RealGM Top 100 #52

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Bob McAdoo

Nominate: Bernard King


Jesus Christ, let these players have their rightful place...

[Laimbeer]

Vote: McAdoo
Nominate: Schayes

[Doctor MJ]

Alright some time this Saturday, let me put down some thought on recent and upcoming nominees:

First, among current players, and by that I mean guys who we judge based on the last decade of basketball, here's the group that's basically the cream of the crop not nominated:

Ben Wallace
Chauncey Billups
Vince Carter
Elton Brand
Shawn Marion
Pau Gasol
Tony Parker
Amare Stoudemire
Yao Ming
Chris Bosh
Carmelo Anthony
Deron Williams
Kevin Durant

Let's get a picture of how they look by various metrics.

Average PER:
Yao 23.0
Amare 22.6
Gasol 22.1
Durant 21.8
Brand 21.5
Bosh 21.0
Carter 20.7
Melo 20.3
Marion 19.7
Billups 19.1
Deron 19.0
Parker 18.5
Ben 15.7

Total WS:
Billups 118.1
Marion 109.9
Carter 102.5
Gasol 98.0
Brand 95.7
Ben 92.1
Amare 75.9
Parker 73.7
Bosh 72.2
Yao 65.9
Melo 56.6
Deron 47.3
Durant 38.2


Average APM ranking (3 multi-year studies):
Yao 21st
Gasol 22nd
Bosh 28th
Billups 30th
Carter 44th
Parker 53rd
Deron 65th
Brand 83rd (but 35th in earliest study '03-09)
Amare 99th
Melo 99th
Ben 127th (but 70th in earliest)
Marion 150th (but 48th in earliest)
Durant (too young)

So what does that say about each player? Well, here's my estimate for how I'd rank them in this project:

1. Gasol - Right near the top with every metric. Strong on his own, and proven to fit in well with superior talent. He's the clear leader, even though we're not factoring in world play which would put him far further ahead.

2. Billups - Not an offensive genius, but this is a very solid player who fits right in with the best of this group even if you don't buy into the narrative boost that comes from his team success.

3. Carter - Clearly top 3, and could easily be 2nd. His peak of course wasn't even captured by the APM studies. I respect his game a good deal, but at the same time, he has had his struggles, and it's not like the man has never gotten to play with other talent. There's been great talent with him wherever he's been, and it's never really led to a fantastic team.

4. Brand - Just a very solid player who rarely got the accolades he deserved.

5. Bosh - An oddly underrated player. Recognized as part of the Big 4 of one of the great draft classes of all-time, and while he's clearly far below the Biggest 2, rarely will you see him mentioned as the equal of Melo, when really by any metric other than PPG, he has the edge.

6. Parker - Pretty debatable with Tony. Is he lucky to be on the Spurs? Absolutely. On the other hand, people need to understand that Pop wouldn't have made Parker a part of his core trio that had so much success is he wasn't quite good. If he misses the Top 100, this won't really disturb me, and I may be persuaded to put him below others on this list, but if people think he's far below some of the big scorers, I question whether they overrate scorers.

7A & 7B. Amare & Marion. I have a tough time on this one. Both in a similar situation obviously which is why I tend to link them. Details are different. Amare can do his thing at a solid level without a Nash-level point guard, the issue though is that's never proven to be transformative for a team. Marion on the other hand is clearly much more than a scorer, and those skills work everywhere. However, they aren't strong enough to make him a star without solid scoring, and he was only truly an impressive scorer with Nash...and yet that irks me considering how much he whined and moaned about not getting enough credit in Phoenix which is what paved the way to be traded. Granted he was primarily whining about Amare getting too much credit, but still, I penalize rather heavily the players who tripped up their own biggest impact (More extreme example: Artest) because it means that as someone considering how badly I'd want them for my team, I couldn't consider their peak ability as more than fool's gold.

9. Yao. Could easily see him move up on this list to be honest. Possibly the best player of the bunch, just crippled by injuries. Obviously I've let some extraordinary peak guy move up my list, but Yao's only healthy seasons were his WORST seasons. His 3 peak seasons saw him missing about 1/3 of each season which is why he was never a Top 10 POY guy for me.

10. Ben. Half of a player, but still quite a half. imho he was the best player on a title team, and the best defensive player on the single best defense we've seen in the last decade plus. At this point he's got decent longevity too.

11. Deron. At this point he's at least a B-list superstar, but that's a recent development, and within a short time of reaching that peak, his team up and traded him. I expect him to rise rapidly, but at this point he's still got a lot left to prove.

12. Melo. Well, half of a player, with that half being star-worthy but still not as good as many think (no, he's not the best scorer in the game), and without really any proof of him having net star-level impact. His teams have always done fine without him, and so it really begs the question whether he's really accomplished anything.

13. Durant. At this point he's an A-list superstar, but really only 2 years worth anything. Still debatably in that top club of peaks so high that you need to think of how close he gets your club to the title, so I could see ending up with him far higher on my list with good arguments, but for right now, I find it tough to say I'd rather have his career over the other guys on the list.

With that said, I remember when we did this project 5 years ago, and despite Wade & LeBron only having 3 years of experience they were easily in the Top 60 of the group. Has Durant really done so much less than those two had done?

[drza]

Vote: McAdoo
Nominate: Pau Gasol

[Doctor MJ]

Breaking it down like beast:

Point guards:
Chauncey Billups is the next current guy. Like I said - solid performer. Vulnerable to defeat by genius.

Mark Price from the generation before. Distributing genius? We certainly saw Cleveland's offense rise & fall with him a good amount. At this point I'm inclined to believe, talk me down if you think otherwise.

Tiny Archibald was a true superstar at the position. I had in previous projects always assumed that his monstrous peak was a product of a crappy team just letting an Iverson-type go crazy for stats, but from ElGee's analysis it appears the Kings' offense was actually the best in the league. Had Tiny & the team kept it up, I could see Tiny well into my top 50, but as it stands, the peak was superquick, and was done on a team that still didn't go anywhere.

Lenny Wilkens was probably the top at the position from the 60s that we haven't discussed yet. I'm not particularly convinced or intrigued. Can anyone make his case?

Mo Cheeks is also someone I love. Not sure where he'll stack up as I'm not ready to push him yet, but this is a very efficient point guard who really was someone who "pops" when I watch him. Very, very fast and active. Those All-Defensive accolades are there for a reason, and I wonder whether he'd have developed into something greater in the modern no-handcheck era.

Siding with Price among point guards for now.

Shooting guards:
Sam Jones vs Hal Greer. Are we set on Jones here?

Joe Dumars is someone who's gotten a lot of love in previous project. I was never one of his big proponents, but perhaps others are and he's just slipped their minds?

Penny Hardaway has a great peak. I could see ranking him above Grant Hill in fact.

Bill Sharman the top SG of the 50s. I doubt I'll be pushing him any time soon, but maybe others will.

Skywalker Thompson? I'm not a huge believer, but at the same time, I don't see English as easily above him either.

At this point I'd say I favor Sam Jones over Penny. Not by much though, and in general, I'm not too inspired by the group.

Small forward:

I'll mention Arizin even though he just got nominated. I'd really like to see more discussion about him as I think it could be productive unlike Cousy who it just seemed like we had major differences of opinions on matters. I'm struck by how much more efficient he was than the other 50s stars back before he went off to the military in '52, and then how he came back, was less impressive statistically, but still clearly lifted a team like nobody's business with a game that would translate well today, and with a defensive rep that is far from a given among old-time legends. At the same time, with any white-era basketball players, I'm cautious about giving too much credit.

Marques Johnson. ElGee makes very convincing points, and I remember how surprised I was at how much Marques impressed me when I first analyzed NBA history year-by-year (when we did the RPOY, he finished 61st in shares). I've been kind of waiting & seeing on his nomination . Still haven't seen strong rebuttals against him.

Bernard King - Have seen some good rebuttals against King, but he's still high on my radar.

Billy Cunningham was an awesome player. Really seems like the kind of star-with-energy that made good things happen for teams.

Vince Carter - Not in love with him, but he clearly should be on people's radars.

What about Dave DeBusschere? This is a guy who made the NBA's 50 despite being an intangibles guy. Was that warranted?

I'll list James Worthy, but I still don't see a lot compelling about the dude. Again, he's a bit above B-Scott...who wasn't an all-star. If there's something about Worthy that tremendously helps a good team become great, I still need to be convinced.

Favoring Marques among the yet-to-be-nominated in this group.

Power forward:

Pau Gasol is very much on my mind right now. Easily the top current player not nominated. The way he fit in on the Lakers after being a guy who could be THE MAN on a playoff team is very impressive. Once he's in, I'll understand talking about Brand & Marion (& Bosh for that matter).

Bobby Jones is on my mind as a guy who could be seen as a guy rather like Ginobili with some Kirilenko thrown in. The low minutes are what keep him from being much higher on my list, but before I go all in, I want to talk about whether he really had such a transformative impact.

Dolph Schayes should be on people's minds if only so that can be sure they have an opinion about him. Again: If you were a Cousy supporter and you aren't a Schayes supporter, you need to have a very good reasons.

Jerry Lucas has gotten some serious love in previous projects, and I was one of his guys. I'm pretty down on him right now though.

Just throwing a name out: Connie Hawkins. Haven't really thought about him in serious comparisons this time around yet, but he has always impressed me quite a bit.

Favoring Gasol from this group.

Centers:

Robert Parish. My nominee from last thread. Far from set in stone, but this was a VERY solid player. People tend to think he's just a longevity guy but this is a dude who peaked at 25 PER. He should not be dismissed lightly.

Nate Thurmond, the last great old-time center we haven't voted in (no I didn't forget Bellamy). Arguably the best man defender of big man in history, and a hell of a team defender too and then we have...

Dikembe Mutombo who we could say something similar about. I favor Mutombo because I respect his offense more. People dismiss him, but anyone who hits double digits efficiently while bringing other things to the table (like man the boards) is doing something I quite like. I'd much rather have that than a guy scoring 20 PPG with horrid efficency like Thurmond.

(Though it must be noted: Compare Thurmond's efficiency in his last few years as a 20 PPG guy to Hayes' early efficiency which was occurring at the same time. Pretty comparable. THAT is why I had such a problem with people looking at Hayes as a great scorer.)

Back to Mutombo. ElGee made a great analysis of how Mutombo kept helping teams on defense immensely until Philly. There is should be noted that he got traded to Philly because Theo Ratliff had just been injured, and Ratliff was essentially a lock for DPOY at that point. We can question Mutombo's defense if it wasn't as good as the far less remembered Ratliff, but there was a reason for his struggle there, and also that was absolute peak Ratliff, and certainly not peak Mutombo.

Additionally, the team's defense actually improved in ranking the next year from 5th to 4th with Mutombo there, before falling to mediocrity when he left the year after that.

Among this group, still favoring Parish slightly over Mutombo.

[Doctor MJ]

So TL;DR:

Top potential nominees by position for me right now:

Price
Sam Jones
Marques
Gasol (who is clearly the best of current players not yet nominated)
Parish

[Doctor MJ]

Was McAdoo really any better than Amare . . . not defensively, not really a big step up rebounding when you adjust for era opportunities (though better), so it's about scoring and it seems pretty close to me; just that Amare has done it longer and without turning into a destructive drug addict. Am I underestimating McAdoo's impact here? Although Mac has the MVP, he only had 1 1st team and 1 second team MVP and only 5 all-star births; Amare has 1 1st and 4 2nd team All-NBA and 6 All-Star although never better than 6th in MVP -- accolades aren't swaying me Mac's way.

Well, I'll put it this way: By WS McAdoo has a superior peak, a superior 5 year prime, and more total WS.

Beyond that, Amare's peak season statistically by that metric is '04-05, and of course the next year Phoenix played without him, and for the meat of the season were played pretty much as well without him despite also having to trade Joe Johnson.

McAdoo's peak by contrast corresponded with a big improvement for Buffalo, followed by a big fall off without him, which makes the argument that he was more trouble than he was worth kind of crazy. Not saying you're wrong about the reasons the trade was made, just that given the fact that Buffalo would soon establish itself as the most pathetic franchise in all of American sports, they had a false concept of what a bad headache truly was if they thought it was McAdoo.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, time to vote, will go...

Vote: Bob McAdoo

Nominate: Marques Johnson

[penbeast0]

Switching from Bobby Jones to Pau Gasol; I just don't think Marques was dominant enough to be here yet with his short peak -- obviously I am a lot more impressed with Sid than Marques as the leader of those Bucks teams, Marques is more of a pure scorer whereas Sid had a monstrous defensive impact to go with his nearly equal offense -- can't prove it except by accolades and eye test but the defense is why I'm on the Moncrief bandwagon both individually and in terms of team impact

McAdoo is in, if anyone else breaks the tie by midnight I will put the winner on the list, if not it's the turn of tie votes for neither to go on the list yet

VOTING

Sidney Moncrief -- penbeast0, Snakebites, Fencer

Ray Allen -- Dr Mufasa

Bob McAdoo –lukekarts, FJS, therealbig3, ronnymac2, Laimbeer, drza, DoctorMJ

Wes Unseld – JordansBulls

Bob Lanier – ElGee, David Stern,


NOMINATE

Bobby Jones -- DavidStern

Pau Gasol -- Dr Mufasa. drza, penbeast0

Bernard King – Snakebites, ronnymac2

Sam Jones – Fencer

James Worthy – lukekarts, FJS

Penny Hardaway -- JordansBulls

Marques Johnson – ElGee, therealbig3, DoctorMJ

Dolph Schayes -- Laimbeer