RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Dikembe Mutombo)

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RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Dikembe Mutombo) 

Post#1 » by Doctor MJ » Tue Jan 16, 2024 4:32 pm

Our system is now as follows:

1. We have a pool of Nominees you are to choose from for your Induction (main) vote to decide who next gets on the List. Choose your top vote, and if you'd like to, a second vote which will be used for runoff purposes if needed.

2. Nomination vote now works the same way.

3. You must include reasoning for each of your votes, though you may re-use your old words in a new post.

4. Post as much as they want, but when you do your official Vote make it really clear to me at the top of that post that that post is your Vote. And if you decide to change your vote before the votes are tallied, please edit that same Vote post.

5. Anyone may post thoughts, but please only make a Vote post if you're on the Voter list. If you'd like to be added to the project, please ask in the General Thread for the project. Note that you will not be added immediately to the project now. If you express an interest during the #2 thread, for example, the earliest you'll be added to the Voter list is for the #3.

5. I'll tally the votes when I wake up the morning after the Deadline (I don't care if you change things after the official Deadline, but once I tally, it's over). For this specific Vote, if people ask before the Deadline, I'll extend it.

Here's the list of the Voter Pool as it stands right now (and if I forgot anyone I approved, do let me know):

Spoiler:
AEnigma
Ambrose
ceilng raiser
ceoofkobefans
Clyde Frazier
Colbinii
cupcakesnake
Doctor MJ
Dooley
DQuinn1575
Dr Positivity
DraymondGold
Dutchball97
f4p
falcolombardi
Fundamentals21
Gibson22
HeartBreakKid
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iggymcfrack
LA Bird
JimmyFromNz
Joao Saraiva
lessthanjake
Lou Fan
Moonbeam
Narigo
OhayoKD
OldSchoolNoBull
penbeast0
Rishkar
rk2023
Samurai
ShaqAttac
Taj FTW
Tim Lehrbach
trelos6
trex_8063
ty 4191
WintaSoldier1
ZeppelinPage


Alright, the Nominees for you to choose among for the next slot on the list (in alphabetical order):

Chauncey Billups
Image

Cliff Hagan
Image

Elvin Hayes
Image

Dikembe Mutombo
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Robert Parish
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As requested, here's the current list so far along with the historical spreadsheet of previous projects:

Current List
Historical Spreadsheet
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#2 » by AEnigma » Tue Jan 16, 2024 5:32 pm

VOTE: Elvin Hayes
Alternate: Dikembe Mutombo
NOMINATE: Wes Unseld
AltNom: Vince Carter

AEnigma wrote:As promised, Hayes immediately rises to the top of my list. 7th in regular season minutes (4000 more than Parish), 11th in total career minutes (2000 more than Parish). Best player on a 60-win Finals team, then arguably the best player on a title team (I think his case is pretty secure, but I understand the argument for Dandridge, and Dandridge was certainly better the following year).

Unseld made much better use of the team’s shooters and I am comfortable calling him the more important offensive player (in addition to being the team’s leader). I think Hayes’ scoring had value regardless, but in the context of that team, Unseld’s passing and screening would have been worth more.

I do not see the defensive responsibility as especially close though, and for bigs that matters a lot more to me. In aggregate Hayes was one of the most valuable defenders ever, and while his shooting efficiency has been increasingly maligned with time, he was not even the typical leader in shot rate for the Bullets (Phil Chenier). Yeah, he should have held back, but we are in the 60s now, and that should only damn you so much. Oh, and he was a playoff riser, because for as ugly as his shot profile could be, at least it was inelastic.

Also willing to consider the Wallaces, as well as Paul George (whom so far no one has cared to back).
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#3 » by penbeast0 » Tue Jan 16, 2024 7:55 pm

Vote: Chauncey Billups: Had a slow start to his career, never a big assist guy. But, like Walt Frazier, he ran a very good balanced offense, was a highly efficient scorer at decent volumes, and stepped up in the NBA finals. Not Frazier on defense but well above average defensively as a PG.


Nominate: Bobby Jones. More than a decade of straight 1st team All-Defense votes combined with high efficiency, though not high volume scoring, and good playmaking. Not a great rebounder for his position but could play 2-5 at either end. Probably the greatest glue guy in NBA history and in his time where he was the best player on his team (75 and 76 for example), his team was the best in the league both years though they came up short in the playoffs. The most 1st team All-Defense awards, best player on two Nugget teams that had the best record in the NBA (though both came up short in the playoffs), great efficiency without being just an inside scorer, excellent passer, decent offensive rebounder, defensively good at blocking out rather than getting the board, good shot blocker for a forward, good steals, could play up to the 5 or down to the 2, limited minutes because of a physical condition but probably the greatest glue guy in the history of the NBA.

Alt Nomination Adrian Dantley -- like Gervin, his case is pure scoring but the statistics are so shiny. High volume, super efficient scorer; hard to believe a team couldn't be built to take advantage of this incredible ability.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#4 » by HeartBreakKid » Tue Jan 16, 2024 7:57 pm

My vote is for Dikembe Mutumbo – I think his impact signals are quite alarming (in a good way). It’s quite interesting watching the Nuggets make their legendary run and seeing the anchor that Mutumbo was for that. Hes also interesting in the “defense doesn’t matter as much as offense” debates because he played alongside peak Iverson as an older man, and often was better than him in the post season during their big run. Anyway, versus the field, it seems like Mutumbo is not only a top ten defender of all time, but in serious consideration for top 5. Even if he was mediocre on offense, that’s more than enough to put him over some other guys.

My alternate vote is for Cliff Hagan- Cliff Hagan has some real playoff heroics and is perhaps the biggest catalyst to the Hawks only title. He has a couple of years where he is the playoff hero. He never quite plays at that level for the rest of his career, but he is still good scorer for his era, just not eyepopping like 58 and to a lesser extent 59.

I'm going to favor someone who had a 05 Manu like run here.



The others

Robert Parish - I don't think he's a top 100 guy. If I can hear an argument for him that isn't based on longevity that could be interesting, but it doesn't seem like he is "good enough" for my criteria.

Chauncey Billups - I like him a lot, very underrated playmaker - kind of unfairly branded as a glorified 3 and D guy. I don't think he's at the level of Reed/Mutumbo though, too much size impact down low.

Elvin Hayes - He's in my top 100, but I don't have a very strong opinion about him. I assume someone like Mutumbo trumps him in defense where the overwhelming majority of their impact comes from, so I'll leave him on the bench.







My nomination is for Tracy McGrady - Very unsexy pick, but he was a top 5 player who many thought was POY. His longevity is very weak compared to his peers, but compared to the people ranked #70-100 it doesn't seem bad. 6-7 of all-nba 1st-2nd team level play is a quite a lot of value. Not the cleanest stats in the playoffs, but not the worst considering how bad his teammates were, I could see why he'd be so turnover prone.


My alternate nomination is for Bill Walton
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#5 » by LA Bird » Wed Jan 17, 2024 12:02 am

Vote 1: Chauncey Billups
Vote 2: Dikembe Mutombo
Nom 1: Vince Carter
Nom 2: Tracy McGrady


Billups
• One of the highest remaining box careers in terms of total value above league average. The others (Issel, Dantley) are weaker defensively and not as easy to build around.
• Billups' box scores are up across the board in the postseason and he has one of the highest regular season to playoffs improvement in RAPM. Billups is #23 all time in playoffs career WS/48 and every player above him except 6th man Frank Ramsey was inducted a long time ago.
• Granted most was in a weak East, 7 straight conference finals appearances is still historically excellent playoffs consistency. To my knowledge, Mikan/Russell/Magic/Kareem/LeBron are the only other stars to do this. The Pistons since 1992 have won only one playoff series without Billups (a close 3-2 victory against the 2002 Raptors without Carter) and Melo also only won one playoff series in his entire career without Billups (against the 2013 Celtics without Rondo).
• The Pistons set their franchise record 6.7 SRS season after Ben Wallace left but fell off immediately after Billups left despite the remaining core of Sheed/Prince/Rip still being intact. Ben Wallace himself fell off after leaving Detroit.
• Billups is arguably the best point guard fit other than Curry for team building purposes. Underrated shooter (higher career FT% than Ray Allen), can play both on and off ball, and he was a solid defender even if not deserving of All-Defensive selections. For those heavy on era portability, Billups was the first point guard who really went all Morey ball with 3s and FTs.

Mutombo
• Excellent longevity despite entering the league as a 25 year old rookie
• One of the best DRAPM numbers of last 25 years next to Garnett and Gobert, the latter is more questionable in playoffs even if just due to era differences
• Historic defensive performance to upset 8.7 SRS 94 Sonics, shutting down Kemp who was otherwise a strong playoffs performer. Mutombo also had some very great series against Grant Hill in 97 and 99.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#6 » by trelos6 » Wed Jan 17, 2024 1:59 am

Vote: Dikembe Mutombo

I have Dikembe as the 7th best defender of all time, and 5th amongst centers. His defensive value was phenomenal, and that puts him above the other centers on the board. Also had a few seasons where he was a good rim finisher. If Thurmond just got in, I think it’s most def arguable that Mutombo was a better defensive player for career value.

Alt: Robert Parish

All hail the chief.

Nomination: Ben Wallace

Ben is my 4th best defensive center of all time, and 6th best defensive player overall. He is negative on offense, so it's a testament to his fantastic defense that he should be rated in the 60's. He has the 2nd best single season defensive peak, IMO.

Alt. Nom: Rasheed Wallace

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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#7 » by Samurai » Wed Jan 17, 2024 3:20 am

Vote for #64: Robert Parish. Elite longevity with more RS games played than anyone in NBA/ABA history. Solid scorer with 17 consecutive years having double digits in points/game. Solid defender with 9 seasons in the top 20 in DRtg, leading the league once. Solid rebounder, leading the league in rebound % once and 16 seasons in the top 20. All in all, just a really solid player who gave Father Time a good run for his money.

Alternate vote: Chauncey Billups. Solid all-around guard who scored in double digits 15 seasons, finished in the top 20 in assists/game 8 times, and played defense (two-time All Defensive Second Team member). Three time All NBA Team member (one second team, two third teams). Finals MVP in 2004. I never considered him elite in one category but a consistently good all-around player for a long time.

Nomination: Bobby Jones. Yes I have reservations about his lack of longevity and durability. But I'm pretty sure that I would take Jones and his reduced minutes over Draymond if I were drafting a team, so seeing Green get selected convinced me to consider him. Gotta admit that there is bias here since Jones is one of my favorite players of all time. Despite averaging less than 30 minutes/game during his NBA career, he still has ten All Defensive First Team awards and one Second Team selection (in his second to last season averaging only 20 minutes/game). He was nicknamed The Secretary of Defense for good reason. He didn't shoot much but he was highly efficient, leading the league in FG% three times and finishing in the top 20 in TS% nine times. But as good as he was at playing basketball, how he conducted himself may have been even more admirable. He was always a gentleman with honor; he didn't drink, smoke or use profanity, always raised his hand when called for a foul - even telling a ref who mistakenly called a foul on a teammate that he was the one who actually committed the foul, even though that was his fifth foul! When teammates tried to show him ways to "cheat" by grabbing an opponent's jersey or committing a foul when the ref wasn't looking, he adamantly refused to do so. He would reply "if I have to play defense by holding on, that's when I quit." Teammate Dr J described Jones as "a player who's totally selfless, who runs like a deer, jumps like a gazelle, plays with his head and heart each night, and then walks away from the court as if nothing happened." And former teammate Charles Barkley said "if everyone in the world was like Bobby Jones, the world wouldn't have any problems."

Alternate nomination: Sam Jones. Not at all sure on this one. Ten rings but some will take that with a grain of salt for being Russell's teammate. Three-time All NBA Second Team (cursed by playing guard at the same time that Oscar and West were in their primes) and had three top ten finishes in MVP voting. Seven top twenty finishes in both points/game and TS% indicates that he was not only a scoring threat but an efficient shooter as well. I don't have a good feel on how good he was on defense; he had 9 top twenty finishes in DWS but Russell was obviously the primary driver of the team's excellent defense and KC Jones typically drew the assignment of defending the opposing team's primary backcourt scorer. One of the greatest bank shot artists of all-time; he was banking in shots before Tim Duncan was even born.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#8 » by iggymcfrack » Wed Jan 17, 2024 5:21 am

This is one where I really have no idea who I’m gonna vote for. I’m really gonna be relying on peoples posts to guide me. My first thought was that I’d write off Parish first since I saw it mentioned that Hayes played more minutes and I thought it was “obvious” that Hayes was better on a per minute basis since he was such a big scorer. After looking over their numbers though, I feel quite confident the opposite is true. Parish outperforms him significantly in every box composite in a tougher era on average and is probably likely to have better non-box impact too. So the first player I’m eliminating from consideration is Elvin Hayes.

Fun tidbit on Parish: We only have play-by-play data for his final season in Charlotte. At age 43, he only played 406 minutes but in that sample the Hornets had a NetRtg of +16.3.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#9 » by iggymcfrack » Wed Jan 17, 2024 5:33 am

OK, I can write off Hagan too. If you just compare his whole career to Parish’s best 10 year stretch, Parish has almost identical box composites with more games played. So prime vs. prime without an era adjustment, they’re at least somewhat comparable. When you account for Parish playing twice as long against massively better competition, it’s a wrap.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#10 » by iggymcfrack » Wed Jan 17, 2024 5:43 am

Ok, this might be easier than I thought eliminating people. Compared Mutombo and Billups in 26 year RAPM since they both played in the play-by-play era.

Mutombo: +5.7 (18th)
Billups: +1.1 (272nd)

That seems pretty definitive. Especially when you consider that Mutombo played more games and minutes and the sample misses some of his best box seasons at the beginning of his career while getting the role player seasons in his 40s.

So I’m between Mutombo and Parish.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#11 » by Doctor MJ » Wed Jan 17, 2024 5:54 am

iggymcfrack wrote:OK, I can write off Hagan too. If you just compare his whole career to Parish’s best 10 year stretch, Parish has almost identical box composites with more games played. So prime vs. prime without an era adjustment, they’re at least somewhat comparable. When you account for Parish playing twice as long against massively better competition, it’s a wrap.


I appreciate you sharing your thoughts as you think them iggy, but would push back here:

When you say 'identical box composites', even granting the fundamental premise, telegraphs that you're looking at regular season data. Go take a look at the playoffs and you'll see something different.

On the premise I'll just reiterate: I think it's fine to use these metrics as first pass analysis steps, but when they're used to equate fundamentally different types of players, I'd urge particular caution.

As I say all of this I don't think you're crazy at all to side with Parish with his longevity. I'd just side clearly with Hagan in terms of who was better at basketball when they at their best.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#12 » by Doctor MJ » Wed Jan 17, 2024 5:57 am

iggymcfrack wrote:Ok, this might be easier than I thought eliminating people. Compared Mutombo and Billups in 26 year RAPM since they both played in the play-by-play era.

Mutombo: +5.7 (18th)
Billups: +1.1 (272nd)

That seems pretty definitive. Especially when you consider that Mutombo played more games and minutes and the sample misses some of his best box seasons at the beginning of his career while getting the role player seasons in his 40s.

So I’m between Mutombo and Parish.


This is another situation where I think it important to have a clear sense of prime vs prime different from cumes. I'm pretty sure that much of what's causing the difference here are the years outside of Billups' prime where he struggled to find his niche. Find to side with Mutombo based on longevity of course, but Billups has a pretty good case for being the more valuable piece when looking to build a core for sustained contention.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#13 » by HeartBreakKid » Wed Jan 17, 2024 6:02 am

iggymcfrack wrote:Ok, this might be easier than I thought eliminating people. Compared Mutombo and Billups in 26 year RAPM since they both played in the play-by-play era.

Mutombo: +5.7 (18th)
Billups: +1.1 (272nd)

That seems pretty definitive. Especially when you consider that Mutombo played more games and minutes and the sample misses some of his best box seasons at the beginning of his career while getting the role player seasons in his 40s.

So I’m between Mutombo and Parish.


Are you comparing their primes or their entire available data?
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#14 » by OldSchoolNoBull » Wed Jan 17, 2024 6:13 am

McGrady has started getting some nomination conversation, and I am not really sold on him going this high.

For starters, his rep is as a great volume scorer, but he topped 100 TS Add once. His four seasons in Orlando were the only ones in his career with a positive TS Add. He career TS Add is -278.6.

He had a rep as a good defender, particularly in his younger years, but this is his year-by-year DRAPM:

-2.12
-2.71
-2.14
0.3
1.45
0.5
-0.95
-0.51
-0.68
-0.25
0.03
0.02
-0.65
0.66
1.83

Two 1+ DRAPM years and a bunch of negative years.

Perhaps that stat the jumps out the most - in a good way - is his RS on/off in Orlando:

01: +14.0
02: +11.7
03: +13.0

But when you look at who he was playing with after Grant Hill's career went sideways - John Amaechi, Bo Outlaw, Mike Miller, Pat Garrity, Darrell Armstrong, over-the-hill Horace Grant, just-about-done Ewing and Kemp, one season of Gordon Giricek, etc - I mean of course his on/off is going to look great when that's the team without him. And then there's the issue of his playoff on/off not looking nearly as good in those years(negative two out of three).

I mean, when I look at McGrady's numbers - an inefficient volume scorer with unimpressive DRAPMs - he seems like a bigger, maybe slightly better Iverson, statistically. What he has over Iverson is better turnover economy, more rebounding, and size.

It seems like McGrady's whole case is built on his Orlando years and I'm just a bit skeptical. I'd take his cousin Carter over him, peak and career. Better 3P shooter(37.1% career vs 33.8%), better career TS Add, though still worse than I think some realize(154.8 vs -278.6), and better DRAPM - Vince has nine 1+ DRAPM years, four 2+ DRAPM years, and only three negative DRAPM years from 98-99 to 18-19(I don't have it for his last year).
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#15 » by OldSchoolNoBull » Wed Jan 17, 2024 6:18 am

Doctor MJ wrote:
iggymcfrack wrote:OK, I can write off Hagan too. If you just compare his whole career to Parish’s best 10 year stretch, Parish has almost identical box composites with more games played. So prime vs. prime without an era adjustment, they’re at least somewhat comparable. When you account for Parish playing twice as long against massively better competition, it’s a wrap.


I appreciate you sharing your thoughts as you think them iggy, but would push back here:

When you say 'identical box composites', even granting the fundamental premise, telegraphs that you're looking at regular season data. Go take a look at the playoffs and you'll see something different.

On the premise I'll just reiterate: I think it's fine to use these metrics as first pass analysis steps, but when they're used to equate fundamentally different types of players, I'd urge particular caution.

As I say all of this I don't think you're crazy at all to side with Parish with his longevity. I'd just side clearly with Hagan in terms of who was better at basketball when they at their best.


I was going to make that point but you beat me to it. Hagan has two playoff runs that top anything the others on the ballot did, unless you break era-relativity. Though granted they were shorter playoff runs because of era.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#16 » by iggymcfrack » Wed Jan 17, 2024 8:26 am

HeartBreakKid wrote:
iggymcfrack wrote:Ok, this might be easier than I thought eliminating people. Compared Mutombo and Billups in 26 year RAPM since they both played in the play-by-play era.

Mutombo: +5.7 (18th)
Billups: +1.1 (272nd)

That seems pretty definitive. Especially when you consider that Mutombo played more games and minutes and the sample misses some of his best box seasons at the beginning of his career while getting the role player seasons in his 40s.

So I’m between Mutombo and Parish.


Are you comparing their primes or their entire available data?


That’s full careers for everyone from 1997-2022.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#17 » by iggymcfrack » Wed Jan 17, 2024 9:08 am

Doctor MJ wrote:
iggymcfrack wrote:OK, I can write off Hagan too. If you just compare his whole career to Parish’s best 10 year stretch, Parish has almost identical box composites with more games played. So prime vs. prime without an era adjustment, they’re at least somewhat comparable. When you account for Parish playing twice as long against massively better competition, it’s a wrap.


I appreciate you sharing your thoughts as you think them iggy, but would push back here:

When you say 'identical box composites', even granting the fundamental premise, telegraphs that you're looking at regular season data. Go take a look at the playoffs and you'll see something different.

On the premise I'll just reiterate: I think it's fine to use these metrics as first pass analysis steps, but when they're used to equate fundamentally different types of players, I'd urge particular caution.

As I say all of this I don't think you're crazy at all to side with Parish with his longevity. I'd just side clearly with Hagan in terms of who was better at basketball when they at their best.


I saw Hagan had better playoff numbers. I’m just saying there’s a HUGE jump in competition from the NBA of ‘57-‘66 and the early ABA to the leagues Parish played in and there’s a HUGE jump from 24K minutes to 46K minutes. So if they were in any way comparable prime to prime there’s no comparison.

Like if you were comparing a top FBS quarterback to a top FCS quarterback and the FBS quarterback had the same numbers over the 12 game regular season, it wouldn’t matter what the FCS guy did in the playoffs. You couldn’t possibly give him preferential award consideration over the big time guy who did better against a completely different level of competition over a large sample.

Or say you were comparing 2 players in a given year. One’s an all-time defender and passer/playmaker while the other is below average in both. They’re equal as scorers in the regular season, but the 3 tool guy didn’t score as well as the one dimensional guy in the playoffs. It’s still clear who you’re choosing.

When there’s a gulf in longevity and a gulf in level of competition faced, there needs to be a similar gulf in prime ability. You could just as easily write off Hagan’s playoff success as a small sample fluke. In the 2 years Hagan had playoff numbers that are out of line with Parish, this is what he did:

-Averaged 30.8 PPG on .556 FG% in a win over the 33-38 Pistons
-Averaged 25.2 PPG on .442 FG% in a win over the 49-23 Celtics
-Averaged 28.5 PPG on .512 FG% in a loss to the 33-39 Lakers

He had one really good series as his teams second best player against the Celtics, but other than that he’s just running up stats against teams with losing records in a league that’s barely integrated. It would be perfectly valid to look at that data and be like “well, Parish’s numbers only got worse in the playoffs because his competition was getting better and they were basically a push league adjusted throughout their primes”. I would still say Hagan had a better league adjusted prime, but they’re certainly “comparable” which is the word I used.

Comparable primes (slight edge Hagan), Parish playing solid competition while Hagan faced some of the weakest competition ever, and Hagan playing HALF as many games as Parish makes for a very one sided comparison IMO.

Hagan seems like someone we don’t need to induct for another 30 spots or so in this project if at all. If his whole case is built off of 17 good playoff games over a 2 year stretch, then why should he merit consideration over Luka who’s had 28 much better playoff games over a 3 year stretch against opponents from a completely different galaxy? The ratio of minutes played from Luka to Hagan is almost exactly the same as from Hagan to Parish too.

Anyway, Doctor MJ, I appreciate that you weren’t being particularly argumentative and I probably didn’t need to be quite so wordy in defense of my position, but even considering the playoff numbers I feel very confident that Parish and Hagan aren’t in any way remotely comparable as players.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#18 » by iggymcfrack » Wed Jan 17, 2024 9:21 am

Doctor MJ wrote:
iggymcfrack wrote:Ok, this might be easier than I thought eliminating people. Compared Mutombo and Billups in 26 year RAPM since they both played in the play-by-play era.

Mutombo: +5.7 (18th)
Billups: +1.1 (272nd)

That seems pretty definitive. Especially when you consider that Mutombo played more games and minutes and the sample misses some of his best box seasons at the beginning of his career while getting the role player seasons in his 40s.

So I’m between Mutombo and Parish.


This is another situation where I think it important to have a clear sense of prime vs prime different from cumes. I'm pretty sure that much of what's causing the difference here are the years outside of Billups' prime where he struggled to find his niche. Find to side with Mutombo based on longevity of course, but Billups has a pretty good case for being the more valuable piece when looking to build a core for sustained contention.


I mean, even if Billups would look better without his non-prime years, there’s no way he could match up to Mutombo. Deke’s impact numbers are astronomical. Here are the top players in 26 year RAPM if we exclude active players under 35 who haven’t had their decline phase yet:

1. LeBron 9.1
2. Garnett 8.4
3. Chris Paul 8.1
4. Stockton 7.2
5. Jordan 6.9
6. Duncan 6.7
7. Curry 6.5
8. Manu 6.0
9. Dirk 6.0
10. Shaq 5.8
11. Dikembe 5.7
12. D-Rob 5.6

That’s insanely elite company. And you can’t really have flukes with that large of a sample size. Dikembe’s closer to being the #1 RAPM player of the millennium than he is to Billups even though he played more minutes, more games, more years, and had structural disadvantages in when the data was gathered.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#19 » by iggymcfrack » Wed Jan 17, 2024 9:26 am

FWIW the 95% confidence interval on Mutombo is 4.1 to 7.4. The 95% confidence interval on Billups is -0.3 to 2.5.
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Re: RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #64 (Deadline ~5am PST, 1/19/24) 

Post#20 » by LA Bird » Wed Jan 17, 2024 10:30 am

iggymcfrack wrote:FWIW the 95% confidence interval on Mutombo is 4.1 to 7.4. The 95% confidence interval on Billups is -0.3 to 2.5.

The 95% confidence interval on Dwyane Wade is 0.6 to 3.4 and he is 19th on your personal all time list.

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