NBA/ABA Decades League Playoffs: Finals (TMACFORMVP WINS)

[All In The Name]

TMACFORMVP vs. Miller4ever

[Miller4ever]

The Really Serious Serious Guys

Jason Kidd(36)/Don Buse(12)
Tracy McGrady(36)/Paul Pressey(12)
Alex English(30)/Paul Pressey(18)
Nate Thurmond(24)/Dan Roundfield(24)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar(36)/Nate Thurmond(12)

The "Formulas":

BETTER REBOUNDING + BETTER DEFENSE = MORE POSSESSIONS

BETTER PASSING + LESS TURNOVERS = MORE EFFICIENT OFFENSE

MORE POSSESSIONS + MORE EFFICIENT OFFENSE = MORE POINTS THAN OPPONENT

The explanations:

BETTER REBOUNDING

There are three deciding factors that give my team the rebounding advantage beyond the numbers.

1. Height
As much as you can argue about how some players play bigger than they are, those players are the exception, not the rule. When every player in the starting lineup holds a height advantage against their counterpart, it makes it more difficult to win the battle of the boards. Certain players still get theirs through shear will and effort, but can all 5 players be counted on to do that over the course of the game and, ultimately, the series?

2. Jason Kidd
Chris Paul will not be able to outrebound Jason Kidd. The other positions are pretty even, although in terms of rebounds per game, my team still has the slight edge.

3. Bench
The primary big off the bench for my opponent, Larry Nance, gets less rebounds than my primary big off the bench, Dan Roundfield. Additionally, Pressey is better than Ray Allen and Ron Artest, if only slightly.

BETTER DEFENSE

Everybody on my team is a good or above defender. As a team, we have the passing lanes plugged up and the athleticism to recover. The defensive balance means less to exploit. The playmaking of my team's defense is also better. With the overall size advantage and the ability to rotate to open players and stop the fastbreak gives my team defense the edge.

As for individual defense, it doesn't matter how good Chris Paul has been against an old Jason Kidd, the truth is that a prime Jason Kidd would most likely outduel Chris Paul. To say that Paul is definitely the better PG in the matchup is ignoring the fact that Jason Kidd has locked down the speediest guards in his day. Prime Jason Kidd is a defensive PG second only to Gary Payton in the same era. Paul is a more prolific John Stockton, and his defense is the same. He picks some pockets doubling off his man and has the passing lanes, but the taller, stronger, and quicker prime Jason Kidd is the much better defender and overall PG in the matchup.

Barry can stop English as much as English can stop Barry. T-Mac can contain the Rays better than they can contain him. Nate has the athleticism to defend Lucas, and half of the PF minutes are going to Roundfield anyway, who matches up to Lucas well.

BETTER PASSING

I don't feel like I need to explain this one. Kareem and Hakeem are both great passers, but Kareem edges Hakeem out because he was one of few centers who could lead a fastbreak and find the finisher. Nate and Lucas are both reputable, with more reputation going for Lucas, whereas Nate has the numbers edge by over one assist per game. Kidd and Paul are both pretty tied up, and the swingmen for both teams have impressive passing numbers. Where I gain the edge is off the bench. With Pressey the original point-forward and Buse, the only man to lead two leagues in assists, I have significantly better passing in significant minutes.

LESS TURNOVERS

We can't be certain of the turnovers that Barry, Thurmond, and Lucas committed, but for Barry, it was probably around 3+ turnovers per game, and whatever Thurmond and Lucas committed, it was most likely even. With Hakeem and Kareem once again posting nearly identical numbers and Kidd and Paul separated but half a turnover per game, the real advantage comes from Michael Ray Richardson's inability to take care of the ball. With 3.8 turnovers per game compared to T-Mac's 2.5 per game, the entire extra turnover plus the higher steal and block numbers for my team overall means my team will take care of the ball better than my opponent's.

OTHER NOTES

Can it be argued that my team lacks a viable third offensive option? Alex English doesn't think so.

The fact is even a fast-paced team like the current Warriors take 85 shot attempts per game. When it comes to that, it's about covering the threats. My starting lineup has just as many threats in terms of offensive versatility as my opponent. Ron Artest doesn't play enough minutes to make a positive impact, but just enough to be crazy. God, I hate him sometimes, but sometimes I think that he's good at basketball. In any case, my opponent's writeups always get me when he oversimplifies things and says the entire matchup depends on my defense, or how I cover Rick Barry, or whatnot. I could say that the matchup depends on whether or not he can stop my 1-2 punch of McGrady and English from the wings, Kareem in the middle, Nate playing the garbage man, and Kidd at the controls. I feel like my formulas, as flawed and incomplete as they are, do a good job of showing the flow of logic that explains my team's superiority.

[penbeast0]

Reserved. Probably won't get it up until Friday.

Tough getting old isn't it Miller . . .

[Miller4ever]

^^Took me a while to get it, but you just made my day.

[TMACFORMVP]

I need to get something in, so I'll get to the point. Best of luck Miller4ever.

- I think order for Miller's team to win, he has to dominate defensively. Kareem will do as fine a job as anyone on Hakeem, but ultimately, no one will stop Hakeem from getting his 25+ PPG. He's proven it against the best of the best C's, and not facing an absolute peak Kareem, Hakeem in his absolute peak season (reiterating an NBA MVP, DPOY, and Finals MVP Award) won't be stopped.

Then Thurmond has to dominate defensively. Unfortunately this a bad matchup for him. He'll have to guard Lucas, who's primarily a perimeter player on the floor. He can't use Thurmond to double, and if he does, Lucas will burn him from the outside. That also takes Thurmond out of rebounding, and shot-blocking position. It's a sort of pick your poison, and considering Thurmond's inefficiency on offense, and the fact he won't be in defensive position, or is giving up the "Lucas layup," otherwise known as his jumpshot, Thurmond's effectiveness in this series won't be great.

Kidd won't be able to stop Paul, I'll have to bring up the series against a older Kidd, but still among one of the better PG's in the league. CP3 ate him for breakfast and dinner. Granted a prime Kidd will do a better job, Paul's effectiveness shouldn't take much a hit. Paul at this level, is arguably, in fact I'd definitely say the better PG in this matchup.

The same is the case with both Pressey and Barry. Paul was a good player, and a solid defender, he and Moncrief teamed to be a very good defensive team, but he's not touching Barry. I'll have to reiterate again, Barry in his one year peak was as good as any perimeter player to have ever played the game. He could score from all angles, was a good rebounder/passer, and led his team to the NBA Championship.

I think he has adequate defenders, but not good enough to truly stop the greatness of both Hakeem and Barry in their respective one year peaks.

Why I say they have to be good defensively is because, outside T-Mac and Kareem, the team is below average offensively. Pressey isn't a large threat in an All-Time Scheme of things, and Kidd/Thurmond or low volume and inefficient offensive players. If they can't play good enough defense, in this they cannot, they can't hang with our team offensively.

- And I'd like to point out, while Barry, and Lucas aren't the most talented man defenders (solid team defenders though), their defense won't be tried in this series because of that lack of offense. Barry will be guarding Pressey, and Lucas will be guarding Thurmond.

On the flip side, Hakeem will do as good a job as anyone on Kareem, but Jabbar will still get his. Tracy should have a nice series, with a smaller MRR on him, but we plan to tire him out on defense (as he wasn't as good defensively as he was in his first year in Houston, or Toronto years) with Allen coming off screens, and MRR attacking him off the dribble. Regardless, those two won't be enough to stop the onslaught of offense with Hakeem, Barry, Paul, Allen, MRR, and Lucas.

--> Rebounding, won't crunch the numbers, but basing off the slight numbers, and the fact Thurmond will suffer having to defend Lucas out on the perimeter, while Lucas can stay in the paint defensively against Nate, it won't be a factor to determine the series.

-- Lack of spacing, Pressey didn't shoot the three, Kidd is poor percentage from distance, and Thurmond is inefficient from everywhere on the floor. Need more spacing IMO.

In short:

--> Kareem/Pressey/Kidd are good defensively, but when facing Hakeem/Barry/Paul, our trio will prevail. We won't stop McGrady, or Kareem, but ultimately, they don't have enough options offensively to beat our team. When you have three guys that are not up to par offensively in an ATL, it's imperative to be dominant defensively, and with Thurmond's effectiveness taking a hit, and the other team has offensive players that cannot be stopped, we feel we'll prevail.

They have unfavorable matchups defensively, while we have favorable matchups (partly due to out lower level defenders guarding inadequate offensive players). And offensively, it's not much a comparison, with MUCH better spacing.

Miller, I felt you deserved to come to this point as you were the best team in your bracket. I wish you best of the luck in this series, and may the best team win. Which of course, I fully intend to do so.

[Miller4ever]

I don't need a rebuttal. Vote away.

[Warspite]

Vote Miller4ever

I admit I wasnt a fan of this team to begin with. It isnt a great def team. It isnt a super scoring machine and its outside shooting can be suspect. I was thinking my team would handle them pretty easily. However what I see is a well balanced team that is a jack of all trades team that can play multiple styles and simply dominates the boads. It has KAJ as its anchor on offense and defense and a although Im not sold on Thurmond at PF he hasnt been exploited and in this matchup Thurmond can guard Hakeem and let KAJ rest and use his quickness and length as a great weakside help defender. Jason Kidd is growing on me as a truely alltime great PG. He has weaknesses but his rebounding, leadership, defense and intangibles IMHO have moved him out of the pack of PGs and maybe just maybe he should be on the level of Isiah instead of the level with GP and Stockton. We forget how great TMac was and in this kind of setting where he mearly has to take over once or twice a game instead of all game he can be a nightmare. Moving English into the starting lineup gives this team tons of options and great spacing. The size of Kidd, TMac, English and there ball skills along with the twin towers just clogs the lane and the length makes passing tough.

I have no doubt Hakeem and Barry can create enough to win 2 or maybe 3 games but they are always playing from behind or under pressure as Millers team plays with great Eff and gets more easy baskets on the break. KAJ/English will produce 80% of Hakeem/Barry but they will do it at such a higher FG% that a player like TMac can have an off game or 2 and still win.

I believe that maybe in 3-5 yrs CP3 might have a peak yr that would turn this series but for now I dont have enough evidence of CP3>Kidd.

[bastillon]

-Kidd is prone to quick PGs, Paul will dominate this matchup, just like he dominated in 2008. this wasn't a prime Kidd but it was blatantly obvious that Paul's an inconvenient matchup for Kidd.

-Kareem is a terrible matchup for Hakeem, as has been proven by 86 WCFs where Hakeem couldn't defend him very well. while I rate Hakeem as high as anybody, there were certain players who he couldn't matchup with very well and KAJ is the worst matchup of all time against him. I expect him to produce offensively without any limitations, but Hakeem won't be stopped either although Kareem can affect his shooting % too. Thurmond, on the other hand, would be abused by Hakeem. he doesn't have the length to bother his jumpshots and he can't limit his pts in the paint either because Olajuwon has him beat in strength department pretty easily. Hakeem will have much more room to operate, though, as Lucas has 3pt range and can spread the floor as well as any PF.

-Thurmond is useless in this series. he can't help out in team defense bc of Lucas's presence and he's a poor offensive player who won't take advantage of poor PF defense either. completely useless.

-TMAC is severely overrating Barry's greatness. he was a good versatile player, but nowhere near "as good as any perimeter player ever" label that he put on him. Barry's passing is awesome... unless we look at huge turnover totals in ABA which strongly suggest he was a turnover machine and thus his passing isn't that great. his rebounding and defense is nothing to brag about. also, he's not all-time level scorer, even at his best. it's important to note that he didn't have 3pt range (as evidenced by his years in ABA) and he was ridiculously poor in DrawF as well. his FTA/FGA ratio is 0.20 in '75 which is plain awful. he was a midrange jumpshooting SF and there's no way that can be efficient way of volume scoring. that's reflected in his TS% which is very poor even for his era. ~50% TS is worse than Iverson and about as good as Kidd. Barry is, to me, one of the most overrated players on realGM, because people fail to acknowledge his poor efficiency.

--- Lack of spacing, Pressey didn't shoot the three, Kidd is poor percentage from distance, and Thurmond is inefficient from everywhere on the floor. Need more spacing IMO.

I would argue that Kidd was a 3pt threat but lack of 3pt shooting for Pressey and Thurmond being a useless offensive player is something that really hurts Miller's offense and the reason why they won't be able to exploit favourable matchups at C and SG.

TMAC takes this. MRR is awful considering he can't do any damage outside the paint and Barry is insanely overrated, but TMAC still has Paul who can do anything he wants to do against prone-to-fast-PGs Kidd. also Ray Allen is an excellent substitution and a terrible matchup for T-Mac who wasn't known for his defense and won't be able to stay with Ray Allen running off screens. Miller's bench isn't anything special. Barry and Hakeem will be limited by their defenders but at least they have CP who will make their offense very efficient regardless. Miller, on the other hand, has terrible spacing and which is gonna create tons of TOs and poor quality shots. I could see Kareem scoring a lot on Dream on isolations but I can't see the same when he's being triple teamed because of poor shooting.

vote: TMAC4MVP

[CellarDoor]

TMAC. Pretty much the opposite of everything Warspite said.

I think the PG match-up gets played to a standstill. I think Barry and TMAC are going to do a very similar amount of damage, but Lucas and Hakeem are both going to outplay their counterparts in this series (late 70s Kareem). English is a nice third option, but I don't know that he outscores TMAC's bench enough to compensate.

Spacing is a bit of an issue for both teams unless you want to turn Barry into a spot-up shooter, but when MRR is on the bench/at point guard and Ray Allen comes in, this problem is solved for TMAC with the large number of minutes he's getting.

[ronnymac2]

Reserved. Probably won't get it up until Friday.

Tough getting old isn't it Miller . . .

Haha

I'll get my vote in by the end of the day. I pwahmise.....

[ronnymac2]

TMAC vs. Miller......

Miller has the horses on offense to go back at Tmac here imo. I love Kidd's defense, but Paul is a bit too quick for him, and with capable pick-n-roll partners, he'll get his. However, Kidd is a matchup problem for Paul, too. He can post him up, penetrate (maybe not score when getting into the middle, but he creates havoc nonetheless), and his spot-up shooting is pretty good. It keeps Paul at bay away from the passing lanes a bit.

That frontcourt matchup is huge. I think Hakeem is better than this version of Jabbar, but.....Jabbar and Nate is a fantastic frontcourt. Both will take turns guarding Dream, and that combination will make Hakeem look like Dream in the 94 finals rather than Dream torching David Robinson. Lucas will produce, sure, and he'll spread the floor and make sure Nate doesn't get 2 blocks per game and is taken away from the rim, but still....Nate is a mobile big man with a shot-blocker behind him and amazing length all around him. He'll be able to help out inside a little bit.

I watched a full Pressey game for the first time last week...he looks like a poor man's Scottie Pippen. I really like him. Great length and can handle the ball. English isn't a terrible defender like his contemporaries at SF, and McGrady is a good defender. Again, both provide great length. All of this length means that Lucas imo isn't as much of a floor-spacer simply because different players can switch onto him and close out on his shot if Thurmond is helping inside. Barry is going to torch English and whoever else is on him (Barry IS a beast- he's as good as advertised...best perimeter player in this series). But English can take him into the mid-post area and shoot over him easily. Allen and MRR will be a nice change of pace against McGrady, but neither one can slow Tracy down. Tracy in 03 was Kobe's equal offensively...a bit less skill, but more height and better outside shooting.

This matchup is interesting because again, both teams have players that can go at their matchup. TMAC has the overall edge offensively, but I do believe Miller has the threats to go right back at him shot for shot, and I like Miller's team defense better. I'm going with Miller's team in 7 games. Great series guys. Also, congrats to both on making the finals.

[Snakebites]

Like Warspite, my opinion of the way Miller's team comes together, particularly with the addition of English to the starting lineup, has increased considerably. Its a strong outfit that should make this an impressive and extremely difficult series to call.

With that said, I believe that TMAC's team boasts the best player in the series and at the very worst two of the best go-to scorers in the series. Both Hakeem and Barry were truly dominant in selected years and led teams with frankly unimpressive supporting casts the entire distance to NBA titles. Kareem's abilities and potential to anchor a team surpass either of these players....in different selected year.

I do believe the rebounding edge goes to Miller, but do not consider it an overwhelming advantage. Lucas's extensive range will limit at least one of Miller's bigs at any given time, while he also produces admirably in that department himself. Up front, rebounding is a push. The perimeter gives Miller the advantage, but I do not believe its large enough to sway the tempo. Drawing a big away from the basket has a similar effect on the defensive advantage of fielding both Thurmond and Jabbar, and Thurmond isn't offensively gifted enough to compensate by exploiting Lucas. The mobility of these bigs will limit this issue to a degree, but not entirely.

Chris Paul may not have the experience and size of Jason Kidd, but in terms of overall skill he can meet and surpass what Kidd has to offer. He has the right tools to be an effective play maker both for himself and for others, and even in his youth I believe he has the capacity to do enough damage to make this an incredibly interesting matchup. Kidd has the edge as a defender and rebounder but Chris Paul is by far the more effective and efficient scorer. The tools he has to pass to, from shooters like Ray Allen and Jerry Lucas to the general brilliance of Barry and Hakeem, are enviable. Kidd's size makes this a difficult matchup, but not one I see as clearly favoring one man over the other.

Tracy McGrady is a more versatile and offensively destructive guard than either of his counterparts, and I do believe he will function much better as a second option than as a first. This matchup most be conceded to Miller. He cannot, however, hope to approach the ability to take over games that Rick Barry boasted in selected years, and thus is not the premier second option in this series.

Generally speaking, while I do see some edge Miller possesses in terms of overall defensive personnel, I do not think it is overwhelming. Miller doesn't have great scoring difference makers in the right places to particularly play into TMAC's defensive weak points (other than, ironically, Tmac during a portion of his playing time), either, and TMAC has nice defenders to bring onto the court when need be. In TMAC's team, I see a team that matches reasonably well with Miller's strength and generally speaking has a wider diversity of options and better go to players. I was also impressed with the efficiency of BOTH teams, not just Miller's. I liked the way Miller's team was built, but in weighing its construction against the versatility of options enjoyed by TMAC's team, I found I must vote for TMAC in an extremely close series.

[Miller4ever]

It sounds like you guys think Nate Thurmond is incompetent on offense. He was inefficient in his time, but playing a more modern style would increase his efficiency on offense. Just how I see it.

[All In The Name]

I was hoping we could get some more votes by now, but I've decided to call the matchup. TMACFORMVP is the champion. Congratulations to both competitors for assembling fantastic teams.