Oh and I had no real problem with the Miller vote, I had he and Allen very close to but a hair behind Alex English in terms of long term value (English was nearly as efficient in a less efficient era and the best defender of the three) . . . I'd agree that Miller and Allen are pretty similar impact players; the reason Miller steps up of the 3 is his playoff bonus, regular season he's probably the 3rd best of them.
Dr Mufasa wrote:Vote: Dwight Howard
I've voted Pierce for forever, so time to get on the criteria box again...
Paul - Definitely below Dwight Howard and I hate the fact that he got above Kevin Johnson. Just repeating a short form of my argument from last thread, Kevin Johnson in his 2 best seasons puts up 22 and 10-11 on about same shooting % as Paul's 08 and 09 (slightly higher TOV%), and leads both a better team ORTG and overall team. Regardless of whether you prefer Paul's 2 best seasons to KJ's 2 (I personally do), how can you possibly say it's by anything but a small margin - and you'd need a huge margin in those 2 top seasons to make up for the gap between KJ's 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 and Paul's 06, 07, 10, 11. The gap between peak KJ and Paul is being clouded by Paul's PER and WS advantage, which are being hugely effected by the Suns being one of the fastest paced teams and the Hornets being one of the slowest - that's where PER and WS get screwed up on PGs the most, in my opinion. That's how you get bizarre stuff like 06 Billups having a higher PER and WS than 85 Magic or any Stockton season, or Nash having less win shares than Stephen Marbury in 05 and not having top 5 OWS in either of his MVP years. If you don't like KJ's PER and WS compared to Paul's because of his fast pace, then you also don't like showtime Magic, Stockton or Nash's because they're all in the same boat as KJ's. Paul is the outlier compared to superstar PGs and I feel very confident saying *his* numbers are where the wrong is
Allen Iverson - Too many holes in his resume to get consideration yet. Had some years where it feels like his impact was as high as the best ones here, but puts up inconsistent impact in general. I can justify .52 TS%, but once you start putting up .48, .49 seasons, it's hard for me to buy that it's helping his team's offense. I'm torn on him vs Miller, will decide later
Hayes - Would be willing to hear an argument for him over Cowens and Reed based on how much healthier he was. But dude got called the most despicable person in sports by his coach and has an epic choker rep. Can't help but feel Hayes helped the Wiz by anchoring an epic defensive frontline with Unseld, but offensively they succeeded in spite of him, not because of him. That's just my impression, I can be convinced otherwise since despite his reputation, the guy did win a lot.
Miller - Below Dominique for now. Nique is obviously less efficient but puts more pressure on the defense and I think is the more dominant player on the court overall. If you like individual ORTG, Nique efficiency starts to look pretty damn good for such a high volume player, especially in the late 80s. On that note. I don't know why the people who nominated Miller wouldn't nominate Allen directly after them. I see no gap between them personally.
Reed vs Cowens - Both have injury and longevity issues, both rely on believing in the MVP votes at the time stating just how valuable they were. I believe in those accolades and the huge results they brought on. Reed seems like the better halfcourt offensive scorer, while Cowens brings a lot of fastbreak team value. I will go with Willis Reed here because I like halfcourt play in comparison to fastbreak play, to have the latter you need a more specific lineup
McHale vs Howard - Their first 7 years look very similar, taking 3 build up years until a 4th year breakout, and they both peak in their 7th year statistically, albeit a lot of people think McHale was better in 86 and I personally think Howard was better in 2010. I think Howard is clearly the better player up to their 7th year. Howard has a case for THE most valuable player in the league the last 4 years and the 3 years before that was still someone you really wanted at C. He has proven he can lead a Finals team and 6 SRS+ team with just shooters. I will go with the better player in Howard over the better longevity in McHale.
That leaves Reed vs Howard. Longevity is not an issue here at all. So comes down to who's the better player. And I think that's pretty cleanly Dwight Howard. I'll say Reed is slightly better offensively, but not enough to make up for Dwight's epic defense/rebounding impact. If he can create a top 3 defense with defenders who are slow, soft and don't really care, he can do it with just about anyone. That's a rare trait to have indeed. The give an idea of how valuable Dwight is, I truly believe the 09-11 teams had 20-25 W talent at best without him. So we're looking at something like 30 to 35 Ws added. That is in the prime Lebron, KG, Duncan, etc. zone of "holy crap" impact
Vote Dwight Howard
Nominate Kevin Johnson
