Retro Player of the Year Project

[lorak]

Shot clock.

[Dr Positivity]

Just looking at the overall share list, some of the recent players on there just feel weird:

Chris Paul - #32
Dwight Howard - #40
Jermaine O'Neal - #64
Ben Wallace - #66
Andrei Kirilenko - #81
Peja - #86

I know we usually underrate what present day players have done. But seeing JO, AK, and Peja on there while Jerry Lucas got 0 votes and Reggie Miller is #96 is a bit shaky

Certainly because this is a top 5 voting list, it's hard to trust the results for guys that almost never made a top 5. And even when you get into the 30s it takes one big year to get there. (Paul has .687 shares, for example)

[Sophie Hart]

it’s a very tricky question for me to decide who is the Retro Player of the year as I can only decide one out of 4 best players and my vote goes with Pettit

[mopper8]

J

I know we usually underrate what present day players have done.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Reading all the RPOY threads, and thinking just logically, I've decided in general we are overlooking the very greatness we've watched the past 15-20 years. The "Immortal 6" is outdated IMO, and that should be obvious just based on pure logic, before even watching games and getting into historical discussion.

Consider: since roughly the mid-80s, the popularity of the NBA has exploded. That has lead to prospects being identified and coached much earlier in life. The level of middle-school, high school, AAU ball, etc is just flat-out higher than it used to be. Coaching is more sophisticated now than it used to be (just see comments in these threads about the Celts strategy of taking lower % shots, just taking a lot of them e.g). Because sports in general and the NBA in particular have more prestige and especially exponentially more earning opportunities, they attract far superior athletes. Back in the day, Tommy Heinsohn had a 2nd job in the offseason to help pay the bills. Then you have the explosion of basketball in Europe, with its many professional leagues that bring in the best prospects in all of Europe to pro ball when they're still teenagers. The talent pool from which the NBA is drawn is both broader and deeper than ever before, and that growth started right around when MJ entered the league.

And yet, the underlying premise of the "Immortal 6" is that the best guys to ever play the game did in the league first 30 years, with the smaller and more shallow talent pool, rather than the last 25. That nobody who's entered the league post-85 can hold a candle to those guys.

It's absurd on its face. I cannot even imagine an argument that could be anything close to persuasive on this subject.

With that in mind, I've re-evaluated my top-10 some, and I feel comfortable putting Duncan in the top-5, and maybe even the top-4. The guy anchored what is undoubtedly the 2nd greatest defensive dynasty of all time, but did it IMO in an era where it is much harder to out-perform the league that consistently defensively than it was in Russell's day. And meanwhile, Timmy is a phenomenal offensive player as well. Food for thought: it's pretty commonly stated that peak Shaq was close to GOAT-level dominance. Well, Tim Duncan won more MVPs during Shaq's peak than Shaq himself did.

I have Wilt at 7 max, though I haven't given as much thought to slots 7-15 as I have to 1-6, so who knows? Modern guys like Shaq, Hakeem, Kobe probably deserve serious consideration there as well I think.

[Sedale Threatt]

Yeah, but Jordan's in that window, and I'd bet nine out of 10 put him at No. 1.

The other serious candidates all have flaws:

* Duncan -- huge, huge fan. Will defend him until I die. But Top Four? I just can't buy that. He just never gave me the impression he was THAT great. Top 10, for sure. But better than all but three guys who ever picked up a basketball. Nope.

* Shaq. For all his greatness, an underachiever. Missed a ton of games, started to coast too much once he started winning, teams got destroyed in the playoffs one too many times, questions about his production on both ends.

* Hakeem. Was basically a non-factor in the league, outside of his obvious individual greatness, for years until he hit his weird peak and Jordan "retired." Another tremendous player that I loved watching, and still have huge respect for, but he just didn't dominate at that uber-level for long enough.

* Kobe. Awesome player, but I have a ceiling on him at about nine or 10 that I just can't consider busting unless he wins enough over the next couple of years that I have to do it. Questions about attitude, leadership, shot selection, efficiency, etc.

Of course, you can come up with warts on just about everybody, outside of Jordan. But to me, those top six guys are there for a reason -- their overall resumes are just too good not to put them up there.

You've got:

Mike -- six titles, five MVPs, ridiculous individual production
Kareem -- six titles, six MVPs, ridiculous individual production
Russell -- 11 titles, five MVPs, arguably the greatest defensive player ever
Wilt -- two titles, four MVPs, ridiculous individual production
Magic -- five titles, three MVPs, retired as assist leader
Bird -- three titles, three MVPs, one of the greatest all-around players in history

It's totally cool to discuss and not accept anything on face value, so the discussion has merit. But who do you leave off? You've already said Wilt, but you can obviously make a great case to keep him where he is.

[semi-sentient]

Those are interesting points mopper8 and I've recently re-evaluated how my top 10 are ranked as well. I know that I've dropped Wilt down (and perhaps I'm being too harsh, but he's an easy guy to criticize) and put Duncan up at number 6, and I think he has a solid case above Bird as well, although I'm still hesitant to rank him above Bird. Maybe it's because I previously bought into the concept that Magic/Bird were inseparable, but this project has made me rethink that anyway. Magic was far more successful, had a longer career, and in a lot of minds is the GOAT offensive player (running the best offensive dynasty), so to me there's some clear separation there. I think some of it comes down to how well these guys played their positions, and in that sense guys like Magic and Duncan just couldn't have played any better. Same goes for Bird, but to a lesser extent because he did have some failures in the playoffs to go along with a shortened career.

I think when this is all over I'm going to reread some of the threads and really try to come up with a concrete list. At this point, I don't think Shaq or Duncan are going to move much either way, but Kobe is one that I still have a hard time ranking because he still has the opportunity to do accomplish more. Russell is the toughest for me to rank. He's the most successful, but he's also the only guy in the top 10 that was below average on one side of the court. The Celtics, as a team, had so much more talent/coaching than everyone else that I find it hard to ignore that when compared to the other greats. It gets even worse when you consider that winning two series meant you were the champ. It's really difficult to compare that to what players had to go through in the 70's to the current era where the talent is spread out and you have to win 4 series to be crowned the champs.

[bastillon]

this project has made me wonder why is Wilt even in the top10 ? pretty clearly there's no way he was DOMINANT defender as he was made out to be by everyone on this board and given little offensive usefulness before becoming passing center, it's hard to think he was all-time great offensively either... I mean the guy led one #1 ranked offense (67) and one #1 ranked defense (68). he was a joke defensively compared to Russell (about 4-5 pts team DRtg which is huge) and he doesn't compare to Oscar or Jerry West offensively either. I'm having a hard time putting Wilt ahead of, say, Shaq, who was on a similar level in terms of defense and was pretty clearly more impactful offensively with his 55-60% TS, which is also reflected on his teams.

even with Wilt's durability and Shaq's injuries it's the latter who played more games (though less total mins, but that could be explained by era difference - Wilt's not playing anywhere near 48 MPG today) and Shaq played 54 more playoff games as well.

then you add the championships, team success in general, impact when changing teams, anecdotal evidence of Wilt not really caring about winning etc etc and I have no idea how it's even possible to put Shaq lower unless you just can't get your ass out of the boxscore.

[bastillon]

Russell is the toughest for me to rank. He's the most successful, but he's also the only guy in the top 10 that was below average on one side of the court. The Celtics, as a team, had so much more talent/coaching than everyone else that I find it hard to ignore that when compared to the other greats. It gets even worse when you consider that winning two series meant you were the champ. It's really difficult to compare that to what players had to go through in the 70's to the current era where the talent is spread out and you have to win 4 series to be crowned the champs.

underlined: say what ? Russell wasn't below average center offensively in the 60s. pick any year, Russell will NOT be lower than 4th. more importantly, while Bird/Magic were clearly valuable defenders with steal/reb combo, they're hardly good.

bold: there is no way you could argue Russell had more support from his teammates than Bird or Magic. none, seriously. Magic while anchoring a great offense, had his team ranked often in the top10 defensively as well. Kareem was ok defender, Worthy was very good, then you have Cooper etc... you get the point. Bird's Celtics were often top5 defensively with McHale being perennial all-defense.

so they had a LOT support defensively. meanwhile Russell's great supporting cast was so ridiculously bad on offense that they could hardly produce on average efficiency and were usually bottom of the league. if Russell's teammates, whose greatness is determined primarily by offense (Heinsohn, Cousy, Sharman, Sam Jones being mentioned the most often), then how come they sucked offensively as a team ? there were even years when neither Havlicek nor Sanders nor KC played a lot of mins and they were still a dynasty defensively. it's clear after this project who was responsible for their winning.

favourite example: Celtics are merely above average SRS pre-Russ. they jump out to ~5-6 for the next 13 years. they're below average the very second Russ retires.

olympics, college, hell I bet you could see the same tendency in all-star games... simply whenever Russell played for ANY team, he made them great.

[semi-sentient]

The difference in dRtg is blown way out of proportion. The Celtics had better defensive players than Wilt had as teammates, and their focus on defense was unprecidented, which Red has a hell of a lot to do with. Russell was no doubt the largest reason for that, but even great defensive anchors can have piss poor defensive teams if they don't have the right personnel and schemes implemented (see Garnett).

Saying he's not top 10 is taking it way too far. He still led a couple of title teams and dominated statistically (although some of his offensive numbers are inflated and in some cases quite empty), and he didn't consistently have the great coaching and/or supporting cast that Russell had. He definitely lacked the intangibles, but how far are you willing to drop him for that? Out of the top 10? That's being way too harsh.

[semi-sentient]

underlined: say what ? Russell wasn't below average center offensively in the 60s. pick any year, Russell will NOT be lower than 4th. more importantly, while Bird/Magic were clearly valuable defenders with steal/reb combo, they're hardly good.

Alright, below average is probably taking it too far, so we'll just call him average at best when compared to all the other greats. In fairness to Russell, some of the other greats were average on one side of the ball as well.

bold: there is no way you could argue Russell had more support from his teammates than Bird or Magic. none, seriously. Magic while anchoring a great offense, had his team ranked often in the top10 defensively as well. Kareem was ok defender, Worthy was very good, then you have Cooper etc... you get the point. Bird's Celtics were often top5 defensively with McHale being perennial all-defense.

Maybe you should reread what I said. The Celtics were stacked compared to everyone else, for the most part. No team had comparable talent or coaching year-in, year-out -- although Russell's final years as a player/coach are his most impressive to me. Magic and Bird had comparably stacked teams, but they weren't the only great teams. How about all the other great teams in the 80's? The Pistons? The Sixers?

[mopper8]

Yeah, but Jordan's in that window, and I'd bet nine out of 10 put him at No. 1.

Jordan entered the league in 84. Again, you have to basically say that anyone who entered the league in basically the 15-20 years post-MIke (since guys only 5-6 years into their careers obviously haven't played long enough to really warrant discussion) are, at the top, inferior to the players from the previous 25 or so years, even though, again, the talent pool is exponentially bigger now.

The other serious candidates all have flaws:

* Duncan -- huge, huge fan. Will defend him until I die. But Top Four? I just can't buy that. He just never gave me the impression he was THAT great. Top 10, for sure. But better than all but three guys who ever picked up a basketball. Nope.

See, that's where I think you have some fetishizing of the past. If we were doing this project some 20 years down the line, and you hadn't watched TImmy but read about his career, he'd come off just as strongly as any other great you can put out there. 2-time MVP, 4-time champion, lynchpin of an all-time great defensive dynasty, etc. Certainly his resume doesn't pale in comparison to Bird's IMO at the very least (who he finished ahead of in RPOY vote shares, btw). And you didn't really point out a serious flaw there, just that you don't think he's that good.

* Shaq. For all his greatness, an underachiever. Missed a ton of games, started to coast too much once he started winning, teams got destroyed in the playoffs one too many times, questions about his production on both ends.

Which makes him remarkably comparable to another underachieving big who had monster stats, a lot of regular season success, and "only" 2 titles (as compared to Shaq's 4). And yet Wilt is unquestionably in the Immortal 6 and often considered top-3, and Shaq rarely gets past 8 on most people's lists. Again IMO, fetishizing the past. Those two are nearly interchangeable for me.

* Hakeem. Was basically a non-factor in the league, outside of his obvious individual greatness, for years until he hit his weird peak and Jordan "retired." Another tremendous player that I loved watching, and still have huge respect for, but he just didn't dominate at that uber-level for long enough.

Yeah, I put him around 10.

* Kobe. Awesome player, but I have a ceiling on him at about nine or 10 that I just can't consider busting unless he wins enough over the next couple of years that I have to do it. Questions about attitude, leadership, shot selection, efficiency, etc.

Same, have him in the same spot.

Of course, you can come up with warts on just about everybody, outside of Jordan. But to me, those top six guys are there for a reason -- their overall resumes are just too good not to put them up there.

You've got:

Mike -- six titles, five MVPs, ridiculous individual production
Kareem -- six titles, six MVPs, ridiculous individual production
Russell -- 11 titles, five MVPs, arguably the greatest defensive player ever
Wilt -- two titles, four MVPs, ridiculous individual production
Magic -- five titles, three MVPs, retired as assist leader
Bird -- three titles, three MVPs, one of the greatest all-around players in history

It's totally cool to discuss and not accept anything on face value, so the discussion has merit. But who do you leave off? You've already said Wilt, but you can obviously make a great case to keep him where he is.

Well, like I said, I compare Wilt to Shaq, think they have very similar careers in terms of inconsistent impact (especially defensively) year-to-year, off court distractions, clashes with coaches, questionable leadership, under-achieving despite tremendous physical gifts, etc, and despite Shaq's obvious peak dominance, nobody is banging down the doors to jam him into the top-5.

Bird IMO is the most obvious case. Is his resume really that much more impressive than Duncan's? 3 MVPs to 2, 3 titles to 4...seems a wash IMO in those terms. Phenomenal all-around talent? Yeah, but let's break it down:

Bird was an amazing rebounder for a 3, one of the best ever. But TImmy is 7th all-time in Drb% and 10 in Trb%. Even granted that Trb% only goes back to 70, you're still talking about a guy who statistically was a better rebounder than KAJ was at his peak (TD has 9 seasons of Trb% over 18, KAJ 6; TD has 6 seasons at 18.9 or better, 4 over 19; KAJ has 2 seasons at 18.9 or better, 1 over 19).

Bird is a phenomenal passer from the wing, again one of the greatest ever. But also again, Timmy was a great passer from the 4/5 spots as well, also one of the all-time greats. As great an assist man as his contemporary KG? No, definitely not. But 3.2 apg on a team regularly in the bottom 3rd of the league in pace in a league that was itself historically slow-paced...that's pretty good, puts him in the top-15 big men all-time. The modern-era guys ahead of him are guys like Barkley, Malone, KG, Antoine Walker and Lamar Odom, then you have guys from the higher-paced days that are by and large averaging 1 more apg at higher pace and also at times higher minutes...Unseld, Russell, Wilt, etc. Does Bird still have the edge? Sure. But Timmy's passing from his position is pretty valuable.

Then, you have obviously the volume scoring. Bird is just superior no doubt. FIlled it up more and at his peak at higher efficiency. No debating that.

But is the difference nearly as big as the difference between the amount the two impacted the game defensively? You're talking about a guy who was regularly the best defensive player in the game. The guy who's anchored the only team you could consider a defensive dynasty outside of Red & Russell's Celts. That's pretty damn good. I mean, peak Duncan was giving you 25.5 points, 12.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.5 blocks and was the best defensive player in the game. Look at that 01-02 team...Robinson was nearly done at the point, and then a 32-year-old Steve Smith is the only other guy who can score in double-digits, at 11.6 per game (behind D-Rob's 12.2). A 19-year-old Tony Parker is starting 72 games for you. How'd they do? 58 wins, 2nd in Drtg, 9th in Ortg. And of course he dragged that same team to a title the following year behind 23 points, 13 boards, 4 assists, 3 blocks, team 3rd in Drtg and 7th in Org despite having very little behind him. Took down the 3-peat Lakers along the way, who had lost a lot of depth no doubt, and had only won 50 games (though Shaq missing 16 games had a lot to do with that) but still had Kobe dropping 32/5/5 in the playoffs (30/7/6 in the regular season) and Shaq dropping 27/15/4 in the playoffs and 28/11/3 in the regular season.

Also, compare the way Duncan steps up his game in the playoffs and had some of the most dominating games in recent memory on some of the biggest stages (the near quadruple-double in the Finals most obvious) vs Bird's very un-even playoff history.

At the end of the day, answer me this: do you really think peak Bird had a greater impact on the game overall than Duncan? I don't, not when you consider how much peak Duncan brings defensively, while still giving you 23-25 points and 3-4 assists.

The Duncan/Russell debate is another one altogether and you can read my thoughts on that here

[Jimmy76]

Seems like the Duncan-Bird debate comes down to something similar to the Garnett-Kobe debate. How important is volume scoring at decent to excellent efficiency compared to elite big man defensive impact? I imagine the impulse is to side with the big man since all the truisms point that way e.g. big over small, defense wins championships etc. I think you have to be careful to make sure you're comparing using replacement value by position there are a lot of strong defensive centers that can take on that anchoring type role even if they aren't at Duncan-Garnett level.

Mopper do you have Duncan over Magic as well? Who are the three over Duncan in that thought process?

After following this project to me it feels like there's an immortal 9, the six plus Hakeem, Shaq, and Duncan (there are probably a number of people who would expand that to 10 to include Kobe but I'm hesitant right now.)

[semi-sentient]

Also, compare the way Duncan steps up his game in the playoffs and had some of the most dominating games in recent memory on some of the biggest stages (the near quadruple-double in the Finals most obvious) vs Bird's very un-even playoff history.

This is worth repeating, and it's a big deal.

Seems like the Duncan-Bird debate comes down to something similar to the Garnett-Kobe debate. How important is volume scoring at decent to excellent efficiency compared to elite big man defensive impact?

The Wolves were generally poor to below average defensive teams, so I don't see him having as much impact on defense as Kobe does on offense. In fact, I don't think KG's defensive impact is anywhere near Kobe's offensive impact. It wasn't until Garnett got to the Celtics that he actually had a huge impact, and that was primarily due to him having better defenders and schemes around him, not to mention a tough center that could actually anchor the paint.

1996: 20/27
1997: 15/29
1998: 23/29
1999: 11/29
2000: 12/29
2001: 15/29
2002: 15/29
2003: 16/29
2004: 6/29
2005: 15/30
2006: 10/30
2007: 21/30
2008: 1/30
2009: 2/30
2010: 5/30

On the flip side, the Lakers have always been a top-tier offense with Kobe as a starter, with exception to this past season where Kobe's injury generally dragged the team down a bit.

1999: 2/29
2000: 6/29
2001: 2/29
2002: 2/29
2003: 6/29
2004: 6/29
2005: 7/30 (no Shaq...)
2006: 8/30
2007: 7/30
2008: 3/30
2009: 3/30
2010: 11/30 (ouch)

[mopper8]

Seems like the Duncan-Bird debate comes down to something similar to the Garnett-Kobe debate. How important is volume scoring at decent to excellent efficiency compared to elite big man defensive impact? I imagine the impulse is to side with the big man since all the truisms point that way e.g. big over small, defense wins championships etc. I think you have to be careful to make sure you're comparing using replacement value by position there are a lot of strong defensive centers that can take on that anchoring type role even if they aren't at Duncan-Garnett level.

Mopper do you have Duncan over Magic as well? Who are the three over Duncan in that thought process?

After following this project to me it feels like there's an immortal 9, the six plus Hakeem, Shaq, and Duncan (there are probably a number of people who would expand that to 10 to include Kobe but I'm hesitant right now.)

Kareem - best 2-way player ever to play the game IMO. Elite defensive impact, elite offensive impact.
Jordan - best 2-way small to every play the game, arguably the only non-big to ever replicate an elite big-man's impact in terms of helpside defense and high efficiency scoring. Top-3 volume scorer of all-time, if not #1.
Magic - Offensive GOAT. Most versatile and unique player ever, really, able to literally play all 5 positions. Maybe the only guard in post-merger history who could make a serious impact on the defensive glass (much harder to get a gauge on that stuff pre-merger). Probably in the GOAT conversation if his career isn't cut short, and even could've stolen a few titles from MJ.

Then I have Russell and Duncan basically interchangeable.

Interesting that you mention VORP, as that's what gets me about Russell. He undoubtedly IMO has the highest VORP of any player in history IMO, but VORP is set as much by the competition as it is by the player's ability. Russell's was VORP was so high precisely because when he played you couuldn't say about Russell that "there are a lot of strong defensive centers that can take on that anchoring type role even if they aren't at [Russell] level."

Even granting that the league was much smaller back then, Wilt's defense reminds me of Shaq's defense--capable of dominating, but inconsistent and often non-existent. Shaq was on some piss poor defenses at times, and so was Wilt. Then you have, what, Thurmond as the only other really great defensive player? And he's not even as much a help-side guy. Would Russell's VORP really be so high if he had to contend with a prime Alonzo Mourning, a Dikembe Mutombo in a career year, a peak Ben Wallace and peak Kevin Garnett, etc etc for defensive dominance? If he played in an era where most teams prize defense and design complicated help schemes, rather than the reality that he played in an era where defense was not nearly as emphasized and where almost nobody else played help-side defense?

Russell's VORP isn't translatable. His resume is so staggering that its hard to put him too far down, so I go back and forth. But Duncan was a very good scorer in his own right in his prime, not just average but very very good, unlike Russell. I do think that you stick both in the modern game, and even granting that Russell is still better at defense I still think Duncan has a higher VORP. But he doesn't have 11 titles and 5 MVPs, so its tricky.

[bastillon]

APM disagrees with you. Garnett had -9 def, Kobe +8 off. the reason why Wolves were so bad defensively is not because of the schemes or coaching it was epically bad personel. Hudson, Cassell, Mike James were universally regarded as one of the worst defensive PGs in the game. Wally's white, unathletic, slow-footed and doesn't even care. Ricky Davis was looking for triple doubles rather than playing defense. Olowokandi, Rasho and the rest of those guys were ok, league average. old Peeler and Gill were so bad that Wally was their best wing defender.

so what you have right here is 3 positions with nothing but crap defensively for several years.

Garnett's def APM was somewhat consistent and always very high. once he got better teammates, his APM stayed high, but team DRtg started dominating.

IMO it's a ridiculous assumption that Garnett was worse defender in his physical prime playing over 40 MPG than as a 32-year old playing 30-35 MPG. personal preferences, I guess.

[Sedale Threatt]

Jordan entered the league in 84. Again, you have to basically say that anyone who entered the league in basically the 15-20 years post-MIke (since guys only 5-6 years into their careers obviously haven't played long enough to really warrant discussion) are, at the top, inferior to the players from the previous 25 or so years, even though, again, the talent pool is exponentially bigger now.

Yeah, I get the point, but Jordan was winning rings almost within the last decade, so I have a tough time not considering him a pretty modern player.

I honestly don't think the talent pool is exponentially bigger. Bigger, yeah. But how much does international improvement and population growth balance out that there are however many more jobs available that there weren't back in the 80s and beyond?

It's an interesting debate, for sure. But I wouldn't be prepared to accept that the talent pool is massively bigger and/or better.

See, that's where I think you have some fetishizing of the past. If we were doing this project some 20 years down the line, and you hadn't watched TImmy but read about his career, he'd come off just as strongly as any other great you can put out there. 2-time MVP, 4-time champion, lynchpin of an all-time great defensive dynasty, etc. Certainly his resume doesn't pale in comparison to Bird's IMO at the very least (who he finished ahead of in RPOY vote shares, btw). And you didn't really point out a serious flaw there, just that you don't think he's that good.

Not necessarily flaws, then. I just think the other resumes are better. In Bird's case, he won one less rings in a much more top-heavy league, with some historically heavy weight teams whereas the Spurs did their damage in an era where you had the Lakers and who else?

But I do get what you're saying about glorifying the past. I could cop to that. Frankly, if you compared the two as pure players, I'd probably take Duncan because he's the better two-way player -- but then, that's as a result of being big as opposed to necessarily being better.

I guess it boils down to this -- I think Bird was a total genius, one of the two or three greatest minds to ever play the game, and I have a tough time putting many other guys over him. Especially a guy like Duncan who was "merely" great in my my opinion.

Is that "fetishizing"? I don't know.

From the standpoint of raw physical talent, I'd put LeBron over anybody in history but maybe Wilt. I think Kobe and Wade are the second- and third-best SGs in history. Durant, obviously, has a chance to be ridiculous. So, while you might have a point, I also think I have a decent world view.

Which makes him remarkably comparable to another underachieving big who had monster stats, a lot of regular season success, and "only" 2 titles (as compared to Shaq's 4). And yet Wilt is unquestionably in the Immortal 6 and often considered top-3, and Shaq rarely gets past 8 on most people's lists. Again IMO, fetishizing the past. Those two are nearly interchangeable for me.

A good point. I think it's clear that Wilt's statistical achievements were empty to a certain degree -- pretty small, in my view, but still debatable -- in addition to coming in an era that inflated stats. I also think it's entirely possible that Shaq, if he wanted to, could have done everything Wilt did in that era, if not more. So this comparison is fair.

At the end of the day, answer me this: do you really think peak Bird had a greater impact on the game overall than Duncan? I don't.

I don't know. It's an interesting thought.

I think Duncan is great; other than Jordan and Bird, there's never been another opponent I respected more. His resume is fantastic. His game was fantastic -- production, intangibles, everything. You honestly couldn't have realistically asked for more, except maybe a higher degree of statistical dominance.

But mid-80s Bird (26-28 points, 9-10 rebs, 6-7 assists, great %s, a couple of steals, very respectable team defense) was pretty damn ridiculous.

I already shared some of my thoughts much higher. I agree that defense, as a 7-foot anchor, probably puts Tim over the top in an individual comparison.

But again, I think Bird's resume is more impressive. And in terms of offense -- only one part of the equation -- you're talking about a great player in Duncan compared to one of the two or three best all-around players in history.

Duncan is one of the all-time great passers for his position? Really? I think he was very good, more than what you could expect from a big, but I'm not even sure he was better than Shaq -- who was good, but not exactly the second coming of Bill Walton or anything. But whatever, let's say he was Top 15, fine.

With Bird, you're talking about the best non-guard passer in history. Bar none. There is a massive difference between the two here, in my opinion. Bird would have been great enough as it is.

But to be able to create like he did, in addition to being a volume, go-to scorer? How many guys have been able to manage that? Oscar? LeBron? And....? He gave those Celtics team an entirely different dimension with that one skill set.

Then you have the shooting and scoring, which adds up to one of the most complete and devastating packages in league history.

So while I'd still take Bird, I certainly don't have a big problem with Duncan. He just didn't feel like the same level of player, and maybe that does have something to do with being older, and glorifying an older guy I saw as a youngster compared to somebody I saw more recently, and watched with a more critical (albeit very, very admiring) eye.

[Sedale Threatt]

Also, compare the way Duncan steps up his game in the playoffs and had some of the most dominating games in recent memory on some of the biggest stages (the near quadruple-double in the Finals most obvious) vs Bird's very un-even playoff history.

This is worth repeating, and it's a big deal.

I agree. Which makes me think there might be something to the "glorification" thing.

23, 12, 3.5 and elite defense in 170 playoff games is pretty awesome.

[semi-sentient]

IMO it's a ridiculous assumption that Garnett was worse defender in his physical prime playing over 40 MPG than as a 32-year old playing 30-35 MPG. personal preferences, I guess.

Of course that's a ridiculous assumption, but that was pretty much my point. No one is that impactful on defense where they can cover up for poor personnel to lead a good/great defensive team, yet a great offensive player can still elevate a team into being a good/great offensive teams without much support.

[Jimmy76]

Part of it is that Bird's game is so much prettier you can see his basketball genius on the court by the way he plays while Duncan plays perfectly but not in a way you think "damn this guy is amazing has anyone else ever played at this level?"

Not to mention Bird has all the stories and clutch moments while with Duncan it's "he had 25/15/7/6 in game 6 of the finals" and when you actually watch the game it's just hook shots and passing out of the double to obviously open shooters. Not to downplay Duncan's passing ability he has good vision and will find cutters and shooters but Bird is one of those players that makes passes that aren't there. No look bounce pass between two defenders to Mchale who's wide open under the basket. Even when you see it you don't believe it happened and it actually takes time to sink in holy **** he actually did that.

It's more an aesthetic observation but I don't its totally devoid of on-court impact

[Jimmy76]

IMO it's a ridiculous assumption that Garnett was worse defender in his physical prime playing over 40 MPG than as a 32-year old playing 30-35 MPG. personal preferences, I guess.

Of course that's a ridiculous assumption, but that was pretty much my point. No one is that impactful on defense where they can cover up for poor personnel to lead a good/great defensive team, yet a great offensive player can still elevate a team into being a good/great offensive teams without much support.

That's a good point and it's a rule of thumb of mine that the offense of a superstar should hold more weight than the defense anyways