Real GM Top 100 List #51

[ElGee]

Trying to get a better feel for the lot of players coming up, and given that he's just about the highest ranked player on my board I know the least about, I still say it makes no sense to have Arizin and Cousy this far apart. They are next to each other on my list (coincidentally), and I don't understand the argument that has Cousy where he's voted in and Arizin not nominated.

Not saying we should make a second wrong by also overrating Arizin, but doesn't he have to be coming up for the people who voted Cousy??

[ElGee]

Eddie Jones does not belong on this list. He would have needed to perform better in the playoffs.

Brand is interesting. Thoughts on Brand?

Maybe Lamar Odom gets consideration at the end of this project as well.

Oh, and Chauncey Billups should be coming up soon btw.

I brought Chauncey up about 10-15 slots ago and ElGee (I think, might be wrong) bit my head off. But yeah, he's on my short list of 4 right now. I can't see Brand or Odom on my top 100 but who knows, someone might convince me. Shawn Marion should come well before any of those guys except maybe Billups -- as well as similar guys like Bobby Jones, Larry Nance, etc. All 3 of whom I'd rather have than Dennis Rodman although I have to respect Rodman's rings and boards enough to at least look at him first.

It probably was me. Bringing up Chauncey as a top-50 player is just, well, to use his words, dirty. If Steve Nash is a QB at the PG then Chauncey is a game-manager. I question whether he was ever a top-20 player in the league, which doesn't prevent him from achieving a certain status, but he's not a guy I'd love to fill my PG spot on many teams and he certainly isn't a high-peak player.

He was good, no doubt. He will be on my list. But we're nominating for the 60s spots (in theory) right now and we still have a bunch of names to clear before I'd consider nominating Billups (have him closer to 80 as of right now as I try and finish my list). So I probably snapped a bit at your cranium if you brought him up 15 threads ago.

[drza]

I work in neuroscience, and there's a famous researcher of sexual function named "Richard Johnson", whose name also has all types of double-entendre potential.

Oh cool. Back when I was working toward a phd in CS (which I didn't finish ftr), I did a lot of collaboration with neuro people. What's your focus?

I'm an engineer by training, so probably my closest job title would be "neural engineer". I work with electrode technology and signal processing to develop neural prosthetics. My PhD work dealt with helping the surgeon locate the right spot within the brain to place deep brain stimulation electrodes to treat Parkinson's disease, and my first post-doc project dealt more with using neural recordings/stimulation to help restore bladder function in people recovering from spinal cord injury.

Is that "CS" "computer science"? If so, doing grad work in that field is pretty hard core (my best friend from Tech was a CS major, and that takes a different kind of mind). If you don't mind me asking, where did your career path ultimately take you?

[drza]

Eddie Jones does not belong on this list. He would have needed to perform better in the playoffs.

Brand is interesting. Thoughts on Brand?

Maybe Lamar Odom gets consideration at the end of this project as well.

Oh, and Chauncey Billups should be coming up soon btw.

I brought Chauncey up about 10-15 slots ago and ElGee (I think, might be wrong) bit my head off. But yeah, he's on my short list of 4 right now. I can't see Brand or Odom on my top 100 but who knows, someone might convince me. Shawn Marion should come well before any of those guys except maybe Billups -- as well as similar guys like Bobby Jones, Larry Nance, etc. All 3 of whom I'd rather have than Dennis Rodman although I have to respect Rodman's rings and boards enough to at least look at him first.

It probably was me. Bringing up Chauncey as a top-50 player is just, well, to use his words, dirty. If Steve Nash is a QB at the PG then Chauncey is a game-manager. I question whether he was ever a top-20 player in the league, which doesn't prevent him from achieving a certain status, but he's not a guy I'd love to fill my PG spot on many teams and he certainly isn't a high-peak player.

He was good, no doubt. He will be on my list. But we're nominating for the 60s spots (in theory) right now and we still have a bunch of names to clear before I'd consider nominating Billups (have him closer to 80 as of right now as I try and finish my list). So I probably snapped a bit at your cranium if you brought him up 15 threads ago.

I agree much more with ElGee on Billups. To me he was a good player, not a great one, that just ended up in some really good situations to both maximize his benefit and get good publicity. I like the "game manager" description for him...he's consistently a positive, but not really ever a game-changer. Caliber-wise, I have him a lot closer to an Andre' Miller-level than I do to a Jason Kidd-level.

[drza]

Vote: McAdoo
Nominate: Arizin

[Doctor MJ]

Eddie Jones does not belong on this list. He would have needed to perform better in the playoffs.

Brand is interesting. Thoughts on Brand?

Maybe Lamar Odom gets consideration at the end of this project as well.

Oh, and Chauncey Billups should be coming up soon btw.

I think Brand's pretty underrated in general. I don't see him as someone on my immediate radar, but I think he's a legit top 100 candidate.

I don't see Odom that way. Let's not forget he's never been an all-star, and not because he's been screwed over. While I consider him the 4th best player from the 1999 draft by career (after Ginobili, Brand, and Marion), he's at best the 7th best peak in that draft (behind Kirilenko, Artest, and Baron). I don't think the draft exists where a the 7th best peak from it would warrant top 100 consideration.

Billups is on my radar. Clearly others don't like him, but while I'm not in love with him, I am impressed.

[Doctor MJ]

I can't see Brand or Odom on my top 100 but who knows, someone might convince me. Shawn Marion should come well before any of those guys except maybe Billups -- as well as similar guys like Bobby Jones, Larry Nance, etc. All 3 of whom I'd rather have than Dennis Rodman although I have to respect Rodman's rings and boards enough to at least look at him first.

You and I have very different opinions about Brand vs Marion then. I find it really damning that he was basically only an efficient scorer with Nash, and that he got traded away from Phoenix, specifically because he bitched so much about Nash and Amare getting more attention than he did. He's the type of player that really needs to be with a superior player or two for him to fully do his thing, and his ego made him reject that role. It's a problem.

Brand on the other hand is the kind of B-list alpha like Gasol. He played the good soldier for the worst organization in sports for year, and while I wouldn't assume he could do a Gasol-Laker thing in the right circumstance, I do think his game could work on a good team and I don't think his ego would be an issue.

[Doctor MJ]

Whoa, did you see the new Similarity Scores feature in b-r on each player page? (Scroll down past All-Star games)

It's based on WS not actual player similarity, but it gives a great sense of the arch of a player's career.

Seems like it compares guys who played similar positions.

It certainly doesn't directly, so I'd be careful with that statement. For comparison, here's what Carter looks like:

Iverson
Eddie Jones
Sam Jones
Porter
Hornacek
Greer
Tim Hardaway
Wilkens
Hawkins
Cheeks

Doesn't really look at all like Melo's list despite playing similar roles.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote: Kevin Johnson

Nominate: Sigh...let's go with Robert Parish.

Other guys on my mind:

Mutombo
Arizin
Marques
Price

[Doctor MJ]

I'm an engineer by training, so probably my closest job title would be "neural engineer". I work with electrode technology and signal processing to develop neural prosthetics. My PhD work dealt with helping the surgeon locate the right spot within the brain to place deep brain stimulation electrodes to treat Parkinson's disease, and my first post-doc project dealt more with using neural recordings/stimulation to help restore bladder function in people recovering from spinal cord injury.

Is that "CS" "computer science"? If so, doing grad work in that field is pretty hard core (my best friend from Tech was a CS major, and that takes a different kind of mind). If you don't mind me asking, where did your career path ultimately take you?

Fascinating. When I was doing computational neuroscience stuff, a lot of my focus was a neural network model simulating the basal ganglia, with some of that relating to Parkinson's disease. So yeah, spent a lot of time with neuro people & taking neuro classes thanking the stars that I didn't have to do their work.

Where did my career path ultimately take me? Lol, well I'm not dead yet. I'm currently a high school physics teacher (my BS is in astrophysics), before that I was an algorithms architect at a .com, before that I was an ontologist and linguist at an AI start up, and before that I was a frustrated CS grad student dealing with an advisor who moved across the country and gradually became useless. For good and for ill, I can safely say, no one has the same resume I do.

[penbeast0]

Looked at Brand's record . . . I had a memory of him being injured a LOT more than reality shows so he does move up on my list. Marion wasn't as efficient but was still a 20/10 small forward who led Phoenix teams as the leading scorer (even with Nash) and best player (pre-Nash) to good records. Brand is more efficient but also more one dimensional; and yes, he was screwed over by playing for the Clippers just as Worthy and Sam Jones were blessed by playing with their respective great teams but that's part of the equation. I never really felt that Marion was the whiner you are portraying him; he said a couple of things but he came across to me as less of a complainer than, say, Akeem Olujawon in Houston before the rings. Maybe it's just because I really enjoyed watching him play . . . not sure, there are NBA players who have turned me off to the point where I actively disliked rooting for them, Marion never did.

[penbeast0]

Vote: I will switch to KJ to break the tie, McAdoo’s got too much baggage

5- Kevin Johnson – Dr Mufasa, JordansBulls, ElGee, therealbig3, Snakebites
5- Bob McAdoo – FJS, drza, lukekarts, ronnymac2, DavidStern
Sidney Moncrief – penbeast0
Wes Unseld -- Laimbeer

Nominate

Pau Gasol – Dr Mufasa
Penny Hardaway – JordansBulls
2- Marques Johnson –therealbig3, ElGee
2- Bernard King – ronnymac2, Snakebites
3- Paul Arizin – DavidStern, penbeast0, drza
2- James Worthy – FJS, lukekarts
Dolph Schayes -- Laimbeer

[Doctor MJ]

Looked at Brand's record . . . I had a memory of him being injured a LOT more than reality shows so he does move up on my list. Marion wasn't as efficient but was still a 20/10 small forward who led Phoenix teams as the leading scorer (even with Nash) and best player (pre-Nash) to good records. Brand is more efficient but also more one dimensional; and yes, he was screwed over by playing for the Clippers just as Worthy and Sam Jones were blessed by playing with their respective great teams but that's part of the equation. I never really felt that Marion was the whiner you are portraying him; he said a couple of things but he came across to me as less of a complainer than, say, Akeem Olujawon in Houston before the rings. Maybe it's just because I really enjoyed watching him play . . . not sure, there are NBA players who have turned me off to the point where I actively disliked rooting for them, Marion never did.

Marion complained quite a bit. It was all over the 7 Seconds or Less book, and I remember one time during the end stretch of '06-07 when he said things in an interview indicating that he might rather be scoring 30 PPG on a mediocre team than continue being the #3 glory guy in Phoenix. Pretty comical once we saw exactly what became of him in other situations. When the trade for Shaq happened, I had zero doubt in my mind that a lot of this had to do with Marion's bitching leading the team to say "Are you as sick of this as I am? Let's give something new a shot.". Granted it wouldn't have happened if the Suns had won the title the previous year.