LA Bird wrote:Vote: Luka Doncic
Nom: Connie HawkinsSeems like this round is down to Doncic vs Davies. While I am okay with Davies making the list as #2 behind Mikan in the late 40s, I personally wouldn't vote for him due to reasons previously outlined:
LA Bird wrote:If we are looking purely at team success, the early Rochester Royals were definitely a strong dynasty. The question though is how significant of a role Davies played in that success. He had one big scoring year in 47 which saw him winning the league MVP but in the two surrounding NBL seasons, there were multiple teammates who finished above Davies in All League selections. WOWY analysis on Davies' 29 missed games in 1946-48 would be very useful but I don't think we have any game by game records from that period. We do, however, have WOWY numbers in the 16 games he missed in 1950-53 and the Royals had a +8.63 MOV while going 11-5 (three of the losses in OT including a legendary 6OT game). Obviously not a huge sample for his missed games but it seemed like the Royals were still playing at an elite level without Davies.
And then on the box score side, Davies simply doesn't look that impressive once we have more numbers from 1949 onwards. Unlike Cousy who was racking up assist titles almost every year, Davies only finished top 3 in assists per game once in his career. When the Royals won the championship in 51 with Mikan injured, it was their PF Jack Coleman not Davies who led the team in assists in the Finals (Coleman had a 14/28/8 statline in Finals G2). Davies was not a volume scorer, peaking at 16.2 ppg and he was not an elite FT shooter either, peaking at 79.5%. Davies' numbers absolutely cratered in the postseason during his last 3 seasons (18.4 PER, 0.156 WS/48 -> 8.7 PER, -0.018 WS/48) but even before that, he didn't rank that highly within the team in the playoffs (4th, 9th, 5th, 2nd in WS). For that era, I think it's hard to make the argument for Davies going above Cousy and the gap only widens if people are factoring in other "legacy" points like accolades and rings.
For nominations, Hawkins seems like an easy pick.
One of the best peaks left with Penny and his longevity really wasn't that bad compared to some of the others inducted from his era (Reed, Cunningham). Half a season of overlap with Barry in the ABA where he appeared to be the better player.
I submit as potentially a comparable peak to Hawkins/Penny---perhaps not relative to league environment vs Hawkins, but in an absolute sense, yes---another player who has yet to be mentioned, and who has better longevity than either: Elton Brand.
Personally, I think people overlook his '06 peak.
He averaged 24.7 ppg @ +4.4% rTS, 10.0 rpg, 2.6 apg, and only 2.2 topg, to go along with 2.5 bpg (though I think that overstates his defensive presence).
He did that for a team that won 47 games and had a +1.75 SRS, won their 1st round series, and then took the Steve Nash Suns to 7 games in the 2nd round (they actually
outscored the Suns in that series).
Here was Brand's supporting cast (in descending order of minutes played) when they achieved that:
Cuttino Mobley
Sam Cassell (36 years old)
Chris Kaman
Shaun Livingston (20 years old)
Quinton Ross
Daniel Ewing
Corey Maggette
Vladamir Radmonovic
James Singleton
The 2nd-best player on the team was probably 36-year-old Sam Cassell.
In rate metrics, Brand had:
26.5 PER (6th in league, behind five guys who were all inducted in the top 30, and just ahead of another guy inducted at #80 [all were in their primes]).
.229 WS/48 (7th in league, behind six guys who were all long since inducted, and just ahead of the guy voted in #13 [in one of his peakish years])
+6.76 BPM (7th in league, behind six long-inducted players)
^^^This is all while playing 39.2 mpg [11th in the league, iirc] and missing only 3 games (as result, he moves up to 6th in WS and VORP for the year).
And it was steady-as-she-goes in the playoffs: 26.4 PER, .227 WS/48, +7.2 BPM [in a whopping 43.1 mpg].
^^That was 25.4 ppg @ +5.4% rTS, 10.3 rpg, 4.0 apg, and only 2.4 topg (and 2.6 bpg).
His +3.7 PI RAPM was 16th in the league that year.
I mean, it's a monster year. I sometimes think it doesn't get the credit it deserves.
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