RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #82 (Sam Jones)

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I totally forgot to vote in the last thread...only maybe the second or third time that's happened. At least it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

Will make a note of it now, but Eminence and Doc have made sufficiently compelling arguments for Davies to the extent I am probably willing to lend him support in the 90s, assuming my list of names to be nominated ahead of him are not significantly pushed down the line.

I understand the arguments in favor of Davies, but I will re-iterate my issues.

The body of statistics we have for him is woefully thin. For his pre-NBA years, we don't have FGA(which means no possible means of determining scoring efficiency), minutes, or assists. Even in his NBA years, we don't have minutes or WS/48 until 51-52.

I take notice that in the 1951 championship season, there were three other players on the team who scored in double digits, and all three did so more efficiently than Davies(Arnie Johnson 56.4% TS, Arnie Risen 47.5% TS, Jack Coleman 46.3% TS, Davies 45.7% TS). Worse than that, in the playoffs, he was #8 out of 10 in TS. He averaged 4.6apg in the RS and 5.4apg in the playoffs, which doesn't seem terribly high. Of course minutes would give more meaning those per-game numbers, but we don't have minutes for that season. If there is something that should stand out statistically for Davies from that championship season, I'm not seeing it.

In general, for his NBA years, with one exception(51-52), he looks like a playoff faller(looking at both TS and WS/48[for the last four seasons]).

Like I said, I understand the arguments - the two championships, his primacy, etc - but I think the statistical argument for him is specious. In comparison, Sharman's statistical argument is crystal clear - an outlier in efficiency who generally held up in the playoffs and was #1 in playoff WS/48 on two of his four championship teams.

That said, despite my skepticism, I wouldn't be too upset if Davies make it in, as long as Sharman gets in too. If Davies gets in instead of Sharman, then I'll be upset. But judging from what Doc and eminence said in previous threads...

As I've said, I still have Sharman in my Top 100...

I appreciate the lists of guys on peoples minds. Guys I'm likely to support/and or am currently supporting.

...

The old Celtics SGs - Sharman/Jones

...and the fact that penbeast has had Sharman as his #2 nomination for the last few threads, I still have hope that we can get Sharman on the ballot.

One more thing while I'm talking about 50s guys:

My main issue with Davies is would I consider his case weaker than Cousy. I had Cousy with 12 all star level seasons.

So, not to pick on trelos here, because I've seen a few of you do this when talking about Davies or Sharman - comparing them to Cousy in almost prohibitive sort of way, like we can't have guys of similar position from that era make the list together. It makes it seem like there's some kind of invisible quota for how many 50s guys can get in. Like, looking at our current ballot, no one says 'well McHale got in and he's better than Nance so Nance can't get in' or 'Magic got in and he's better than Moncrief so Moncrief can't get in'. There's no reason to say only x 50s guards can get in. There's no quota. They can all get in.

Current list of players I would feel odd excluding from this project:

- Kevin Johnson
- Gus Williams (or at least one representative for the 1979 Sonics)
- Billy Cunningham
- James Worthy

There are several players I would support on the list ahead of some or all those names — Al Horford currently the leader, and Shawn Marion close behind — but in telling the story of the league, I think all those names have been more notable than players like Horford or Marion. And in that sense, Davies is an easy fit as a league MVP and two-time champion. It is also why I have never objected to Walton’s inclusion, although my personal preference would be to slot him in right at #100 as a perpetual cutoff marker.

So we're in the deep cuts now and that means means we can largely agree but end up championing different guys. I'm honestly not sure who I'll end up championing toward the end. To speak to some of the guys you mention along with others on my mind:

- 1979 Sonics. I'm definitely on team DJ over team Gus. I think even siding with Gus as the greater Sonic is iffy, but when you consider what DJ did after Seattle he's the clear guy there for me. I think the question of DJ vs Sikma is more intriguing. Sikma seems like he'd fit better on more teams, but I can't deny the continued success DJ had.

If we could guarantee multiple inclusions, I would have no qualms with DJ and Sikma going ahead of Gus because of their total careers — just as I have no real objection to taking Rasheed ahead of Billups and Ben.

And here we come back to that inconsistent data standard. It was a common argument in this group that Rasheed was a less impactful playoff figure than Billups and Ben, so this group ended up siding with those two. There was also a recognition that those two were the ones functioning as the team’s stars in a way that was not true of Rasheed, whose best “star” years were in Portland. Yet we do not have data for the Sonics, so now we look past Gus’s consistent playoff elevation and instead turn to DJ’s and Sikma’s longevity and DJ’s quaternary presence on two more title winners? It does not really sit right with me.

DJ at least I am softer toward on that issue because I think he has a fine enough argument as the most valuable player to that team’s title run, but while I think Sikma had a fine career, and perhaps even a top 100 one in aggregate, it looks a lot more to me like a reduced Rasheed profile than a Ben/Billups profile.

I just think Gus's playoff rising make his peak - in the box - look stronger than DJ's, and to believe otherwise you'd have to think DJ's non-box impact was off the charts. Which maybe it was, as he's supposedly one of the greatest perimeter defenders ever. TBH, I'm kind of on the fence with both of them.

I'm warming up to Sikma and I certainly see the merits, but Issel isn't in yet(and hasn't even been discussed much) and I would take Issel over Sikma.

- Cunningham, Greer & Walker, I tend to debate between these 3. I don't mind having Cunningham the top of the bunch given how things played out, but I see arguments for the others.

I have a tough time arguing for Greer for reasons previously articulated to trelos, but again, fine longevity case, and I do think it reflects well on him that he was absorbing so many minutes on those excellent Wilt 76ers teams. Between Chet and Cunningham, I just care more that Cunningham was the guy who really elevated and for a period was the top forward in the game (before Erving arrived).

I understand why these three are compared to each other, but I fear that when you make such a Philly-centric comparison, it doesn't take into proper consideration what Walker did in Chicago(and he spent more of his career there than in Philly).

Short version: In his six years in Chicago, Walker's TS Add was Top 5 in the league twice and Top 10 five times; his WS/48 was Top 3 in the league three times, Top 5 four times, and Top 10 five times; he was the best player on two Conference Finals teams(albeit shorter playoffs in those days), one of them getting one game - mere possessions - from the Finals; and when he retired the Bulls went from 2.88 SRS/+3.1 Net Rtg to -2.89 SRS/-2.9 Net Rtg - from 3/18 in both categories to 18/18 in both categories.

Cunningham's statistical case is pretty strong as well; the one knock against him is that he won one single playoff series in his career without Wilt, and that was in the ABA. Chet only won two series, but at least that was in the NBA.

I do agree that of the three, Greer's case is the weakest and, frankly, I wouldn't be overly upset if he missed the cut.

- Worthy is a guy I always feel like I should be championing by now but I don't really have a specific compelling argument. Feel like we should have the debate.

In a similar spot. I actually included English and Wilkins before reflecting further on it (and specifically on how they compare with Carmelo, who has functionally no support and will not make the list). That 1988 Game 7 does seem to be doing a lot of work for a player who also never achieved anything without Magic and faded out quickly.

The question that's always been posed is, if Worthy and Dominique swap places, what happens? I'm sure that Worthy being on the Lakers didn't hurt his case. But I believe we're supposed to evaluate what happened and not what could have happened, and in doing that, what jumps out to me is that Worthy was a more efficient scorer than Dominique, English, or Melo:

Worthy: +2.2 career rTS, six 100+ TS Add seasons, +1.9 TS RS->PO gap, .130/.135 WS/48 RS/PO
English: +1.4 career rTS, three 100+ TS Add seasons, +0.6 TS RS->PO gap, .127/.129 WS/48 RS/PO
Melo: +0.2 career rTS, one 100+ TS Add season. -3.0 TS RS->PO gap, .120/.089 WS/48 RS/PO
Dominique: -0.1 career rTS, one 100+ TS Add season, -2.6 TS RS->PO gap .148/.079 WS/48 RS/PO

Would English, Melo, and Dominique have had better efficiency numbers if they had played with the greatest point guard who ever lived? Possibly. But there's no way to know. I think we should take it at face value.

Connie

Sad thing about Connie is that he, like Walton or Penny or McAdoo, should be sorted as more of a Peaks Project player, but because of the ABA environment he never gets too much respect there… even though I would probably take him over Elgin Baylor at minimum and think he has decent arguments over Barry and Pettit as a basketball player, even if his championship is understandably weighed much less.

I said previously that I thought if Walton got in, then Connie should too. I'm not entirely opposed to it, but there's so many other players fighting for a spot that I can't commit to supporting him.

[AEnigma]

If we could guarantee multiple inclusions, I would have no qualms with DJ and Sikma going ahead of Gus because of their total careers — just as I have no real objection to taking Rasheed ahead of Billups and Ben.

And here we come back to that inconsistent data standard. It was a common argument in this group that Rasheed was a less impactful playoff figure than Billups and Ben, so this group ended up siding with those two. There was also a recognition that those two were the ones functioning as the team’s stars in a way that was not true of Rasheed, whose best “star” years were in Portland. Yet we do not have data for the Sonics, so now we look past Gus’s consistent playoff elevation and instead turn to DJ’s and Sikma’s longevity and DJ’s quaternary presence on two more title winners? It does not really sit right with me.

DJ at least I am softer toward on that issue because I think he has a fine enough argument as the most valuable player to that team’s title run, but while I think Sikma had a fine career, and perhaps even a top 100 one in aggregate, it looks a lot more to me like a reduced Rasheed profile than a Ben/Billups profile.

Hmm. So, if we go by who was playing the most MPG in their championship years together:

For Detroit:
RS Ben / Rip / Billups / Prince / Sheed
PS Rip / Ben / Billups / Sheed / Prince

For Seattle:
RS Sikma / DJ / Gus
PS DJ / Sikma / Gus

I think this is worth bearing in mind when seeking to slot by importance. With Sheed, we're not talking about a guy playing among the very most prolific on the team - like Sikma - and merely reducing primacy, he really did play less than the guys who played the most.

I feel like you're seeing Gus' scoring volume in the playoffs and you're just plain a believer that that was a huge part of what put the Sonics over the time. And frankly that may be correct...

but I do think we should remember that the Sonics won with defense just like the Pistons. And this is certainly plays a big part in way I tend to be higher on both Ben & DJ than most. These two guys really seem like the guys who were most central to the team's competitive advantage. Doesn't mean they're necessarily the most valuable overall of course, and while I think the +/- bears this out for Ben, we can't see this with crystalized granularity back in DJ's era.

Yes, the team won with defence (and then Gus and Downtown carrying much of whatever output they had offensively), but why would we give DJ a disproportionate amount of the credit there? DJ may be in discussion for greatest defensive guard, sure… but he is a guard. We are talking a team with a forward rotation of Lonnie Shelton and Paul Silas. We are talking a team that had its best defence after DJ left. Calling DJ the anchor seems akin to siding with Tayshaun on the Pistons (look at how badly Kobe struggled!) or Iguodala on the Warriors.

Postseason minutes is a better argument and is one of the reasons I think DJ has a case, but I am not buying your sudden focus on minutes when A) the Pistons point of comparison ends up being Rip Hamilton anyway rather than one of the three players on this project, B) DJ did that on the Celtics without us questioning whether he was secretly more valuable than McHale and Parish (or Bird in 1985), and C) you are the biggest Manu proponent on the forum (not to mention all the support lent to Bobby Jones). And of course the following season, the Sonics are better than they were when they won the title, with Gus coincidentally playing 30% more than he did the prior year and now leading the team in minutes… but whereas the entire team seemed to elevate their play in the 1979 postseason, in 1980 it was only Gus.

Oh, and I have not even mentioned how DJ’s shot volume never befit his status as typically the least efficient starter on the team (barring the 1982 and 1983 Suns). That seems like a glaring omission with how much you talk about that type of profile often reflecting poor basketball intelligence. So now am I thinking, hm, why is DJ suddenly this big exception. And two ideas come to mind. The first is Moonbeam’s WOWY, where DJ looks pretty great from 1981 to 1989 and you specifically lauded his performance there. But for as much as I like Moonbeam’s approach, it is not some definitive take on WOWY (I repeatedly highlighted how it seemed to give a lot of additional credit for high win percentages, which obviously will benefit DJ once the samples start including his time on the Celtics), and it feels like it should matter that other approaches, e.g. Elgee’s/Ben’s, can and do go in the other direction.

On that Celtics note, his presence on those teams seems to be the second key idea at play for why usual sentiments can be so readily left behind. Now, I do not mind crediting a player for his presence on multiple winning teams, but the farther down the pecking order you go, the less meaningful that becomes. If Gus Williams were on the 1984/86 Celtics, they still win the title, and I think there is a possibility they might even be more dominant in the postseason. Set aside 1979 for a moment: I cannot look at 1980, and 1982, and 1983, and 1984, and say to myself, “You know, I would rather have Dennis Johnson if I want to win this playoff game.” Yeah, longevity matters, and that can be held against Gus, but if we are asking who was better during their respective primes, I have a really tough time siding with DJ there just because DJ happened to be on better and more relevant teams.

Generally agreed — Mel winning MVP over Zelmo reads as an outright bad choice to me — although I think Cunningham was clearly more historically significant before their respective ABA switches, and also as previously stated, I think Willie Wise was the standout during the Stars’ title run.

I don't think we'd say that Cunningham was actually the more established player before '68-69 when he takes on a starring role and becomes an MVP candidate, and in those 1969 playoffs, Zelmo handles himself quite well while Billy's team immediately loses.

Come on, Doc. The 48-win Hawks played a negative SRS team while the 55-win Bullets were rewarded with Russell’s Celtics.

Re: Wise the stand out for Stars' title. Really? I'm curious what sways you in that direction. Zelmo was the stronger MVP vote getter

Yeah I already said I felt he should have won ABA MVP that year.

the winner of the playoffs MVP, the clear star of the finals Game 7,

I think those two go hand-in-hand, much as they did for Worthy. What if we switch the Pacers and Colonels series? Now suddenly Wise has the title-securing Game 7 — and I think it is hardly an argument that the defending champion (and soon to be three-time champion) Pacers were the team to beat.

and the guy who all-in-one stats favored in both RS & PS.

… Out of curiosity, what did those all-in-one metrics say about Gus versus DJ?

Additionally, Wise on the previous year's mediocre teams while Zelmo was a new addition on the new Star team that was just plain outstanding in its success all year long.

That mediocre team had just played in the ABA Finals the year before Zelmo arrived, taking out the #1 and #2 SRS teams. If that team was mediocre, what were the Cougars before Cunningham?

Wise also continued to be a postseason superstar the following two years and would co-lead them back to the Finals in 1974 even as Beaty dropped off, and maybe I am over-indexing onto those Pacers series, but from 1970-73, the Pacers were the team to beat, so yeah, I think it matters that Wise was the one upping his game in those matchups.

[trelos6]

So, not to pick on trelos here, because I've seen a few of you do this when talking about Davies or Sharman - comparing them to Cousy in almost prohibitive sort of way, like we can't have guys of similar position from that era make the list together. It makes it seem like there's some kind of invisible quota for how many 50s guys can get in. Like, looking at our current ballot, no one says 'well McHale got in and he's better than Nance so Nance can't get in' or 'Magic got in and he's better than Moncrief so Moncrief can't get in'. There's no reason to say only x 50s guards can get in. There's no quota. They can all get in.

To clarify, I have Davies as a weaker candidate to Cousy. I have Cousy ranked 102nd on my list. Davies is behind him.

I agree. There is no quota. Any number of players from any era can make it.

[trex_8063]

In '13 he was 9th in PER, 5th in WS/48 (and I think like 12th or 13th in BPM), while having the 2nd-best [behind only LeBron] RAPM in the league (RAPM including playoffs, fwiw)

Not familiar with the RAPM sources indicating this; I do know some of Engelmann’s feature Mike Conley being an RAPM standout that year (by virtue of some implausibly high DRAPM scores), but not Parker.

It's from this one:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150906012228/https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2013-rapm-non-prior-informed-updated-march-30

....which I was given to understand J.E. was the source of.

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Sam Jones
Vote 2 - Tony Parker

Jones had good longevity and durability for his era. Scored on above average efficiency throughout his career and kept that up in multiple title runs, especially standing out in ’63 and ’64 (54.3% TS and 55.3% TS respectively). It’s hard to wrap your head around 10 titles in his 12 year career, but he was a significant contributor to most of them so I think he’s deserving here.

[AEnigma]

In '13 he was 9th in PER, 5th in WS/48 (and I think like 12th or 13th in BPM), while having the 2nd-best [behind only LeBron] RAPM in the league (RAPM including playoffs, fwiw)

Not familiar with the RAPM sources indicating this; I do know some of Engelmann’s feature Mike Conley being an RAPM standout that year (by virtue of some implausibly high DRAPM scores), but not Parker.

It's from this one:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150906012228/https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2013-rapm-non-prior-informed-updated-march-30

....which I was given to understand J.E. was the source of.

Interesting. This is what I have from him:
Non-Prior-Informed
Prior-Informed

[Doctor MJ]

I totally forgot to vote in the last thread...only maybe the second or third time that's happened. At least it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

Will make a note of it now, but Eminence and Doc have made sufficiently compelling arguments for Davies to the extent I am probably willing to lend him support in the 90s, assuming my list of names to be nominated ahead of him are not significantly pushed down the line.

I understand the arguments in favor of Davies, but I will re-iterate my issues.

The body of statistics we have for him is woefully thin. For his pre-NBA years, we don't have FGA(which means no possible means of determining scoring efficiency), minutes, or assists. Even in his NBA years, we don't have minutes or WS/48 until 51-52.

I take notice that in the 1951 championship season, there were three other players on the team who scored in double digits, and all three did so more efficiently than Davies(Arnie Johnson 56.4% TS, Arnie Risen 47.5% TS, Jack Coleman 46.3% TS, Davies 45.7% TS). Worse than that, in the playoffs, he was #8 out of 10 in TS. He averaged 4.6apg in the RS and 5.4apg in the playoffs, which doesn't seem terribly high. Of course minutes would give more meaning those per-game numbers, but we don't have minutes for that season. If there is something that should stand out statistically for Davies from that championship season, I'm not seeing it.

In general, for his NBA years, with one exception(51-52), he looks like a playoff faller(looking at both TS and WS/48[for the last four seasons]).

Like I said, I understand the arguments - the two championships, his primacy, etc - but I think the statistical argument for him is specious. In comparison, Sharman's statistical argument is crystal clear - an outlier in efficiency who generally held up in the playoffs and was #1 in playoff WS/48 on two of his four championship teams.

That said, despite my skepticism, I wouldn't be too upset if Davies make it in, as long as Sharman gets in too. If Davies gets in instead of Sharman, then I'll be upset. But judging from what Doc and eminence said in previous threads...

So, you have reasonable points in general.

As I've said, in early eras where we have less statistical measures I try to operate in a way such that this doesn't bias me against the era. The whole "If I can't tell who was best by the measures I'm used to, then I'm just going to ignore them all". With the data I have, limited though it may be, I would consider Davies the second most accomplished pro from the decade after the War. Doesn't mean he should necessarily make the 100, but it does mean that after Mikan, Davies is the next guy in that cohort for me.

Re: 1951 championship team, other teammates more efficient. So my thoughts:

1. I personally would rank Arnie Risen as the top player on that team over Davies, and I would consider Al Cervi the top player on the first Royal champion team, with Davies as the #2 player on both teams. I completely understand a conclusion that if Davies wasn't the clear cut guy on those teams he must not be that impressive. But other than Walton, we're basically exclusively talking about guys at this point who weren't #1's on a champion, and just in comparisons with Cervi & Risen, I don't think it's clear that Davies' career amounted to more.

2. To be clear, I think that Davies was the top player on the Royals for most of the time between the 1946 & 1951 championships so it wasn't that he was never the MVP of the team when they were great, it's just that 1946 was early - and Mikan wasn't in the leaue - and 1951 was later - and Mikan was injured.

3. When considering TS%, let's note first that the issue isn't that Davies was inefficient relative to his times like Cousy was. He was efficient, he had teammates even more efficient. That can still be a knock...but that's where I think we also have to remember that Davies was first and foremost a playmaker for others, that he was involved in helping other guys be more efficient, and that the Royal offense goes from being the first offensive NBA dynasty to actually not-good relative to their contemporaries as Davies ends his career.

4. I understand that Davies' APG wasn't super high but I think that needs to be understood in the context of the time and the strategies in play. The way to rack up the most APG, oddly enough, is to ball hog, and that's not actually what Davies did. The Royal offense came about by means of everyone following Davies lead, but that offense was the precursor to the Holzman/Jackson/Kerr offenses with rapid ball movement which have neve been known for letting one guy rack up hue APG.

Further, I very much think that what starts assist numbers to start inflating is the attention that Cousy got for getting so many, which began with Celtic scorekeepers knowing that they better give Cousy credit for every possible assist. By contrast in Davies' heyday in the '40s, they often weren't even recording assists.

Re: Sharman. I don't really want to argue against Sharman, but I'll just note he was playing a vey different role. Davies & Cousy were the creators. Their teammates were the guys benefitting from that creation. Doesn't mean the creators were more valuable - particularly if they were extremely inefficient like Cousy was during the dynasty - but the creators and their teammates aren't facing the same attention when they are shooting.

- Cunningham, Greer & Walker, I tend to debate between these 3. I don't mind having Cunningham the top of the bunch given how things played out, but I see arguments for the others.

I have a tough time arguing for Greer for reasons previously articulated to trelos, but again, fine longevity case, and I do think it reflects well on him that he was absorbing so many minutes on those excellent Wilt 76ers teams. Between Chet and Cunningham, I just care more that Cunningham was the guy who really elevated and for a period was the top forward in the game (before Erving arrived).

I understand why these three are compared to each other, but I fear that when you make such a Philly-centric comparison, it doesn't take into proper consideration what Walker did in Chicago(and he spent more of his career there than in Philly).

Short version: In his six years in Chicago, Walker's TS Add was Top 5 in the league twice and Top 10 five times; his WS/48 was Top 3 in the league three times, Top 5 four times, and Top 10 five times; he was the best player on two Conference Finals teams(albeit shorter playoffs in those days), one of them getting one game - mere possessions - from the Finals; and when he retired the Bulls went from 2.88 SRS/+3.1 Net Rtg to -2.89 SRS/-2.9 Net Rtg - from 3/18 in both categories to 18/18 in both categories.

Cunningham's statistical case is pretty strong as well; the one knock against him is that he won one single playoff series in his career without Wilt, and that was in the ABA. Chet only won two series, but at least that was in the NBA.

I do agree that of the three, Greer's case is the weakest and, frankly, I wouldn't be overly upset if he missed the cut.

Good to see you lay out Chet's Chicago years.

Connie

Sad thing about Connie is that he, like Walton or Penny or McAdoo, should be sorted as more of a Peaks Project player, but because of the ABA environment he never gets too much respect there… even though I would probably take him over Elgin Baylor at minimum and think he has decent arguments over Barry and Pettit as a basketball player, even if his championship is understandably weighed much less.

I said previously that I thought if Walton got in, then Connie should too. I'm not entirely opposed to it, but there's so many other players fighting for a spot that I can't commit to supporting him.

Understandable.

[Doctor MJ]

If we could guarantee multiple inclusions, I would have no qualms with DJ and Sikma going ahead of Gus because of their total careers — just as I have no real objection to taking Rasheed ahead of Billups and Ben.

And here we come back to that inconsistent data standard. It was a common argument in this group that Rasheed was a less impactful playoff figure than Billups and Ben, so this group ended up siding with those two. There was also a recognition that those two were the ones functioning as the team’s stars in a way that was not true of Rasheed, whose best “star” years were in Portland. Yet we do not have data for the Sonics, so now we look past Gus’s consistent playoff elevation and instead turn to DJ’s and Sikma’s longevity and DJ’s quaternary presence on two more title winners? It does not really sit right with me.

DJ at least I am softer toward on that issue because I think he has a fine enough argument as the most valuable player to that team’s title run, but while I think Sikma had a fine career, and perhaps even a top 100 one in aggregate, it looks a lot more to me like a reduced Rasheed profile than a Ben/Billups profile.

Hmm. So, if we go by who was playing the most MPG in their championship years together:

For Detroit:
RS Ben / Rip / Billups / Prince / Sheed
PS Rip / Ben / Billups / Sheed / Prince

For Seattle:
RS Sikma / DJ / Gus
PS DJ / Sikma / Gus

I think this is worth bearing in mind when seeking to slot by importance. With Sheed, we're not talking about a guy playing among the very most prolific on the team - like Sikma - and merely reducing primacy, he really did play less than the guys who played the most.

I feel like you're seeing Gus' scoring volume in the playoffs and you're just plain a believer that that was a huge part of what put the Sonics over the time. And frankly that may be correct...

but I do think we should remember that the Sonics won with defense just like the Pistons. And this is certainly plays a big part in way I tend to be higher on both Ben & DJ than most. These two guys really seem like the guys who were most central to the team's competitive advantage. Doesn't mean they're necessarily the most valuable overall of course, and while I think the +/- bears this out for Ben, we can't see this with crystalized granularity back in DJ's era.

Yes, the team won with defence (and then Gus and Downtown carrying much of whatever output they had offensively), but why would we give DJ a disproportionate amount of the credit there? DJ may be in discussion for greatest defensive guard, sure… but he is a guard. We are talking a team with a forward rotation of Lonnie Shelton and Paul Silas. We are talking a team that had its best defence after DJ left. Calling DJ the anchor seems akin to siding with Tayshaun on the Pistons (look at how badly Kobe struggled!) or Iguodala on the Warriors.

Postseason minutes is a better argument and is one of the reasons I think DJ has a case, but I am not buying your sudden focus on minutes when A) the Pistons point of comparison ends up being Rip Hamilton anyway rather than one of the three players on this project, B) DJ did that on the Celtics without us questioning whether he was secretly more valuable than McHale and Parish (or Bird in 1985), and C) you are the biggest Manu proponent on the forum (not to mention all the support lent to Bobby Jones). And of course the following season, the Sonics are better than they were when they won the title, with Gus coincidentally playing 30% more than he did the prior year and now leading the team in minutes… but whereas the entire team seemed to elevate their play in the 1979 postseason, in 1980 it was only Gus.

Oh, and I have not even mentioned how DJ’s shot volume never befit his status as typically the least efficient starter on the team (barring the 1982 and 1983 Suns). That seems like a glaring omission with how much you talk about that type of profile often reflecting poor basketball intelligence. So now am I thinking, hm, why is DJ suddenly this big exception. And two ideas come to mind. The first is Moonbeam’s WOWY, where DJ looks pretty great from 1981 to 1989 and you specifically lauded his performance there. But for as much as I like Moonbeam’s approach, it is not some definitive take on WOWY (I repeatedly highlighted how it seemed to give a lot of additional credit for high win percentages, which obviously will benefit DJ once the samples start including his time on the Celtics), and it feels like it should matter that other approaches, e.g. Elgee’s/Ben’s, can and do go in the other direction.

On that Celtics note, his presence on those teams seems to be the second key idea at play for why usual sentiments can be so readily left behind. Now, I do not mind crediting a player for his presence on multiple winning teams, but the farther down the pecking order you go, the less meaningful that becomes. If Gus Williams were on the 1984/86 Celtics, they still win the title, and I think there is a possibility they might even be more dominant in the postseason. Set aside 1979 for a moment: I cannot look at 1980, and 1982, and 1983, and 1984, and say to myself, “You know, I would rather have Dennis Johnson if I want to win this playoff game.” Yeah, longevity matters, and that can be held against Gus, but if we are asking who was better during their respective primes, I have a really tough time siding with DJ there just because DJ happened to be on better and more relevant teams.

It's not a given that we should focus on any guard when talking about a defense-led team so your skepticism makes sense. At the same time, aside from the fact DJ is the one singled out for outstanding defense throughout his career and the won who was given the Finals MVP, I believe his RWOWY looked great too, so I'm not sure there's any reason to be skeptical of the respect he got at the time.

Now, DJ was clearly a challenging personality that caused the Sonics to effectively choose Gus and others over him going forward, and I don't want to brush that aside. But of course, that gets into the whole thing of the Sonics being worth talking about because of the period where they had DJ, while DJ remained relevant for years afterward.

With Gus, I have to acknowledge I have a skepticism of him that I don't want to be too absolute about. I do think he was the better offensive guard, and I do think he had a track record for elevating his play in the playoffs. But while that's admirable, I'm always cautious about falling too in love with the leading scorer on a champion when it was the defense that actually gave the value add.

Re: Other defensive players. For whatever reason b-r isn't loading for me right now so I can't check, but my recollection is that Marvin Webster seemed like the defensive anchor, but they moved on from him without getting a big of comparable stature and then won their chip, and so this - along with former guard Lenny Wilkens as coach - makes me tend to think of the Sonic D as one that wasn't built primarily through their front court players the way we typically think of great defenses. I tend to see the question being more whether it can simply be described as an ensemble cast where no one player should be made the face of the group or not, but in terms of who in practice was made the face, I think it was petty clearly DJ.

Re: Why not bothered by DJ's inefficiency? I am bothered by it, and further I've long been on record in saying that the late '70s with Washington & Seattle basically represents the worst champions we've been since pre-Russell. But if we're just talking about who deserves the most credit from a team we're only talking about because of their defense, I think it makes sense to talk about the man who contemporaries saw as the most worthy defender of the bunch.

And of course, if DJ did nothing after the Sonic chip I also wouldn't be bringing him up - I'd expect I'd be siding with Sikma who seems the most well-balanced of the bunch, but DJ's continued team success dwarfs the other Sonics, and while he can be said to be "lucky" in the sense that he got to play on those Celtics. he was only on the Celtics because they chose to acquire him and were quite happy with that acquisition after the fact.

Re: Moonbeam additional credit for high winning percentage. I don't want to talk about Moonbeam's work as some kind of perfect thing - this is an inherently coarse stat - but I'm not sure I understand what you think Moonbeam did here to skew things.

I'd say DJ is a clear example of a guy who looks strong going between teams because those teams tend to do particularly well when he's with them. Correlation may not be causation, but I don't think the correlation is all that mysterious.

Re: Rather have DJ or Gus in their respective primes to win a chip. Well, I think realistically neither guy is good enough to lead a team to a title with offense at any time where the league is not at its absolute nadir so the most applicable question is who you'd rather want doing their thing if you were trying to win a title. With Gus that means being the alpha scorer, with DJ that means a secondary scorer with great defense. I think the latter scales better to better competition, and I don't think that's actually unrelated to why he ended up staying relevant longer.

Generally agreed — Mel winning MVP over Zelmo reads as an outright bad choice to me — although I think Cunningham was clearly more historically significant before their respective ABA switches, and also as previously stated, I think Willie Wise was the standout during the Stars’ title run.

I don't think we'd say that Cunningham was actually the more established player before '68-69 when he takes on a starring role and becomes an MVP candidate, and in those 1969 playoffs, Zelmo handles himself quite well while Billy's team immediately loses.

Come on, Doc. The 48-win Hawks played a negative SRS team while the 55-win Bullets were rewarded with Russell’s Celtics.

Sure, and I'm not looking to argue that Zelmo should have the better season simply because his team went further in the playoffs, but I think we have to recognize that Cunningham being "more historically significant" in the NBA compared to Zelmo is entirely based on the '68-69 regular season. He wouldn't have the edge before that season, and we're not talking about a playoff run making the different.

Additionally while by definition not playing the Celtics made for an easier schedule, we're still talking about Zelmo being the lead score in a series against West, Wilt & the Lakers, and doing so on solid efficiency.

I'd thus argue that the idea that Zelmo really didn't do that much in the NBA is less about him not looking great, and more about there being only a few guys who really break out in the narrative. Cunningham broke out in '68-69, but I don't think it's clear he had a better NBA career than Zelmo, and then in the ABA, I prefer Zelmo.

Re: Wise the stand out for Stars' title. Really? I'm curious what sways you in that direction. Zelmo was the stronger MVP vote getter

Yeah I already said I felt he should have won ABA MVP that year.

the winner of the playoffs MVP, the clear star of the finals Game 7,

I think those two go hand-in-hand, much as they did for Worthy. What if we switch the Pacers and Colonels series? Now suddenly Wise has the title-securing Game 7 — and I think it is hardly an argument that the defending champion (and soon to be three-time champion) Pacers were the team to beat.

and the guy who all-in-one stats favored in both RS & PS.

… Out of curiosity, what did those all-in-one metrics say about Gus versus DJ?

Additionally, Wise on the previous year's mediocre teams while Zelmo was a new addition on the new Star team that was just plain outstanding in its success all year long.

That mediocre team had just played in the ABA Finals the year before Zelmo arrived, taking out the #1 and #2 SRS teams. If that team was mediocre, what were the Cougars before Cunningham?

Wise also continued to be a postseason superstar the following two years and would co-lead them back to the Finals in 1974 even as Beaty dropped off, and maybe I am over-indexing onto those Pacers series, but from 1970-73, the Pacers were the team to beat, so yeah, I think it matters that Wise was the one upping his game in those matchups.

- If you've previously explained in depth why you think Wise should have been ABA MVP, I obviously missed it, which is why I'm asking you the question above - and I'll add, I'm doing so in a tone I'm hoping off just comes across as sincerely curious.

- Change the series order and Wise looks better in the finals. Fair enough.

- Re: all-in-one Gus vs DJ. Dude, just stop it with that. You obviously know that I don't take all-in-ones as the end-all be-all and that I'm just mentioning that as an obvious thing to take note of. I'm looking for your to explain what you see not trying to use a stupid cudgel to tear down your perspective.

- Got to the ABA Finals before Zelmo arrived. Well that's true, but it's not like it was on the back of Wise. It would make more sense to bring this up to me if you were championing one of the othe players.

- What about Cougars before Cunningham? Well that's Cunningham's whole reason for getting the MVP of course, and I'd feel more strongly about Cunningham's candidacy if the team had looked like a real contender in the playoffs. As is, it kinda seems like more floor raising like Philly in '68-69. Cunningham of course was on the '66-67 76ers so that means he can play a role on a truly great team, but a focus on the '66-67 76ers makes me tend to want to champion Greer & Walker rather than the much less significant Cunningham.

- Matters that Wise was upping his game against Pacers. Fair enough, I'll look more into that.

[Owly]

Now, DJ was clearly a challenging personality that caused the Sonics to effectively choose Gus and others over him going forward, and I don't want to brush that aside. But of course, that gets into the whole thing of the Sonics being worth talking about because of the period where they had DJ, while DJ remained relevant for years afterward.

With Gus, I have to acknowledge I have a skepticism of him that I don't want to be too absolute about. I do think he was the better offensive guard, and I do think he had a track record for elevating his play in the playoffs. But while that's admirable, I'm always cautious about falling too in love with the leading scorer on a champion when it was the defense that actually gave the value add.

..., but DJ's continued team success dwarfs the other Sonics, and while he can be said to be "lucky" in the sense that he got to play on those Celtics. he was only on the Celtics because they chose to acquire him and were quite happy with that acquisition after the fact.


I'd say DJ is a clear example of a guy who looks strong going between teams because those teams tend to do particularly well when he's with them. Correlation may not be causation, but I don't think the correlation is all that mysterious.

I would highlight here, given there's a sense of DJ on good teams ... Sonics lost there relevance ... Celtics "chose" DJ ...

DJ got traded for a great but older player exactly as he was falling apart ... and Gus and the Sonics couldn't come to an agreement (and iirc the NBA didn't have true free agency and maybe still had a reserve clause - I think perhaps the Sonics argued something like that) ... and was compared to a cancer by his coach, which suggests they weren't seeking even on-court value. The Sonics, then fwiw, bounce back to a 5th place SRS (3.69) with Williams' return the next year (2nd in the West, a little above Phoenix). And then Boston did chose to acquire Johnson ... for the princely sum of ... a backup center - supposedly Bird's drinking partner - entering an ominous decline including posting what certainly looks like a sub-replacement level season (I don't know whether injuries mitigate that or make it worse) immediately before the trade, Boston's own 2nd round pick and a Clippers second rounder (28th) ... and Boston also get a late first rounder (21st, plus a third round pick [52nd] for what that's worth). It's easier to improve teams when your team gives you away for little of value (now if Westphal hadn't never been right, healthy in Seattle that would be something else and Seattle may have thought that was what they were getting) and it's easier to chose to take on ... whatever baggage you want to see in Johnson ... when the cost is ... about nothing ... which is what I think that net package is (honestly with Boston getting the best pick, maybe the deal is already in Boston's favor).

The correlation ... for the Boston period ... he's arriving on what has been the best team in the league thus far that decade with a core mostly still to enter their best years and even Phoenix a team coming off three straight years of an SRS slightly north of 3 in that era was nothing to be sniffed at (granted, as before Westphal had been good and would have important to that). This doesn't mean DJ didn't help but "but I don't think the correlation is all that mysterious" makes it sound like what is always a noisy measure of mapping team success to individuals (especially pre-databall) ... well it reads as though it were perhaps a simple matter.

Finally at the margins I'd argue Williams' turnover economy as could perhaps be argued as a benefit to Seattle's D?

[trex_8063]

.

It's from this one:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150906012228/https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2013-rapm-non-prior-informed-updated-march-30

....which I was given to understand J.E. was the source of.

Interesting. This is what I have from him:
Non-Prior-Informed
Prior-Informed

That is curious.

To some degree this illustrates why I don't want to lean too hard upon RAPM. If---while using the same inputs----by just changing WHICH priors are used, HOW heavily they're weighted, HOW heavily the playoffs [vs rs] is weighted, the "strength" of the regression, etc===>we can get these [rather wildly] different results (supposedly from the same source/author).......

....idk, to me it's a reason while I'll never put all my eggs into any one basket, and why I prefer to juxtapose impact metrics against various box-composites. That might seem a simplistic approach, and I suppose it is, but there it is.

Many would argue the box doesn't actually measure basketball goodness, though; but the same is true of +/- based impact metrics. As I've said in the past, impact metrics are more a measure of "goodness" + "role" + "fit", with a few other things trying to foul it up (e.g. line-up noise), and also giving no consideration for *scarcity of talents.

*By the latter, I refer to how common someone's skillset is, or how many players in the league might be capable of filling that role [to some degree] if deployed/coached/mentored to do so.
e.g. Trevor Arizi might have better RAPM than Allen Iverson in a number of years (I don't know if he actually does, I'm just pitching that example out there)......but there were probably 15-20+ Arizi types around, but only a few that could do anything like Iverson was doing (shouldering that degree of offensive load with any success).
In a more modern context, the same might be said of KCP and Luka Doncic.

Anyway this is my way of saying I always like to combine the impact signals and box-based metrics in my evaluations.


Regarding the Tony Parker vs Baron Davis comparison, this is why I'm still somewhat skeptical of Davis in the comparison (well.....in addition to a clear longevity edge to Parker, and the "legacy points" of having been a key piece of a "dynasty" [note: I do NOT wish to debate the semantics of the word! Suffice to say I think everyone knows to what I refer]).

I feel Parker has a slight edge in the box relative to Davis.
Comparing peaks (I'm going with '07 for Davis [though he has other years of similar quality] and '13 for Parker).....

'07 Davis per 100 possessions: 27.5 pts @ -1.14% rTS, 6.0 reb, 11.1 ast, 2.9 stl, 0.6 blk, 4.2 tov. +3 net rating.
21.0 PER, .139 WS/48, +3.6 BPM in 35.3 mpg.

'13 Parker per 100 possessions: 31.4 pts @ +5.34% rTS, 4.6 reb, 11.7 ast, 1.3 stl, 0.1 blk, 4.0 tov. +10 net rating.
23.0 PER, .206 WS/48, +3.6 BPM in 32.9 mpg.

Baron did tend to hold up better in the playoffs, though was basically never tested with a truly deep run. Anyway in these peak seasons, Tony held up reasonably well too: 21.5 PER, .152 WS/48, +3.8 BPM in 36.4 mpg (and that's in a Finals run).


Davis full career (13 seasons, 835 games, 28,592 minutes) per 100: 24.4 pts @ -2.9% rTS, 5.8 reb, 10.9 ast, 2.8 stl, 0.7 blk, 4.2 tov. +/- 0 net rating
17.8 PER, .106 WS/48, +2.6 BPM in 34.2 mpg.

Parker full career (18 seasons, 1254 games, 38,279 minutes) per 100: 26.7 pts @ +0.8% rTS, 4.7 reb, 9.7 ast, 1.4 stl, 0.1 blk, 3.9 tov. +4 net rating.
18.2 PER, .140 WS/48, +1.1 BPMin 30.5 mpg.
fwiw, if we stop after year #13 for Parker (where he's already played more than a 100 more rs games than Davis did, and >2000 more minutes): 19.1 PER, .150 WS/48, +1.8 BPM in 32.6 mpg.


Also, @ Owly
I had a question regarding why you seem to bring up playoff sample [within RAPM full-season figures] as something that will work AGAINST Parker.

In the playoffs, MOST players tend to decline [from rs standard], and team win% and/or MOV tend to decline [because facing better competition].
And [as a criticism of Parker], Tony did tend to decline in the ps. And given playoffs are typically weighted HEAVIER than rs samples within full-season RAPM figures, these factors would/should hurt the full-season RAPM of the typical player on a team that makes a deep run, vs someone who misses the playoffs [or potentially is eliminated in the first round].


As to the phenomenon at '12 and '13 in RAPM......could it not be that weak priors were dragging down some of those years around approximately '09-'11? Suddenly they "restart" with a new NPI in '12 [which looks awesome for Tony], and his '13 PI is then crazy.

His RAPM then falls off again after, though so does his box-based stuff (he sort of falls off a cliff after '13 by the box, too). fwiw, I do like that his box-based metrics in some ways "match" his RAPM profile; like how his box peak and RAPM peak are in the same year. That degree of dove-tailing does give me more confidence [that neither is a mirage (at least wrt '12 and after)].

[Owly]

Also, @ Owly
I had a question regarding why you seem to bring up playoff sample [within RAPM full-season figures] as something that will work AGAINST Parker.

Haven't got time to read fully but am pretty confident that if you go back to the post it will be in the context of "value above X" that I refer to Baron disadvantaged by having smaller samples by lesser opportunity.

Though fwiw in this comp if one believes playoff performance is more real than noise then I would think Baron getting more playoff minutes should boost his RAPM given he's a high end improver in box and impact side measures.

Curious to know more on normal protocols for playoff weighting and the possible phenomenon of making the playoffs dampening RAPM. Fwiw 97-14 has a possession count listed (value add and just RAPM pages) that would seem to me an odd choice if that's an input and some of those are "made up" weighted possessions (and misleading if it's they're, idk, giving a raw possession count but using something else as an input). But as ever, very much not an expert here.

[penbeast0]

...

Wise was also generally defending Roger Brown who was Indiana's main offensive engine so you might want to look into whether Brown was more or less effective against Wise than against others as well if you are going to be watching game film (such as is available).

Though to be fair, Daniels was Indiana's best overall player and Beaty was head to head with him so the defensive game matters a lot there as well.

[AEnigma]

Hmm. So, if we go by who was playing the most MPG in their championship years together:

For Detroit:
RS Ben / Rip / Billups / Prince / Sheed
PS Rip / Ben / Billups / Sheed / Prince

For Seattle:
RS Sikma / DJ / Gus
PS DJ / Sikma / Gus

I think this is worth bearing in mind when seeking to slot by importance. With Sheed, we're not talking about a guy playing among the very most prolific on the team - like Sikma - and merely reducing primacy, he really did play less than the guys who played the most.

I feel like you're seeing Gus' scoring volume in the playoffs and you're just plain a believer that that was a huge part of what put the Sonics over the time. And frankly that may be correct...

but I do think we should remember that the Sonics won with defense just like the Pistons. And this is certainly plays a big part in way I tend to be higher on both Ben & DJ than most. These two guys really seem like the guys who were most central to the team's competitive advantage. Doesn't mean they're necessarily the most valuable overall of course, and while I think the +/- bears this out for Ben, we can't see this with crystalized granularity back in DJ's era.

Yes, the team won with defence (and then Gus and Downtown carrying much of whatever output they had offensively), but why would we give DJ a disproportionate amount of the credit there? DJ may be in discussion for greatest defensive guard, sure… but he is a guard. We are talking a team with a forward rotation of Lonnie Shelton and Paul Silas. We are talking a team that had its best defence after DJ left. Calling DJ the anchor seems akin to siding with Tayshaun on the Pistons (look at how badly Kobe struggled!) or Iguodala on the Warriors.

Postseason minutes is a better argument and is one of the reasons I think DJ has a case, but I am not buying your sudden focus on minutes when A) the Pistons point of comparison ends up being Rip Hamilton anyway rather than one of the three players on this project, B) DJ did that on the Celtics without us questioning whether he was secretly more valuable than McHale and Parish (or Bird in 1985), and C) you are the biggest Manu proponent on the forum (not to mention all the support lent to Bobby Jones). And of course the following season, the Sonics are better than they were when they won the title, with Gus coincidentally playing 30% more than he did the prior year and now leading the team in minutes… but whereas the entire team seemed to elevate their play in the 1979 postseason, in 1980 it was only Gus.

Oh, and I have not even mentioned how DJ’s shot volume never befit his status as typically the least efficient starter on the team (barring the 1982 and 1983 Suns). That seems like a glaring omission with how much you talk about that type of profile often reflecting poor basketball intelligence. So now am I thinking, hm, why is DJ suddenly this big exception. And two ideas come to mind. The first is Moonbeam’s WOWY, where DJ looks pretty great from 1981 to 1989 and you specifically lauded his performance there. But for as much as I like Moonbeam’s approach, it is not some definitive take on WOWY (I repeatedly highlighted how it seemed to give a lot of additional credit for high win percentages, which obviously will benefit DJ once the samples start including his time on the Celtics), and it feels like it should matter that other approaches, e.g. Elgee’s/Ben’s, can and do go in the other direction.

On that Celtics note, his presence on those teams seems to be the second key idea at play for why usual sentiments can be so readily left behind. Now, I do not mind crediting a player for his presence on multiple winning teams, but the farther down the pecking order you go, the less meaningful that becomes. If Gus Williams were on the 1984/86 Celtics, they still win the title, and I think there is a possibility they might even be more dominant in the postseason. Set aside 1979 for a moment: I cannot look at 1980, and 1982, and 1983, and 1984, and say to myself, “You know, I would rather have Dennis Johnson if I want to win this playoff game.” Yeah, longevity matters, and that can be held against Gus, but if we are asking who was better during their respective primes, I have a really tough time siding with DJ there just because DJ happened to be on better and more relevant teams.

It's not a given that we should focus on any guard when talking about a defense-led team so your skepticism makes sense. At the same time, aside from the fact DJ is the one singled out for outstanding defense throughout his career and the won who was given the Finals MVP, I believe his RWOWY looked great too, so I'm not sure there's any reason to be skeptical of the respect he got at the time.

Now, DJ was clearly a challenging personality that caused the Sonics to effectively choose Gus and others over him going forward, and I don't want to brush that aside. But of course, that gets into the whole thing of the Sonics being worth talking about because of the period where they had DJ, while DJ remained relevant for years afterward.

With Gus, I have to acknowledge I have a skepticism of him that I don't want to be too absolute about. I do think he was the better offensive guard, and I do think he had a track record for elevating his play in the playoffs. But while that's admirable, I'm always cautious about falling too in love with the leading scorer on a champion when it was the defense that actually gave the value add.

Re: Other defensive players. For whatever reason b-r isn't loading for me right now so I can't check, but my recollection is that Marvin Webster seemed like the defensive anchor, but they moved on from him without getting a big of comparable stature and then won their chip, and so this - along with former guard Lenny Wilkens as coach - makes me tend to think of the Sonic D as one that wasn't built primarily through their front court players the way we typically think of great defenses. I tend to see the question being more whether it can simply be described as an ensemble cast where no one player should be made the face of the group or not, but in terms of who in practice was made the face, I think it was petty clearly DJ… if we're just talking about who deserves the most credit from a team we're only talking about because of their defense, I think it makes sense to talk about the man who contemporaries saw as the most worthy defender of the bunch.

Lot of thoughts here, but quickfire responses:

Re: Marvin Webster — Not tracking your rationale here. Webster was a wholly unestablished third year player starting for the first time, and no one on the Sonics received any meaningful national recognition. Now, Webster was likely seen as the team’s top defender — most rebounds, most blocks — but not to any degree where “not replacing him” would matter.

Re: Replacing — On that note, he was “replaced” by Sikma, who had been playing power forward, and that power forward slot was filled by Lonnie Shelton. In other words, Webster was directly replaced by Shelton (quite explicitly by agreement between the Knicks and Sonics), and both Shelton and Sikma would go on receive all-defensive and all-star recognition, whereas Webster never received either. Regardless of 1978 sentiment over Webster in his first year as a starter, subsequent years made his comparative value clear.

Re: “Did not seem driven by bigs” — Why not? The 1978-80 Sonics were top five in defensive rebounding each year and were a top four team in opposing eFG% in 1978 (#4) and 1979 (#1). This is not like the Suns or Royals where you could look at their extreme turnover percentage and conclude it was probably more a product of their perimetre disruption. The Sonics had multiple all-defensive frontcourt players (if not immediately recognised as such), and Lonnie Shelton (and Jack Sikma the prior year) started over 5-time all-defence Paul Silas. That is very much a defensively skewed frontcourt… and again I find it weird how you are glossing over that same fundamental core (Hanzlik in for Silas) being even better defensively in 1982, without DJ.

Re: “DJ was the face / most worthy defender” — Well, Sikma was the one receiving MVP votes in 1979. In 1980 that flipped toward the guards, but in the wake of the near title in 1978 and the ensuing regular season, seems like Sikma was “the face”. And I am not saying I care, because Gus was evidently not treated as the true face of the franchise until 1982, but in terms of perception, Sikma received initial credit. The rejoinder would be DJ was the face of the defence — and I think it matters more being “the face” of the team, but whatever, sake of discussion — with the primary evidence being DJ was first team all-defence in 1979 (and 1980) and no one else on the Sonics would receive that recognition until 1982. So then my question would be, do you think Sikma and Shelton took this significant leap defensively in 1982, or is it possible that DJ was receiving the optic benefit of lesser positional competition even while playing in front of multiple all-defensive calibre frontcourt players? It is not like we call Kobe the “face” of his defences — or at least, not in any way that should actually matter — even though he was regularly the only all-defensive representative. That is an extreme counter-example, but even going less extreme, was Norm Van Lier the most worthy defender on the 1970s Bulls because he regularly received the most recognition on the team? Because I have him as a consistent third or fourth, and maybe even fifth if someone is high on Chet’s defence.

And of course, if DJ did nothing after the Sonic chip I also wouldn't be bringing him up - I'd expect I'd be siding with Sikma who seems the most well-balanced of the bunch, but DJ's continued team success dwarfs the other Sonics, and while he can be said to be "lucky" in the sense that he got to play on those Celtics. he was only on the Celtics because they chose to acquire him and were quite happy with that acquisition after the fact.

I could say the same for Artest on the Lakers (and Rockets, and Kings)… Marion on the Mavericks…

Outside championship frameworks, the Bucks were happy to acquire Sikma, and obviously the Celtics were not in the market for another starting big. The Bullets were happy to acquire Gus. This feels like really half-baked reasoning. All these guys were good players whose teams liked them. Again, credit to DJ for being a contributor on winning teams, but when the same can easily be said of players like Derek Fisher and Robert Horry without placing them above less fortunate figures like, oh, Baron Davis or Lamarcus Aldridge, simply being associated with success is not enough. The Suns traded Dennis Johnson for a mediocre first and immediately made the conference finals after; should that in turn reflect negatively on him? I am reducing this to the point of absurdity, but here you are pretty blatantly saying DJ should go ahead because he joined a top two team in the league as a fourth star and was very successful with them. And to me that seems like it should be weighed only as an exceedingly mild point in his favour.

Re: Moonbeam additional credit for high winning percentage. I don't want to talk about Moonbeam's work as some kind of perfect thing - this is an inherently coarse stat - but I'm not sure I understand what you think Moonbeam did here to skew things.

I would recommend taking a look at Garnett’s trend to see what I mean. It is not a strong criticism, but it is something I think we should take into account.

I'd say DJ is a clear example of a guy who looks strong going between teams because those teams tend to do particularly well when he's with them. Correlation may not be causation, but I don't think the correlation is all that mysterious.

But do they? The 1982 Sonics ended up being fine without him. The Suns were fine without him on both ends of his tenure. The Celtics won a title before he arrived and then immediately improved upon his retirement in 1990. There are so many counter frameworks here that you are completely looking past.

Re: Wise the stand out for Stars' title. Really? I'm curious what sways you in that direction. Zelmo was the stronger MVP vote getter

Yeah I already said I felt he should have won ABA MVP that year.

If you've previously explained in depth why you think Wise should have been ABA MVP, I obviously missed it, which is why I'm asking you the question above - and I'll add, I'm doing so in a tone I'm hoping off just comes across as sincerely curious.

I am agreeing with Beaty for the regular season.

and the guy who all-in-one stats favored in both RS & PS.

… Out of curiosity, what did those all-in-one metrics say about Gus versus DJ?

- Re: all-in-one Gus vs DJ. Dude, just stop it with that. You obviously know that I don't take all-in-ones as the end-all be-all and that I'm just mentioning that as an obvious thing to take note of. I'm looking for your to explain what you see not trying to use a stupid cudgel to tear down your perspective.

Well it is frustrating to be in simultaneous conversations where you are extolling the virtues of this superstar defensive guard with generally soft box production — at what I consider disregard of multiple offsetting factors — while expressing confusion as to why I may prefer the superstar defensive wing/forward with mildly lesser box production by some measures. Maybe if these two conversations were separate I would be less irritable, but to go from “look at DJ’s minutes, look at DJ’s presence on these all-time teams, look at DJ receiving all this isolated defensive recognition, we need to look past box production” to “why would I take Cunningham [former two] or Wise [latter two] over Beaty” is giving me whiplash.

Additionally, Wise on the previous year's mediocre teams while Zelmo was a new addition on the new Star team that was just plain outstanding in its success all year long.

That mediocre team had just played in the ABA Finals the year before Zelmo arrived, taking out the #1 and #2 SRS teams. If that team was mediocre, what were the Cougars before Cunningham?

- Got to the ABA Finals before Zelmo arrived. Well that's true, but it's not like it was on the back of Wise. It would make more sense to bring this up to me if you were championing one of the other players.

I think that speaks even further to the real quality of the team. Wise was on some level recognised as the team’s MVP in the regular season, and then they made the Finals with him as a marginal factor. They lost Mack Calvin, who was maybe the team’s playoff MVP… but in addition to Beaty and a fully present Wise, they gained second-team all-ABAer Red Robbins, plus traded for two all-star guards at midseason! This team was loaded, and while it is nice that Beaty swung them from a typical Finals exit to a narrow Finals victory, it is not something I see as particularly unique to the level of play he provided.

- What about Cougars before Cunningham? Well that's Cunningham's whole reason for getting the MVP of course, and I'd feel more strongly about Cunningham's candidacy if the team had looked like a real contender in the playoffs. As is, it kinda seems like more floor raising like Philly in '68-69.

But why would they be? They lost a tight series against the Gilmore Colonels, who lost a tight series against the Pacers, who won a tight series against Beaty’s/Wise’s Stars. And of those four teams, I would say they had the worst supporting cast.

Cunningham of course was on the '66-67 76ers so that means he can play a role on a truly great team, but a focus on the '66-67 76ers makes me tend to want to champion Greer & Walker rather than the much less significant Cunningham.

Which is fine, but for career arc reasons the question for me is whether either player reached greater heights, and I would say Greer distinctly did not while Chet probably did not and certainly was never contemporaneously recognised as having done so (although I can entertain several reasonable arguments for him).

[eminence]

Vote #1: Tony Parker
-I feel pretty good about Tony here.
-Only a fringe All-NBA guy in prime, but good longevity and had that prime on a historically important team.
-Manu was the best bench player ever, and that can make reading some of Parker's On/Off type numbers more difficult to do.
-Primary decision maker on some outright strong offenses from the later run Spurs.

Vote #2: Sam Jones
-Much tougher choice here (Nance/Moncrief both pretty close).
-Similarities to Parker in that he was an important secondary piece of a dynasty.
-May have deserved more time a bit earlier in his career.

Noting that Davies will once again be my top nominee next round.

[trex_8063]

Also, @ Owly
I had a question regarding why you seem to bring up playoff sample [within RAPM full-season figures] as something that will work AGAINST Parker.

Haven't got time to read fully but am pretty confident that if you go back to the post it will be in the context of "value above X" that I refer to Baron disadvantaged by having smaller samples by lesser opportunity.

Though fwiw in this comp if one believes playoff performance is more real than noise then I would think Baron getting more playoff minutes should boost his RAPM given he's a high end improver in box and impact side measures.

Both statements, in blanket fashion, assume Baron's playoff RAPM is always better than his rs RAPM.

I mean, his avg per-possession impact in the playoffs MUST be better than his rs impact for added playoff sample to RAISE his figure, right?
And if it's the same: no change.
If it's worse: lowers it.

Baron was a "good" playoff performer, so maybe it would "boost" his RAPM, but this certainly cannot be assumed. It's also possible that a larger playoff sample changes nothing over that sample (and it's also possible it would lower it slightly). Added playoff opportunity is only helping Baron if the first of these three is the case.


I would concede that, all things being equal [playoff minutes, that is], the playoff sample is likely to help Baron more than Tony (or it might be more accurate to say: that playoff sample will "hurt" Baron "less" than it does Tony). And that's where I think Tony's huge playoff sample is perhaps a drag on him (because of his playoff decline).

If his playoff sample had been as small as Baron's, it's possible [likely?] that his RAPM would be higher (no declined playoff sample dragging the figure downward).

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Induction Vote #1: Sam Jones

Induction Vote #2: Sidney Moncrief

I think Moncrief may have had the highest peak on this ballot outside of Walton, but Jones statistically doesn't look that far behind and has decided advantages with regards to longevity and hardware. It's close though. I could be persuaded to flip.

[Doctor MJ]

Now, DJ was clearly a challenging personality that caused the Sonics to effectively choose Gus and others over him going forward, and I don't want to brush that aside. But of course, that gets into the whole thing of the Sonics being worth talking about because of the period where they had DJ, while DJ remained relevant for years afterward.

With Gus, I have to acknowledge I have a skepticism of him that I don't want to be too absolute about. I do think he was the better offensive guard, and I do think he had a track record for elevating his play in the playoffs. But while that's admirable, I'm always cautious about falling too in love with the leading scorer on a champion when it was the defense that actually gave the value add.

..., but DJ's continued team success dwarfs the other Sonics, and while he can be said to be "lucky" in the sense that he got to play on those Celtics. he was only on the Celtics because they chose to acquire him and were quite happy with that acquisition after the fact.


I'd say DJ is a clear example of a guy who looks strong going between teams because those teams tend to do particularly well when he's with them. Correlation may not be causation, but I don't think the correlation is all that mysterious.

I would highlight here, given there's a sense of DJ on good teams ... Sonics lost there relevance ... Celtics "chose" DJ ...

DJ got traded for a great but older player exactly as he was falling apart ... and Gus and the Sonics couldn't come to an agreement (and iirc the NBA didn't have true free agency and maybe still had a reserve clause - I think perhaps the Sonics argued something like that) ... and was compared to a cancer by his coach, which suggests they weren't seeking even on-court value. The Sonics, then fwiw, bounce back to a 5th place SRS (3.69) with Williams' return the next year (2nd in the West, a little above Phoenix). And then Boston did chose to acquire Johnson ... for the princely sum of ... a backup center - supposedly Bird's drinking partner - entering an ominous decline including posting what certainly looks like a sub-replacement level season (I don't know whether injuries mitigate that or make it worse) immediately before the trade, Boston's own 2nd round pick and a Clippers second rounder (28th) ... and Boston also get a late first rounder (21st, plus a third round pick [52nd] for what that's worth). It's easier to improve teams when your team gives you away for little of value (now if Westphal hadn't never been right, healthy in Seattle that would be something else and Seattle may have thought that was what they were getting) and it's easier to chose to take on ... whatever baggage you want to see in Johnson ... when the cost is ... about nothing ... which is what I think that net package is (honestly with Boston getting the best pick, maybe the deal is already in Boston's favor).

The correlation ... for the Boston period ... he's arriving on what has been the best team in the league thus far that decade with a core mostly still to enter their best years and even Phoenix a team coming off three straight years of an SRS slightly north of 3 in that era was nothing to be sniffed at (granted, as before Westphal had been good and would have important to that). This doesn't mean DJ didn't help but "but I don't think the correlation is all that mysterious" makes it sound like what is always a noisy measure of mapping team success to individuals (especially pre-databall) ... well it reads as though it were perhaps a simple matter.

Finally at the margins I'd argue Williams' turnover economy as could perhaps be argued as a benefit to Seattle's D?

So, you're communicating a lot knowledge, but I'm not sure I'm clear on what your arguments are. Feel free to clarify.

I think the point about Seattle bouncing back after Gus returned from his one year absence is important to chew on. It certainly says good things about Gus' impact even as it raises other concerns.

I do think though it's significant to note the playoff success of Seattle with the players in question.

With DJ the Sonics won 8 playoff series.
With Gus & Sikma they won 9.

Those would be the last series Gus won, while Sikma would win 2 more in Milwaukee.
DJ, a year younger than Gus and a year older than Sikma, would go on to win 1 in Phoenix, and then 16 in Boston.

This then to say that I feel like for the most part, while Gus & Sikma fought valiantly, they didn't really add significantly more to the accomplishment of the Sonic Golden Age in the years after DJ left. You might say, the band had a great run together, then split up. One guy's career soon fizzled. Another guy got in another band that was almost as successful. While the 3rd hit the big time with legends.

I think then it's an important question as to whether DJ was just lucky to be a) the guy they singled out for the Finals MVP and also b) the one acquired by a team with legit dynastic aspirations. As you might guess, I don't think it was just luck, and I also don't think it was just wrongness on the part of the contemporaries making these decisions.

To your questions at the last: The question of how turnover reduction on offense helps DRtg is a good one here.

[Doctor MJ]

Also, @ Owly
I had a question regarding why you seem to bring up playoff sample [within RAPM full-season figures] as something that will work AGAINST Parker.

Haven't got time to read fully but am pretty confident that if you go back to the post it will be in the context of "value above X" that I refer to Baron disadvantaged by having smaller samples by lesser opportunity.

Though fwiw in this comp if one believes playoff performance is more real than noise then I would think Baron getting more playoff minutes should boost his RAPM given he's a high end improver in box and impact side measures.

Both statements, in blanket fashion, assume Baron's playoff RAPM is always better than his rs RAPM.

I mean, his avg per-possession impact in the playoffs MUST be better than his rs impact for added playoff sample to RAISE his figure, right?
And if it's the same: no change.
If it's worse: lowers it.

Baron was a "good" playoff performer, so maybe it would "boost" his RAPM, but this certainly cannot be assumed. It's also possible that a larger playoff sample changes nothing over that sample (and it's also possible it would lower it slightly). Added playoff opportunity is only helping Baron if the first of these three is the case.


I would concede that, all things being equal [playoff minutes, that is], the playoff sample is likely to help Baron more than Tony (or it might be more accurate to say: that playoff sample will "hurt" Baron "less" than it does Tony). And that's where I think Tony's huge playoff sample is perhaps a drag on him (because of his playoff decline).

If his playoff sample had been as small as Baron's, it's possible [likely?] that his RAPM would be higher (no declined playoff sample dragging the figure downward).

Forgive me if I missed this in your dialogue, but if you didn't realize that Baron's playoff On/Off was regularly huge, know that it was. He played scant enough in the playoffs that I don't think he's on Cheema's RS vs PS playoff graph, but taking it for what it's worth given the limited sample, I would indeed expect Baron's playoff numbers to surpass his regular season numbers.

For comparison between Baron & Parker:

Career RS On/Off:
Baron +6.8
Parker +2.1

Career PS On/Off
Baron +15.8
Parker -0.8

[Doctor MJ]

.

It's from this one:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150906012228/https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2013-rapm-non-prior-informed-updated-march-30

....which I was given to understand J.E. was the source of.

Interesting. This is what I have from him:
Non-Prior-Informed
Prior-Informed

That is curious.

To some degree this illustrates why I don't want to lean too hard upon RAPM. If---while using the same inputs----by just changing WHICH priors are used, HOW heavily they're weighted, HOW heavily the playoffs [vs rs] is weighted, the "strength" of the regression, etc===>we can get these [rather wildly] different results (supposedly from the same source/author).......

....idk, to me it's a reason while I'll never put all my eggs into any one basket, and why I prefer to juxtapose impact metrics against various box-composites. That might seem a simplistic approach, and I suppose it is, but there it is.

Many would argue the box doesn't actually measure basketball goodness, though; but the same is true of +/- based impact metrics. As I've said in the past, impact metrics are more a measure of "goodness" + "role" + "fit", with a few other things trying to foul it up (e.g. line-up noise), and also giving no consideration for *scarcity of talents.

*By the latter, I refer to how common someone's skillset is, or how many players in the league might be capable of filling that role [to some degree] if deployed/coached/mentored to do so.
e.g. Trevor Arizi might have better RAPM than Allen Iverson in a number of years (I don't know if he actually does, I'm just pitching that example out there)......but there were probably 15-20+ Arizi types around, but only a few that could do anything like Iverson was doing (shouldering that degree of offensive load with any success).
In a more modern context, the same might be said of KCP and Luka Doncic.

Anyway this is my way of saying I always like to combine the impact signals and box-based metrics in my evaluations.

Some really important points here.

It's really been maddening seeing what's happened to the APM family of stats to me. Divergence with poor communication to the public about what is changing and why, and then never having any kind of standard remain available for many years with regular near-real-time updates.

Yes, it's absolutely led me to rely on the stat less than I would like to. It relates to why I tend to use raw +/- and other simple stats when I'm in conversation with others. Basically any form of APM is a better all-in-one metric than raw +/-, but we know for a certainty what all went into the creation of the raw stuff, while the descendants of APM that made it go effectively extinct basically always act as black boxes to some degree.

So yeah, whatever the latest and greatest RAPM sources are I want to know about them, but at this point I've lost hope that the standard we need is ever going to exist for the public.

Re: impact as a function of goodness, role & fit. Yeah, reasonable way to look at it. I've described it mostly in terms of goodness & fit, but if you want to specify role rather than leaving it as implicit part of fit, I don't object.

Kinda sounds like where we diverge though is in how significant impact is compared to goodness. I can understand wanting to pursue goodness as ground truth, but I think goodness is much harder to have meaningful metrics for, and I also think that if we somehow did get perfect goodness metrics, we'd see a ranked list that deviated from GOAT list norms by a much greater degree than most realize. I think it's actually been historically common for outlier goodness to not get properly recognized even for players who make it to the NBA.

Re: Rareness of Iversons compared to Arizas. So to me this is a thing where the players at the very zenith of the history of the game are always rare talents, but there are also players who outlier talents in some ways but who don't add up holistically to be someone you want doing their thing on a contender. And more broadly, the same holds true for many college stars who can't make a career in the NBA while some college role players can do their thing for a decade plus in the NBA.

I think the second is really telling, because in that case the college-level alphas never become millionaires off basketball, but some of the successful role players have career earnings north of $100,000,000, and I can't honestly say I have a debate in my head about which of these guys if better at basketball. It's the rich role player.

Back to Iverson vs Ariza: It's certainly not the case that I'd take all higher scaling role players over all alphas, and I would be inclined to side with Iverson here fwiw.

2 last things:
1. I feel I absolutely need to look at box score data too, and I'd love to have more player tracking data. I definitely don't just want to look at +/- data either. I just would like the opportunity to see what the ingredients look like before they're mixed.

2. I think it's not a simple thing to separate cume On-Court Impact from Career Achievement, and they will often be basically the same thing for me for a given player, but I too would say the former is not my northstar. The latter is here.

[LA Bird]

Not sure why people still cite the googlesites data to this day when it's literally a mishmash of different RAPMs with two incomplete seasons. Maybe it served its purpose back in the day when analytics was still in its wild west era but that site became obsolete the moment JE posted complete NPI and PI RAPM for every season from 2001 to 2015.

As for how big of a role RAPM should factor into GOAT lists, obviously everyone has different opinions. Some care about it a lot, some don't care at all, but no matter where you stand, the same standard should be applied consistently without bias. If you are going to argue for Tony Parker because of the length of his prime, you can't just only cite the one or two seasons where he looks good in RAPM and ignore the rest. Let's look at his multi-year RAPM in the regular season and playoffs over his entire prime. Oh, it's pretty mediocre. Maybe he has incredible box scores instead? Nope. Playoffs resiliency? No again. He has a FMVP in 2007 in the sweep against the Cavs but he was poor in every other Finals series.

2003: 14/3/4 on 45% TS
2005: 14/2/3 on 47% TS
2013: 16/2/6 on 47% TS
2014: 18/0/5 on 55% TS (rest of Spurs shot 66% TS)

For his overall playoffs career, Parker's composite stats are hovering near league average (0.3 BPM, 0.084 WS/48) and his on/off is negative. This is an offense-only guard with basically one standout ability, finishing in the paint, that got nerfed in the playoffs over and over. As a player, I just don't see the argument for him here. Obviously, if we are talking about historical significance, Parker would deserve to be top 100 because the Duncan Spurs are one of the GOAT dynasties. But by that same very criteria, Cousy should be a top 50 lock and he missed that mark by 30 spots.