RealGM Top 100 List #22

[mysticbb]

Vote: Walt Frazier

Nomination: Artis Gilmore

[Baller 24]

Vote: D-Wade

Nominate: Gary Payton

[GrangerDanger]

I am not a part of this project, but I wanted to support anyone thinking about nominating Gervin. Gervin may have been one dimensional, but he absolutely dominated that one dimension. His efficency was always great, his play usually elevated or stayed constant in the postseason, and unlike a lot of the high volumne scorers that have came up in recent years, he was a phenomenal off the ball player. The Spurs offense was always at or near the top of the league during his prime. Some knock his lack of finals appearances, but how many Finals do you really expect if the best players you ever played with in your prime were Larry Kenon, Artis "Rigor Mortis", and Mike Mitchell?

[Dr Positivity]

Just responding to a few Cowens points -

1. Yes winning in 73 was probably due to Kareem wariness, but he also beat Tiny's big season + Wilt that year (in both MVP and All-NBA), then finished 4th, 2nd and 3rd the next 3 years, which shows more consistency in the votes than Unseld. He beat Rick Barry, Elvin Hayes and Walt Frazier every year, among contemporary stars. He came extremely close to winning a 2nd MVP in 76, Kareem won by 31 total points (16 more than McAdoo) and had 4 more 1st place votes than Cowens.

2. The SRS in the title years isn't the best, but they did drop a 7.34 in 73 and a 5.41 in 75 which is more impressive

3. Fast pace: As far as I can tell Cowens is one of the best fast pace Cs ever due to his size/speed ratio and outlet passing ability. I would say the pace helped his value. We know points aren't effected much by pace and 11-12rpg is still good

4. Falling off after the merger: Well his stats are still ok by 78, but we know he'd lost some of his fervor and impact by that point. Frazier drops off more, though

[penbeast0]

And James Silas, can't forget Captain Late

[Doctor MJ]

I thought the 71 Bucks looked excellent...but not 70-wins excellent.

Hmm. See, I have a hard time with these two facts being true at the same time:

1) The ABA was a new league not anywhere near as good as the NBA.

2) There was a serious talent split between the two leagues and therefore they were both relatively weak.

I can get on board (1) for the fist years, and (2) for the last years, but not simultaneously.

What I will say though is that ABA aside, the NBA was going through some big expansion at the time. # of teams per year:

'55 - 8
'60 - 8
'65 - 9
'70 - 14
'75 - 18

That was probably a factor in the kind of SRS dominance we were seeing.

[Dr Positivity]

One of the biggest things that concerns me about voting Frazier this high is that the Knicks fortunes went downhill with their frontcourt. Severly old Reed led to 49 Ws and a pounding by the Celtics in 74, then Debusschere's absence led to 40 Ws in 75, then putting in Haywood in there didn't help, leading to 38 Ws in 76. Compare this to Gary Payton who slapped together a 61 W season with Vin Baker, Detlef, Hawkins and Perkins after his alpha partner Kemp skipped town. Not saying Payton should go above Frazier, but he's not nominated yet and Frazier is getting votes - which is a bit weird to me.

Frankly I would go as far to say Frazier is a rich man's Chauncey. I don't consider that as much an insult as most because I love Chauncey, he's in my top 80 ahead of losers like Vince and Tmac. Chauncey's PER and WS is almost the same as Frazier's (did you know Chauncey is top 40 in overall WS and top 25 in overall OWS despite a much shorter prime than most? He was not a statistical lame duck), their MVP support was the same, the 00s Pistons are the best comparison for the Knicks I can think of, and Chauncey's Pistons did far better post Ben than Frazier's Knicks did post Reed. I'm almost certain Billups is one of the best playmaking caliber comparisons for Frazier. Both guys probably underrated in that category compared to higher apg guys. I would say Frazier is Chauncey with elite PG defense (but there's only so much stock I put into PG defense, just look at the 75 and 76 Knicks to see Frazier couldn't anchor those teams defensively) and rebounding.

[colts18]

# of teams:
55-61: 8
62-66: 9
67: 10
68: 12 (11 ABA teams)
69-70: 14 (11 ABA teams)
71-74: 17 (10-11 ABA teams)
75-76: 18 (9-10 teams)
77: 22 (Post merger)

So in 1966 there was a total of 9 NBA teams with no split league. By 1971, just a mere 5 years later, there were 17 NBA teams plus 11 ABA teams. That means basketball went from 9 to 28 teams more than tripled in just 5 years.

[ElGee]

I thought the 71 Bucks looked excellent...but not 70-wins excellent.

Hmm. See, I have a hard time with these two facts being true at the same time:

1) The ABA was a new league not anywhere near as good as the NBA.

2) There was a serious talent split between the two leagues and therefore they were both relatively weak.

I can get on board (1) for the fist years, and (2) for the last years, but not simultaneously.

What I will say though is that ABA aside, the NBA was going through some big expansion at the time. # of teams per year:

'55 - 8
'60 - 8
'65 - 9
'70 - 14
'75 - 18

That was probably a factor in the kind of SRS dominance we were seeing.

So in 1966 there was a total of 9 NBA teams with no split league. By 1971, just a mere 5 years later, there were 17 NBA teams plus 11 ABA teams. That means basketball went from 9 to 28 teams more than tripled in just 5 years.

Either, my posts are officially TL;DR or both these were spawned by me mentioning this.

Doc, I agree with what you're saying. It's not a discrete transformation, which is why I said the leagues split "in a way." The expansion issue is a bigger issue in the first few years, then that is compounded with more of a true split league in 74-76 when the top-level talent is distributed a little more evenly.

It then becomes extra tricky trying to gauge some of these guys post-merger because of drugs and injury. So there aren't really any rules, per se, but I do think each player needs a lot of digging to understand performance and circumstance as the carousel went round.

[Doctor MJ]

One of the biggest things that concerns me about voting Frazier this high is that the Knicks fortunes went downhill with their frontcourt. Severly old Reed led to 49 Ws and a pounding by the Celtics in 74, then Debusschere's absence led to 40 Ws in 75, then putting in Haywood in there didn't help, leading to 38 Ws in 76. Compare this to Gary Payton who slapped together a 61 W season with Vin Baker, Detlef, Hawkins and Perkins after his alpha partner Kemp skipped town. Not saying Payton should go above Frazier, but he's not nominated yet and Frazier is getting votes - which is a bit weird to me.

I think it's important to remember that the Knicks sans Reed made the Finals in '72 and that during that playoffs Frazier was first in WS & WS/48 while being 2nd in PER among players who played more than one series. Also in the key '73 series against Boston, Reed was often a shell of himself scoring in the single digits. So I just don't think it's right to say that the Knicks success came and went with an amazing front court.

Re: Frazier vs Payton. Totally understand someone picking Payton here, but just a couple things:

1) I've mentioned that Frazier essentially played in a proto-triangle which reduced his APG but produced some fantastically smart basketball. Payton signed on with the Lakers have no understanding of what the triangle was, struggled with it, and then started whining about his situation all within a fraction of a season at an advanced age where we expect players do be much more mature. So I give Frazier a pretty big edge in BBIQ and leadership.

2) I'll also note that while both scored at similar levels, Frazier was the more efficient of the two by a good margin.

Other than that, their defense is comparable, and Payton has the clear longevity edge which I won't tell you how to factor in.

[ElGee]

Re: Point guard impact (Kidd, Nash, Payton and Frazier)

...

Well, Englemann's single season RAPM stats give me some interesting food for thought.

I feel like there's a little too much stock being put into Englemann's numbers. They aren't gospel.

It's nice to see Kidd do well in them, but I have serious concerns about him. I love seeing people acknowledge how good he is defensively, even late in his career. So savvy, so smart, and like Payton and Dennis Johnson, boy does size to seem help. But Kidd is a guy who has never really run an elite offense, and that's a major reservation since he very clearly is a Quarterback style PG looking to distribute.

Here are his team's ORtg rankings in his prime:

96 19th
97 TRADE
98 12th
99 4th
00 16th*
01 22nd
02 17th
03 18th
04 25th*
05 26th*
06 25th
07 17th

That gives me serious pause. Then you dig deeper, and you notice that in 2000, a year after leading his ONLY top-10 offense, Phoenix had an offensive rating of 104.7 with Kidd starting and 104.1 in 15 games he missed with Randy Livingston "replacing" him (Penny was still offensively savvy then). That's sort of like an anti-Steve Nash thing...

Then he goes to New Jersey and receives a lot of MVP love in the weakest conference basically ever, but no one notices the team is defensively driven. Why? Because they never do. The Suns offense goes from 100.3 (19th) and 2.7 points below league average to 103.3 (19th) and 1.2 points below league average. Relatively speaking, the Suns improved by a 1.5 points there. It was nice to see a non-scorer receive so much love, but the narrative there was way off.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the Nets go from -3.0 relative to the league and ranked 24th to -0.5, ranked 17th, and still below league average. Only the 01 season was marred by injury (Kittles for the season, 15g for Marbury, 33 games for Van Horn, 14 games for Martin) and the 02 season a healthy one that also saw the addition of a dynamic 6th-man in rookie Richard Jefferson. Hard to give Kidd credit for all of that 2.5 point relative shift on offense.

In 2004, the team was +7.0 with Kidd on vs. off on offense. That's about what I'd expect from him. And in 2005, +14.1 (which is where his RAPM figure must come from). And another monster number in 06. Those figures give me pause too, because while I expect Kidd to help offenses and be good, those numbers are suggesting that he was on horrendous offensive teams. I think this is a quintessential case of APM models having no way to account for the fact that it's easier to take a 90 ORtg team and make them a 104 team than a 104 team and make them 118. Those are very different achievements.

Jason Kidd is a good offensive player, but he's not a great offensive player. He won't pressure defenses like someone who can score well too, doesn't use his scoring as a weapon, and for most of his career was basically a bad outside shooter. He, unlike Nash, clearly was better in transition/the open court, especially off of his own (amazing) defensive rebounding. I believe Kidd's strength in the halfcourt comes from being quick with his decisions, and he helps mediocre to bad offenses -- ones that had no backup PG at times in NJ --with those decisions and his ability to push in transition and get easy baskets but this is not someone who was ever an elite offensive player.

I respect your points, especially the one about RAPM not being gospel. But I would suggest that you re-read what I wrote (or perhaps I didn't do a good job of explaining it the first time), because I didn't start from the RAPM angle. Instead, I started from the angle that I've watched Kidd and considered him to be in the offensive quarterback mold...then, I noted that offensive quarterbacks tend to make larger impacts than the more lead-guard types historically speaking...then, I used RAPM as a check for whether my impression and that historical trend held up to the best (not perfect, but the current state of the art) single-season +/- stat we have. And it did. As such, I don't feel like I'm just using RAPM as an out-of-the-blue measure...it seems to confirm trends seen elsewhere.

I do find it very interesting that Kidd's offenses have never been at the top of the league, but I don't find that to be compelling in-and-of itself. Same with the part-time on/off numbers. Essentially, and I've spoken of this elsewhere, I see those things as earlier iterations of the APM families that we have now. If we have no +/- numbers, as in previous generations, then team rankings and injury absences are all that we have to estimate impacts and they are better than nothing. But I consider raw +/- to be a step up from them...and complete on-court/off-court to be a step up from that...and finally APM to be a step up from that as well, because each iteration accounts for the info in the previous evolutionary step but with more info added and more confounds accounted for. I actually like to look at all of the above, but when a less refined method is in conflict with a more refined method, I tend to believe the latter more than the former unless there's a compelling reason why.

And when we get out of the stats and into the reasoning portion of your rebuttal, I don't find it compelling. At its heart, I understand your argument to be essentially that Kidd doesn't do it the way that it's usually done so he can't really be an elite offensive player. You note that he isn't an elite scorer and doesn't have a great jumper, but to me those aren't a comprehensive list of skill sets nor a condemnation of being an elite offensive player. Kidd is also large for his position, was extremely fast for his position, has excellent court vision, is a quick and excellent decision-maker, and is extremely intelligent about the strengths/weaknesses of his teammates and where they need the ball to be effective. You say that he doesn't put pressure on defenses like a scorer would, well I'd counter by saying that scorers don't pressure defenses the way that Kidd would either. The methods are different, but that doesn't of itself make one better than the other.

Plus, though we're focusing as much as we can on offense, as Dr. Mufasa likes to point out there is a connection between offense and defense that isn't easy to separate. Having a point guard that is excellent at recovering possessions (crashing the defensive boards, steals) and facile at using that to quick-start the offense is its own kind of pressure. The personnel on those Nets teams were such that they usually weren't built to excel in the half-court offense anyway...the secondary players were finishers like Martin and Jefferson, not go-to scorers of their own right. And while if Nash led those units they might end up with higher offensive ratings, that would also come with catering the offense to suit his strengths/weaknesses more. Styling the Nets as a defensive team that sparked fast-break opportunities doesn't work as well with Nash as it does with Kidd, and not all of that is due to pure offense vs defense capabilities of the individual PG. Kidd's ability to make a strong individual offensive impact on those teams while allowing them to play a style that catered overall to the skillsets of the team shouldn't just be written off, just because the way he did it isn't the way that others might have.

Plus, I've seen you say this several times in other threads, but I need to see more support on your theory that it's easier to take a bad unit to average than an average unit to great. That sounds like something that we say because it's been said before, but I'm not sure I see the basis or proof of it. Yes, it's easier to take a poor unit to average than from great to great-er, because of diminishing returns. But to me, an individual can only maximize the team he is given. If you're given scraps and make it respectable, that is not necessarily an easier thing to do than taking prime cuts and making a feast out of it.

Anyway, I've gone a bit afield trying to respond to all of your points, but returning to the crux, I would say that my pro-Kidd arguments don't rely on RAPM as a standalone measure. As DocMJ has pointed out, his accolades (independent of RAPM) would have him right there with Payton and ahead of Frazier as is. And his box score advanced stats (also independent of RAPM) like PER are also very competitive with both Payton and Frazier. Even the complete non-statheads would agree that Kidd is one of the better point guards in history. From there, I don't see where it's that much of a stretch for the +/- stats (both net on/off court and APM) to agree that he is among the best as well. As I said above, if anything it seems to me that the RAPM results I site just support the trends that I was already seeing from a lot of different angles.

Great post. Going to try and give it just due in response.

I understand what you're saying about arriving at RAPM. It did come across as though you were heavily banking on RAPM, and I understand that there was a foundation behind it. I agree with your +/- --> On/Off --> APM thinking...although knowing the +/- and lineup trends helps to spot the problems of the other methods a lot.

I've posted the multi-year in/out data I have year: viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1128625#p28729973 Which begs the question, what exactly is that data telling us (there is a response to that in the thread). Just like something like on/off (which it is a subset of), it's not gospel and it does tell us *something* of value...and I literally mean situational value. The more data in the more changing, crunched together environments, the more compelling the data (see Chris Webber)...just like APM.

Which leads me to Kidd and what I wrote earlier. Why is it that his teams didn't fall apart when he was out of the lineup if he was "responsible" for so much improvement as on/off would suggest? I think that's a compelling question, and one we ask of all players. If someone showed great in-game value due to the lineup patterns and substitutions throughout a season and had great on/off/RAPM, but the next year he broke his leg in the preseason, the team made no other changes, and didn't miss a beat, I think we would all find that fairly important.

In 2004, right in the heart of Kidd's prime, he missed 15 games. The Nets basically didn't have a backup point guard, so they started Lucious Harris. Kenyon Martin missed 10 of the 15 games, so it wasn't exactly an inspirational squad of Collins, Harris, Jefferson, Kittles and Rodney Rodgers trotting out there nightly. The results? An offensive rating of 102.5 vs. average defenses of 103.8 (-1.3). But in the 67 games Kidd played, the average ORtg was 100.5 (-2.4)! Technically, better on offense without Kidd.

I LIKE the way Jason Kidd plays offense. To suggest that I'm saying he doesn't do it a certain way is totally missing my point. I just don't think he was incredibly effective in what he did. My eyes tell me he was effective, but it's a limited type of quarterbacking. Magic and Nash are GOAT offensive players because they threaten with the score. Kidd did that at like 40% of those players, at best. (I definitely just made up an arbitrary scale there, and then qualified it with "at best.") It very much reminds me of Wayne Turner, who was one of the winningest PG's in college history and one could say "dominated" (loosely) the 98 Tournament. He was not a great scorer, and a bad outside shooter, but he was an excellent all-around player who would (1) push (2) penetrate (3) rebound and (4) make great passes/decisions to set the table for others. That's Kidd. It's good. It's not great. I don't think adding prime Jason Kidd to a lot of teams makes them elite offenses. I think adding the great offensive players does.

Is it Easier to Improve Weaker Teams?

Amazingly, you are the first person to ask about improving better teams being harder. You are correct, that there is no deep study I can cite. Perhaps that is the subject of a future blog post, as the thought is based in (a) playing basketball and understanding how one person can help glue together 4 scrubs and (b) seeing the trends throughout NBA history (this would be the basis of the the future study).

We can choose to believe, that, coincidentally, ever player we consider good gets "better" at improving teams when he plays on weaker teams. And, that all great players like LeBron James and Moses Malone and so on suddenly get worse when they try and improve stronger teams...or we can conclude that it's harder to improve great teams (diminishing returns) and easier to improve weaker ones.

This has been touched on before, on each individual side of the ball. On offense, as a game of efficiency, it's relatively easy to distribute the ball around to score, say 0.9 pts/pos with remote NBA-level talent. Note, that would be the worst offense in merger history. Putting one key capable player in such an offense helps the other 4 players in the offense BECAUSE they stink (they can't do stuff like create their own offense). So the strengths of the superstar are magnified. You might see such an offense go to 1.00 pts/pos, for a 10 pt Ortg boost. (Kind of like the opposite of the redundancy element we've discussed with James.)

But putting the same good player on an AS team, already operating at great efficiency (say 1.15 pts/pos) isn't likely to see anything close to the same 10 point boost. Why? Those 4 guys on the court aren't helped as much by our superstars ability to create open looks. They aren't even necessarily helped as much themselves by having open looks if the superstar is doubled (again, see: James, LeBron). At its heart, this is because basketball is a game of interaction, not summation.

I understand you probably wanted a scientific paper there, but I don't have one. I can continue to point to historical examples whenever I see them. For instance, I just added Tracy McGrady to the SIO list I linked to above. And from 02-04, without McGrady in 28 games, the Magic scored 87.4 pts per game. With him, they scored 99. They averaged about 92 pace for those 3 years (I'll check the actual efficiency differences later). I'm unaware of a player joining a team operating at 10% better efficiency (say, 110-115 ORtg) and boosting them 13 points or so, to like, you know, a 128 ORtg.

[Gongxi]

Wade it is, I suppose. Still Gilmore for the nomination.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay after much internal debate:

Vote: Dwyane Wade

Very, very tough decision between him Frazier and Nash. In the end, well, my first pass analysis is essentially a RPOY-style analysis. Wade comes out on top there. When I go into a bit more detail about the degree of difficulty relative to the year, that only helps Wade. Peak-wise, I take Wade too.

Lack of longevity? Obviously, part of the issue is that Frazier doesn't get much of a boost there.

Nash in some ways is tougher to judge because he was an All-NBA player before Phoenix, who probably could have been doing more. You could look at him as someone with a near Wade peak but with 10 years of prime. In the end I'm inclined to say that giving Nash too much credit for Dallas puts it into "What if" territory, and as great as Nash has been for Phoenix, it's hard for me to say he's done more for his franchise than Wade for Miami.

[TMACFORMVP]

Vote: Dwyane Wade
Nominate: Gary Payton

[Dr Positivity]

This was a pretty good thread despite only 4 pages and 14 votes, IMO

Here's my count with a few hours left

Vote

Wade (8) - Jerkyway, ElGee, therealbig3, fatal9, Baller24, Gongxi, Doctor MJ, TMACFORMVP
Nash (3) - DavidStern, Dr Mufasa, Fencer reregistered
Baylor (1) - JordansBulls
Frazier (1) - penbeast0, mysticbb

Nom

Gilmore (5) - penbeast0, therealbig3, Gongxi, Doctor MJ, mysticbb
Payton (3) - ElGee, Baller24, TMACFORMVP
Drexler (2) - JerkyWay, JordansBulls
Cowens (2) - Dr Mufasa, Fencer reregistered
Kidd (1) - drza

Nice to see someone with a majority of the votes, still. Still worried that parity will take over at some point soon as it did when Havlicek, Baylor, Ewing got nominated

[An Unbiased Fan]

Vote: Wade

Nomination: Drexler

[shawngoat23]

Vote: Dwyane Wade. I thought I would be voting Frazier here, but I changed my mind. After considering some of the posts.

Nominate: Artis Gilmore. This is a bit shakier than it was last time around.

[pancakes3]

vote: baylor over wade by a hair just because if you look at the peak of what baylor was doing, and the conditions he was doing it under? him not winning a ring is more understandable than the heat this year failing.
nom: drexler

[penbeast0]

So it looks like Wade is voted onto the list and Artis gets nominated

VOTE:

Elgin Baylor – FJS, JordansBulls, pancakes3

Walt Frazier – penbeast0, mysticbb

Steve Nash – DavidStern, Dr Mufasa, Fencer reregistered

Dwyane Wade – Jerky Way, ElGee, therealbig3, Fatal9, Baller24, Gongxi, Doctor MJ, TMACFORMVP, An Unbiased Fan, shawngoat23

NOMINATION:

Clyde Drexler – Jerky Way, JordansBulls, An Unbiased Fan, pancakes3

Artis Gilmore – penbeast0, therealbig3, Doctor MJ, mysticbb, Gongxi, shawngoat23

Gary Payton – ElGee, Baller24, TMACFORMVP

Dave Cowens – Dr Mufasa, Fencer reregistered

Jason Kidd -- drza

[drza]

Sorry I didn't get to vote. Got on the road today to travel out of town, and was unexpectedly off the boards until after voting closed. No matter. Doesn't appear as if it would have made a difference anyway with Wade running away with it