#12 Highest Peak of All Time (Walton '77 wins)

[MisterWestside]

I've run over 400 in/out player seasons. Walton's results are at the top pretty much any way you want to slice it (the comment about Mike Conley earlier was incorrect).

I don't think therealbig3 meant to do this, but it would be helpful for understanding to explicitly state that you're looking at the difference in SRS rather than just the change in team off/def efficiencies. Without the SRS after the numbers the data looks like "on-off" data.

[ElGee]

Well, yes, the Lakers looked like a .500 team without Washington. You are overblowing the Chicago situation. 15-20 games is still large enough for weird stuff to happen, especially if there is a crazy circumstance in there or two (blowout, injury, etc). I've never run large scale data on it, but empirically I've encountered so many teams who finish the season with a huge bang and then flame out in the PS, usually due to matchups. What happens is at the end of the year, we are more likely to see a PS team exceed their absolute goodness on the positive side of variance because they are playing teams that are shutting it down for the year.

Someone keeps bringing up the 11 Blazers as an example of this amazing team with Gerald Wallace (last 23 games), but you can see they played the Spurs when SAS was resting players, the Cavs in uber tank mode, the Bobcats and Wizards in uber tank mode. If you adjust for these games you see a 2 SRS team again.

In your case, Philadelphia looked *better* with McGinnis struggling according to the historical accounts I've read because it allowed the team to function more smoothly and Erving to flourish again. (I believe players from the 76ers themselves were saying that). Now, if you want O/D splits of more detail than what I posted above, I guess you can say:

1977 (values relative to opp ORtg)
Assuming constant pace
Walton in -2.0 DRtg
Walton out +1.5 DRtg

Assuming increase from 108 to 110
Walton in -3.8 DRtg
Walton out +8.5 DRtg

1978
Assuming constant pace
Walton in -3.8 DRtg
Walton out -1.2 DRtg

Assuming increase from 104 to 106 (league average)
Walton in: -5.4 DRtg
Walton out: +3.9 DRtg

[bastillon]

1977 (values relative to opp ORtg)
Assuming constant pace
Walton in -2.0 DRtg
Walton out +1.5 DRtg

Assuming increase from 108 to 110
Walton in -3.8 DRtg
Walton out +8.5 DRtg

1978
Assuming constant pace
Walton in -3.8 DRtg
Walton out -1.2 DRtg

Assuming increase from 104 to 106 (league average)
Walton in: -5.4 DRtg
Walton out: +3.9 DRtg

I'm assuming you have offense as well. btw, mathematically it seems impossible for 2 possessions/game to have such a big impact on DRTG... I think there's something wrong with those numbers.

[ElGee]

And finally, since much has been made about Kareem v Walton, here is Gilmore v Walton:

Gilmore v Walton H2H

11/25/76 (117-115 Por OT win)
Gimore: 10-10-1 (3-10 4-5) in 34 min, 5 fouls
Walton: 18-18-2 (8-16 2-5) in 45 min, 4 fouls

12/28/76 (*Walton 7 key final points in 3 rebounds in waning minutes 84-79 Por win)
Gilmore: 10 pts (2 Fts in 2nd half)
Walton: 29-18

[01/01/77 -No Walton. Gilmore 15 pts in Por win]

[2/18/77 – No Walton. Gilmore 6 pts in 90-87 Por win]

PS
G1 96-83 win (Lucas hit 10 straight shots)
Gilmore 13-14-1 (5-12 3-3) in 44 min 5 fouls
Walton 11-9-6 5 (4-9, 3-3) in 39 min, 5 fouls

G2
Gilmore 27-13
Walton 24-17-?

G3
Gilmore 16-14-0 (5-9, 6-7) in 42 min 3 fouls
Walton 17-11-4 (8-14 1-4) in 38 min 6 fouls

A Eugene Register-Guard report says “Portland was worried Gilmore would take over the game” but he never did.

11/23/77 (116-111 Por win)
Gilmore 16-12-4 (6-15 4-6) in 42 min 3 fouls 0 blocks
Walton 22-15-3 (7-17 8-11) in 39 min 5 fouls 2 blocks

12/27/77 (115-106 Chi win)
Gilmore 25-10-5 (8-14 9-11) in 40 min 5 fouls 3 blocks
Walton 15-9-5 (6-13 3-4) in 37 min 3 fouls 4 blocks

01/03/78 (92-90 Por win)
Gilmore 27-12-1 (11-17 5-8) in 39 min 3 fouls (“brilliant battle w Walton”)
Walton 15-17-8 (7-14 1-2) in 40 min 3 fouls

2/26/78 (98-97 Por win)
Gilmore 23-12-2 (8-15 7-17) in 42 min 0 fouls
Walton 13-14-6 (7-17 0-2) in 34 min 6 fouls

Available Totals:
Gilmore 18.6 ppg (9g) 12.1 rpg (8g) 2.0 apg (7g) 13.1 FGA's (50.0% 7g) 8.1 FTA's (66.7% 7g) in 40.4 mpg (7g)
Walton 18.2 ppg (9g) 14.2 rpg (9g) 4.7 apg (7g) 14.3 FGA's (47.0% 7g) 4.4 FTA's (58.1% 7g) in 38.9 mpg (7g)

vs. rest of league 77-78
Gilmore 20.9 ppg (155g) 11.5 rpg (156g) 2.9 apg (157g) 14.4 FGA's 54.4% 7.6 FTA's (68.4%) in 36.1 mpg
Walton 18.8 ppg (114g) 13.8 rpg 4.3 apg (116g) 14.8 FGA's 52.8% 4.7 FTA's (71.4%) in 33.8 mpg

That's a per36 decline of 1.1 assists for Artis and 2.7 FGA's. Both players see their scoring take a hit, with Gilmore dropping 4.4% in shooting and holding Walton 5.8% below his average. Also note that Gilmore was much better in 1978 than in 1977 against Portland.

PS there's nothing wrong with the numbers in the other post. Do the math and you will see...

[colts18]

Someone keeps bringing up the 11 Blazers as an example of this amazing team with Gerald Wallace (last 23 games), but you can see they played the Spurs when SAS was resting players, the Cavs in uber tank mode, the Bobcats and Wizards in uber tank mode. If you adjust for these games you see a 2 SRS team again.

I'm not exactly sure why you are adjusting for these games but not others. What relevance is Cavs, Wizards, Bobcats in tank mode? SRS is adjusting for that. In fact those teams weren't even tanking. The Wizards were 5-3 in April. Cavs 4-4 (most of the bad record was in December and January) and their MOV improved by 5.2 in the 2nd half. The Blazers actually lost to the Bobcats so I don't know why you bring them up. SAS was only resting Duncan in the game, the Blazers beat the rest of the Spurs. You can't take away all the blowouts then say, see they aren't that great. Blowouts of bad teams is a sign of a great team. Not everyone blows out bad teams (see the Lakers vs. Bobcats throughout the years).


These are some of the teams the Blazers beat with Wallace:
Miami (on the road)
Orlando (road)
Mavericks (twice)
Spurs (twice)
OKC (much better team post trade)
Lakers (much better team 2nd half)
Grizzlies


If you are beating all of those teams, it's not a fluke. No 2 SRS team is beating all of those teams in 1/4 of a season. In B-R rankings which is essentially Ortg-Drtg adjusted for HCA and opponent, the Blazers were the 9th best team in the league post deadline which is about right for them.

[ardee]

Well, if you watch him play, no, it doesn't seem right. If you look at this defensive box score stats, no it doesn't seem right. Then we can see what kind of team he was on.

Walton's defense 1977 and 1978 Blazers

*If you're thinking, Portland's defense in 77 was only -1.5 and in 78 -3.7, understand that Walton was injured for 25% of the games. In 1977, assuming a constant pace (highly unlikely), the Blazers DRtg would have been -2.2 w Walton. There is extensive discussion about how much faster they would play with Walton, but let's still assume they were behind the fastest teams and played at a 110 pace (up only slightly from 108 average) with Walton. That would make their DRtg -4.0 in 77 w/Walton.

In 1978, as we'd guess, the results would be even more pronounced. Portland would have been -4.5 with Walton in the lineup if we assume constant pace. Again, this is highly unlikely. Simply making the pace league average w Walton would change the defense w him in the lineup to -6.8.

For reference Portland's 1977 PS DRtg was -5.4 in 19 games. Their 1978 PS DRtg, without Walton, was +2.3 in 6 games to Seattle.

Bastillon asked for series by series breakdown in 1977 PS:
v Chi (3g) 99.4 ORtg 93.6 DRtg (-4.7)
v Den (6g) 99.0 ORtg 97.5 DRtg (-3.2)
v LAL (4g) 101.9 ORtg 96.4 DRtg (-5.0)
v Phi (6g) 100.2 ORtg 94.5 DRtg (-6.7)

This is a rebuttal to SDChargers.....

4) Walton, the guy who supposedly had Bill Russell impact on defense, got man handled by Kareem in those very playoffs yet his team swept them. Clearly it wasn't all Walton.

The parallels between Russell/Wilt and Walton/Kareem in '77 are quite striking. It was obvious who the better offensive player was, and the other couldn't contain him individually. However, by limiting his passing options through good team defense, Wilt/Kareem was turned into a one man team, and his team-mates were too poor to help him, resulting in an overall low DRtg.

For what it's worth, I definitely do still consider Wilt's peak to be above Russell's (have his '67 year no. 1), and Kareem's over Walton's. But head to head stats don't determine everything, you've got to remember that, a lot of what Walton payed dividends in the context of his team's overall performances and didn't show up in the box-score.

[colts18]

As far as Dirk goes, the more I look at the finals matchup, the more I'm impressed that Dallas beat the Heat without HCA. Just adjusting a few numbers, The Heat come out to be an elite team.

RS:
Big 3 on court: 48.4% of minutes, +15.7, +14.5 per 48
Big 3 not on court: 51.6% of minutes, +0.93, +0.82 per 48

the 2nd one is referring to minutes that either 1 or 2 members of big 3 are on court or none of them are. Based on that, you get +7.42 per 48 minutes. Good team, but thats not indicative of the team the Mavs faced in the finals.

Finals:
Big 3 on court: 62.9% of minutes
Big 3 not on court: 37.1% of minutes

If you use the per 48 values from above and adjusted it to the minutes they played in the finals, the Heat come out to an expected +9.4 per 48 minutes team (thats in between the 87 Lakers and 86 Celtics in MOV). The impressive thing is that the Mavs held the Heat to -6.1 per 48 when the Big 3 was on the court.


In the regular season, the Big 3 played in an average 73.1% of possible minutes, in the finals they played in 85.4% of the minutes. Thats big considering those 3 were a combined about 8.5-9 adjusted +/-. The difference in percentage equals to 5.89 minutes per game extra for each of the big 3 members. Then factor in the minutes they were replacing were not average players, but horrible players.

Big Z, James Jones, House, Bibby, Arroyo, Dampier, Magloire, Howard, Stackhouse, Pittman played in a combined 6875 minutes for the Heat. That's 34.8% of their minutes or over 1/3 of them. In the finals, they played in only 9.8% of the minutes. I used their adjusted +/- and minute weighted to get a -4.45 combined average for those guys (Magloire, Howard, Stack, and Pittman didn't have a +/- adjusted so I gave them a conservative -5). Their minute weighted average PER was 10.7 and WS/48 was .110 (inflated by the big 3). That's a lot of minutes to give to bad players. I think thats why the Heat looked so much better in the playoffs in the past 2 years. The Big 3 played more and the scrubs played much less.

[bastillon]

btw, I've been reading some RPOY threads and I found this:

viewtopic.php?p=24767233#p24767233

An NBA championship for the Bucks would embellish Alcindor’s achievement and might prevent him from suffering the fate of Wilt Chamberlain, who won the MVP award as a rookie but has been able to lead a team to only one tainted league championship and never was able to lead a team past Boston when his arch-opponent, Bill Russell, was healthy.

so it wasn't only Havlicek who said it. Russell wasn't healthy in 67 postseason.

[mysticbb]

As far as Dirk goes, the more I look at the finals matchup, the more I'm impressed that Dallas beat the Heat without HCA.

HCA wasn't a factor in that series. Both teams played 3 games at home.

I'm not exactly sure why you are adjusting for these games but not others.

Well, maybe for the same reason why we have to give credit to Marion, Terry, Chandler, etc pp. for their performance level with Nowitzki on the court, while we don't have to give that credit to Maurice Lucas, Lionel Hollins, Bob Gross, etc. pp. when Walton was playing. ;)

[drza]

It's interesting that this thread has been dominated by talk about Walton, whereas last thread there was so much Erving conversation. I know Doc MJ had at least one tentative Walton vs Erving post, but I haven't seen anyone else take a stab at it. We know that both were great, but how did they compare with each other?

As this project has gone along, I've generally found that I find the big man to be more valuable than the wing. I know that's a basketball truism, but as I run through the available data and do the analysis I find myself more and more convinced of this being the case. As such, at the moment, I'm leaning towards Walton. Does anyone have a good counter-case for why I should pick Doc J instead?

[bastillon]

It's interesting that this thread has been dominated by talk about Walton, whereas last thread there was so much Erving conversation. I know Doc MJ had at least one tentative Walton vs Erving post, but I haven't seen anyone else take a stab at it. We know that both were great, but how did they compare with each other?

As this project has gone along, I've generally found that I find the big man to be more valuable than the wing. I know that's a basketball truism, but as I run through the available data and do the analysis I find myself more and more convinced of this being the case. As such, at the moment, I'm leaning towards Walton. Does anyone have a good counter-case for why I should pick Doc J instead?

why not Dirk ?

[ElGee]

Someone keeps bringing up the 11 Blazers as an example of this amazing team with Gerald Wallace (last 23 games), but you can see they played the Spurs when SAS was resting players, the Cavs in uber tank mode, the Bobcats and Wizards in uber tank mode. If you adjust for these games you see a 2 SRS team again.

I'm not exactly sure why you are adjusting for these games but not others.

I can see that. And my advice to you in all earnest is to stop using stats for a while. Stop making conclusions from what you see and start asking more questions and listening to other people more. There's really not much more to be said, because you aren't listening to the specific advice being given to you.

Because when you say stuff like this:

What relevance is Cavs, Wizards, Bobcats in tank mode? SRS is adjusting for that... The Blazers actually lost to the Bobcats so I don't know why you bring them up.

You are not understanding any of the numbers you are trying to use. SRS does not "adjust" for single-game discrepancies. When Portland beat Charlotte by 24 (the game I was referring to, obviously), was there a noticeable difference in the team from the rest of the season? Yeah! Stephen Jackson didn't play (they started Dominic McGuire), and what else was different? I have little interest in a back-and-forth here so I'll just tell you

The very player you are touting on Portland wasn't on their team anymore!!!

They were at the end of a west-coast road trip with a depleted team that so clearly wasn't a -4 team it's not even funny. That you failed to notice this should be sending off massive red flags in your own mind. You should be thinking "crap, I'm going about something awfully wrong here." And I'm telling you this for your own good, so you can be a better analyst, not to bust your balls.

SAS was only resting Duncan in the game, the Blazers beat the rest of the Spurs.

The next massive alarm bell that should be going off in your head is your lack of attention to detail. http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 80SAS.html

Unless Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker changed their names to James and Anderson and George Hill, they were also resting. "SRS" (really SOS) has no way of knowing that Portland gets this special treatment for one game, and gives them a huge boost because it thinks the Spurs are a "6" SOS team. Why does this matter so much? Because it will make a big difference in a 23-game sample, which was my whole point. Look at a few outlying games, and the number goes from 5 to 2. You can't do that with a decent enough sample size...

These are some of the teams the Blazers beat with Wallace:
Miami (on the road)
Orlando (road)
Mavericks (twice)
Spurs (twice)
OKC (much better team post trade)
Lakers (much better team 2nd half)
Grizzlies

If you are beating all of those teams, it's not a fluke. No 2 SRS team is beating all of those teams in 1/4 of a season. In B-R rankings which is essentially Ortg-Drtg adjusted for HCA and opponent, the Blazers were the 9th best team in the league post deadline which is about right for them.

Dude, they beat Orlando without Dwight Howard! Heck, even Z-Bo didn't play in the Grizzlies game you reference. But what you really need to look at here is why on earth you'd tout a team as being the 9th-best team in the league in a certain time frame when the average 9th-best team since the league went to 29 teams has a 2.77 SRS.

I hope that didn't across too harshly -- cheers.

[lorak]

It's interesting that this thread has been dominated by talk about Walton, whereas last thread there was so much Erving conversation. I know Doc MJ had at least one tentative Walton vs Erving post, but I haven't seen anyone else take a stab at it. We know that both were great, but how did they compare with each other?

As this project has gone along, I've generally found that I find the big man to be more valuable than the wing. I know that's a basketball truism, but as I run through the available data and do the analysis I find myself more and more convinced of this being the case. As such, at the moment, I'm leaning towards Walton. Does anyone have a good counter-case for why I should pick Doc J instead?

I don't have good counter case, but I'm not sold on Walton's impact. His defense doesn't seem to be at GOAT level and offensively he had obvious limitations. And of course generally bigs have more value than wings, but no 1 in this project is perfect example of exception of that rule. LeBron is another one and I think Erving also. Dr J was complete player and if James was voted in last thread there's no reason why Doc shouldn't be now.

My vote: Erving '76

[colts18]

You are not understanding any of the numbers you are trying to use. SRS does not "adjust" for single-game discrepancies. When Portland beat Charlotte by 24 (the game I was referring to, obviously), was there a noticeable difference in the team from the rest of the season? Yeah! Stephen Jackson didn't play (they started Dominic McGuire), and what else was different? I have little interest in a back-and-forth here so I'll just tell you

The very player you are touting on Portland wasn't on their team anymore!!!

They were at the end of a west-coast road trip with a depleted team that so clearly wasn't a -4 team it's not even funny. That you failed to notice this should be sending off massive red flags in your own mind. You should be thinking "crap, I'm going about something awfully wrong here." And I'm telling you this for your own good, so you can be a better analyst, not to bust your balls.

You could also adjust the fact the Blazers beat the Heat on the road. the Heat had a 8.48 SRS in the games the Big 3 started. The Thunder and Lakers were also better teams post trade deadline. The Blazers were +5 post-deadline. Thats solid.

The next massive alarm bell that should be going off in your head is your lack of attention to detail. http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 80SAS.html

I was referring to this game. They beat Parker, Ginobili, and the rest of the Spurs

http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 50POR.html

Dude, they beat Orlando without Dwight Howard! Heck, even Z-Bo didn't play in the Grizzlies game you reference. But what you really need to look at here is why on earth you'd tout a team as being the 9th-best team in the league in a certain time frame when the average 9th-best team since the league went to 29 teams has a 2.77 SRS.

I hope that didn't across too harshly -- cheers

Of course that still doesn't explain the wins vs. the Heat, Thunder, Mavs twice, Spurs w/o only Duncan, and Lakers. That was still a solid team. They might not have been a true 5 SRS team, but they were close to a 3-4 true SRS team which is pretty high for a 1st round opponent. I don't see you adjusting for the fact that KG beat a weaker Sacramento in the 2nd round. They were 11-12 with Webber and he played in the playoffs or adjusting for the fact that 86 Celtics beat an injured Milwaukee team which inflates the Celtics postseason SRS.


Either way its not too relevant because thats the Mavs 1st round opponent. The Mavs beat the healthy Lakers and Thunder in the next 2 rounds and no amount of adjustments from you can tell me that those were not real good teams. They were 7+ SRS teams late in the season. Then the Mavs beat the Heat who I showed earlier were around a true 9-10 SRS team by the finals.

[An Unbiased Fan]

It's interesting that this thread has been dominated by talk about Walton, whereas last thread there was so much Erving conversation. I know Doc MJ had at least one tentative Walton vs Erving post, but I haven't seen anyone else take a stab at it. We know that both were great, but how did they compare with each other?

As this project has gone along, I've generally found that I find the big man to be more valuable than the wing. I know that's a basketball truism, but as I run through the available data and do the analysis I find myself more and more convinced of this being the case. As such, at the moment, I'm leaning towards Walton. Does anyone have a good counter-case for why I should pick Doc J instead?

I think the big vs small dynamic really depends on era. In a pre-3pt line NBA, big men definitely enjoyed a bigger impact. The action was obviously more centered around the paint. Spacing was much more crowded, so guys like Russell/Wilt/KAJ/Walton could impact the game more on off & def.

However, in the post-3pt era I would say both bigs and wings are even imapctwise. The addition of the 3pt line allows more control of an offense for a facilitator. It allows more freedom of movement too, especially inside for slashers. The 3pt line negates a portion of a big's impact defensively, and allows scoring with range to be very impactful.

If you look at most of the greats in the pre-3pt era, you get Mikan, Petiti, Russell, Wilt, KAJ, Walton. There were still legends like West, Oscar, and Baylor, but they were as imapctful as the bigs.

Conversely, in the post 3pt era you get MJ, Magic, Bird, Kobe, Lebron, Dirk,Dr. J(ABA had a 3pt line), Isiah, Wade, and so on. You still had greats like Shaq, TD, and Hakeem, but I do think non-bigs(in style, sicne both Bird/Dirk have played PF at times), tend to be just as impactful.

[drza]

It's interesting that this thread has been dominated by talk about Walton, whereas last thread there was so much Erving conversation. I know Doc MJ had at least one tentative Walton vs Erving post, but I haven't seen anyone else take a stab at it. We know that both were great, but how did they compare with each other?

As this project has gone along, I've generally found that I find the big man to be more valuable than the wing. I know that's a basketball truism, but as I run through the available data and do the analysis I find myself more and more convinced of this being the case. As such, at the moment, I'm leaning towards Walton. Does anyone have a good counter-case for why I should pick Doc J instead?

why not Dirk ?

I mentioned Dirk in my post earlier in the thread, about guys on the horizon. But for now, Walton is essentially the incumbent in my mind. Both stylistically and impact-wise he seems right there with the Russell/Duncan/KG crew that have already been voted in, and a bigger impact than any of the other bigs on the board. Before Dirk won the title in 2011 I used to put him in the Barkley/Karl Malone class of big men, and for me this is still his competition post 2011. I'm looking forward to those debates, actually. But I don't think any of them were impacting a game more than Walton, which is why Dirk isn't really on my radar at the moment.

[ardee]

Side discussion:

For what it's worth, I'd be interested if people could post their top 10 list here.

Reason being, we had at least 5-6 posters voting LeBron from threads 3-9, and didn't get to see how they consider other players in the context of this list.

Mine, after learning a hell of a lot through this project, is:

1. '67 Wilt
2. '91 Jordan
3. '00 Shaq
4. '86 Bird
5. '87 Magic
6. '65 Russell
7. '94/'95 Olajuwon
8. '09 James
9. '76/'77 Jabbar
10. '03 Duncan

I'm faced with a pretty confusing dilemna here, to be honest. It's very hard after the top 3.

My main issue is whether Magic and Bird should be in the top 5, when they clearly had the best teams out of everyone else. When Hakeem, LeBron or Kareem were not playing, their teams were putrid. Magic and Bird were not injured, but their teams were so good that they never missed a beat.

My main issue is basically how to decide on lifting awful teams to a great level vs. lifting good teams to dizzying heights.

I'd really like to see the lists of Doctor MJ, Dr Positivity, ElGee and The Regul8or in particular.

[bastillon]

I mentioned Dirk in my post earlier in the thread, about guys on the horizon. But for now, Walton is essentially the incumbent in my mind. Both stylistically and impact-wise he seems right there with the Russell/Duncan/KG crew that have already been voted in, and a bigger impact than any of the other bigs on the board. Before Dirk won the title in 2011 I used to put him in the Barkley/Karl Malone class of big men, and for me this is still his competition post 2011. I'm looking forward to those debates, actually. But I don't think any of them were impacting a game more than Walton, which is why Dirk isn't really on my radar at the moment.

how can you say that knowing Dirk's monstrous +/- impact over the years ? how would you compare Dirk and KG based on their +/- numbers ? they're pretty close, aren't they ? so why Malone/Barkley and not Duncan/KG ? weren't you the one who stressed the importance of understanding Garnett's unconventional skillset ? why don't you do the same for Dirk ? why is his impact so huge ?

[An Unbiased Fan]

I mentioned Dirk in my post earlier in the thread, about guys on the horizon. But for now, Walton is essentially the incumbent in my mind. Both stylistically and impact-wise he seems right there with the Russell/Duncan/KG crew that have already been voted in, and a bigger impact than any of the other bigs on the board. Before Dirk won the title in 2011 I used to put him in the Barkley/Karl Malone class of big men, and for me this is still his competition post 2011. I'm looking forward to those debates, actually. But I don't think any of them were impacting a game more than Walton, which is why Dirk isn't really on my radar at the moment.

I would have to ask, how was 1977 Walton more imapctful than 94 or 95 DRob? Or 2009 Dwight for example. Let me clarify, Walton's exploits are well-known out here in LA, both in the pros and college. However, this debate isn't about the Top skillsets of all-time, but rather the best peaks. I'm talking actual on court play. In this regard 1977 Walton is being severely overrated.

But really I think there has been a bit of tunnel vision going on since the start of this project. That was the main reason why I questioned Shaq at the #1 spot. It can be a bit too easy to think of familiar narratives we have heard, and then rank those in our heads. I would say many of the threads have focused way too much on 2 or 3 players, and haven't had the depths of potential nominees like the Top 100 or RPOY threads did.

So let me just throw out some potential peaks from throughout the years.

Mikan 1952
Petitt 1959
Baylor 1961
Oscar 1964
West 1966
Dr. J 1976
Walton 1977
Moses 1983
King 1984
Ewing 1990
Mailman 1992?
Barkley 1993
DRob 1994?
Kobe 2006
Nash 2007
Dirk 2006?
Wade 2009
Dwight 2009

[bastillon]

1977 (values relative to opp ORtg)
Assuming constant pace
Walton in -2.0 DRtg
Walton out +1.5 DRtg

Assuming increase from 108 to 110
Walton in -3.8 DRtg
Walton out +8.5 DRtg

1978
Assuming constant pace
Walton in -3.8 DRtg
Walton out -1.2 DRtg

Assuming increase from 104 to 106 (league average)
Walton in: -5.4 DRtg
Walton out: +3.9 DRtg

I'm assuming you have offense as well. btw, mathematically it seems impossible for 2 possessions/game to have such a big impact on DRTG... I think there's something wrong with those numbers.

reposting this, since I didn't get a response.
what was their ORTG in Walton's absence ? why do those DRTG numbers change so much with the difference of 2 possessions ?