RealGM Top 100 List #44

[colts18]

how doesn't he have that great team effect? ElGee posted this before:

We can look at his team's offense with him on the court at 82games:
2007 109.7 +8.7
2008 116.0 +15.4
2009 113.6 +16.4
2010 110.7 +4.1
2011 110.4 +11.6

In the 08 playoffs, New Orleans had a 113.5 ORtg with Paul (+16.7).
In the 11 playoffs, New Orleans had a 106.7 ORtg with Paul (+22.9).

He's had quite a large effect on the Hornets' offense.

Just for comparison's sake, if Paul played 48 mpg, here's where the Hornets would rank offensively year by year:

2007: 5th
2008: 1st
2009: 2nd
2010: 8th
2011: 8th

I mean obviously if every team's best offensive player played 48 mpg you'd see much better offensive results, but with Paul on the floor, you're getting an excellent offense, that's the point I'm trying to make. Without him, the Hornets look lost offensively.

I think that shows a big team offensive impact.

Here is the same comparison except for Pau Gasol in the past 4 years.

08: 1st Offense, 5th defense
09: 1st offense, 8th defense
10: 2nd offense, 12th defense
11: 1st offense, 7th defense

Since Gasol has been on the lakers, The average O rating and D rating in a season is 115.45 and 105.35, +10.1 differential. To put that O rating in perspective, that would be the 2nd best in NBA history behind the 87 Lakers.

[lorak]

I'm changing my nomination to Walton

[Dr Positivity]

3) Alex English was a very good player for a number of years. But the only way a team with English on it is sniffing the promised land is if they manage to sign a player of Walton's caliber.

Disagree. While it's obvious superstars have dominated who contends, in the last 33 years we've seen Washington's title, Seattle's title, the Bad Boys title, the 04 Pistons title with a best player close enough to English. Go back a few years and include the two Cowens Celtics teams if you're not high on Havlicek if you want, too. Other teams who've gotten above 7 SRS (a good benchmark for sniffing a title) with someone close to English than Walton: 90s Sonics, 90s Blazers, 00s Kings, 80s Bucks, 80s Hawks, 80s Cavs, turn of the 90s Suns

My feeling with players in English's range is you need another player close to as good as him/a perenniel all-star, top 70 type. So you put English and Pau together and you can have something.

Walton is on my list soon and frankly I would vote for him before Chris Paul, but I wouldn't say you can't win a title with English. It's hard with both English and Walton as your best guy for different reasons. I love Walton's game BUT... there's no way he wins that title any year in the 60s, any year in the 80s, any year in the 90s sans 94 and 95, or from 00-02 and 07-11 in the 2000s. He was fortunate like Elvin Hayes/Wes Unseld and Dennis Johnson/Gus Williams/Jack Sikma were fortunate. Titles can never be assumed and counted no matter how good you are. We saw Jordan and Kareem and Lebron and Hakeem and Oscar not even contend when they were as good as anyone in history. Walton is not a "it's in the bag if I have decent players" guy. Nobody is

[Dr Positivity]

Tell the truth, that doesn't bother me that much. I've seen him play and know he's a good player at both ends and a good team player. On the other hand, he doesn't seem to have a GREAT team effect the way Nash did . . . and the way Moncrief did on Milwaukee's defensive intensity (they did stay great for a year when he went down with injury as both Paul Pressey and Ricky Pierce had All-Star caliber years). Combine that clear defensive edge with Moncrief's superior scoring (better efficiency and equal volume -- a more balanced offense rather than Paul's featuring role to arguably balance out the pace advantage) and you have a better peak than Paul's and since Paul has no longevity advantage yet, Moncrief should be on the list first.

How doesn't he have that great team effect? ElGee posted this before:

We can look at his team's offense with him on the court at 82games:
2007 109.7 +8.7
2008 116.0 +15.4
2009 113.6 +16.4
2010 110.7 +4.1
2011 110.4 +11.6

In the 08 playoffs, New Orleans had a 113.5 ORtg with Paul (+16.7).
In the 11 playoffs, New Orleans had a 106.7 ORtg with Paul (+22.9).

He's had quite a large effect on the Hornets' offense.

Just for comparison's sake, if Paul played 48 mpg, here's where the Hornets would rank offensively year by year:

2007: 5th
2008: 1st
2009: 2nd
2010: 8th
2011: 8th

I mean obviously if every team's best offensive player played 48 mpg you'd see much better offensive results, but with Paul on the floor, you're getting an excellent offense, that's the point I'm trying to make. Without him, the Hornets look lost offensively.

I think that shows a big team offensive impact.

Everyone has their team's offenses lowered by them sitting. In 09

Magic were at 113.1 with Dwight on the floor, which would be good for 3rd overall, but in reality had 109.2 which put them 11th
Cavs were 116.4 with LBJ on the floor which would be GOAT offense, finished at 112.4 overall for 4th
Jazz were 114.9 with Deron on (1st), 110.1 overall for 8th. Jazz w/ Deron on are usually better than Hornets w/ Paul on offensively btw

Paul taking his team to 116 and 113 in 08 and 09 is excellent, everyone agrees he's a top 40 and 30 peak guy. But that's not enough to make me lose my **** and say the only reason he doesn't have the best offense in the league those years is a bad backup PG. It's standard numbers for a star guard. Something like Nash 2005 (121 ORTG when on) is what I'd be hoping to see if Paul was really just getting screwed by how bad they were without him.

I'm fairly convinced the only reason Paul's +/- is better than Deron's in Utah is that the Hornets backup PG situation or backup shot creator situation was so much worse. In 2010 when they finally brought in a competent backup point, the Hornets had 106 ORTG without Paul which is about average offense

[JordansBulls]

I don't understand how anyone can nominate or vote Rodman over Walton. Rodman was always the 3rd best player on teams that won titles and 2nd best player on a team like San Antonio. Walton actually led a team to the title and was good enough to win league mvp one year and finals mvp another. Rodman was never that level.

[Rapcity_11]

how doesn't he have that great team effect? ElGee posted this before:

We can look at his team's offense with him on the court at 82games:
2007 109.7 +8.7
2008 116.0 +15.4
2009 113.6 +16.4
2010 110.7 +4.1
2011 110.4 +11.6

In the 08 playoffs, New Orleans had a 113.5 ORtg with Paul (+16.7).
In the 11 playoffs, New Orleans had a 106.7 ORtg with Paul (+22.9).

He's had quite a large effect on the Hornets' offense.

Just for comparison's sake, if Paul played 48 mpg, here's where the Hornets would rank offensively year by year:

2007: 5th
2008: 1st
2009: 2nd
2010: 8th
2011: 8th

I mean obviously if every team's best offensive player played 48 mpg you'd see much better offensive results, but with Paul on the floor, you're getting an excellent offense, that's the point I'm trying to make. Without him, the Hornets look lost offensively.

I think that shows a big team offensive impact.

Here is the same comparison except for Pau Gasol in the past 4 years.

08: 1st Offense, 5th defense
09: 1st offense, 8th defense
10: 2nd offense, 12th defense
11: 1st offense, 7th defense

Since Gasol has been on the lakers, The average O rating and D rating in a season is 115.45 and 105.35, +10.1 differential. To put that O rating in perspective, that would be the 2nd best in NBA history behind the 87 Lakers.

Does Gasol run the offense?
Is Gasol the best player on his team?
Does Gasol play on a great team?

So your point makes little sense.

[colts18]

Does Gasol run the offense?
Is Gasol the best player on his team?
Does Gasol play on a great team?

So your point makes little sense.

According to some opinions on this board, Gasol was the best player on the Lakers in the playoffs during the title runs. The Lakers went from decent team to historically great team right after Gasol came onboard.

[drza]

3) Alex English was a very good player for a number of years. But the only way a team with English on it is sniffing the promised land is if they manage to sign a player of Walton's caliber.

Disagree. While it's obvious superstars have dominated who contends, in the last 33 years we've seen Washington's title, Seattle's title, the Bad Boys title, the 04 Pistons title with a best player close enough to English. Go back a few years and include the two Cowens Celtics teams if you're not high on Havlicek if you want, too. Other teams who've gotten above 7 SRS (a good benchmark for sniffing a title) with someone close to English than Walton: 90s Sonics, 90s Blazers, 00s Kings, 80s Bucks, 80s Hawks, 80s Cavs, turn of the 90s Suns

My feeling with players in English's range is you need another player close to as good as him/a perenniel all-star, top 70 type. So you put English and Pau together and you can have something.

Walton is on my list soon and frankly I would vote for him before Chris Paul, but I wouldn't say you can't win a title with English. It's hard with both English and Walton as your best guy for different reasons. I love Walton's game BUT... there's no way he wins that title any year in the 60s, any year in the 80s, any year in the 90s sans 94 and 95, or from 00-02 and 07-11 in the 2000s. He was fortunate like Elvin Hayes/Wes Unseld and Dennis Johnson/Gus Williams/Jack Sikma were fortunate. Titles can never be assumed and counted no matter how good you are. We saw Jordan and Kareem and Lebron and Hakeem and Oscar not even contend when they were as good as anyone in history. Walton is not a "it's in the bag if I have decent players" guy. Nobody is

While I feel your general point, I don't think it really helps English much. Of your title winners, outside of the Bullets (who won 44 games, had an SRS of 0.8, and have to be flukes even among the "fluke" champions), you list 4 other teams that won with dominant defenses and an ensemble cast. That formula for winning isn't really that unique or flukish, and on none of them had a player of English's style the catalyst. I mean yeah, I could see him as the Joe Dumars or Rip Hamilton of such a team, but the engines of those teams were their dominant defensive fronts and their point guard offensive leaders, neither of which would a good-scoring wing be equipped to lead or even co-lead.

As for your 7 SRS teams, the Sonics/Blazers/Kings were all led by players that IMO were better than English, and the others that you list, I never really considered contenders. They were good regular season teams, but more of a pre-Melo-trade Nuggets or Thunder-level contender than even a current Heat-level. So I mean yeah, I could see English as the best player on a team like that, but not on a reasonable contender.

And my thing with Walton isn't based on him being a champion. It's based on him being the caliber of player that, if you put a reasonable cast around him, he can make them much better and take them up several notches. Healthy Walton on the Bucks instead of Moncrief, and maybe those teams can get past both the Celtics and the Sixers in a given season to make the promised land. Walton on the Sonics instead of Kemp, maybe they take out Jordan's Bulls for a title. Walton on the '02 Kings instead of Webber, I think they beat the Lakers despite what the refs may have wanted.

I'm not necessarily assuming a championship. I'm saying that a healthy Walton, even for just a few years, gives me a much better chance of boosting my team up to possibly championship contention than a decade of a player like English. The extreme knock on Walton is health, and i understand if anyone can't get past that. But on-court, I think he blows anything that someone like English could do out of the water.

[Dr Positivity]

I don't consider the Bullets a necessary fluke when they made the Finals both the next year and 3 years before with a similar core. Noteably, that 0.8 in 78 was still good for 7th in the league due to parity and #1 was a lame duck by the 2nd round of the playoffs - 7th in 2011 Denver with 4.81. Dallas was 8th. You can also see how the Nuggets had the same 0.8 SRS that year with a pretty sick Thompson, Bobby Jones and Dan Issel trio. I think it makes sense to consider both the Bullets and Nuggets by their rank in the league + eye test talent level, both of which say 50-55 Ws caliber and possible darkhorse if things go their way

I think English could contend offensive catalyst on the best d/rebounding team in the league.

I agree Payton/Drexler/Webber are better than English. But it's close enough to be within reason for me if you gave English their talent level

[Dr Positivity]

Does Gasol run the offense?
Is Gasol the best player on his team?
Does Gasol play on a great team?

So your point makes little sense.

According to some opinions on this board, Gasol was the best player on the Lakers in the playoffs during the title runs. The Lakers went from decent team to historically great team right after Gasol came onboard.

By the way, I've already expressed by problems with the on ORTG vs ORTG team rank arguing, but in jest...

Pau 04 - 110.0 when on (3rd)
Pau 05 - 109.2 (6th)
Pau 06 - 108.7 (6th)
Pau 07 - 110.3 (3rd)
Pau 08 w/Griz - 108.4 (13th)

So I guess Pau looks alright by that faulty metric after all

[penbeast0]

...

Fencer, I did read the rest of your post, but this is the part I really feel the need to respond to.

Let me say up front: The bosses haven't told you you're wrong, so as far as I'm concerned, you're free to do whatever you want...

"The bosses" (with Baller having dropped out for the last month that apparently means me ) say -- I am not dictating criteria to anyone; it's the 100 greatest NBA players of all time however you choose to evaluate them but . . . as a poster I just want to say, DEFENSE COUNTS too so don't ignore 1/2 of the game

[penbeast0]

I don't understand how anyone can nominate or vote Rodman over Walton. Rodman was always the 3rd best player on teams that won titles and 2nd best player on a team like San Antonio. Walton actually led a team to the title and was good enough to win league mvp one year and finals mvp another. Rodman was never that level.

Walton is a one time gamble . . . he plays ONE FRIGGIN YEAR as a starter then screws you over for the rest of his career unless you use him only as a part time reserve (and then you lose him one year out of the two they tried that). I think it takes a perfect storm to get a title that one year, so much had to fall right. Rodman, for all his stupidity and self aggrandizement, was an integral part of 5 titles (and destroyed one potential title team with his piss poor attitude). The "Rodman type" player is particularly well suited to playing with a superstar because he has zero offense but gets you a greater percentage of rebounds than anyone else in NBA history when he is out there.

I think a smart franchise has a better shot over an 8 year or so prime of building a title team with Rodman than the one shot at Walton despite the fact that Walton is clearly the better player. (This is also true of Unseld, Bobby Jones, Alex English, and Chauncey Billups I believe). So, I have the Worm ranked higher.

[Fencer reregistered]

DEFENSE COUNTS too so don't ignore 1/2 of the game

Well, actually, offense and defense are both a little less than half the game each, because there's also rebounding.

Anyhow, Cousy played on some legendarily great defensive teams. And I don't think the poor defender knock has really been established on him, except perhaps early in his career. Was he an inferior defender to his backup, K. C. Jones, a guy who made the Hall of Fame for no identifiable offensive reason? Yeah. Were the Celtics guards trained to gamble for steals and rely on Russell to cover for them? Yeah. But I think this idea that somehow Cousy was a harmful sieve isn't backed up by much in the way of evidence.

[Doctor MJ]

Nom ray allen

[Snakebites]

Ray Allen is not worse than Reggie Miller.

That said, I'm not sure I'm ready to vote for him to be nominated yet.

[ronnymac2]

Anyhow, Cousy played on some legendarily great defensive teams. And I don't think the poor defender knock has really been established on him, except perhaps early in his career. Was he an inferior defender to his backup, K. C. Jones, a guy who made the Hall of Fame for no identifiable offensive reason? Yeah. Were the Celtics guards trained to gamble for steals and rely on Russell to cover for them? Yeah. But I think this idea that somehow Cousy was a harmful sieve isn't backed up by much in the way of evidence.

This is fair. Throughout history, a player's defense has been the target of criticism at a certain point of his career, only to become a strength after a change in the player's physicality, maturity, circumstances, etc. Players change.



From the footage I've seen, Cousy is fairly quick and can put some pressure on a ball-handler. Mind you, this is in a time when it wasn't required of perimeter defenders to stick with their man: primary ball-handlers didn't run offense like they did later, and many offenses had too many instances of players coming down the court and quickly chucking bad shots without a defense needing to put in the work to force them to shoot bad shots. So seeing Cousy's defense and reading how it would translate to a slightly more refined era- not saying one era is better than another (my usual disclaimer)- is difficult.

But he was on the first part of Russsell's defensive dynasty teams, and those teams were dominant defensively. Cousy was at worst a semi-decent piece, at best a ball-thief and ahead-of-his-time trapping PG, and most reasonably a solid defensive piece who, though replaceable, should be credited with being that solid defensive piece on a defensive dynasty if that third, reasonable choice is indeed the correct one.

I also happen to think Cousy's offensive abilities were greater that what his impact on Boston's offense appears.

Honestly, I haven't been involved in these Cousy discussion, but he was a great player. To me, he's Jason Kidd with less passing/playmaking (Kidd is GOAT with Magic and Bird here) and similar scoring. He's a lesser version of Isiah Thomas defensively. He's a big-game player. With his resume acting as a tie-breaker against similarly talented players, Cousy is a top-100 player. But it's certainly not a travesty that he hasn't been voted in yet. In my opinion, he was nominated too early. He was nominated because of the weird MVP and six titles and name recognition, not because of what he could do on the court.

He's coming up though. He and Schayes and Arizin- all on a similar level- are coming up.

[ronnymac2]

I like the Greer mention. Dude was a good all-around player and the leading playoff scorer of the 1967 Sixers, a GOAT team.

[ThaRegul8r]

Anyhow, Cousy played on some legendarily great defensive teams.

And he also played on some bad defensive teams. The season prior to Russell's arrival, Boston allowed the most points in the league, 4.7 more points per game than the second worst defensive team.

The year prior to that, they allowed the most points in the league, the only team in the league to allow over 100 points a game. As a matter of fact, they were the first team in NBA history to allow 100 points a game.

The year before that, they allowed the most points in the league. If one is going to talk about points per game, then they need to tell both sides of the story. Which is that the Celtics were both scoring the most points in the league, and allowing the most points in the league.

And I don't think the poor defender knock has really been established on him, except perhaps early in his career.

What exactly is this line of thinking based on, considering that no one has bothered to inquire into the matter?

Cousy ... never was a good defensive player. With Russell, he never had to worry about guarding anyone, and he never did. If his man drove by Cousy, he’d just run down to the other end of the court knowing Russell would get the rebound and throw one of those great outlet passes for him.

He was super box office; he did things with a flourish. But he didn’t play very good defense.

Was he an inferior defender to his backup, K. C. Jones, a guy who made the Hall of Fame for no identifiable offensive reason? Yeah.

K.C. Jones was one of the greatest defensive guards of his era. Cousy was clearly inferior.

Were the Celtics guards trained to gamble for steals and rely on Russell to cover for them? Yeah. But I think this idea that somehow Cousy was a harmful sieve isn't backed up by much in the way of evidence.

The fact that no one has bothered to look for evidence =/= no such evidence exists. There's a big difference between "there isn't any evidence" and "no one's bothered to see if any evidence in fact exists." People only look for enough to prove whatever point they have an interest in making. They have no reason to search for evidence of anything which isn't part of whatever their particular agenda is at the moment.

Re: being a "harmful sieve," he had the greatest defender ever to set foot upon the hardwood behind him. That covers a lot of mistakes.

[ThaRegul8r]

Honestly, I haven't been involved in these Cousy discussion, but he was a great player. To me, he's Jason Kidd with less passing/playmaking (Kidd is GOAT with Magic and Bird here) and similar scoring.

With the talk about Cousy's field-goal percentage, I'm honestly surprised that a parallel hasn't been made with Jason Kidd sooner, considering that Kidd is a modern-day example of a poor-shooting (Ason Kidd?) distributing point guard (five-time assist leader, second overall).

Worst Field Goal Percentage Since 1970 (min. 7,000 Attempts)
1. .398 Vernon Maxwell
2. .405 Jason Kidd

Just take away the defense and scale down the rebounding. It was just nine years ago that Kidd finished second in the MVP voting in the fifth-closest vote since the NBA went to media voting while shooting 39.1%. It's like people have amnesia or something.

[ThaRegul8r]

re: Rodman playoffs drop off.
Box score stats aren't good way to measure his impact, so who cares if his box score stats looks worse in post season? Russell, Bird or Magic also have worse box score stats in playoffs...

Hmm. Let's just lay this out there with career averages:

Russell in the RS had a PER of 18.9 and played 42.3 MPG.
In the playoffs he had a PER of 19.4 and played 45.4 MPG.
(Which is actually an improvement)

Bird in the RS had a PER of 23.5 and played 38.4 MPG.
In the playoffs he had a PER of 21.4 and played 42.0 MPG.

Magic in the RS had a PER of 24.1 and played 36.7 MPG.
In the playoffs he had a PER of 22.9 and played 39.7 MPG.

Now, with Dennis...

Rodman in the RS had a PER of 14.6 and played 31.7 MPG.
In the playoffs he had a PER of 12.3 and played 28.3 MPG.

I think that something a bit different. His already poor PER gets worse, and his teams choose to play him less?

And let's not pretend stats aren't a part of Rodman's thing. He put Wilt-like energy into those rebounding stats breaking TRB% of 25 6 straight years. Come playoff time, while playing less minutes, his rebounding rate dropped to the point where he only surpass 25 once. Clearly this was not a guy who could "scale up" come playoff time.

This is what actually bothers me when people talk about Rodman being the GOAT rebounder. Maybe that should say, GOAT regular season rebounder. Looking at rebounds per minute, because it's simpler and doesn't require all the steps TrueLAfan's method for estimating TRB% does:

Bill Russell

Code: Select all

      Yrs     G     Reb    RPG     Min   MPG   RPM
RS     13   963   21620   22.5   40726   42.3   .531
PS   13   165    4104    24.9    7497    45.4   .547


Wilt Chamberlain

Code: Select all

      Yrs     G     Reb    RPG     Min   MPG   RPM
RS 14   1045   23924   22.9   47859   45.8   .500
PS 13    160    3913    24.5    7559    47.2   .518

Dennis Rodman

Code: Select all

      Yrs     G     Reb   RPG     Min   MPG   RPM
RS      14   911    11954   13.1    28839   31.7   .415
PS      11   169    1676    9.9    4789   28.3   .350

Russell and Chamberlain's rebound per game averages increased in the postseason, they grabbed more rebounds per minute during the postseason, but Rodman's go down. I don't hear people address this. If the playoffs is "what matters most," it doesn't concern anyone that the "GOAT rebounder" rebounds worse in the postseason? Doesn't Wilt get criticized for his 30.1 scoring average falling to 22.5 in the postseason (25.2% decrease)? So why does Rodman get a pass when his postseason rebounding fell at a similar rate (24.4% decrease)?