#3 Highest Peak of All Time (Russell '65 wins)

[ardee]

My first question though would be (and apologies if I missed this): What's your analysis of the scale of Bird's superiority on defense? I am hesitant to use defense as a major factor for players who aren't superstars on that front, but yes, clearly if Bird has a big enough edge here, he should get the nod.

Trying to put in all on the numerical scale in SRS terms...

Magic is a +8 on offense. This is the best offensive player in NBA history.
Bird is a +7.5 on offense. This is the second best offensive player in NBA history.

I have Bird having 0.5-1.0 edge on defense.

Let's put the actually number on hold for a second. I've done enough analysis and seen enough basketball that I'm fairly comfortable calling these guys the two best offensive players ever. (Nash and Jordan would be the only contenders to me, and I've seen enough of them to also feel comfortable slotting them back...although the 3-point line and whatnot makes it interesting for Nash, and the lack thereof makes it interesting for West/Oscar. I digress...)

Defensively, Bird in 86 is going to be above a replacement player. And depending on which forward position he plays he's having positive impact with his help, positioning and rebounding. (Without McHale, Bird posted "defensive stats" matched by these 7 players http://bkref.com/tiny/NTVwa) Magic's defense seems like a minor negative, while I view Bird's defense as a minor positive. I'm not sure most people realize early Bird was actual quite a good defender.

So the real question is how far apart are they in offensive impact? Is it as close as I imagine? Clearly if Magic is out on an island, you can give the nod to Magic 87 over Bird 86. Well...

ORtg
Bos 85 +4.9 (+3.2)
Bos 86 +4.6 (+8.2 PS)
Bos 87 +5.2 (+8.5 PS)
Bos 88 +7.3 (+3.6 PS) (+7.9 after first 2 rounds)
Bos 89 (no Bird) +3.0 (-7.3 PS)

That's 3g in 89 against Detroit. In 88, the PS ORtg in the first two rounds was +7.9 before bone spurs started to hamper Bird in the Detroit series, and the offense went with him (-4.3 against Detroit).

ORtg
LAL 85 +6.2 (+9.8)
LAL 86 +6.1 (+6.4)
LAL 87 +7.3 (+10.5)
LAL 88 +5.0 (+7.8)
LAL 89 +6.0 (+9.1)

I'm posting these just so people realize how good both these teams were on offense, and to also note the 87 Lakers go higher than the best Celtic team.

But then again, how much of that is due to a desire to run/offensive strategy on LA's part? How much of that is due to teammate differences? For instance, the 87 Celtics were last in OREB% by a mile...suggesting a major emphasis on transition D. (Unless you want to find a way to make the argument that McHale-Parish-Bird are all-time bad OREB in that year.)

This broad perspective above clearly isn't enough to answer "how much better is Magic on offense," but I just want everyone to see how close these teams performed on this side of the ball across the peak years for these guys. I think it's clear the in/out numbers are evidence in Bird's favor on this front. And responding to my point 2 graphs above...the 88 Celtics with healthy McHale and Bird essentially peak higher on offense than any team in NBA history:

+9.4 ORtg -- would be 1st all-time
59.6% TS -- would be 1st all-time by 0.6%!
68.7% AST% -- 4th among 111+ offenses, behind *ahem assist inflation ahem* 3 Utah teams

And they do it with horrific OREB% and without surrounding Bird with 3-point shooters. I find this as impressive as anything Magic ever accomplished, and it's one of the pillars of evidence for trumpeting Bird's offense-savant portability.

So, I guess if you think you can drop Magic on any team and get a +8 to _9 offense without sacrificing much on defense, his portability isn't really an issue. OTOH, if you replace every PG ever and end up with something between +5 and +7 on offenses on the capable teams, you aren't having the same lift when he replaces good PG's.

Bird never really "replaces" anyone, since he can play so many different roles and play either forward position and his off-ball play is GOAT-like. So Bird can go to those good offenses, "replace" either forward (not many good offenses have 2 pivotal performing forwards, eh?), he gives you an upgrade over nearly every shooting 3, a massive spacing upgrade over every non-German 4 basically, and his passing would create GOAT-level ball movement and facilitate any kind of offense with the current PG. Much like I see Reggie Miller's amazing ability to help good offenses (something, sadly, we only saw from Reggie himself in International play, but have seen from similar off-ball Spacers), I think Bird is taking all the teams past the "Magical ceiling" if you will, and that matters to me a good deal because in trying to build dominant teams I care way more about how you perform on good teams than what you can salvage from bad ones. (Yes, in this case I'm calling 4-5 SRS teams "salvaged" bc/ they don't win many titles.)

None of that is enough for me to say "Bird = Magic on offense" (although frankly, how is that not a fair question??), but is it not enough to say how could Magic's offensive advantage be large enough to offset Bird's defensive advantage?

What is your SRS list for other players?

[Doctor MJ]

I feel like I'm just not going to come to a resolution on Bird vs Magic really. I have to admit I'm just not that confident judging the subtle parts of their team defense, and if when people focus on Bird's specific strengths, they like to focus on his active hands so yeah, Bird made some great steals, but so of course did Magic.

I look at the specifics of the team defenses involved and its interesting how similar they appear. Both were typically excellent at reducing TS% and both didn't cause many turnovers. Superficially, that appears to tell us that both teams have their bases pretty much covered but they could use more aggression...which means the active hands of both Bird & Magic would be welcome.

In the end, it seems like every positive thing that gets said about one guy gets said about the other, and it's almost the same on defense except people are wont to bring up that Magic would struggle if he was matched with super-fast tiny point guards. Bird of course would struggle just as bad, but he wasn't called a "point guard" so people never judged him against that standard. I really question whether Magic's defense would have been read differently if people were thinking about him as a forward.

Anyone with more insight on this would be appreciated.

[Doctor MJ]

Getting back to other players, we've got:

Magic vs Bird
Julius vs LeBron

To go along with Wilt vs Russell
Pick your winners, and those guys should probably be in the conversation now.

I suppose right now I'd lean Magic, LeBron, Wilt among those debates. Magic's lack of D makes me tend to put Wilt ahead of him. LeBron vs Magic I have problems with, but since Magic's below Wilt at the moment, I guess that puts me with Wilt vs LeBron.

I'm thinking a lot about the '09 playoffs. If that was a total fluke, something akin to Kobe mid-'05-06 but at a much more meaningful time, then that makes me thing I shouldn't get carried away by it. But damn was that something.

One guy I'm not seeing talked about much though: Hakeem. I always have a tough time getting a handle on him, and there's a part of me that feels I shouldn't be talking about peak Russell without spending about as much time talking about peak Hakeem. Thoughts?

What makes peak Hakeem a better thought of discussion over peak Duncan and peak Garnett?

The way I see it at their peaks (03 and 04) Duncan and Garnett were better defenders than Hakeem while Hakeem was a better offensive player than Garnett due to his post/iso game effect vs Garnetts faceup. I dont know why Hakeem should be getting the nod over 03 Duncan. The only thing I can really see honestly is about injuries to key players during that season like Dirk (Duncan still outplayed and won majority of games when they were both healthy).

Then theres Duncans historic 24/17/5/5 finals and he never got outplayed in a series like Hakeem did against Shaq in the finals (Hakeems teammates hitting the shots at alltime efficiencies is what won them the series as well as Hakeems better ability to pass out of doubles at the time).

Others have already jumped in here, but I'll say I found it pretty shocking that you led off stating nonchalantly dismissing Hakeem's defense before going into more depth on offense. You should expound on the defensive part if you're confident in your opinions, because that's not obvious at all to a lot of us.

Hakeem's superficially the most similar looking defender to Russell we've probably ever seen. Blocks & steals like crazy because the guy is insanely nimble, and let's not forget contemporary accolades were more kind to him than they've been to Duncan & Garnett. Not saying Duncan & Garnett have been properly awarded, I do think they've been underrated, but clearly neither of these guys is getting his hands on the ball on defense like Hakeem did, so as I see it, it's up to people arguing against Hakeem here to fill in the blanks.

I will say that Duncan plays very fundamentally sound defense, and Garnett's defensive quarterbacking ability I'd rate up there with anyone except Russell. Hakeem though was certainly not seen as a mentally slow player. This is a guy who probably learned more in his NBA career than anyone in history who didn't come in as a teenager. He just kept figuring more and more stuff out. On the offensive end, this clearly lead to him getting better and better. On defense, there were other factors that made it less dramatic (great intuition and the explosiveness of youth), but is anyone really willing to say that when he was winning titles he was getting his team burned by bad decisions?

I do think that the root of a lot of the doubt regarding Hakeem is that he didn't play on a dominant defense. People who rely on that metric quite a bit, I understand why they favor Duncan. I don't see how one can champion Garnett though without recognizing how powerless Garnett was to create great team defense as Minny went down the tubes. Fact of the matter is that at least in the modern game, one guy can not make a defense great by himself. Those cutting Garnett slack, need to strongly consider cutting Hakeem slack. And of course, those who cut neither slack, need to stop being so wrong.

ftr, I'm not comfortable giving anyone the defensive nod over Hakeem except Russell, and at his peak, I would be inclined to favor Hakeem's offense ahead of Duncan & Garnett.

[ardee]

Getting back to other players, we've got:

Magic vs Bird
Julius vs LeBron

To go along with Wilt vs Russell
Pick your winners, and those guys should probably be in the conversation now.

I suppose right now I'd lean Magic, LeBron, Wilt among those debates. Magic's lack of D makes me tend to put Wilt ahead of him. LeBron vs Magic I have problems with, but since Magic's below Wilt at the moment, I guess that puts me with Wilt vs LeBron.

I'm thinking a lot about the '09 playoffs. If that was a total fluke, something akin to Kobe mid-'05-06 but at a much more meaningful time, then that makes me thing I shouldn't get carried away by it. But damn was that something.

One guy I'm not seeing talked about much though: Hakeem. I always have a tough time getting a handle on him, and there's a part of me that feels I shouldn't be talking about peak Russell without spending about as much time talking about peak Hakeem. Thoughts?

What makes peak Hakeem a better thought of discussion over peak Duncan and peak Garnett?

The way I see it at their peaks (03 and 04) Duncan and Garnett were better defenders than Hakeem while Hakeem was a better offensive player than Garnett due to his post/iso game effect vs Garnetts faceup. I dont know why Hakeem should be getting the nod over 03 Duncan. The only thing I can really see honestly is about injuries to key players during that season like Dirk (Duncan still outplayed and won majority of games when they were both healthy).

Then theres Duncans historic 24/17/5/5 finals and he never got outplayed in a series like Hakeem did against Shaq in the finals (Hakeems teammates hitting the shots at alltime efficiencies is what won them the series as well as Hakeems better ability to pass out of doubles at the time).

Others have already jumped in here, but I'll say I found it pretty shocking that you led off stating nonchalantly dismissing Hakeem's defense before going into more depth on offense. You should expound on the defensive part if you're confident in your opinions, because that's not obvious at all to a lot of us.

Hakeem's superficially the most similar looking defender to Russell we've probably ever seen. Blocks & steals like crazy because the guy is insanely nimble, and let's not forget contemporary accolades were more kind to him than they've been to Duncan & Garnett. Not saying Duncan & Garnett have been properly awarded, I do think they've been underrated, but clearly neither of these guys is getting his hands on the ball on defense like Hakeem did, so as I see it, it's up to people arguing against Hakeem here to fill in the blanks.

I will say that Duncan plays very fundamentally sound defense, and Garnett's defensive quarterbacking ability I'd rate up there with anyone except Russell. Hakeem though was certainly not seen as a mentally slow player. This is a guy who probably learned more in his NBA career than anyone in history who didn't come in as a teenager. He just kept figuring more and more stuff out. On the offensive end, this clearly lead to him getting better and better. On defense, there were other factors that made it less dramatic (great intuition and the explosiveness of youth), but is anyone really willing to say that when he was winning titles he was getting his team burned by bad decisions?

I do think that the root of a lot of the doubt regarding Hakeem is that he didn't play on a dominant defense. People who rely on that metric quite a bit, I understand why they favor Duncan. I don't see how one can champion Garnett though without recognizing how powerless Garnett was to create great team defense as Minny went down the tubes. Fact of the matter is that at least in the modern game, one guy can not make a defense great by himself. Those cutting Garnett slack, need to strongly consider cutting Hakeem slack. And of course, those who cut neither slack, need to stop being so wrong.

ftr, I'm not comfortable giving anyone the defensive nod over Hakeem except Russell, and at his peak, I would be inclined to favor Hakeem's offense ahead of Duncan & Garnett.

If that be the case, I'm assuming you rank Hakeem's peak pretty darn high?

[ElGee]

@Ardee

To be clear to others, I'm trying to translate my evaluation of players into numbers. This is NOT easy, but I find it quite instructional. I'm not sold on the specifics always, but the broad strokes I'm obviously quite confident in.

Offense
Magic +8.0
Bird +7.5
Jordan/Nash +7.0
Barkley +6.5
Shaq/Oscar/West/Paul/McGrady +6.0

The tenth best offensive player ever is a tricky one. I'll quickly note for later that I could also see Kobe, Dirk, LBJ, Wade or Penny there, but McGrady, relative to the league, was something bonkers on offense. I don't think most people realize that due to ensuing seasons...and if you view it as a "fluke" I'd disagree, but understand why it'd fall below the others mentioned. We'll get to that later though.

Defense is way harder to peg. And in general it has a smaller individual impact in the 3pt era. Nonetheless, my list looks something like this as of today:

Defense
Russell +8
Thurmond (haven't evaluated, typically have him second)
Walton +4.5
Olajuwon(89-90) /Wilt (68)/Duncan (99-03)/KG (08)/Robinson (91,94) +4.0
Gilmore (72, 74-75), Howard (09-11) +3.5
Shaq +3.0

The question here, and the crux of my voting issue this round, is Russell. A click lower and the other guys mentioned should go in before him. I also have a harder time conceptualizing defensive value. What's a defensive replacement player? Well, doesn't it depend on position?

C -2.5
PF -2.5
SF -1.5
SG -1
PG -0.5

Does it look something like that, with an inverse relationship on offense? A nearly identical question is how much do the best defenders of the 3-pt era impact defense? Again, I find looking at the offensive trends easier to arrive at a number because offensive players can have a much greater individual impact these days. There's a lot more clouding the defensive story.

Still, my research of team shifts suggests this is the ballpark to be working in. Although the details certainly matter, since in my Sacred Peaks the defensive impact of the bigs is enormously important in ranking them, and obviously a +6 SRS player is different than a +7 SRS player...

[therealbig3]

I do kind of buy the argument that LeBron is not physically what he was in 09 anymore. I think the decline is very overexaggerated, but I do think he was able to get into the lane so effortlessly in 09, and it's not quite the same in 12. And for that reason, i think his ability to create for others was even better in 09. He compensated quite nicely with a much better post game in 12, but overall, I think as an offensive threat, I'd go with 09. And I think defensively, it's about a wash, but might side with 09 barely there too.

I just think LeBron did everything outside of posting up just a bit better in 09 than in 12.

Some interesting stats:

At rim:
09: 6.6 FGA, 72 FG%, 37.4 Assisted%
12: 6.6 FGA, 75.4 FG%, 47.2 Assisted%

16-23 feet:
09: 5.5 FGA, 40%
12: 5.6 FGA, 39%

3 pointers:
09: 4.7 3PA, 34.4%
12: 2.4 3PA, 36.2%

So they are similar players at the rim and on jumpers, but the difference is that 12 LeBron cutout on the reckless 3pointers which is the reason why his FG% went from 48.9 FG% to 53.1 FG%.

He's getting assisted on shots at the rim way more though. In 09, he was able to take it to the rim himself from pretty much anywhere. I'm not saying there's a big difference, but it's just not as easy for him to do that anymore, and that's expected, with the extra muscle he's carrying. Like I said, he compensated with a really nice post game, and it's not like he can't get to the rim consistently. But like someone else said, it was just a joke how easily he was getting into the lane in 09.

His shooting numbers are a little misleading. He was more consistent in 09, and that mattered in the playoffs, because he shot really well in the playoffs. His jumper never abandoned him like it did in 12.

12 LeBron was the clear cut best player in the league, and he was amazing, especially in the playoffs. But 09 LeBron did everything just a tad bit better imo, outside of posting up, which he didn't really need.

[fatal9]

While I give peak Bird the edge over peak Magic, I think the roster and bench of those teams contributes a lot to those stats.

Magic had one of the best backups in the league. Cooper would average around 10 apg with Magic out (11 apg in '83-'86 in 30 games Magic missed). He was awesome on both ends, very underrated passer, one of the best 3 point shooters in the league, athletic and obviously one of the best defenders of the era. From the limited +/- stats I've seen of Cooper in the playoffs, he rated very highly. Meanwhile, Bird's backups were scrubs year in year out. I guess that could be used to suggest that Bird was more valuable to his teams (up until '86...it's not even an argument), but it's hard to compare them with in/out when roster situations were so different. Magic wouldn't be any better of a player for example if he had a worse backup which would have given him a higher in/out rating.

When you look at the rosters, particularly the bench/position backups, you would expect there to be a bigger change with Bird in than Magic considering how close they are as players. Good comparison though, provides a good look at their value to their respective teams. Bird seems to be even better offensively in a team setting than I imagined.


I think 1993, 1994 Hakeem is getting a bit underrated. I just have one question for people putting Russell over him. Do you really believe Russell to be so much superior defensively that it makes up for Hakeem's huge offensive/scoring advantage (not only a center who can put up 30 a night, but he can be an offensive hub for the entire team)?

There is no chink in his armor during him prime/peak: DPOY, MVP, championships with good but not great rosters, insane in/out impact (Rockets were just 7-27 without him from '92-'96), outplayed everyone put in front of him, a leader with intangibles/hustle, an assassin in big games and clutch moments, great decision making/passing/ability to read defenses which allowed you to build the entire offense around him, guy who made his teammates better while putting up monster numbers and he won against all the odds with that Russell-esque ability to NEVER lose in elimination games (9-1 when facing elimination from '93-'95 while consistently stepping up individually, only loss was a controversial one against a more talented team). He gives you with nothing to criticize because he did it all and he beat them all. Assessing purely his peak, Hakeem has a great GOAT argument, though people seem to struggle to admit this, possibly because rest of his career isn't up there with rest of the GOATs.

I personally think he peaked in the second half of the '93 season. That season was definitely his prime defensively. Had a little bit more athleticism than in '94 (and a lot more than in '95) while still displaying the mental mastery of the game he showed in the championship years.

[C-izMe]

I really have no idea to go with this but I'm starting to lean away from Russell. I might just change my vote to Duncan, Hakeem, Magic, Bird, etc. I'll go through how I think about all the contending bigmen now:

List - 03 Duncan, 65 Russell, 67 Wilt, 94 Hakeem. 04 Garnett is super close but IMO its behind 03 Duncan (which is easier to rate it against since it happened right before Garnett's year). If Duncan's year happened in a different era where I would have to compare impact across time periods Garnett would probably be here too. Meanwhile I'm not on Kareem or Walton for one reason; I'm not sure that during their arguable peaks (76 Kareem, 77 Kareem and Walton, 78 Walton) they had the best season (76 Erving might top them). I've just learned about how good that year was recently though. Only issue I have with J was that their was a split (read: weaker) league in 76.

But anyway here I go.

Defense - Probably rank it Russell, Duncan, Hakeem, Wilt. I do think Wilts year might be a bit overrated because his supporting cast was scary good. Russell also had the best supporting cast in 65 so his backup was nothing to scoff at. Meanwhile Duncan and Hakeem were working with scraps.

Russell dominated defensively to win a title. Many say he couldn't dominate this era but a 6-10.5 (in chucks I remind you), 228-235 pound (according to his personal accounts and old measurements found by IH poster CavsFTW who keeps many records of old measurements) C/PF could still dominate. Young KG, Camby, Tyson Chandler, and soon Anthony Davis have proven/will prove this. Leading what is by far the best defense eve has to get you some credit, right? -10 on a scale of -10-10

Wilt's season is an odd one because he never matched this impact before or after. Also after it happened his focus was lost completely (assist title) so it's hard to accurately gauge his impact this year. But I do know one thing and that's that he was the 3rd best defender in the league. That's one thing everyone can agree on. -5 on a scale of -10-10.

Hakeem (note: I am combining 94 and 95) was a monster on both ends. His defensive prime is the closest a modern player can get to Russell IMO but that happened nearly half a decade before this. Despite having a limited offensive cast his defensive cast was pretty good. Vernon Maxwell was a great perimeter defender and Thorpe/Horry were the perfect forwards to pair with Hakeem (Thorpe could rebound and was pretty strong and Horry was the Derrick Rose of forwards defensively. Just played it safe). He also won DPOY and is clearly better than any defensive player we've seen in the last 4 years (in 94 at least). Anywhere from -5 to -7 on a scale of -10 -10

Duncan was a great anchor but he had a lot Of help on defense. I do believe that he was probably slightly over Hakeem though. It's just a gut feeling because I really don't have any numbers that could prove it either way. -7 out of 10 on defense.




Offensively - Definetly Wilt, Hakeem, Duncan, Russell in the rankings.

Russell's offensive performance in the PS is the whole reason I picked this season. I really don't like how people love to say "the team was -10 on defense" and credit that mostly to Bill but they never mention that the offense was -5 and if they do they don't give any of the blame to Russell. I honestly belied the reason the offense was so crappy falls on all players and how defensive minded they are. I can't say Russell and his defensive mindset helped the team (in the regular season) and he probably didn't crash the offensive boards or try as hard on that end either. But in the PS he was amazing. 16.5ppg (54TS) and 6.3apg is great. He also seems to get crap about not being able to play offense when in the PS from 61-66 he averaged 18.7ppg (50TS) and 5.2apg. Hardly bad. But what his usual bump in the PS shows me is that he didn't care as much about asserting himself and that offense in the regular season and he saved his best for later (over the same period he averaged 15.8ppg on 46.5TS with 4.5apg in the regular season). I tend to rate PS games more important though so I'll cut Bill slack in my ranking. A +0-1 on offense (using the Magic scale which means Magic is a ten and I rank everyone else on that).

Wilt - Led a great offense and was the best offensive player that year. I do believe most of that was due to opposing coaches not knowing what to do though. +6 on offense.

Hakeem - Really got attention and dominated h2h matchups those years. With those two dominant PS performances I think he rates right under Wilt. +4 or +5.

Duncan - Offensively was merely "very good" in the regular season. He led his team in ppg, TS, and in the PS apg. Definetly carried the load and made the team go from worst to average. +4 on the scale.

This ends up with me getting a 10.5 for Russell, a 11 for Wilt, 10.5 for Hakeem, and a 11 for Duncan.

Didn't notice the results as I did this. It's very crude but these guys are still virtually even.

At least now I I change my vote I had some argument for all 4.

[Doctor MJ]

If that be the case, I'm assuming you rank Hakeem's peak pretty darn high?

I do, although how high is being influenced right now by our conversations. It wouldn't shock me at all if I had Hakeem ahead of both Wilt & Russell on peak by the time we're done, but it's also no given.

[ElGee]

Vote: 65 Russell (to conform to everyone's used year)

I'm really up in the air between Russell, Wilt and Bird, and probably because they are 3 totally different players. Frankly, I'm thinking Wilt is at the bottom of this group because I find it less likely that he can have such great impact without the guidance of the right coach. Some of that has to do with my evaluation philosophy -- I understand the "best seasons" guys who are more results-oriented and don't care about such things not caring about such things.

This coach doesn't have to be Hannum, per se, but clearly he is someone who (a) clashes with his coaches and (b) doesn't have, or didn't use, the optimal approach to the game quite a bit. I guess all this means I'm giving him most of the benefit of the doubt about what happens in 1969 (that it to say, I think his play fell off dramatically instead of making a damning statement about "non-volume Wilt"). I also will add, per the previous discussion of the 67 76ers, that someone who I will vote for in this project, Nate Thurmond, made the 67 Warriors a +4.6 opponent in the Finals. Somehow, I've talked my way into feeling very comfortable with Wilt above everyone he's above, and comfortable with him below these 4 (MJ, Shaq, Russ, Bird).

Part of me thinks that if you stick Russell on any of the other teams in 64 or 65, they become overwhelming favorites. I don't know how to take that into account frankly. At the same time, I'm more "impressed" with the quality and challenges in the league and distribution of talent in 1986 than in the mid 60's.

As for James, I think his 2012 defense was absolutely astounding. The best I've seen from a non-big since Pippen. That, and his versatility makes me want to side with 2012 him over 2009. I realized what happened in the PS, and especially the first 5 Orlando games, makes people gawk. It's understandable. But what about after G3 against Indiana, with Bosh out and Wade below his standards, what James did for the rest of the PS?

2009 PS ----------------- 35.3 ppg 9.1 rpg 7.3 apg 61.8% TS 8.7% TOV
2012 PS after G3 ESCF: 31.7 ppg 10.8 rpg 5.9 apg 58.3% TS 11.5 TOV%

For my money, he did it against tougher competition in 2009. For my money, the way he played in 2012 lends more favorably to different scenarios. People should remember his 2012 TS% in the RS was +7.8%. And his defense was better which scales to more teams well too. Although it's looking strongly like I'll have Magic and LeBron in a battle for 10th. (!)

[Doctor MJ]

I'm on my phone so sorry I can't break this down and respond one point at a time

No worries, but yeah, now I gotta respond and be negative toward Wilt again. Not really my intent because I think he's a very worthy candidate here, but you're opinions are full of the kind of stuff everyone here is already familiar with. You've got to make sure you're listening, not because we're always right, but you need to make sure you're not making arguments based on thinking we're ignorant here. We're obsessives.

1) yes russel was the system yes Russell covered more space and yes Russell was the better defender
But wilt had aspects of his defense that were better dominace at the rim being able to completely shut down every other center at the rim in one on one defense. But due to strength vertical and size wilt out rebounded Russell and has the advantage over russell here and if we are going to ignore wilt being the most dominate scorer ever and Russell being a .420 shooter with low usage rate then we are not having a full conversation about each individual players impact on each game

You're absolutely right Wilt had defensive strengths relative to Russell, there's just no cause to look at them defensively as somehow "about the same". They were different, and there are reasons why Russell is given the edge by everyone on that front.

Wilt's rebounding edge was negligible.

Re: "most dominant scorer ever". There's no point in further conversation is you don't acknowledge what's been said about Wilt's scoring here. Simply put: He wasn't even close to the best scorer of his own era, let alone later eras. He has an edge on offense, but it's typically not that huge. '67 is the exception, and it's benefit came specifically because he stopped the charade.

2) I am really not buying the obsession with stats as much as his obsession with dominance, which became centered on winning. His stats took a major dive when he bought into hanums system and they beat and celtics team loaded with hall of famers in 67. Also you'll see a similar impact with the lakers although at first the ego of Elgin Baylor basically froze out wilt, he continued to pound away and bring them a championship when Baylor was done ( their first in that era ) wilt having no problem diverting to Gail Goodrich and Kerry west without looking for stats by continuing to dominate defensively and on the boards and overall against Kareem. In the series on the way to his second ring. He also in those two years did it all playing through horrible knees and broken hand

Obsession with winning? In '67 yes, but in general, Wilt was much less able to motivate himself for the sake of team success than most players. Most players struggle to have quite the same intensity after they win a title, but Wilt is the only one I know who admitted that he had to make up a counterproductive individual goal (lead the league in assists) in order to keep going after he won a title. Truly, Wilt felt that once he won the title, that was won more thing to check off his list. For pretty much everyone else in the GOAT discussion, the goal was never to win, but to win as many as possible. Not Wilt.

Re: '67 Celtics loaded with HOFers. Celtics got in the Hall because they won so many titles. In '67 it was really only Russell, Jones and Hondo that were HOF-level players on the Celtics, while the 76ers had Wilt, Greer, Cunningham, and Walker. And of course Russell was past his peak AND having to do the player-coach thing for the first time. It's really hard to imagine there being anyway you could see that victory being one where Wilt had to overcome unfair obstacles.

Re: Baylor ego. Eh, that's a pretty weird argument there. Baylor deserves criticism in my mind for not accepting a lesser scoring role, but because of West's presence, not Wilt's. You'll note that even when Wilt really got into a groove as a Laker, it wasn't because he took on a role at all similar to Baylor's.

3) wilt is not my favorite player. I hate him and the fact that he represents basically the start of players caring way too much about their brand. And all of that always makes me think how much better they could be if they would shut up and just put up ala Larry bird, Tim Duncan, and what I believe grant hill would of been..... However if a players impact on the game was worth 97/100 and could of been 100/100 a player like let's say Michael Jordan had an impact of 95/100 and could of been 96/100 the 97 is still higher,
Wasted potential is probably the most infuriating thing to watch but it still doesn't count against the reality of what they did... For example if Jordan would have had more a complete impact on the game maybe he would not have always lost to the dominate teams in the 80s and had to wait until the 90s to get his wins. If Jordan would have not retired maybe he could have challenged Russell's championships. Neither of those change the fact that he was the second greatest player of all time IMO

Right, but the issue with Wilt is that his impact isn't slightly lower than what his stats say in his guadiest years, it's vastly lower. It's not zero by any means, but make no mistake, when a change as drastic as what Hannum decided to do in '67 is made, it's only done because he sees huges problems lying underneath those beautiful stats. (This presupposes Hannum knew what he was doing of course, but when the results showed a VASTLY superior offense the following year, it's unreasonable to question him.)

4) everybody loves to hate goaliath and people can use advanced statistics to prove or discredit wilt being the greatest ever, but whenever stats are used to support wilt it becomes " he was all about the stats " which considering the fact that he opposition believed wilt would easily crush blocks records and no one recorded blocks is a bit silly
Bottom line is watching wilt full games in his prime unavoidable if you want to be in this conversation ( not saying ou haven't but assuring you that lots haven't ) and if you watch wilts full games there has never been a player to dominate an entire game like wilt the percentage of baskets he is both directly and indirectly scoring, the amount of baskets he was both directly and indirectly preventing are unparralled ever, then of course the rebounds... Jordan may have had more impact on offense ( highly debateable ) but doesn't even come close anywhere else in terms of impact... Russell surpasses wilt in defense and is very comparable in rebounds but offense is a landslide and without great offensive teammates Russell's legend would be a lot lower ( big reason why I believe hakeem and Russell should be debated)

The fact that little guys sell shoes better than big guys is an undeniable fact, but this is no good reason to assume that anyone who finds issues with Wilt is doing it out of spite. This group just enshrined somebody BIGGER than Wilt for goodness sakes.

With the stuff you say here, you just come off like someone who thinks they've thought things through about as well as can be done, but who doesn't seem to have any real literacy in much of the stuff being discussed here.

When you make an off the cuff statement about Wilt vs Jordan's offensive impact being "highly debatable" after what you've already read here, and without making any more detailed arguments or asking questions of us, it makes me wonder how you're ever going to get anywhere. It just seems like you're dismissing people for being contrarians without having made any effort to understand how they came to that opinion.

You used the "watch the game" argument here. This is a classic line, and it's almost always said by people who aren't actually that good at watching games. What do I mean by that? Well, speaking for myself, I'm mediocre at watching games compared to more than a few people around here. I just have a difficult time synthesizing everything that goes on at once, and so if I'm really, really trying to understand what happened, I need to watch and re-watch several times. There are people who don't need to do this often, and when they re-watch, they are picking out nuance well beyond what I can see on my own. And meanwhile there's most people who simply watch the ball and overrate scorers. Ask yourself honestly where do you fit in.

I can watch Wilt and see quite a few things that I could tell him to do that if he listened, he'd be a better player for it. That's a very bad sign, because as I said, I'm no Alex Hannum, such things don't occur to me so readily for typical NBA stars. Having that in mind, along with the data analysis I've done, the historical articles I've read, and the conversations I've had, the notion that if someone simply watched Wilt played they'd see how impactful he was being on offense in general is actually a red flag that the person advocating "just watch him" isn't actually seeing things all that well.

[Doctor MJ]

As for James, I think his 2012 defense was absolutely astounding. The best I've seen from a non-big since Pippen. That, and his versatility makes me want to side with 2012 him over 2009. I realized what happened in the PS, and especially the first 5 Orlando games, makes people gawk. It's understandable. But what about after G3 against Indiana, with Bosh out and Wade below his standards, what James did for the rest of the PS?

2009 PS ----------------- 35.3 ppg 9.1 rpg 7.3 apg 61.8% TS 8.7% TOV
2012 PS after G3 ESCF: 31.7 ppg 10.8 rpg 5.9 apg 58.3% TS 11.5 TOV%

For my money, he did it against tougher competition in 2009. For my money, the way he played in 2012 lends more favorably to different scenarios. People should remember his 2012 TS% in the RS was +7.8%. And his defense was better which scales to more teams well too. Although it's looking strongly like I'll have Magic and LeBron in a battle for 10th. (!)

I'm actually leaning LeBron right now, what's your rationale for having him a tier down from your top 3 contenders here?

[drza]

That was a nice post by Fatal about Hakeem. As you might have guessed from my earlier post about LeBron, I'm finding myself leaning towards the bigs over him. I'm not sure that Hakeem is next for me, but I do think he, Duncan and KG are ahead of LeBron on my ballot. I still have to figure out where to put Magic and Bird, as well as Wilt, Doc and Kareem.

[C-izMe]

People are mentioning Lebron but he can still be under Bird, Erving, and Magic. What makes you guys select him over them. He's definetly not third though.

[ardee]

That was a nice post by Fatal about Hakeem. As you might have guessed from my earlier post about LeBron, I'm finding myself leaning towards the bigs over him. I'm not sure that Hakeem is next for me, but I do think he, Duncan and KG are ahead of LeBron on my ballot. I still have to figure out where to put Magic and Bird, as well as Wilt, Doc and Kareem.

I'm surprised he hasn't received any chatter yet when practically everyone else has. People are really underestimating his 1977 performance in arguably the most loaded league in history.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, not sure what's going on exactly, but I'm seeing a lot of votes missing. Here's my count thus far, folks should let me know if i missed something:

Russell '65 - 4 (realbig, C-izeMe, drza, ElGee)
Wilt '67 - 3 (ardee, Dr Positivity, PTB Fan)
Kareem '71 - 1 (Josephpaul)

Conversation's great so far, but this voting dropoff is kind of astounding.

btw folks, if you in the conversation and would like to be on the voting panel, please let me know. This is not a guarantee I'll admit you in, but you want to get on my radar. I'm also seeing various stronger posters from past projects I'd be happy to let in if you're in it for the long haul.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm going to give my vote now, which I might change if I need to break a tie. There's some absurdity to having my vote changed an hour later, but what can I say, the debate is tough, and I like reading what y'all are saying.

Vote: LeBron James '09

Here's the baseline: Jordan's in at #1. How much better do you think Jordan is in a season where he does all the right things than LeBron doing all the right things? For me, I don't see it as a significant margin. What puts Jordan clearly over the top is the fact that he ALWAYS brought it, whereas LeBron is more mentally fragile. The fragility though isn't something that is always there, it just rears its head when things break the wrong way.

In '08-09, LeBron was without question my Offensive Player of the Year, and he could add strongly on the defensive side of the ball. Dude was lifting a team by 40 wins. I don't know how anyone can feel all that confident that he's tier below Jordan when he's doing that.

I get the lack of portability. There is a part of me who prefers other types of players because of this, but I sided with Jordan (who is even less portable than LeBron) over those other guys before, and if you were to ask me how I could place the Birds and Garnetts of the world below Jordan but above LeBron, I couldn't really give you a good answer.

In comparison with Wilt, well there's the issue that in '67 he really was quite easily offense more than defense, and his offense isn't something I think could work to anywhere near the same degree later on.

In comparison with Russell, well I go back to the Jordan line of thought. Any argument for Russell over LeBron also seems to work with Jordan. Those arguments were not as strong to me as the Jordan over Russell arguments, and it seems like I can make the same arguments for LeBron.

[ronnymac2]

That was a nice post by Fatal about Hakeem. As you might have guessed from my earlier post about LeBron, I'm finding myself leaning towards the bigs over him. I'm not sure that Hakeem is next for me, but I do think he, Duncan and KG are ahead of LeBron on my ballot. I still have to figure out where to put Magic and Bird, as well as Wilt, Doc and Kareem.

I'm surprised he hasn't received any chatter yet when practically everyone else has. People are really underestimating his 1977 performance in arguably the most loaded league in history.

at your sig.

And I agree with KAJ in '77. I know I mentioned Hakeem earlier in this thread, but KAJ definitely deserves more discussion here as well. There's a solid chance Kareem and Hakeem are better than Wilt and Russell.

[therealbig3]

Like I asked before, why is Hakeem's peak better than Duncan's? Where is the evidence for that?

Because based on production and efficiency (using mysticbb's SPM), Duncan's clearly superior. Unfortunately, we don't have RAPM for Hakeem, but from the prime years we have for Duncan, he's consistently near or at the top of the list. And we don't even have complete data for his 98-03 run, which was definitely his physical peak.

The SPM really doesn't encapsulate defense, but again, I haven't seen any actual data that supports Hakeem being a better defender than Duncan. We know Duncan in his prime was an elite defender, arguably the best in the league. He's anchored much better defenses than Hakeem. Yes, he has Greg Popovich, and yes, he's had better defensive role players, but where is the cutoff in terms of how much credit we give Duncan and how much credit we give the other players/coach? When Duncan is still a very good defender, but is no longer "best in the game" caliber, the Spurs defense has fallen off significantly.

In terms of impact, including defense, it's hard to say that Hakeem was not only better, but so much better that it compensates for Duncan's clear advantage using SPM (and I'm not trying to use SPM only, if we just compare their statlines against each other it's again very similar). Duncan is very clearly a superstar, MVP-type player according to RAPM.

Anyway, like I said before, I don't see a reason why Hakeem should go now, because imo, there's clearly better players left to go.

[drza]

Like I asked before, why is Hakeem's peak better than Duncan's? Where is the evidence for that? (snip)

In terms of impact, including defense, it's hard to say that Hakeem was not only better, but so much better that it compensates for Duncan's clear advantage using SPM (and I'm not trying to use SPM only, if we just compare their statlines against each other it's again very similar). Duncan is very clearly a superstar, MVP-type player according to RAPM.

Anyway, like I said before, I don't see a reason why Hakeem should go now, because imo, there's clearly better players left to go.

I think my response is more along the lines that both Hakeem and Duncan should be on the table, not that Hakeem shouldn't be because you don't think Duncan is.