RealGM Top 100 List #32

[Doctor MJ]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

[Doctor MJ]

All this negative talk about Hayes is a little nonsensical...his biggest flaw was shot selection; He was prone to taking a bad 18-footer once or twice a game, which hurt his efficiency. But do those shots, and subsequent small dent to the offense, nullify all the good he does (scoring, rebounding, good help defense)? No way. He was a top-10 player for many years, was he not?

I know people get the impression that I and others pour it on Hayes, but truthfully he's certainly on my radar now and he's not getting any massive penalization in my book.

MVP voting says he was Top 10 6 times. I've got him POY Top 10 4 times, with strong longevity, so he could be my nomination soon. Although I will say, when I think about "scoring" longevity, I also through in a healthy dose of intangibles. When you're with organizations for a long time providing leadership, stability, and adapting to find a valuable niche, that's something I really value. I have trouble seeing Hayes that way.

[drza]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

[ElGee]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

The thing about "Doctor MJ" (an RPOY joke!) is that he is a legit 6-9. He doesn't fudge his height upward like many vertically gifted people, who just assume that mere mortals can't gauge their altitude past a certain point. I'm ~ 6-3, and I've met many a 6-8 and 1/4 folks who push for the 6-9. I've stood next to many an NBA player who wishes he were 6-9. Doc's the real deal.

Andre and his weight comment...lol

[ElGee]

Oh, one thing I will say though is it seems weird to me that TMac is already nominated and Iverson isn't. I'll take TMac's peak over Iverson any day, but that was basically one year. Their average efficiency is basically the same, both showed signs of struggling to make use of talent around them, both had issues with being a good leader, and Iverson played a lot more.

Interesting observation. For me, as of now, I just see McGrady as having consistently better "other" seasons (besides the huge peak), and of course his 02-04 play (and even the second half of 05 maybe) was really quite excellent. I don't think there was a point in that stretch when I thought Pierce was better...maybe close at times (02 or 05), but despite the TS% numbers, McGrady was a borderline stud for many of those years.

I'm not sure Iverson's peak ever as valuable as Mac's "other" seasons, because McGrady could play better D/rebound better and arguably was a better creator on offense in a vacuum.

Nonetheless, it's an interesting comparison because BOTH of these guys have been historically underrated for all the typical reasons: bad teams, bad facial expressions, bad TS%. Ugh.

Iverson earned the only non-Shaq MVP vote in 2000 and won the MVP handily in 2001 (wrong on both accounts, but I'm referencing popular perception here). People act like he was a negative or a cancer. T-Mac had 3 top-8 MVP finishes...in Houston, and finished with 7 all-nba team nods.

It's fair to think perception was radically off, but I've never seen any significant evidence for that for either of these guys (faces, bad teammates and TS% are not evidence). If anything, my digging suggests they were underrated because of Losing Bias.

Your thoughts?

[Doctor MJ]

After DocMJ's post earlier (aside: Doc, you're 6-9? Really?)

Really. (ElGee, can I get a witness?).

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

Well, weight 255 lb (not ripped though, with current level of muscle would be better if I were 235-ish), US shoe size 15.

[Doctor MJ]

Interesting observation. For me, as of now, I just see McGrady as having consistently better "other" seasons (besides the huge peak), and of course his 02-04 play (and even the second half of 05 maybe) was really quite excellent. I don't think there was a point in that stretch when I thought Pierce was better...maybe close at times (02 or 05), but despite the TS% numbers, McGrady was a borderline stud for many of those years.

I'm not sure Iverson's peak ever as valuable as Mac's "other" seasons, because McGrady could play better D/rebound better and arguably was a better creator on offense in a vacuum.

Nonetheless, it's an interesting comparison because BOTH of these guys have been historically underrated for all the typical reasons: bad teams, bad facial expressions, bad TS%. Ugh.

Iverson earned the only non-Shaq MVP vote in 2000 and won the MVP handily in 2001 (wrong on both accounts, but I'm referencing popular perception here). People act like he was a negative or a cancer. T-Mac had 3 top-8 MVP finishes...in Houston, and finished with 7 all-nba team nods.

It's fair to think perception was radically off, but I've never seen any significant evidence for that for either of these guys (faces, bad teammates and TS% are not evidence). If anything, my digging suggests they were underrated because of Losing Bias.

Your thoughts?

It's interesting because I would absolutely say that TMac is typically underrated. While I throw in the fact that he had trouble making Houston come together, people use the 1st round thing to make it sound like he sucked in the playoffs. Far from it. And while I throw in the leadership/work ethic thing, I don't think any amount of work ethic would have saved him from his body's deterioration.

On the other hand, I didn't think it was as clear cut that Iverson was underrated. I thought he was extremely overrated for a long time, but now opinion might have overcompensated. Bottom line is that while he needed a very well designed team to become extremely valuable...the revisionist history that says Mutombo was the secret MVP of the 76er EC champs is totally bogus. And if people have come to the conclusion that McGrady is clearly ahead of Iverson, well then Iverson may well be more underrated than McGrady.

As far as McGrady's other top years, well, I will say that it was basically a lock for him to go for 30 PPG & 55% TS in the playoffs each year. Iverson managed that only once in his whole career, and it was in a first round series where his opponent basically coasted to victory. So me saying TMac had only 1 year above Iverson probably isn't fair.

I guess the thing is with how I see TMac is that I was always felt like he needed to do a bit more to solidify his place in history. '02-03 was great, but after a "throw in the towel year" the next year in Orlando followed by the trade to Houston, I basically thought "Okay, now he needs to put it all together and show us what he's capable of." But of course, Houston never actually improved that much.

The question then is whether it's rational to say "he has to give us some accomplishment to solidify his legacy" in this context. I don't think there's any doubt that Iverson means a hell of a lot more to the 76er organization than TMac means to either the Magic or the Rockets. There's some luck involved with that, and sentiment, both of which need to be watched like a teenager by a liquor cabinet, but we're also fooling ourselves if we think we can remove all luck from this evaluation. After all, removing luck necessitates playing the "what if" game to infinity.

[drza]

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

Well, weight 255 lb (not ripped though, with current level of muscle would be better if I were 235-ish), US shoe size 15.

Ha! I knew it! 276 as of my last physical 2 months ago, baby! And all of it pure, home-grown out of shape man! You got me on the shoes by 1 size (US size 14), though once in high school my Uncle Wally gave me some hand-me-down 15.5s and I wore them for most of my senior year. That has to round up!

Silliness aside and on-topic, I find the entire swing man debate over Iverson, McGrady, Pierce, and even Carter to be fascinating. I agree that shooting efficiency has become more of a holy grail than it should be...my understanding is that the focus on scoring efficiency came from statisticians running regression analysis which shows that scoring efficiency has a correlation with winning. The thing is, "regression" and "correlation" both by definition indicate "estimate"...as in a general trend, not a written in stone law. Wilt and Dantley seem to be good examples of volume scoring at high efficiency that weren't as positive on team impact as they should be, and conversely I'd argue that TMac and Iverson have both become underrated due to it.

The question is, how much? And how to quantify their value, especially in the years before we have any +/- data?

It's an on-going question. All I know is, there were times when I believed (then) that Allen Iverson and/or Tracy McGrady were on the extremely short list for best players in the NBA. And, years later, after a boom in available advanced stats and another decade of basketball analysis, I still believe that, in fact, Iverson and McGrady did have those times of greatness...on a level that Pierce never actually achieved.

Pierce, too, has likely been underrated for a long time...on these boards people don't really put much stock in Dave Berri, but I remember years ago (definitely pre-Big Three era) when Berri wrote his Tragedy of Paul Pierce (found here: http://wagesofwins.net/2007/01/12/the-t ... ul-pierce/ ) that spoke of how underrated that he was and that, according to Wins Produced, he was very comparable with Kobe. And of course, as I've followed the Celtics pretty closely for the past 4 years, I've really watched intently to get a feel for how good he is. Before the '08 season I thought Ray Allen was better than Pierce, but at least in '08 Pierce certainly took on a more important role on the team. But the point is, I've been at the "Pierce is underrated due to team success" party for quite awhile now, and I've been looking hard at his advanced stats for years. So, and perhaps this is hubris on my part, but I really don't think that I'm in the camp that would be underrating Pierce. I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on his game, and what he can do.

I say all of the last paragraph as background to say that, despite all of that, I STILL just don't think that Pierce was ever quite as good as TMac at his best nor Iverson at his. And while I give Pierce credit for modifying his game a bit to play a different role on a championship team, I can't really use this as much of an advantage over TMac or Iverson just because they never got that opportunity.

Thus, bringing it back to the recent DocMJ/ElGee convo, I agree that it's somewhat surprising to see some of the current nominees in the pool before Iverson. Only, for me, I think the surprise is more that it's Pierce that's so clearly ahead of him in these rankings more-so than it being McGrady.

[ElGee]

What's surprising to me is where I have Iverson in all of this. That, and the listed weights of realgm's finest.

I agree with drza that Iverson and Pierce have comparable peaks. Iverson, certainly, in 2001 (and 1999) received a top-5 POY vote from me...something Pierce never did. To retroactively treat him like he wasn't one of the league's best is just off.

I'm like Doc here in that I used to think Iverson was grossly overrated...something about an obsession with ppg and highlight crossovers. But I came to appreciate him, and in recent years have been impressed with what he's done by looking at it from statistical perspectives. (I think in the 01 RPOY thread I broke down his team's scoring in detail.)

So I look at my big board and ask why are Pierce and T-Mac locked in top-40 spots and Iverson is closer to 60. Well, at this stage of the game that doesn't represent a huge gap necessarily (we are farther from the edge of the Bell Curve, so the population density is greater). But maybe more than anything, it's my massive inability to find Iverson a good fit in many team settings.

Yes, I appreciate what he did. Yes, I defend him constantly to those that are slaves to TS%. But when I incorporate that draft element, despite his little warrior heart and (at times) very valuable skills, it's hard for me to take him over so many guys in the 40s and 50s on my list. I give him a little credit for his 2008 season in Denver, but it wasn't that impressive. He's a guy who needs the ball a lot, and if he doesn't have it, he's a 5-11 2-guard, so he needs a big, defensively oriented "point" on offense. Those can be hard to find. And what kind of game/offense does he fit well with? He's not a great spot-up shooter, and the PnR doesn't seem to open up his game.

One of the reason I call it Iverson's Law, is because since his Georgetown days, he just seems built as a basketball player to help weak offensive teams in the same way. Put him on the 86 Celtics and I'm not sure he has the same value...and I certainly don't feel that way about Pierce (especially) nor McGrady. Iverson is the classic example of a flat skill curve, and I think, for good reason.

(And Doc, to your question about drafting Paul...I look at team fit, health and mental issues when putting together my big board. So when I say Paul is getting a boost, I mean I'm giving him a little more credit than just his career so far because I think "great fit, awesomely powerful PG, don't see any mental issues, and maybe some health stuff with the knee." But he's already on year 7, so it's hard for me to drop him down the board because he hasn't proven he can still go in 2012 or 2013. )

[Doctor MJ]

Wow. Well, I'll bet I weigh more than you...so there. I might even have you in shoe size, though at 6-9 maybe not.

Well, weight 255 lb (not ripped though, with current level of muscle would be better if I were 235-ish), US shoe size 15.

Ha! I knew it! 276 as of my last physical 2 months ago, baby! And all of it pure, home-grown out of shape man! You got me on the shoes by 1 size (US size 14), though once in high school my Uncle Wally gave me some hand-me-down 15.5s and I wore them for most of my senior year. That has to round up!

Funny story about hand me downs.

So obviously I'm huge now, but I had a very late growth spurt. I'm a foot taller than I was in 9th grade. I was a solid point guard at the time, but and that I'd grow some more, but I was quite sure I'd never be able to play college ball so I really just focused on other things. Now part of my draw to basketball is a "what might have been thing".

But the smack-hand-to-forehead thing is that I didn't realize I'd grow to be quite tall, because I have a much older brother who is 6'3", and by the time I was in 7th grade I had bigger feet than he did. There were really several clear signs that I might end up being quite large, but I just didn't think about them that much. I just never really took seriously the notion that sports was something I could go places with because I was athletic but not whiz-bang athletic (and I had asthma).

Had I known that I'd end up the tallest kid in my high school, and then grow 3 more inches after that in college and grow into a sturdy frame, I'd have taken basketball a little more seriously. I remember when I realized I had become more like a PF in build than a swingman. Broke my heart a bit. (Whoa, maybe I wouldn't have been too slow...)

Silliness aside and on-topic, I find the entire swing man debate over Iverson, McGrady, Pierce, and even Carter to be fascinating. I agree that shooting efficiency has become more of a holy grail than it should be...my understanding is that the focus on scoring efficiency came from statisticians running regression analysis which shows that scoring efficiency has a correlation with winning. The thing is, "regression" and "correlation" both by definition indicate "estimate"...as in a general trend, not a written in stone law. Wilt and Dantley seem to be good examples of volume scoring at high efficiency that weren't as positive on team impact as they should be, and conversely I'd argue that TMac and Iverson have both become underrated due to it.

The question is, how much? And how to quantify their value, especially in the years before we have any +/- data?

It's an on-going question. All I know is, there were times when I believed (then) that Allen Iverson and/or Tracy McGrady were on the extremely short list for best players in the NBA. And, years later, after a boom in available advanced stats and another decade of basketball analysis, I still believe that, in fact, Iverson and McGrady did have those times of greatness...on a level that Pierce never actually achieved.

Pierce, too, has likely been underrated for a long time...on these boards people don't really put much stock in Dave Berri, but I remember years ago (definitely pre-Big Three era) when Berri wrote his Tragedy of Paul Pierce (found here: http://wagesofwins.net/2007/01/12/the-t ... ul-pierce/ ) that spoke of how underrated that he was and that, according to Wins Produced, he was very comparable with Kobe. And of course, as I've followed the Celtics pretty closely for the past 4 years, I've really watched intently to get a feel for how good he is. Before the '08 season I thought Ray Allen was better than Pierce, but at least in '08 Pierce certainly took on a more important role on the team. But the point is, I've been at the "Pierce is underrated due to team success" party for quite awhile now, and I've been looking hard at his advanced stats for years. So, and perhaps this is hubris on my part, but I really don't think that I'm in the camp that would be underrating Pierce. I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on his game, and what he can do.

I say all of the last paragraph as background to say that, despite all of that, I STILL just don't think that Pierce was ever quite as good as TMac at his best nor Iverson at his. And while I give Pierce credit for modifying his game a bit to play a different role on a championship team, I can't really use this as much of an advantage over TMac or Iverson just because they never got that opportunity.

Thus, bringing it back to the recent DocMJ/ElGee convo, I agree that it's somewhat surprising to see some of the current nominees in the pool before Iverson. Only, for me, I think the surprise is more that it's Pierce that's so clearly ahead of him in these rankings more-so than it being McGrady.

Well, like I say, you can go to far with the efficiency fetish, but when you look the fine difference between good & bad offense, and the +/- leaderboards, it becomes clear that the difference between players is actually quite small in general. It is entirely plausible for a guy to score massive points and have no net impact, and while efficiency does not prevent that, lack of efficiency is a read flag that says "We have no basic indicator that says this guy was a superstar. Tread carefully."

I share your fascination with the AI/TMac/Pierce/Carter combo.

Something I will say is that the more I look at Pierce the more he stands. You look at the efficiency of those 4, and you realize one of these is really not like the others. Pierce was always efficient, while the others weren't. I tend to hope that efficiency will mean that you can play well with other talent, and of course, when Pierce got other talent, he blended right in (which the other guys did not).

Also if you look at the multi-year +/- data, Pierce consistently looks quite strong. In those 3 studies I've quoted about KG's defense, Pierce never ranks below 11th among big minute guys. That puts him in a club with a very select group where the only "questionable" player is Ginobili. Carter, McGrady, and AI aren't anywhere near that level in any of the studies (nor are Kidd or Allen). I realize that those studies doesn't include these guys entire career, but the do encompass quite a lot.

Before the project I I knew I'd vote for Pierce well before where he ranked last time and wondered if he'd be in my top 50, but the more I look at him, the tougher it is to put him behind any of the "B list" guys among current players, and the "A list" guys are all either Top 25 on this list or are young (Howard & Paul).

[Dr Positivity]

Pierce actually made #31 on my personal list in the top 100 thread which kind of blew me away. I do think that everything lines up for him being that high with the exception of how the media told us to feel about him.

[-Kees-]

Hey I've been watching this forum for a while, so I'm kind of keeping track in my head, but is there somewhere where you have the full list so far? I'd like to see it progress, if that's not too much to ask.

Thanks,

Kees

[penbeast0]

It's the first post of the next thread assuming Baller24 has had time to update it.

And I think Dantley may be the one who is becoming underrated. It has become common to talk about him as an "offense stopper" and a malcontent, but he, like Iverson, was a guy who you had to build an offense around his skills and those skills are much easier to build a tremendous offense around than AI's I would think.

You need to feature him offensively like a McHale or Barkley type post up (except that his handles are way better than McHale's, more like Barkley's). If you do that, he will work his man, pass out of double/triple teams in an above average if not outstanding manner, and score 25-30ppg on tremendous, Shaq-like efficiency while getting his defenders in foul trouble. On the other end he isn't great due to his size and defensive intensity but he isn't a bigger problem than AI or Barkley there either. And, he runs the floor well too.

Do I have him ahead of Reggie, Ray Ray, Alex English . . . heck no. But he's right in the mix with Bernard King, Nique etc. and possibly ahead and they are all three ahead of AI. Does that make AI worthless, no. There aren't a lot of guys you can count on for 25ppg+ a night on a consistent basis and even less that did it as long as Iverson (when healthy). But when comparing reasonably consistent 25ppg scorers, Iverson is one of the least impressive.

[colts18]

I would love to hear more about Dantley's ball stopping hurting the offense. he did have 9 .600+ TS% seasons in a row in his prime. Does it matter if he ballhogs, if he makes a shot and does it efficiently?

[drza]

Vote: Gilmore
Nominate: Mourning

ETA: Changing my nomination to Elvin Hayes

[ElGee]

I would love to hear more about Dantley's ball stopping hurting the offense. he did have 9 .600+ TS% seasons in a row in his prime. Does it matter if he ballhogs, if he makes a shot and does it efficiently?

Theoretically, it's possible to average 50 ppg on over 1.000% TS and be one of the worst offensive players in the league.

In Dantley's case, I've looked at 6 big seasons of in/out data from him.

1979 22g 4.0 to 4.1
1980 12g -0.6 to -6.1 (missing 2 games)
1983 59g -2.1 to -6.0 (missing 1)
1985 26g 4.3 to 1.3 (missing 1)
1988 13g -2.0 to 4.9
1989 40g -3.6 to 4.1 (Detroit only - replaced by Aguirre)
EDIT: 1989 Dallas is also worse with Dantley (-5.6 net!), from 0.9 without him to -4.7 with him

So, in 4 of the 6 seasons he misses considerable time, the team performs *better* without him, and 2 cases (early Utah) the team is just horrible, and it doesn't even matter. In Detroit they are good, but jump to elite without him. Of 178 In/Out player seasons in my database, Dantley has 3 of the 5 worst and 4 in the bottom 17. Not one single other player is close to showing that kind of impact.

His numbers in those seasons:

1979 17.3 ppg 58.9% TS
1980 28 ppg 63.5% TS
1983 30.7 ppg 66.1% TS
1985 26.6 ppg 60.7% TS
1988 20 ppg 61.9% TS
1989 19.2 ppg 58.1% TS

I'd say there's a reason he was traded multiple times and that his teams show no notable declines when he leaves or improvements when he arrives.

It's interesting to note that the Lakers soured on him and they were merely a .500 team without him. It just was that clear something was wrong with the way he played (and consider that it's his best In/out run by a mile of the 6 seasons...and it's not so coincidentally the one in which he had the smallest role).

I'm going to need to see some serious argumentation for Adrian Dantley to get a vote from me in this project.

[ronnymac2]

Theoretically, it's possible to average 50 ppg on over 1.000% TS and be one of the worst offensive players in the league.

That's why I can't get an NBA contract...

[Doormatt]

dont mean to interrupt, but i was going through some of the older threads and found this post by TLAF about dantley's scoring, compared to kobe:

Well, I'd say Kobe. But the question is pointless. You can't just look at scoring in a vacuum and ignore the other effects of the person shooting the ball on pace, passing, chemistry, offensive style...so many different things.

Like most statistics, TS% is a relative term. Adrian Dantley is, perhaps, the best example of this and being a chemistry killer. (Okay...maybe second to Reggie Theus.) On paper, Dantley gets a decent amount of assist and scores with remarkable efficiency. AD is in the top 5 of all time in TS%, a remarkable achievement for a volume scoring G-F. But it doesn't matter. He was not nearly as good of a scorer as his numbers show.

We often forget the most valuable statistic. They're called "wins." If a player puts up fantastic numbers on a team that gets 30-35 wins, one of two things must be true.

1) The supporting cast is epically bad and might not win 20 games with an "average" player replacing the fantastic-numbers player.
2) The fantastic-numbers player is not really that valuable.

There is no #3. And #2 happens a lot. It's a good example of player value. A valuable player gets their team to win. His numbers are usually relevant to this...but, ultimately, they are secondary. The prime example for me is Kareem in 1977. Without him, the Lakers were truly lousy. They had no real point guard. Other than Kermit Washington--who played barely 1300 minutes in the season--they had no other low post defenders or scorers. Really, they didn't have much in the way of perimeter backcourt D either. The two decent players on the team other than Kareem were on the downhill slide and would be out of the league in two years or less. That team won 52 games. It's incredible. Put an "average" C on that team, and I'd be amazed if they won 30 games. Kareem was worth more than 20 wins that year; maybe 25. He was the MVP.

(This, incidentally, points out why MVP voting is generally good. People that dislike MVP voting often point out that players on sub-40 win teams rarely get into the top 3. That's because they shouldn't. If you're a top 3 player in the league, you should be making a 20-25 win team into a 40 win team. If that doesn't happen, the odds are that the player is not that valuable, despite great numbers.)

That #2 happened all the time with Dantley. Dantley's scoring never seemed to help his team much. When he was a "good" (18-22 ppg) scorer, teams didn't want him. When he was a "great" scorer, with Utah, the teams did poorly. When Dantley was hurt in his peak period, the teams did just as well without him. The 1981 Jazz without Dantley were probably better than the 1977 Lakers without Kareem. The Jazz had Darrell Griffith that year. They had Wayne Cooper and Allan Bristow, who were okay players (and were young and improving). They won 28 games. The next year they lost Cooper, but Rickey Green blossomed into a good player. They added Jeff Wilkins and Danny Schayes, who were okay out there. They dropped to 25 wins. The next year, Dantley was injured for most of the year, missing 60 games. The missing court time was taken up by a combination of John Drew and Jerry Eaves. The Jazz went up to 30 wins.

My conclusion is that Dantley's scoring--he averaged about 30 ppg while in Utah--was meaningless. His efficiency is irrelevant. His TS% is irrelevant. His scoring did not help his team. Looking at a "system," or counting possessions shows that you are spending a lot of time crunching numbers and not so many watching basketball. If you are scoring a lot of points to the detriment of the rest of your team, you are not ever going to be a great scorer. Efficient, possibly. High volume, certainly. but "good"--and I am thinking good means "something good comes from it"--no.

In that sense (which is a real world sense), Kobe Bryant's scoring is always better than Dantley's. Which is not to say that Kobe's scoring has always been "good" either. Personally, I am of the opinion that the 2005 Lakers were a decent team without Kobe. Plenty of talent there and a good coach. I think the chemistry of the team was horrible, and I think Kobe was the primary cause. His statistics in 2005 are really about the same as in 2004. But the 2004 Kobe was a better scorer. It's because his scoring helped his team more (even if the 2004 Lakers had chemistry issues, they did win 56 games and go to the finals).

Now, if we're trying to set this up as a "well, we're talking about pure scoring" or something like that...nonsense. Ridiculous. It's like asking how fast a car is in a laboratory rather than on a track. What's the point? Scoring is a function of offensive play; the byproduct of scoring and ultimate goal is victory. Adrian Dantley scored about the same amount of points of points per game as Kobe Bryant. He did it with less shots. Anyone who looks at those two statistics in a vacuum, out of the real world context, will try to argue that Dantley should be talked about with Kobe as a scorer, perhaps placed ahead. It's completely wrong. Dantley was the more efficient scorer. But that efficiency meant very, very little in the actual games. The better scorer was and is Kobe Bryant.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=844438&start=30

take it for what you will, but i thought it was a good post and deserved some mention now that Dantley is apparently getting some consideration.

[Eagle24]

lol @ the 05 Lakers being decent without Kobe.

lol @ dude who said Pau was more impactful than Bryant for the 09-10 championship runs.

[therealbig3]

AI's game is dependent on him being the only true offensive star. Pierce clearly showed that he could fit in with other superstars, T-Mac was very good in 05 and 07 in Houston before the injuries hit him hard, and Carter with NJ played with Kidd and Jefferson, and Harris and Lopez, and he did quite well there too. He actually had a pretty big impact.

Also, I like to look at what do these guys bring outside of their main contribution, scoring? IMO, basketball is composed of simple elements: offense, defense, rebounding, and intangibles (although intangibles are overblown sometimes). Offense is composed of both scoring and passing, and the overall impact of your presence (ex: Dirk's ability to space the floor). AI's offense lifts a poor team offense to mediocre heights. But it's specifically his scoring. Looking beyond that, I don't see him as being a great playmaker, because his mindset and shot selection prevented him from being one. He certainly had the ability, but he didn't really use it. His defense and rebounding were average, at best.

Carter, Pierce, and T-Mac provided big contributions outside of scoring, and they can fit much better in different settings...that's why I think they were better players than AI, T-Mac and Pierce especially.