced stats, and there are of course many reasons they can be wrong. So when you reply by just quoting the number a computer spat out as a substitute for an argument you might as well be telling me "Stockton had 7 Unicorns though".
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
ZeppelinPage wrote:Vote: Bob Pettit Nomination: Patrick Ewing
Tough choice here but I'm going with Pettit. Jokic hasn't played quite enough for me yet, nor am I as sold on his defensive ability, which Barkley also lacks. Pettit is a solid all-around player that held up quite well in the playoffs even as guys like Wilt and Russell joined the league.
Based on my own criteria that places an emphasis on defense and rebounding, Ewing is the choice here for me. The level of defense he provides, which I think tends to go underrated, while being able to score and hit shots with that mid ranger of his is more valuable than anyone left. I have Pippen very close though, along with Havlicek and Baylor behind him--but the rim protection and defensive ability slightly edges out in Ewing's favor for me. Ewing and Pippen tend to stand out defensively when watching the film. Ewing's rim protection was definitely a factor when playing the Bulls, the Knicks' offense just couldn't go the distance (along with costly turnovers by their PGs.) Stockton isn't on my radar at all, to be honest, but among PGs I do believe Frazier should definitely be in the conversation here and I'd sooner vote him in ahead of other PGs at the moment.
As someone who values defense, when would you consider Nate Thurmond, Artis Gilmore and Dikembe Mutombo?
I'll start to consider them as we get closer to around #40, along with Ben Wallace and Alonzo Mourning, who I also have higher than most. They're all definitely top 50 for me. With my personal emphasis on defense and rebounding and how vital it has been to winning throughout NBA history, I also place a high value on Dennis Rodman's skill set as well.
I think the rest struggles with longevity a bit, but Gilmore is worthy consideration for top 35 in my opinion (along with Ewing of course).
If you value Rodman highly, how about Draymond Green? Also, would you have guys like Mark Eaton and Marc Gasol inside top 100?
One_and_Done wrote:It's kinda wild that people are voting Jokic over Harden. Harden not only has a tonne more longevity, but he has a history of owning Joker so badly that the Nuggets tanked 2 separate years to get out of the Rockets playoff bracket. The recency bias is crazy. Yeh Jokic has a title, and if Harden's 2018 Rockets had been playing in last year's down league year they'd have a title too.
What do you base this on? I have never seen anything suggesting that Nuggets tanked on purpose to omit Houston.
One_and_Done wrote:It's kinda wild that people are voting Jokic over Harden. Harden not only has a tonne more longevity, but he has a history of owning Joker so badly that the Nuggets tanked 2 separate years to get out of the Rockets playoff bracket. The recency bias is crazy. Yeh Jokic has a title, and if Harden's 2018 Rockets had been playing in last year's down league year they'd have a title too.
What do you base this on? I have never seen anything suggesting that Nuggets tanked on purpose to omit Houston.
I have trouble crediting that you're serious. It was very extensively discussed. A simple google search will show you that. Other posters here will be able to attest to it as well.
One_and_Done wrote:It's kinda wild that people are voting Jokic over Harden. Harden not only has a tonne more longevity, but he has a history of owning Joker so badly that the Nuggets tanked 2 separate years to get out of the Rockets playoff bracket. The recency bias is crazy. Yeh Jokic has a title, and if Harden's 2018 Rockets had been playing in last year's down league year they'd have a title too.
What do you base this on? I have never seen anything suggesting that Nuggets tanked on purpose to omit Houston.
I have trouble crediting that you're serious. It was very extensively discussed. A simple google search will show you that. Other posters here will be able to attest to it as well.
Tanking to avoid tougher schedule isn't the same as being scared of facing one particular team. 6th seed avoids 1st seed, which wasn't Houston in 2020.
