Real GM Top 100 List #27

[penbeast0]

Criteria: Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball.

Voting Will End In 2 Days at 10PM EST (note the new time as school is restarting)

Please vote and nominate

Newest addition:

Jason Kidd

NBA Champion 2011
5x All-NBA 1st Team
1x All-NBA 2nd Team
4x All-Defense 1st Team
5x All-Defense 2nd Team
10x All-Star
Rookie of the Year 1995


George Gervin

5x All-NBA 1st team
2x All-NBA 2nd team
2x All-ABA 2nd Team
12x All-Star (3 ABA, 9 NBA)
All-Star MVP (1980)
Hall of Fame (1996)


Clyde Drexler

* NBA Champion 1994
* 1x 1st All-NBA
* 2x 2nd All-NBA
* 2x 3rd All-NBA
* 10x All-Star


Gary Payton

NBA Champion (2006)
2× All-NBA First Team Selection
5× All-NBA Second Team Selection
2x All-NBA Third Team Selections
NBA Defensive Player of the Year (1996)
9x 1st Team All-Defense
9× All-Star


Artis Gilmore

ABA MVP 1972
ABA Champion 1975
ABA Playoff MVP 1975
5x All-ABA 1st Team
4x ABA All-Defense 1st Team
1x NBA All-Defense 2nd Team
ABA All-Star Game MVP 1974
5xABA All-Star
6xNBA All-Star
ABA Rookie of the Year 1972
Hall of Fame 2011



John Stockton

2x All-NBA 1st Team
6x All-NBA 2nd Team
3x All-NBA 3rd Team
5x All-Defense 2nd Team
10x All-Star
All-Star MVP (1993)
NBA’s All-Time leader in Assists
NBA’s All-Time leader in Steals
Hall of Fame 2009


Isiah Thomas

2x NBA Champion (1989, 1990)
NBA Finals MVP (1990)
3× All-NBA 1st Team
2x All-NBA 2nd Team
12× All-Star
2x All-Star MVP (1984, 1986)
Hall of Fame (2000)


John Havlicek

* 8x NBA Champion
* Finals MVP (1974)
* 4x All-NBA First Team Selection
* 7x All-NBA Second Team Selection
* 5x NBA All-Defensive 1st Team Selection
* 3x NBA All-Defensive 2nd Team Selection
* 13x AllStar
* Basketball HOF Player (1984)


Patrick Ewing

* 1x All-NBA First Team Selection
* 6x All-NBA Second Team Selection
* 2x NBA All-Defensive 2nd Team Selection
* 11x All-STar
* Rookie of the Year (1986)
* Basketball HOF Player (2008)


Rick Barry

* NBA Champion (1975)
* NBA Finals MVP (1975)
* 5× All-NBA First Team Selection
* 1× All-NBA Second Team Selection
* 4× All-ABA 1st Team Selection
* Rookie of the Year (1966)
* NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
* 12× All-Star (8 NBA, 4 ABA)
* Voted to the HOF in 1987

[penbeast0]

mysticbb’s list


VOTE
John Stockton

NOMINATE
Reggie Miller

[penbeast0]

Voting Candidates
The PGs are here. John Stockton is as efficient as just chosen Steve Nash and better assists and defense though less scoring. Isiah Thomas and Gary Payton are very similar statistically with Isiah having more team success and Payton having much greater defensive strength. I lean to Stockton and Payton over Thomas.

Among the wings, Havlicek had a clear defensive edge but wasn't as dominant a scorer as the others, particularly Gervin. Gervin didn't pass the way all the others did. Accolades indicate that contemporary observers were less impressed with Drexler and Pierce and support the Havlicek defensive edge -- Hondo is my favorite here though Pierce is surprisingly strong in adjusted numbers.

REGULAR SEASON – Gervin is the best scorer but doesn’t have the playmaking
Barry 6.6 reb 4.6ast 24.2pts .525ts%
Havlicek 6.6reb 4.8ast 21.1 pts .491ts%
Drexler 6.5reb 5.9ast 21.7pts .548ts%
Gervin 5.8reb 2.8ast 27.1pts .566ts%
Pierce 5.9reb 3.7ast 21.6pts .569ts%


PLAYOFFS – All perform at a similar or even better rate in their playoffs (in 38-41 mpg)
Barry 6.8 reb 4.5ast 28.7pts .518ts%
Havlicek 7.3reb 4.8ast 23.1 pts .502ts%
Drexler 7.1reb 6.4ast 21.0pts .534ts%
Gervin 7.0reb 2.9ast 27.1pts .560ts%
Pierce 6.5reb 4.0ast 21.4pts .559ts%

ADJUSTED (pace adjusted points and efg adjusted ts%) -- Pierce really is helped by the pace adjustment
Barry (league average 110.2) = 21.9adj ppg (.455 league efg) ..575 adj ts%
Havlicek (league average 112.3) = 18.7adj ppg (.441 league efg) .554 adj ts%
Drexler (league average 106.5) = 20.2adj ppg (.491 league efg) .556adj ts%
Gervin (league average 109.2) =24.7adj ppg (.482 league efg) .585 adj ts%
Pierce (league average 97.0) = 22.0adj ppg (.485 league efg) .584 adj ts%

ACCOLADES -- Havlicek didn't even have All-Def his whole career
Barry – 5x1st, 1x2nd All-NBA, 4x1st All-ABA, Finals MVP, .592 (4th in 75, 4th in 76)
Havlicek – 5x1st, 7x2nd All-NBA, 5x1st, 3x2nd All-Def, Finals MVP, .217 MVP (4th in 72, 5th in 73)
Drexler – 1x1st, 2x2nd, 2x3rd All-NBA, .778 MVP Shares (2nd in 1992)
Gervin – 5x1st, 2x2nd All-NBA, 2x2nd All-ABA, .991 MVP Shares (2nd in 78 and 79, 3rd in 80)
Pierce – 1980 Finals MVP, 1x2nd, 3x3rd All-NBA, .040 MVP Shares (best is 7th in 09)



Ewing and Gilmore are the big men here. I still prefer Artis Gilmore to Patrick Ewing despite the various posts on him (almost all of which ignore his ABA prime to focus on his NBA years). Although his NBA career isn't overwhelming for anything but scoring efficiently, still a 20ppg scorer who it the MOST EFFICIENT PLAYER IN NBA HISTORY is pretty damnedintriguing. Artis was also the better rebounder, and in his ABA days, the better defender. Someone in another thread attacked him as not making a big difference on the teams he joined but when he joined a talented Kentucky team they went from 44 wins to 68, a difference of 24 wins and from a defensive rating of 9/11 to one of 2nd/11 in the league despite losing previous year starters Darrel Carrier and Goose Ligon to injury. When he joined Chicago in the merger, they went from 24 wins to 44 wins (playoffs) and from 9/18 defensively to 2nd/22 despite losing starters Tom Boerwinkle and All-Def/All-Star Bob Love to career ending injuries.

This is despite the coach making him tied for 4th among the 5 starters in fga shooting less than the appreciably less efficient Mickey Johnson, Wilbur Holland, and Scott May who were the remaining starters other than aging PG Norm Van Lier. Adding no-D gunners like Orlando Woolridge and Reggie Theus in later years continued this trend . . . and Artis was a shy guy who wouldn't complain or demand the ball (his greatest weakness). Just to compare, When Ewing was drafted by the Knicks they went from 24 wins to 23 though he played only 50 games. The next year he played 63 and they won . . . 24.


Vote: John Havlicek

[penbeast0]

For the nomination:

PG -- It is between the great playmaking but inefficient even for his era (especially in playoffs) Bob Cousy, and the young gun with 2 great years but only 5 1/2 years total, Chris Paul. Other candidates include the injury prone Kevin Johnson, the surprisingly efficient Chauncey Billups, and possibly Hal Greer or Lenny Wilkens from the 60s or the purely offensive Nate Archibald or Pete Maravich from the 70s.

Wings -- On the wings, the statistical comparisom seems to favor Paul Pierce. I love Moncrief and would take his peak over that of Pierce but 5 good years v. 12 makes me pause. 5 years got Wade in though and my choice of Dwight Howard doesn't give you much more but I just can't help but feel that Howard dominates the game more than Moncrief ever did . . .

Big Men -- Dwight Howard is the best of the modern post players left and would probably be my choice here. Zo had health issues and was always a step behind the best like Shaq/Robinson/Duncan/etc. Willis Reed and Wes Unseld weren't as individually dominant and broke down faster too, while Neil Johnston and Mel Daniels played against inferior competition during their primes and were more limited besides. Dave Cowens was an inefficient scorer and not a great help defender though a super hustle guy. Bob McAdoo while his 5 year peak is spectacular, didn't play big man defense and his teams didn't dominante; Bob Lanier and Walt Bellamy had nice numbers but their teams weren't that much either and Detroit with Lanier sucked defensively for 9 of Lanier's 10 prime years which I consider pretty bad. Finally there is Dikembe Mutombo who was a great shot blocker and consistent player for years. Finally, Bill Walton had one great year but every other year he broke down and left the Portland and San Diego teams which had built around him destroyed until he made another 1 year comeback as a top reserve. I wouldn't choose a one in eight shot at catching lightning in a bottle at the expense of a virtually guaranteed team crash the other seven over any of the above named players.

At PF, McHale didn't rebound as well and doesn't beat out Howard for efficiency, McHale's main argument -- especially when Howard draws a lot more defensive attention. Hayes does rebound that well but was inefficient and a jerk, and Bobby Jones and Dennis Rodman may be the greatest pair of defensive forwards but Jones, while extremely efficient, didn't score or rebound that much while Rodman had no offense and for 1/2 his career, left his man at times to pad his defensive stats at the team's expense.


NOMINATE -- Dwight Howard

[Fencer reregistered]

Reggie Miller? I look forward to seeing the argument for that one.

Nominate: Paul Pierce, yet again.

There's a Pierce vs. TMac thread, for that discussion. I don't see anything that to overturn the argument that Pierce is a much more efficient scorer, has better longevity, and has proved he can play winning ball in tough playoff series.

As for Pierce vs. Reggie Miller -- much more versatility.

Similar arguments should cover Pierce vs. any other wing player somebody wants to suggest. And we have plenty of PGs on the list right now.

Vote: Havlicek This time I have no strategic fallback like the Baylor alternative last time. I favor Havlicek over Ewing (8-0 in rings, better offensively to the eye test notwithstanding Ewing's big-man-style numbers).

[penbeast0]

Dwight Howard has played 7 full seasons -- about the same number of games as Wade in one less year without the injuries. In that time, he has 4 top 5 MVP finishes, 3 Defensive Player of the year awards, has led the league in rebounding 3 times, and for the last 5 years has averaged over 30ppg with a TS% over .600 each of those years. That seems impressive enough to put him over the defensively weak McAdoo with his selfishness and substance issues or even Pierce though Pierce certainly has a longevity advantage.

[Snakebites]

Vote: Patrick Ewing

Nominate: Ummm.....

[Fencer reregistered]

Dwight Howard has played 7 full seasons -- about the same number of games as Wade in one less year without the injuries. In that time, he has 4 top 5 MVP finishes, 3 Defensive Player of the year awards, has led the league in rebounding 3 times, and for the last 5 years has averaged over 30ppg with a TS% over .600 each of those years. That seems impressive enough to put him over the defensively weak McAdoo with his selfishness and substance issues or even Pierce though Pierce certainly has a longevity advantage.

And amidst frequent turnover on both teams' rosters, the Magic have gone deeper into the playoffs than the Celtics twice since Howard has been in the league. One of those was in Pierce's injury season, when the Celtics missed the playoffs and the Magic got swept in the first round.

While team success alone of course proves very little, that does cast some doubt as to whether Howard has been so much better than Pierce since coming into the league as to make up for all the many more years that Pierce has played well. E.g, it's still 9 all-star appearances vs. 5, and none of Pierce's (or Howard's for that matter) were of the undeserved Yao/Carter variety.

[JordansBulls]

VOTE: John Havlicek
Nominate: Kevin Mchale

[therealbig3]

Vote: Ewing
Nominate: Pierce

[Gongxi]

Still Ewing. More to follow on the nominee...

[andrewww]

for me it'd be between hondo and isiah.

[ronnymac2]

Edit!!:

Vote: Rick Barry

Nominate: Dwight Howard

Sticking to my guns with Barry...

My nomination might change, but I think Dwight is a reasonable choice. Alonzo Mourning is right there, too. Pierce, McAdoo, Moncrief, Nique, and T-Mac are on my radar. CP3, too.

[lorak]

vote: Ewing
nominate: Dwight

[JerkyWay]

I feel like going by MVP shares is a good idea at this point.

Vote: Patrick Ewing
Nominate: Elvin Hayes

McAdoo

I thought everyone forgot about McAdoo and he's going to be a great omission...He was basically Dirk with lesser range but much better rebounding. Dude was utterly dominant scorer for a few years, but he was also named an MVP in 1974-75 and Top 2 MVP voting twice (74 and 76). He's my next nomination.

I have weird problems with my computer and I'm not sure if it'll still work later today or tomorrow, so my next vote is Clyde Drexler.

[drza]

If anyone has the interest in doing it, I'd like to read more about Hayes. A quick, surface B-R view tells me he has nice accolades (6-time All-NBA 1st/2nd team (no 3rd team in his day), 6-time top-10 MVP finishes), that he has nice volume point/rebounding totals but his shooting efficiency was low (which lowered his advanced box score stats), and that he was at least a solid defender (2-time All Defense 2nd team). I remember from the RPoY project that he had a reputation for bad attitude and that Unseld was often given credit for leading their teams despite that, but I also remember a sentiment that Hayes' reputation was at least partially undeserved and that he was clearly the best player on some of their contending teams. Hayes was also a ridiculous iron-man, playing in at least 80 games every year of his 16-year career.

I'd like to get a bit more depth about him, though, for positive or for negative. Since he never missed any time, it looks impossible to do any kind of in-season impact estimates for him...he did play for 5 teams during his 20s, though, so I don't know if any kind of rougher pre-arrival/post-departure estimates could be made. Any of the old heads have any insight or articles handy to paint a more vivid picture of him?

[lorak]

re: Hayes

Rockets

1968 - no Hayes
-7.9 SRS, 15-67 W-L

1969 - rookie Hayes
-0.3 SRS, 37-45 W-L
other major changes: added Barnett and two role players (Adelman and Lantz)

Looking at ElGee's ortg/drtg from RPOY threads:
1968 -5.7 ortg and +1.3 drtg
1969 -3.2 ortg and -3.0 drtg

So it seems Hayes even as a rookie had impact on both ends of the floor, but small on O and very impressive on D.

Other seasons as a Rocket confirms that: SanDiego/Houston with Hayes always was worse than average on offense and better than average on defense.

When Hayes left Houston they immediately improved on offense (~ +1 ortg in 1973), but regressed on defense (~ +2.5)

So his impact was something we should expect from player who was very inefficient on offense (TS below 50% !) but was very good rebounder and probably great shot blocker and very good at stealing the ball.

And Rockets in 1973 didn't regressed much without Hayes, but team changed a lot as they added three new player to starting five, so any conclusions based on that wouldn't seem sound.

--------
Bullets
1972 - no Hayes
-1.26 SRS, 38-44 W-L

1973 - with Hayes
+2.85 SRS, 52-30 W-L

Other major changes:
Riordan played full season (in '72 he was added in midseason and played 54 games as Bullet)
and Kevin Porter was a rookie (played 17 MPG)

ortg/drtg estimations
1972 -0.7 ortg, +0.3 drtg
1973 +0.8 ortg, -2.4 drtg

So again it seems Hayes had significant impact on defense, but almost non on offense.

During next 8 seasons with Hayes Bullets almost always were better than average on defense (the only exception is '80 season when they had +0.4 drtg), sometimes even all time great good like in '75 with -6.4 drtg.

However their offense suffered as in 5 of these 8 seasons they had ortg worse than league average, two other times were barely above average and only once they had really good offense with Hayes: +3.6 ortg in 1979.

When he left Washington team slightly improved without him, but he was 35 at the time, so was definitely past his prime. And also other major changes happened - Unseld ended his career in 1981 and in '82 Bullets added Spencer Haywood and Ruland.

His last three seasons in Houston - when he joined Rockets they stayed about the same in terms of ortg and drtg as year earlier. But in 1983, when Moses was in Phily, Rockets had one of the worst offense of all time: -7.7 ortg! In 1984 Hayes played only 12 mpg and of course Rockets offense was much better (but still worse than LA: -2.3).


So I think Hayes during most of his career had good, maybe sometimes very good impact on defense but average (maybe slightly above average during several best seasons) or negative on offense.

Maybe he was scoring more, defending worse 1on1 and causing more off and on court problems version of Nate Thurmond? ;]

[drza]

Re: Advances in medicine

As I was reading the OP, I had a thought. First, this is how the mission of this project is described:

"Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball. "

To me, then, the emphasis then is more on how good a player plays than on their circumstances. And one circumstance that we haven't spent much time on is the advances in medicine over the last 50 years, especially the advances in orthopedic treatments over the last three decades.

I was reminded of this when thinking about Elgin Baylor, as even his detractors noted that he was a different player early in his career before major knee injury slowed him. In the RPoY project, an unofficial trend was set that we judged players on what they did, and if they were injured that was a mark against them. And that worked, because we were comparing players of the same time. But if we're comparing Baylor with players 40 years later who may or may not have been better players but who had access to better medicine, is it really fair to count his injury history against him? There's no way to quantitatively KNOW how a player's career would be different under different conditions, but just like we at least put some thought into whether a player's game could translate to different eras stylistically and and athletically, I think I'll start at least taking medical considerations into effect when it comes to my evaluations.

Which brings me around to Bill Walton. As is, he is EXTREMELY difficult to rate because of his ridiculous injury history. He had potential top-10 talent and a potential top-10 season, but due to injuries he only played in about half of his games during his shortened 5-year prime (with really only 1 finished season) and then in about 70% of the games in 4 years after re-inventing himself as a lesser impact player (with again 1 full season). However, in the last decade we've seen two more giant centers with repeated and crippling foot/lower leg injuries. Yao recently retired from his, but he at least got in 7 seasons of playing more than 80% of the available games at a level similar to the best he ever showed. Ilgauskas lost 3 full seasons to his repetitive foot surgeries, but eventually came out on the other side and had another 8 seasons or so of playing at a similar production level to give him 9 seasons in which he played over 90% of the games. Of course, there are cases like Greg Oden, but he's still young enough that he could come out on the other side...we don't know yet.

Again, I can't know EXACTLY what would have happened with Walton using more modern orthopedic techniques. But I think I could justify bumping up his games played percentages maybe 15 or 20% and have that be a reasonable estimate. Which makes me re-think him a bit:

With 5 years of playing 50% of prime games and 4 more years of playing 70% of lesser years, he's going to fall ridiculously lower than his actual game would have predicted.

But with (for example) 6 years of playing 70% of prime games and 5 more years of playing 80% at lesser quality, while still lower than his game would project, I could more easily see myself voting him into the top 40.

Just some food for thought.

[pancakes3]

Looking at ElGee's ortg/drtg from RPOY threads:
1968 -5.7 ortg and +1.3 drtg
1969 -3.2 ortg and -3.0 drtg

So it seems Hayes even as a rookie had impact on both ends of the floor, but small on O and very impressive on D.

...

ortg/drtg estimations
1972 -0.7 ortg, +0.3 drtg
1973 +0.8 ortg, -2.4 drtg

So again it seems Hayes had significant impact on defense, but almost non on offense.

...

So I think Hayes during most of his career had good, maybe sometimes very good impact on defense but average (maybe slightly above average during several best seasons) or negative on offense.

I don't know why a +2.5 ortg with the Rockets (as a rookie no less) and a +1.5 ortg with the bullets (after losing all-nba 2nd team point guard Archie Clark halfway through the season) constitutes "no effect", or even a "negative effect" on offense. furthermore the defensive impact with the bullets is doubly impressive because they were already a solid defensive squad without Hayes (5th in the league in opp ppg).

[lorak]

Looking at ElGee's ortg/drtg from RPOY threads:
1968 -5.7 ortg and +1.3 drtg
1969 -3.2 ortg and -3.0 drtg

So it seems Hayes even as a rookie had impact on both ends of the floor, but small on O and very impressive on D.

...

ortg/drtg estimations
1972 -0.7 ortg, +0.3 drtg
1973 +0.8 ortg, -2.4 drtg

So again it seems Hayes had significant impact on defense, but almost non on offense.

...

So I think Hayes during most of his career had good, maybe sometimes very good impact on defense but average (maybe slightly above average during several best seasons) or negative on offense.

I don't know why a +2.5 ortg with the Rockets (as a rookie no less) and a +1.5 ortg with the bullets (after losing all-nba 2nd team point guard Archie Clark halfway through the season) constitutes "no effect", or even a "negative effect" on offense.

You forget about: "slightly above average during several best seasons"

And yes, he improved Rockets offense by about 2.5 pts as a rookie, but they still were very bad offensive team (-3.2 ortg). So overall Hayes impact on offense isn't too impressive and it's no surprise as he was very ineffective scorer and didn't provide anything more to offense except scoring.