RealGM Top 100 #35

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Gervin

Nomination: Eh, looks like neither has a shot, so going back to Miller over Paul.

Regarding Iverson, the salient point I think everyone needs to consider is that while he had a very solid longevity in terms of his capabilities, the number of years where he was truly having anything like superstar impact is imho far smaller. How does one rate that in this context where truly, if circumstances were different, I think Iverson could have kept leading his team to near contender status for a long time, or have never led good teams at all? A very good question.

Personally, I just think the years of inefficient wheel spinning is simply not something I can chalk up to bad luck. I wouldn't expect a high volume low efficiency guy to be super-valuable on most teams, and so when that lack of value happens as I'd expect, I do hold it against a guy relative to other guys such as Reggie Miller who basically would find a way to be valuable anywhere without taking much off the table and clearly showed he was capable of becoming a full on volume scorer efficiently when his team needed it.

[Fencer reregistered]

At some point we're going to have a Dwight vs. McHale discussion.

Who do you guys think achieved his efficiency in the face of more regular double-teams? It's natural to say "The one who didn't play next to Bird", but from the eye test I don't think that's actually true, even when starting line-ups were on the court.

Why not kick it off? I've seen you argue Mchale's impact before, but I think you'd have to make a pretty strong case to overcome the defensive and rebounding advantages that Howard brings. Mchale was a very good defender in his own right, but my current feel is that Howard's ability to help-defend is much greater than Mchale's defensive versatility. And offensively, seemingly Howard has been playing a more central role on the Magic than Mchale did for the Celtics. But this is my current thought. I'd be interested in seeing that fleshed out, maybe learning something to change my mind.

Another, perhaps more interesting debate to me, is Mchale vs the swingmen. It is my stance that Howard has already reached a higher level than them, with the only question being longevity. If your stance (and I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth) is that Mchale may be better than Dwight, and Mchale actually does have a full career under his belt, how do you see him matching up with the McGrday, Pierce, Nique and Gervin crew? Both stylistically, and in terms of impact?

On one level, it's a no-brainer to say that Howard has had more offensive impact, because Orlando built the team to have him as the only inside threat. By way of contrast, Bird could score from anywhere, including inside, and Parish was a jump-shooting, floor-running big man who also had some post moves.

When you look at raw volume, McHale per 36 minutes scored a little more than Dwight, getting a few more FGA, a few fewer FTA, but being a lot close than that in FT makes. I concede that pace, fast-break finishing, and putbacks all enter into that -- but if one is going to hold Bird-as-teammate against McHale in other ways, one should also grant that McHale's volume is held down by the same awesome teammate competition. Actually, I shouldn't include putbacks; Dwight gets offensive rebounds at an even higher rate than McHale did.

So on the numbers they're pretty much the same offensive player, except for FT%. To the eye test, however, I have McHale shooting over and around double teams, while Howard powers past single teams and gets fouled on the way by. Hence the eye test issue I raised; IF my perceptions are correct, that's a big advantage to McHale.

I agree that Howard is a more influential on defense than McHale, but perhaps not the extent one might first think. McHale was a long, smart, quick guy with good-enough hops. I.e., as a man defender I think McHale was substantially better, not that Howard faces the man defensive challenges McHale did. I do agree that Howard's shotblocking is a bigger advantage over McHale than the simple numbers would seem to suggest, and suffices to give him the overall defensive advantage in the comparison.

If I'm right about those double teams, this also suggests that McHale's offensive rebounding had a higher degree of difficulty than Dwight's. I've also written at length before that the defensive rebounding stats are skewed by role, specifically that McHale's role was as third-option rebounder, getting out on the break while the top two options handled the matter -- especially when he was playing perimeter defense, as he often did. Still, to the eye test, Howard has superb hops, great strength, and fine rebounding judgment, so while I'd argue that the magnitude of the rebounding gap is overstated, they're a lot closer in that regard than the numbers seem to suggest.

And of course McHale had a longer career than Howard has to date, with 50% more regular season minutes played and over 150% more postseason ones.

Both guys have mild increases in their stats in the playoffs.

[Fencer reregistered]

I'm sorry, but I'll duck the McHale vs. wings question for now, mainly because I need to get to bed. (I'm operating on 2 hours sleep.)

[ElGee]

Paul looks like he has less support than ever. Apparently my (non-refuted) posts are having some sort of backwards effect, or Penbeast continuing to (strangely) say 2008 is the only year of value from Chris Paul is working like a Jedi Mind trick. (Sid Moncrief, btw, was injured during the 1986 PS. Which is a bit of issue for me I glossed over in the RPOY, and shortens his best years even more.)

With that said, I'm switching my nomination to Reggie Miller.

And since that makes this, shockingly, Iverson vs. Miller, why would Iverson get the nod? There's very little to suggest he had a significantly better peak, and Miller's longevity is just phenomenal. Not to mention he fits well in so many spots.

I guess that's my biggest separator between these two guys. I understand criteria is a little different for some, but how do you reconcile how well Reggie Miller seems to fit, umm, basically everywhere, how consistent he was, how dedicated...in other words, what a good investment he was. Versus Iverson, who I defend constantly, but just isn't as easy to build around. You're stuck playing him at the 2 basically, and that creates a few issues on offense and defense if building 7+ SRS teams is your goal. (It's my goal )

With all the great examples of the power of shooters and spacing we've seen in this project (see: Nowitzki, Allen, Radmanovic, Stojakovic), Miller was not only the key cog that ~111-113 type offenses were built around, but I see no reason why he wouldn't be a *killer* addition to many of the great offenses of all-time. He strikes me as the very type of guy who could elevate even 115+ offenses...he's either better than the best shooter they have, or he's opening up a new hyper-efficient, spacing dimension while needing fewer plays run for him than the normal 20 ppg type.

here are Reggie Miller's per 75's from 94-96:

23.0 pts/3.1 reb/3.6 ast +10.8% rel TS
23.8 pts/3.2 reb/3.7 ast +7.7% rel TS
23.7 pts/3.3 reb/3.9 ast +8.3% rel TS

And for a crowd that has obsessed over playoff performance, Reggie does something fairly special. He raises his scoring by FOUR points per game in the PS in his prime. What makes this so extraordinary is that he does it against the most difficult group of defenses I've seen from any star I've looked at, a shift from 105.9 in the RS environment to 101.9 in the PS (96.3% expected change.) We'd expect to see the following *if he maintained* the same level of play:

18.8 ppg 59.3% TS 117 ORtg .186 WS/48

Instead, his 1990-2001 PS numbers are:

23.5 ppg 60.6 TS% 122 ORtg .194 WS/48

Consider among the competition (http://www.backpicks.com/2011/08/15/adj ... ger-stars/) Miller increases his scoring more than anyone, has the second best TS%, tied for the best ORtg (with a massive 5 points better than expected) and increases his WS/48 (something only Hakeem does). His PS numbers normalized to the average environment, per the post, are:

Normalized: 24.0 ppg 62.0 TS% 125 ORtg

We expect to see Reggie's numbers go down more than any star on that list, and they go up more than anyone's. And the team's offensive numbers are quite impressive throughout that time as well (both RS, then in the PS) and coincide with Miller's play.

Pacers RS relative to league, then PS relative avg. opponent DRtg
90 +3.4 +0.0
91 +3.8 +9.7
92 +3.5 +4.0
93 +3.9 +11.2 (Knicks "GOAT" defense)
94 -0.2 +1.7
95 +1.3 +6.9
96 +3.2 -1.0 (Miller plays 1g)
98 +3.4 +7.2
99 +5.2 +8.3
00 +4.4 +8.1
01 -1.0 +1.4

That means save for 1990 (1st PS) and 1996 (played one game), the Pacers offense improved in performance in every single PS Miller played in during his prime.

And I also see people talk about longevity...well, unlike John Stockton (8 years, 88-95), Reggie continued to play at a relevant level until about 2001, maybe even 2002. (And what he did in 2005 after the melee could even be construed as still having that ~AS-level play at 39! 18 ppg in 31 mpg post AS-break, +9.0 on/off...)

A final note on Miller, which is to note how relatively large his scoring volume actually was in the PS. He has great value in spacing, sucking up other defenders and opening up options/angles and a lack of doubles for his teammates. Yet he's scoring a lot too. Here are the % of his team's points scored in some of his better scoring playoffs:

92 25.1%
93 30.6%
94 25.7%
95 25.9%
00 24.5%
01 35.9%
02 25.8%

For comparison,
Kobe is between 28.9-29.5% from 08-10.
K. Malone 27.1-29.6% from 94-98.

[lukekarts]

I just can't give the nod to Gervin at this stage. He was a fantastic scorer and an efficient one at that, but a completely one dimensional player. With that, the scope of teams he'd be useful for - in contrast to someone like Kidd or Pierce - becomes more limited too. With there being so many better all round players still available, I think this is too high for George.

As I've already played the debate between Kidd and Pierce in the other topic; I'm going to have to give the nod to one of them...

Vote: Jason Kidd
Nominate: Willis Reed

[SDChargers#1]

Im curious what peoples reasoning is for taking Pierce over Kidd. Kidd was definitely the better player when they were both in their prime. With that said I vote for neither.

Vote: Gervin
Nominate: Cousy

Gervin was just and incredibly efficient, high volume scorer. He wasn't the greatest passer, but was one of the hardest players to stop in the history of the game.

Cousy should have been nominated ages ago (certainly ahead of TMac). People knock him for his efficiency, but in his age it was normal. He led the league in assists 8 consecutive years and was a very good rebounder for the point position. The guy won an MVP, was an innovator, and was a integral part of a lot of championships.

[penbeast0]

Paul looks like he has less support than ever. Apparently my (non-refuted) posts are having some sort of backwards effect, or Penbeast continuing to (strangely) say 2008 is the only year of value from Chris Paul is working like a Jedi Mind trick. (Sid Moncrief, btw, was injured during the 1986 PS. Which is a bit of issue for me I glossed over in the RPOY, and shortens his best years even more.)

With that said, I'm switching my nomination to Reggie Miller....

I never said that Paul doesn't have value in any season he played. Clearly he does. I said that if you are looking for the "Nash effect" where the influence of a prime PG raises offenses to an elite level, Paul has only had one year where New Orleans had an elite offense in the league's top 10 (Moncrief had two -- and 4 of his 5 prime years his team defense was either 1st or 2nd). Combine that with his lack of longevity and he falls behind the likes of KJ, Sid, and probably the Reggie/Alex English/Ray Allen trio.


And thanks to whoever brought up the Cousy/Iverson comparisom. Can anyone make the case for Iverson over Cousy? Cousy over Iverson seems to be fairly easy -- (a)elite playmaking, (b)championships, (c)was the player who created the PG position while still being a bigtime (though inefficient and not as bigtime as AI) scorer.

[lorak]

[
(c)was the player who created the PG position while still being a bigtime (though inefficient and not as bigtime as AI) scorer.

Andy Phillip created PG position and he even was doing behind the back dribble before Cousy.

[Laimbeer]

The Cousy thing has become ridiculous. He didn't play with peach baskets. He played alongside the guy who's number two on our list. People need to watch some games or you tube clips of him competing quite nicely with guys like Jerry West.

He owned his position, 13 all-stars in a row, 12 first teams in a row, at least a Pippen role on six champions. He's 20-25 spots late. If we really believe his era makes that much difference, we ought to give him the Mikan treatment and remove him from consideration. But putting him in a conversation with Kevin Johnson is a joke.

[drza]

On one level, it's a no-brainer to say that Howard has had more offensive impact, because Orlando built the team to have him as the only inside threat. By way of contrast, Bird could score from anywhere, including inside, and Parish was a jump-shooting, floor-running big man who also had some post moves.

When you look at raw volume, McHale per 36 minutes scored a little more than Dwight, getting a few more FGA, a few fewer FTA, but being a lot close than that in FT makes. I concede that pace, fast-break finishing, and putbacks all enter into that -- but if one is going to hold Bird-as-teammate against McHale in other ways, one should also grant that McHale's volume is held down by the same awesome teammate competition. Actually, I shouldn't include putbacks; Dwight gets offensive rebounds at an even higher rate than McHale did.

So on the numbers they're pretty much the same offensive player, except for FT%. To the eye test, however, I have McHale shooting over and around double teams, while Howard powers past single teams and gets fouled on the way by. Hence the eye test issue I raised; IF my perceptions are correct, that's a big advantage to McHale.

I agree that Howard is a more influential on defense than McHale, but perhaps not the extent one might first think. McHale was a long, smart, quick guy with good-enough hops. I.e., as a man defender I think McHale was substantially better, not that Howard faces the man defensive challenges McHale did. I do agree that Howard's shotblocking is a bigger advantage over McHale than the simple numbers would seem to suggest, and suffices to give him the overall defensive advantage in the comparison.

If I'm right about those double teams, this also suggests that McHale's offensive rebounding had a higher degree of difficulty than Dwight's. I've also written at length before that the defensive rebounding stats are skewed by role, specifically that McHale's role was as third-option rebounder, getting out on the break while the top two options handled the matter -- especially when he was playing perimeter defense, as he often did. Still, to the eye test, Howard has superb hops, great strength, and fine rebounding judgment, so while I'd argue that the magnitude of the rebounding gap is overstated, they're a lot closer in that regard than the numbers seem to suggest.

And of course McHale had a longer career than Howard has to date, with 50% more regular season minutes played and over 150% more postseason ones.

Both guys have mild increases in their stats in the playoffs.

Mchale is an interesting case for me, because in a lot of ways he is like Pippen and Ginobili, two players that came into the league on a team that already had an All-History player and thus never really had the chance to operate on a team built around THEM. It's an interesting conundrum in a project like this, because that can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, many observers relegate players like this to so-called "#2 status" and refuse to compare them directly to "lead options" because of their different roles. But on the other hand, these are players that were better than 90% of the best players on other teams...they just weren't better than Bird, Jordan or Duncan. And frankly, in a project where we're trying to determine who was the "best at playing the game of basketball" I can't really see holding their role against them, either way.

Which makes it difficult. Because all of the stats that we have access to, at least to some degree, are directly affected by your teammates and role. And for players before 2003, we don't even have any kind of detailed +/- stats with which to try to break down impact beyond just the box scores, which are REALLY affected by role and teammates. Which means that we have to do a fair amount of the kind of skill-set interpretation that you do here, which brings in large amounts of subjectivity that would be at least somewhat minimized by more quantitative analysis. But it is what it is.

Re: Mchale's skillset and impact. We know that he had a weird bodytype...high shoulders and extremely long arms on an almost 7-foot frame, giving him not only the nickname "Lurch" but also the length to be extremely pesky as an on-ball defender. We know that he had excellent fundamental footwork on offense, and was adapt at using angles to ensure that his shot couldn't be affected by his defender. We know that, while he wasn't preternaturally quick like some of the ultra-elite defenders in history that share his body type, Mchale did have enough quickness that, combined with his absurd length, allowed him to defend quicker wing players even out to the perimeter by playing a step off of them and then challenging their shot. This same length allowed him to defend centers at need, even though he wasn't particularly girthy.

On the flip-side, we also know some of his weaknesses. Mchale wasn't particularly gifted and/or willing as a passer, making him a bit of a black hole. This could be seen as a good thing with his ability to finish efficiently, but it also doesn't demonstrate a framework by which Mchale could be a legit offensive center-piece on his own. The key thing that differentiates a Kareem or even Duncan from a Mchale or Howard type on offense is that the formers can set up in the post, take an entry pass, and make decisions for the entire offense with either an offensive move or a pass that leads to a good shot for either themselves or their teammates. Mchale never showed that skill, which puts a limit onto how much of an offensive anchor he could be. Likewise, on defense, while Mchale was an excellent on-ball defender his lack of dominant help defense and/or dominant rebounding kept him from becoming a history-level defensive anchor. One could argue that the rebounding of Bird and Parrish kept Mchale from having to vacuum the glass, but the logical rebuttal is that because Mchale didn't have to concentrate on the glass he was more free to do other things defensively...this is what allowed him to press up more on his man even out to the perimeter, and it also should have allowed him to really be able to roam and be a help defensive terror...if he had that capacity.

As such, on offense (in present day comparisons) I see Mchale's logical comps as the Zach Randolph/Amare Stoudemire type. And defensively, stylistically I see him as more of a Rasheed Wallace/Cliff Robinson type. On neither end is that my definition of a true offensive or defensive anchor...but on the other hand, it's a short notch below on both ends, and really...a combo of Amare's offensive output with Sheed's defense would be a NASTY combo. Just a short step behind the ultra elite, in my opinion.

So, as I've written this I've been kind of working out in my mind exactly how I see Mchale. Then, the next question becomes...how would Amare Wallace compare with Dwight Howard? It's a difficult question, but on a year-to-year basis I would rather have Howard. His brand of defense (help and man) and dominant rebounding, when played at the level that Howard does, is just a larger impact weapon than what an elite on-ball defender can have. And on offense, while Howard has yet to show the offensive repertoire that Mchale had as far as moves go, he has the raw athleticism to be able to finish at similar volumes and efficiency which, in the end, is what matters. The only thing that Mchale might have on Howard is longevity, but I've been less impressed by longevity than most in this project, so ultimately I still have Howard over Mchale.

But after listening to my own arguments, I think I've sold myself on Mchale higher than I previously had him. And would be interested to see more Mchale discussion moving forward to see if there are angles that I didn't consider.

Also...is it about time that Parrish starts getting some mention as well?

[Doctor MJ]

Cousy should have been nominated ages ago (certainly ahead of TMac). People knock him for his efficiency, but in his age it was normal. He led the league in assists 8 consecutive years and was a very good rebounder for the point position. The guy won an MVP, was an innovator, and was a integral part of a lot of championships.

No see the whole issue is that in Cousy's age his inefficiency was NOT normal. Yes, players were way less efficient back then...but Cousy was inefficient compared to contemporaries.

Boston started winning titles in '56-57, here's how far below playoff league average Cousy's FG% was each year from there on out:

4.5%
2.6%
7.2%
9.7%
6.3%
5.4%
8.1%

I'm not going to say you can't make some argument about his volume scoring helping his teammates, but Cousy's level of inefficiency should concern everyone. When you then remember that the Celtics did just fine when Cousy retired, and that Cousy's reputation was skewed by the fact that he was the established star when the Celtics all of a sudden turned into a dynasty, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of Cousy.

Also, I notice Dolph Schayes name hasn't been mentioned. People thinking Cousy is easily ahead of other 50s players not voted in at this point need to go look at Schayes. Played basically over the same time period and had similar MVP shares. He's easy to dismiss in this project because he's a 6'7" 195 lb big man...one can make an excellent case that he thrived in the context of Russell & Wilt better than Cousy did.

[Doctor MJ]

The Cousy thing has become ridiculous. He didn't play with peach baskets. He played alongside the guy who's number two on our list. People need to watch some games or you tube clips of him competing quite nicely with guys like Jerry West.

Yes he played next to the #2 guy on the list, which is why he won titles, which is why he gets overrated.

Re: competing nicely with West. The danger of eyeballing it. The gap between the efficiency in these two was extreme, but people have never been good at getting a reasonable sense of efficiency with just their eyes which is exactly why Cousy got too much credit.

[Doctor MJ]

Food for thought on Iverson: He's getting major nomination attention and draftmate Allen isn't. Obviously Reggie Miller factors in here as Allen won't get attention from a lot of us until Miller is in, but I find it quite debatable whether Iverson should be above Allen.

Allen's scored almost as many career points as Iverson on far greater efficiency. Heck at this point Allen's made more money than Iverson. Obviously Iverson's case is a peak over longevity thing, but when you consider that Iverson's out of the league more because teams decided what he gave wasn't worth it than because he actually got old, I'd be careful giving Iverson that nod.

[Laimbeer]

The Cousy thing has become ridiculous. He didn't play with peach baskets. He played alongside the guy who's number two on our list. People need to watch some games or you tube clips of him competing quite nicely with guys like Jerry West.

Yes he played next to the #2 guy on the list, which is why he won titles, which is why he gets overrated.

Re: competing nicely with West. The danger of eyeballing it. The gap between the efficiency in these two was extreme, but people have never been good at getting a reasonable sense of efficiency with just their eyes which is exactly why Cousy got too much credit.

So with one measure, efficiency, we disqualify eyewitness accounts and expert opinion, and it reveals some absolute and previously undiscovered truth? It shows beyond dispute that all of his teammates, opponents, and media were just imagining his greatness?

[drza]

Regarding Iverson, the salient point I think everyone needs to consider is that while he had a very solid longevity in terms of his capabilities, the number of years where he was truly having anything like superstar impact is imho far smaller. How does one rate that in this context where truly, if circumstances were different, I think Iverson could have kept leading his team to near contender status for a long time, or have never led good teams at all? A very good question.

Personally, I just think the years of inefficient wheel spinning is simply not something I can chalk up to bad luck. I wouldn't expect a high volume low efficiency guy to be super-valuable on most teams, and so when that lack of value happens as I'd expect, I do hold it against a guy relative to other guys such as Reggie Miller who basically would find a way to be valuable anywhere without taking much off the table and clearly showed he was capable of becoming a full on volume scorer efficiently when his team needed it.

Not sure I agree with you here, Doc. I understand the basis for your points, and can see them to an extent, but when I look at the teams that Iverson and Miller had success on I see a lot of similarities...and where there are differences, I tend to feel that Iverson would have been the better suited to have success on both types of teams.

For example, the Pacers teams that consistently competed in the late 90s tended to have strong, tough big men who didn't play the traditional post-up offense. With the Davis boys doing the grunt work up front and Smits being 7-3 but with a good shooting touch, that seems like the ideal frontline for an Iverson team to thrive. Jalen Rose and Mark Jackson, stylistically, had a lot of offensive similarities with Aaron Mckie and Eric Snow. Mckie and Snow may have been better defenders, which is important with Iverson's size, but I think the backbone of both the Sixers and those Pacers' defenses were the big men so Jackson/Rose being better offensively than their counterparts would, if anything, work to the favor of AI's Pacers in this instance.

Likewise, the Pacers that again got competitive in Reggie's late career renaissance would also have worked just fine for Iverson, with Jermaine O'Neal and Artest providing the stabilizing defense and solid secondary scoring options that didn't require the ball a lot.

But on the flip side, I don't see Reggie working as well with those turn-of-the-century Sixers as Iverson did. You plug Reggie in next to Snow, Mckie, Mutombo and Lynch and there just flat isn't enough shot creation. Reggie would obviously be just as good/better than Iverson at running off those screens, but when it came time for a player to put the defense on their heels with the ball in his hands I just don't think Reggie could have come close to replicating what the Answer did. This is the line where hyper-efficient finishing just isn't, of itself, always better than low-efficiency shot creation.

Shrugs. It's an interesting comp, to me, and it's essentially THE posterchild for hyper-efficient perimeter finisher vs THE posterchild for ultimate shot creation at low efficiencies. And honestly, I think the case could be made that BOTH of the extremes are better than some of the players under consideration that are more in the middle. But I think Iverson at his peak was just a higher impact player than Reggie, and that he showed through the years under different epochs that his game wasn't quite as one-dimensional as it is often made out to be.

[drza]

With that said, I think I'm ready to make my nomination official.

Vote: Jason Kidd (previously recorded)
Nomination: Allen Iverson

[Dr Positivity]

Just on the Howard vs McHale debate, it's noteable to me that McHale doesn't have a great longevity advantage. Giving McHale the 7 years Howard has had takes him through '88 and both guys take a handful of years to start their prime. Is his 89-91 enough to put McHale over Howard, when Howard's first 7 years are so much better? I'm going to say no to that fairly easily

[Dr Positivity]

Ok here's my extended Gervin vs Pierce vs Kidd argument, since those look like the top 3 in contention here

Gervin/Pierce vs Kidd - I just can't buy Kidd is on their level offensively. I think one thing I'm starting to appreciate is that you don't need to be an aces playmaker to open up the game for your teammate, what you need is to crack the defense open and force them to help of your teammates. Not only do Gervin and Pierce do that far more than Kidd, but I think it's reasonable to say Kidd has defenders even play off him. I don't think Kidd is close to them in halfcourt offensive impact. He is a very good transition player, the highest impact rebounder and defender, and maybe most importantly, he has that team rally around me ability - I wonder if one of the reasons his teams defenses improve so much with him is that they just get more motivated to do it with him there, and they feel more willingly with a PG commited to giving them the ball constantly. Still though, Kidd just has too big of holes in his game for me to comfortably prefer him on my team to Pierce or Gervin

Gervin vs Pierce - This is an interesting comparison because Gervin has higher strengths and bigger weaknesses, while Pierce is more complete. Gervin probably puts more pressure on the defense and plays off ball more, so I'm not willing to say Pierce's playmaking is a huge advantage. But like Kidd, I just have a hard time giving it to a player with *major* weakness that needs to covered up by the rest of the team. The question of whether I'd rather have Gervin or Pierce makes it pretty clear to me, I'll take the safety of Pierce

[drza]

Gervin vs Pierce - This is an interesting comparison because Gervin has higher strengths and bigger weaknesses, while Pierce is more complete. Gervin probably puts more pressure on the defense and plays off ball more, so I'm not willing to say Pierce's playmaking is a huge advantage. But like Kidd, I just have a hard time giving it to a player with *major* weakness that needs to covered up by the rest of the team. The question of whether I'd rather have Gervin or Pierce makes it pretty clear to me, I'll take the safety of Pierce

Just out of curiousity...what are the *major* weaknesses in Gervin's game that have to be covered up? I always thought of him as more of a 1-dimensional haymaker/don't-really-take-much-off-the-table kind of guy. And as a scoring wing that played off the ball, the things he wasn't great at weren't things that he really NEEDED to be great at. For example, Kidd is a better rebounder than Nash but I'm not going to call Nash's lack of great rebounding a major weakness any more than I'd call Gervin's lack of distributing a major weakness...wasn't his role. Unless, of course, I'm blanking on what you're talking about.

[ElGee]

Paul looks like he has less support than ever. Apparently my (non-refuted) posts are having some sort of backwards effect, or Penbeast continuing to (strangely) say 2008 is the only year of value from Chris Paul is working like a Jedi Mind trick. (Sid Moncrief, btw, was injured during the 1986 PS. Which is a bit of issue for me I glossed over in the RPOY, and shortens his best years even more.)

With that said, I'm switching my nomination to Reggie Miller....

I never said that Paul doesn't have value in any season he played. Clearly he does. I said that if you are looking for the "Nash effect" where the influence of a prime PG raises offenses to an elite level, Paul has only had one year where New Orleans had an elite offense in the league's top 10 (Moncrief had two -- and 4 of his 5 prime years his team defense was either 1st or 2nd). Combine that with his lack of longevity and he falls behind the likes of KJ, Sid, and probably the Reggie/Alex English/Ray Allen trio.


And thanks to whoever brought up the Cousy/Iverson comparisom. Can anyone make the case for Iverson over Cousy? Cousy over Iverson seems to be fairly easy -- (a)elite playmaking, (b)championships, (c)was the player who created the PG position while still being a bigtime (though inefficient and not as bigtime as AI) scorer.

Well, he's not as good as Nash! I don't see how what he's done in others years isn't excellent, all-nba or borderline level MVP play. When a PG plays on a really mediocre offensive team (at best), and clearly his ball-dominant play passes the eye test and all typically tracked metrics, and he's got that team at a 111 ORtg or a 114 ORtg, and the +/- family is telling us he's wildly good on offense, I don't understand why you'd dismiss that...

So with one measure, efficiency, we disqualify eyewitness accounts and expert opinion, and it reveals some absolute and previously undiscovered truth? It shows beyond dispute that all of his teammates, opponents, and media were just imagining his greatness?

Consider the racial dynamics and economic status at the time. Cousy was *flashy.* People didn't care as much about the result, and certainly didn't take the time to analyze stuff like efficiency. They told a story. Cousy was white, Russ was black. Cousy played a style that attracted others...Russell was basically sui generis. It had nothing to do with "imagining" anything - that's your attribution to those accolades.

Many people were under the impression that the Celtics were a good offensive team...in the same way as recently as, oh, the 02 Nets, people didn't notice their strength was overwhelmingly defense and the offense wasn't really anything decent at all. But people watch the ball and it creates a bias. And when Cousy left the team, the Celtics demise was forecast. ("The Old Celtics.") What happened was they arguably became the best team ever at the time.

Not sure I agree with you here, Doc. I understand the basis for your points, and can see them to an extent, but when I look at the teams that Iverson and Miller had success on I see a lot of similarities...and where there are differences, I tend to feel that Iverson would have been the better suited to have success on both types of teams.

...

But on the flip side, I don't see Reggie working as well with those turn-of-the-century Sixers as Iverson did. You plug Reggie in next to Snow, Mckie, Mutombo and Lynch and there just flat isn't enough shot creation. Reggie would obviously be just as good/better than Iverson at running off those screens, but when it came time for a player to put the defense on their heels with the ball in his hands I just don't think Reggie could have come close to replicating what the Answer did. This is the line where hyper-efficient finishing just isn't, of itself, always better than low-efficiency shot creation.

First, I don't think we should just do this thought experiment on two teams. It should be a number of teams, unless we are going to choose to simply punish/reward players for circumstance. Otherwise, they could go to every possible franchise and they could have a slew of supporting players. As it is, and as I've mentioned, I see this totally differently.

Consider the Davis boys. I've always maintained they had much easier offensive opportunities (including layups) because of the focus on Miller off of his screening action around the key. For Dale Davis, he scored 10-12 points per 36 at 53-56% FG in Indiana. At 31, a year after his only (undeserving) AS appearance, he went to Por and scored 9.7 pts per36 at under 50%. To me, that difference is Miller.

Antonio Davis was 12-13 pts per36 in Indy at 47-49% basically. He went to Toronto and averaged 13-14 pts at 43-44%.

I don't see these players working well with Iverson on offense.