RealGM Top 100 List #66

[therealbig3]

I can't really see Hill over Carter, personally. Carter was a guy who took on a huge offensive burden in the playoffs...Hill never really did, or at least, wasn't really able to. And Carter's time in NJ gets underrated, while I feel that Hill's prime gets overrated.

And regarding Thurmond...even if he was a bad offensive player...what about the numbers that bastillon posted? Regardless of what he was good at, he had huge impact. Russell was a bad offensive player too (very unimpressive scoring numbers, poor team offenses), but he had such a monstrous impact on defense that it makes him a GOAT candidate. I think it's a similar case with Thurmond, though obviously not as extreme.

Agree on Thurmond.

Obviously you are Carter's biggest supporter and have made sound points on him. It's weird, when he first was mentioned I thought "I'm going to have Vince Carter much higher than everyone else." Now I think "I might have Vince Carter lower than everyone else." And I really only disagree with your classifications of him slightly (in the negative direction) unless you are understating it. As it stands, I have Carter at around No. 75. To boot:

I don't happen to think much of his rookie season in the grand scheme of things. In 2000 I do have him as a top-10 player in the league, but it's really low all-nba quality stuff IMO. In 2001 he's slightly better, but it's in the same ballpark...and that's arguably his peak. He's 22nd overall in Ilardi's 03-09 study which really only captures the end of his dropoff and should treat him well. He's +2.4 on offense which is 36th -- 33rd if we remove small minute players. His on/off numbers in NJ reflect someone having positive impact, as his game would suggest.

But 02 and 03 are basically lost to me due to injury. (03 he's at least there at the end)

What's left is 04-07, and I'm not sure he does play his best basketball in New Jersey. You make a compelling case that he does, but (a) he's playing with Kidd and (b) the rules are different to make him look statistically more favorable. Not saying it's a bad stance, but how much better was he in NJ than in Toronto at his best? He looks excellent in the PS but I watched those series against Indy and the sometimes Shaq-less Heat and thought he played well, but nothing otherworldly. (eg Decent game 1 and they win with a 107 ORtg, he blows up in G3 and they post a 101 ORtg.)

I wonder how others compare 06 Carter to Allen and Iverson? I'm open to an argument there that would move him up for me...but at the end of the day I'm not wild about drafting Carter. Never liked his defense, he has some injury problems, and there are many all-around wings I would want on a team ahead of him, although at least he has a decent outside shot.

Well, how much does playing with Kidd help Carter? What's interesting to me is that when Kidd was being considered, his detractors were saying how he doesn't really lead great offenses, because he's not a great scorer, nor is he a great halfcourt offensive player in general. So if that's true, why would his presence now be used to detract from Carter? And when I watched him play, Carter never relied on Kidd to help him generate offense. Carter was not a guy who liked to run out on the break (weird, because when he did, he was one of the best open court players of all time), and Carter liked to iso and create for himself in the half court. Sure, there were some highlight reel alley oops between them, but it's not like scoring was so much easier for Carter now that Kidd was around...especially past his prime Kidd who at that point was especially no longer a threat to score a lot. RJ was there, and he helped, but his game didn't fit that well with Carter's. Overall, it was pretty much a unipolar offense that ran through Carter.

And after the trade to NJ in 05, he played the best basketball he had ever played. His raw numbers during that time was around 28/6/5 on 56% TS. It was mainly his explosion that got the Nets into the playoffs that year. And he played well in the playoffs too, despite low efficiency scoring, considering that he played against a dominant Heat team that had Wade emerging as a superstar. RJ was injured and didn't play that well, and Kidd, again, wasn't really a threat to score, so that he could alleviate the pressure off him. I think this gets overlooked, because the first 20 games with Toronto bring his overall averages down for the season.

And in 06, Carter has an All-NBA caliber 06, with a fantastic playoff run. Clearly his best individual playoffs actually, and I remember that I picked him as the best playoff player through the first round. Overall for that playoffs, he put up 30/7/5 on 56% TS. That's pretty dominant stuff, and Wade is greatly praised for his playoff run, but compare him and Carter head to head in their series:

Wade: 27.6 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 6.6 apg, .598 TS%
Carter: 30.2 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 4.8 apg, .554 TS%

Carter was holding his own against Wade, who had a very dominant overall playoff run, and is considered by some to be the best overall player that year.

Carter's 07 was arguably his best all-around regular season, although he was disappointing that year against the Cavs in the playoffs.

And I don't think his 08 and 09 should be ignored. He was still the best player on the team, and he was still the guy they ran the offense through, and he was still a 21/6/5 type player. The team was crap, which is why they didn't go anywhere, but Carter was still carrying that offense...I don't want to say losing Carter was the sole reason why the Nets went from a 34 win team to a 12 win team...but it pretty clearly is the main reason imo.

Compared to Allen in 06, this was Allen's regular season peak imo, and so he was better than Carter during the regular season...but not by terribly much, and like I said, Carter had a huge playoffs, while Allen didn't get a chance to play. It's a similar case with Iverson.

And regarding Carter's numbers looking better because of rule changes, you're basically talking about his efficiency, it's true, his raw efficiency went up, but it's not like it was masking an inefficient player, he was pretty much around league average with the Nets.

And I don't really see the injury concerns...he was injured for 2 seasons, and then never played less than 73 games in a season during his prime.

I'm seeing an All-NBA player in 00, 01, 05, 06, and 07, and a fringe All-NBA player in 08 and 09. He was a good playoff performer, who was capable of carrying big offensive loads, a strong rebounder for his position, an underrated passer, and to be honest, I never got the impression that he was a poor defender...not great, but not bad either. Definitely better than Iverson, FWIW.

[penbeast0]

ok, now compare Carter to Adrian Dantley who isn't nominated yet . . . or Hal Greer (relative to league rather than relative just to Oscar and West) . . . or David Thompson . . . or Glen Rice or Detlief Schrempf or . . . I see him as a very good player but not setting himself apart from the other very good players left

[therealbig3]

ok, now compare Carter to Adrian Dantley who isn't nominated yet . . . or Hal Greer (relative to league rather than relative just to Oscar and West) . . . or David Thompson . . . or Glen Rice or Detlief Schrempf or . . . I see him as a very good player but not setting himself apart from the other very good players left

I don't see the problem here, none of those guys had the all-around game that Carter did, nor did they have to carry an offense as much as Carter. And it's not like Carter hasn't had a big impact, he does well in the APM studies, he does well based on ElGee's SIO numbers, and you can clearly see the Nets (don't know much about the Raptors) struggle a lot without him. He's not simply a big numbers, no impact guy. He's a big numbers, big impact guy.

I mean, how much did Pierce, Iverson, and Allen set themselves apart from Carter? In fact, I don't know if Iverson should be ranked ahead of Carter. Those guys went a long time ago, and people are still debating whether Carter deserves to be here at this point, even though in his prime, he wasn't that far off from them at all (and plenty of people thought him and Iverson were a level above Pierce and Allen). I feel like more than basketball is being considered with Carter here, namely his "soft", "choker", "whiner" reputation. But he was durable, productive, and stepped his game up in the playoffs. He never was an off-court problem in NJ, and the Toronto situation can be overblown...from what I've read and heard, the Toronto front office and media are just as much to blame as he is for how that went down.

[penbeast0]

3-way tie. I guess I will come off my nominations for Thurmond for the vote; adding Doctor MJ gives the nomination to Tiny

VOTE:

Dolph Schayes – penbeast0

Robert Parish – lukekarts

Grant Hill – JordansBulls, ElGee

Vince Carter – Dr Mufasa, ronnymac2

Nate Thurmond – therealbig3, DavidStern



NOMINATE:

Chauncey Billups – penbeast0

James Worthy – lukekarts, DavidStern

Shawn Kemp – JordansBulls, therealbig3

Tiny Archibald – Dr Mufasa, ronnymac2, Doctor MJ

David Thompson -- ElGee

[lorak]

I
And regarding Thurmond...even if he was a bad offensive player...what about the numbers that bastillon posted?

That numbers could be tricky and only in one season (1967) he seems to have really big impact on very good team. On two other occasions he had good with/without numbers but team even with him was below average! So yeah, he made bad teams better, but they still were worse than average. He also almost never anchored very good defensive teams, Russelll ALWAYS anchored very good or great defensive teams even when he played with Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn.

[therealbig3]

I
And regarding Thurmond...even if he was a bad offensive player...what about the numbers that bastillon posted?

That numbers could be tricky and only in one season (1967) he seems to have really big impact on very good team. On two other occasions he had good with/without numbers but team even with him was below average! So yeah, he made bad teams better, but they still were worse than average. He also almost never anchored very good defensive teams, Russelll ALWAYS anchored very good or great defensive teams even when he played with Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn.

Lol, which is why Russell is #2 and Thurmond just went at #65

Clearly, Thurmond isn't as good as Russell...but he plays a similar way, and he impacts the game in a similar way...just not close to the same extent. KG almost never anchored dominant defensive teams either, but we know that the reason for that is before he went to Boston, he never had the personnel or coaching around him to do so. We know his individual impact was huge, and I think it's the same way with Thurmond.

And based on his numbers:

Thurmond 1967 (16g) 12.7 to 5.4
Thurmond 1968 (31g) 10.5 to 3.4
Thurmond 1969 (12g) 8.4 to -0.4
Thurmond 1970 (40g) 5.8 to -1.6

It looks like Thurmond single-handedly took a poor team and turned them into a good team on two different occasions (67 and 68). Not sure how good +5.4 and +3.4 is, but I'm assuming that's pretty good, but not elite (It would be pretty crazy if he took an otherwise -7.3 team into elite territory).

[lorak]

Do you know that when he left Warriors they became better? Or that after his rookie year, when he started playing around 41 MPG Warriors became worse (that's also the same year when they became really, really bad on offense: -6.6 ortg!)?
Also, who was starting in place of Thurmond when he missed games? Maybe that would explain those with/without numbers? Or what was the pace (Elgee posted only ppg, not ortg!)? What quality of opponents?

I voted for Thurmond, but I question his overall impact as being huge positive. He was great man to man defender, much worse, but still very good team defender and horrible offensive player. His impact was closer to Ben Wallace than Bill Russell (who was also better offensive player than Thurmond).