#17 Highest Peak of All Time (Wade '09 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

Robinson '95 has been enshrined. Moving on.

[Doctor MJ]

Still pushing for more West debate, as I just find the perception of him so far to be odd.

Even if you don't buy the '68 West arguments I'm peddling, I STILL had West ahead of Oscar for the purposes of this project. How is it others see such a gap?

With that said, if people don't buy the '68 argument, I can't really get worked up over whether Wade '09 or West '66 goes next. Pretty dang close in my mind.

[C-izMe]

I don't see a gap but Oscar, Wade, West, and TMac are just all super close.


I'm voting Wade 09 again.

[MisterWestside]

Still pushing for more West debate, as I just find the perception of him so far to be odd.

Even if you don't buy the '68 West arguments I'm peddling, I STILL had West ahead of Oscar for the purposes of this project. How is it others see such a gap?

With that said, if people don't buy the '68 argument, I can't really get worked up over whether Wade '09 or West '66 goes next. Pretty dang close in my mind.

Why '68 West over '65 or '66?

[Dr Positivity]

Vote 2010 Wade

I think 2009/2010 Wade is the best player. Still think it basically comes down to the fact, that taking 2009 Wade over 2010 Wade is taking the last 27 Gs of the RS over the 1st round of the series in value added to the team... I guess it depends on the metric, I know some people seem to be treating it as "the playoffs are a sample size of how good the player is", I tend to think of it in "which seasons brings more value to his team's title chances", which favors a player bringing his best in the PS

[Doctor MJ]

Why '68 West over '65 or '66?

I'll re-post:

@Doctor MJ

Why are you so sold on 68 West over 09 Wade (or whatever year you think is peak Wade)? Not saying I think that's off-base, because West was a monster, but...so is Wade. Where do you see the separation?

Making teammates better, as cliched as it sounds. Until '68, West's basically a Wade type of guy who looks most impressive when everyone just gets out of his way. In '68, the team offense took the quantum leap forward that LeBron-Wade have never done, and the evidence says it really all depended on West. This is a big deal because I can't ignore the fact that as stupid as Baylor played, a better offensive player would have been able to make use of that talent. Well, in '68, the team moves to the Princeton, and all of a sudden performs like you'd expect an offense with 2 super-talented scorers to perform. So now you've got West, who's already a better scorer and defender than his rival Oscar Robertson beginning to act like a transformative distributor too. Yikes!

[Josephpaul]

Jerry West 66 my vote.
TRB 7.1 Ast 6.1 PPG 31.6 A very well rounded RS ,
PS 34.6 PPG 6.3 TRB 5.4 .

[MisterWestside]

Making teammates better, as cliched as it sounds. Until '68, West's basically a Wade type of guy who looks most impressive when everyone just gets out of his way. In '68, the team offense took the quantum leap forward that LeBron-Wade have never done, and the evidence says it really all depended on West. This is a big deal because I can't ignore the fact that as stupid as Baylor played, a better offensive player would have been able to make use of that talent. Well, in '68, the team moves to the Princeton, and all of a sudden performs like you'd expect an offense with 2 super-talented scorers to perform. So now you've got West, who's already a better scorer and defender than his rival Oscar Robertson beginning to act like a transformative distributor too. Yikes!

Interesting. Couple things though:

Are you giving him more credit for his impressive playoff run? Because his regular season (while still great) doesn't match up to his '65 or '66 regular season campaigns even considering the role change. He should be lauded for performing in his new role, but I don't like to give overcredit players for being implemented more effectively by coaches when their talent level stayed relatively constant. His '68 playoffs was insane, though.

Also, why so hard on Baylor? Just curious.

[thizznation]

Baylor would probably be described today as a "net negative" player. He had low efficiency even compared to the peers of his era, especially compared to West. You could argue that he was taking away scoring opportunities from West.

[Josephpaul]

Baylor would probably be described today as a "net negative" player. He had low efficiency even compared to the peers of his era, especially compared to West. You could argue that he was taking away scoring opportunities from West.

In his prime he shot at the league avg, he also showed skills the NBA didnt see before......

[Dr Positivity]

Baylor's efficiency from his 60-63 prime seems to be pretty good. His TS% was about 7-8 pts higher than the league wide eFG to use a crude comparison. As a comparison Melo and Dominique are both usually around +4-5. I'm pretty sure that means Baylor's 60-63 comparison is in the .57+ TS% range for value today. He's definitely not 66/68 West in terms of efficiency (66 West is like over +14 vs league average eFG), but athletic prime Baylor is still taking good shots due to the fact that he's getting to the FT line like crazy

[Dr Positivity]

Actually it's kind of a fun quick exercise to take players TS% - league average eFG, and then roughly add it to .50 (which is about the average eFG in regular seasons today). So Bill Russell's TS% was usually at +.06+.08 over average eFG before the last 60s when he got old, so that'd be like a .56-.58 player in translated TS% value I guess. Oscar is almost always +.13+.14/.63 TS%+), 66/68 West is also that high, with their playmaking that really emphasizes how ridiculous their impact was offensively vs the rest of the league. Kareem in the 70s is more like a .64-.65 equivalent. Wilt was still +10/.60+ in the early 60s, which when you're scoring 50ppg is pretty good.

[lorak]

Jerry West 66 my vote.
TRB 7.1 Ast 6.1 PPG 31.6 A very well rounded RS ,
PS 34.6 PPG 6.3 TRB 5.4 .

Why West over Wade or Dirk?

[mysticbb]

Why West over Wade or Dirk?

Because adjusting to a higher pace seems to be not necessary. ;)

If we go by an objective view, 2010 Wade should have been already in ...

[ElGee]

Making teammates better, as cliched as it sounds. Until '68, West's basically a Wade type of guy who looks most impressive when everyone just gets out of his way. In '68, the team offense took the quantum leap forward that LeBron-Wade have never done, and the evidence says it really all depended on West. This is a big deal because I can't ignore the fact that as stupid as Baylor played, a better offensive player would have been able to make use of that talent. Well, in '68, the team moves to the Princeton, and all of a sudden performs like you'd expect an offense with 2 super-talented scorers to perform. So now you've got West, who's already a better scorer and defender than his rival Oscar Robertson beginning to act like a transformative distributor too. Yikes!

Interesting. Couple things though:

Are you giving him more credit for his impressive playoff run? Because his regular season (while still great) doesn't match up to his '65 or '66 regular season campaigns even considering the role change. He should be lauded for performing in his new role, but I don't like to give overcredit players for being implemented more effectively by coaches when their talent level stayed relatively constant. His '68 playoffs was insane, though.

Also, why so hard on Baylor? Just curious.

The 1966 West peddling seems to be a function of what I describe here, unless someone can show otherwise: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1203805&start=165#p33154146

Elgin Baylor was basically on and off all season adapting to his post-surgery knee (which gave him troubles, including a tendon injury early season). In the last month of the season (roughly) he averaged 25.2 ppg playing regular minutes. In the PS, he averaged 27 ppg and 14 rpg. Now that may not move people since he only shot 44%, but look at the NBA FInals:

G1 Baylor had 36 pts 20 reb 54% TS
G5 Baylor had 41 pts 16 reb 53% TS
G6 Baylor had 25 pts 14 reb 51% TS 6 ast
G7 Baylor had 18 pts 14 reb 35% TS

By the PS, Baylor was approximating what he was doing before the injury. It makes little sense to view the Lakers PS performance of 14g and see it as West suddenly carrying the team. I assume people must be thinking this because why else would they champion 1966 over 1968 when the team was better, the offense was better and West's stats were better?

[therealbig3]

*EDIT* Changed from 2011 Wade

Vote: 2009 Dwyane Wade

[therealbig3]

Wade against Boston in 2011, per 75 possessions:

30.3 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 4.8 apg, 3.0 TOpg, 61.6% TS


Compare that to Wade against Boston in 2010, per 75 possessions:

28.7 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 5.9 apg, 4.5 TOpg, 65.0% TS, 115 ORating


I don't know how to calculate Wade's individual ORating for the 2011 Boston series, but his ORating for the playoffs was 113, and the Boston series was clearly his best overall series.

Of course, he did have LeBron in 2011 (who I thought played below his standards, now that I think about it), but it's interesting to look at. 2011 Boston was a better defense than 2010 Boston too.

[ardee]

Ok, wow, surprised Robinson got in over Wade and West.

Still planning to go with '66 West here, but I'm a bit more open to looking at 1968. The efficiency he was scoring at was pretty crazy that year. +10 TS% in the Playoffs is something absolutely unprecedented. Can someone post his Playoff game logs from '66 and '68?

It would have been very apt to see Oscar, Kobe and West/Wade in some order consecutively. Really didn't expect Robinson to get voted in this early..

[colts18]

Wade against Boston in 2011, per 75 possessions:

30.3 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 4.8 apg, 3.0 TOpg, 61.6% TS


Compare that to Wade against Boston in 2010, per 75 possessions:

28.7 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 5.9 apg, 4.5 TOpg, 65.0% TS, 115 ORating


I don't know how to calculate Wade's individual ORating for the 2011 Boston series, but his ORating for the playoffs was 113, and the Boston series was clearly his best overall series.

Of course, he did have LeBron in 2011 (who I thought played below his standards, now that I think about it), but it's interesting to look at. 2011 Boston was a better defense than 2010 Boston too.

His O rating was 123 in the Boston 2011 series. If want to calculate that, use the B-R gamelogs page for Wade. Then click on the rows to sum up the values.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... c_playoffs

[bastillon]

vote: Dirk 11