#20 Highest Peak of All Time (Nash '05 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

Doc MJ nice job of ignoring the crap out of my post.

For crying out loud dude, are you now seriously calling me out sarcastically for responding to posts that came before yours before I respond to yours?

[weyy]

[

West's like Manu's. Ginobili is obviously great player, I sometimes rate him over Kobe (if I ignore minutes played),

.

lol @ this idiot.

[weyy]

[

Magic vs Kobe? Except that Kobe's biggest issue is his lack of faith in teammates which results in him breaking out of an offense designed by a superior basketball mind for no good reason. .

lol @ this moron. Lack of faith? Is that why he has 5 rings and 7 Finals with completely different rosters? SMH.

[bastillon]

Doc MJ nice job of ignoring the crap out of my post.

For crying out loud dude, are you now seriously calling me out sarcastically for responding to posts that came before yours before I respond to yours?

well you responded to DS's post after my post was already there and your response was pretty much covered altogether in that very comment. so it did seem off to me...

Here you are saying, "Oh look, here they are blaming the black guy saying his team's defense was bad."

But the defense was bad. Really, really bad. Step forward to right now: Don't guys on bad defenses still get picked apart for their defense? I mean, it's one thing to say that in a given situation their allocation of blame is wrong, but you calling people racists for doing basically the exact same thing I'd expect them to do now.

as a side note, I think people missed my post on this but I was watching Knicks-Bucks full game from the beginning of 71 season. announcers said that for the first time in his career Oscar started guarding the toughest player on the opposing teams and he was locking up people like Jerry West and Mullins (really some horrible games from them). so not only do we see that Oscar had defensive abilities (there's a reason why people were saying he didn't have any weaknesses) but more importantly that's a further proof that superstar guards carry too much load offensively to make defensive impact. Oscar had to became a 2nd option on the Bucks to play lock down defense. I'm not saying he was some difference maker because his help defense was sub-par imo but you can see the general trends. Oscar was not a poor defender and I'd expect him to be a very valuable defensive piece when he was posting double-digit rebounding stats along with the potential man defense capabilities.

"bad leader", well there's some of that, and there's a lot of great stuff too. The "bad leader" stuff didn't come out of nowhere though. There were issues on his team and the guy was harsh as hell. If you want to say, "Same with Jordan & Kobe and they get praised don't they?", okay, but imho they shouldn't get very much praise, and they wouldn't be getting that praise if their teams weren't doing well.

there was his leadership (something in which he has a clear advantage over West viewtopic.php?p=29183547#p29183547 )

... I mean:

“I’m getting better shots simply because Oscar is such a great passer,” Dandridge said.

“He knows when to give the ball to you and when not to.”

Smith admitted that he’s a harder worker without the ball now that Robertson is on the same team.

“You know if you get open Oscar will get the ball to you,” Smith said.

Both Robertson and Alcindor have helped the Bucks’ defense, also.

“He’s constantly getting on you to keep moving and to play defense,” Dandridge said of Oscar.

“He makes us talk defense,” Smith said of the Big O. “You’ve got to talk, You don’t have eyes in the back of your head. So somebody else has got to tell you what’s going on behind you.”

does that seem like a bad leader ?

But Oscar was even more valuable as a leader than as a scorer. He was thirty-two years old and had lost maybe a step, but his total mastery enabled him to be just as effective as when he was averaging thirty points a game. By directing and inspiring the rest of us, he enable the Bucks to play the game the way it was supposed to be played.
[...]
Oscar took the game seriously. All season long if someone screwed up or didn’t seem to want to play, he would chew them out for not doing his job. People who weren’t rebounding, guys who weren’t playing defense, they were in trouble around Oscar. You had to respect him; you were playing with a legend, and he was still doing all of his job; how could you not do yours?

does THAT seem like a bad leader ?

because to me it seems like you're just not reading my responses.

[bastillon]

here's what I was refering to regarding Oscar's man defense (or what announcers mentioned during the Knicks-Bucks game):
Jerry West - 12 pts
Mullins - 10 pts, 12 pts
Barnett - 5 pts

I don't have FG% but I'd imagine it was pitiful since those players were high volume shooters.

Oscar was also regarded as the best Jerry West defender in the league. the reason why Royals were so poor is their big men. I would think a fan of Steve Nash would not blame PG for his team's poor D. double standards Doc ?

I don't think he was some underrated all-time defender but he was definitely not a liability. I see Oscar as someone who was an average impact defender and he could turn it up at times but he also gave you leadership, intensity and elite rebounding for a guard. in the 60s he was not a good impact defender, he couldn't have been with how much effort he put in on the offensive end, I've yet to see evidence that superstar guards can make noticeable defensive impact. but if he was put on a better team he had valuable defensive assets. imagine early 60s Oscar on those Bucks, not only do you get his IQ and leadership but also elite athleticism and rebounding. if Oscar 71 could lock up prime Jerry West and Mullins, what would prime Oscar do ? his man defense, rebounding and leadership are underrated parts of his defensive game. his help defense was sub-par, he was really good at getting back on defense though, I remember some quote that Oscar was Bucks only hope of stopping Lakers fastbreak offense, watching his games it really did seem like he was always the first player back on defense.

regarding Oscar's offense being clearly superior to Jerry West, let's remember this:

Was the Big O the best offensive weapon of all time?

I have come to the conclusion that Oscar Robertson was probably the greatest offensive weapon the NBA has ever seen. His production and efficiency in his first ten years are just simply unmatched by any other player in history. Let me list the things that go into an offensive attack.

1. Scoring
During the Big Os first ten years in the league, he scored 29.27 points per game. Total for those years he scored 22009 points. Both of those make him second in the league during that time, behind Wilt Chamberlain, who no one was gonna outscore in those days. And in fact NO OTHER player has had more points total and more PPG in a ten year span than Oscar did in those ten years. NO ONE. Karl Malone scored more points in certain ten year spans because he played in like every game but hes never close in PPG. Kareem scored like 100 more total points in his first ten years than Oscar did but his PPG are lower. Jordan scored more PPG in ten year periods but because he kept retiring he never put together enough years in a row to have the total points. And other than that, no one even beats the Big O in total points OR PPG for a decade. He was simply one of the greatest scorers of all time, and easily the second best scorer of his era.

2. Efficiency in Scoring
Oscar lead the league only once in TS%, in his first year in the league. However, the man was in the top 3 in the league EVERY one of his first ten years. In those ten years he was 1st once, 2nd 6 times, and 3rd 3 times. Two of the times he was second, he trailed only Jerry Lucas, who was on his team and the beneficiary of HIS passes. The fact is that Oscar was EASILY the most efficient scorer of the first ten years of his career. Its probably not even all that close either, because no one else was able to sustain their efficiency for more than a few years.

3. Passing
Oscar lead the league in assists per game 7 of his first 10 years. He got 10.28 assists per game during that period. The next highest person had 7.93 assists. No one was close to him. I mean he got twice the APG of the person with the fifth most APG of the decade. He just dominated this catagory.

So let me recap where the Big O stands in these three catagories in comparison to his peers of his era.

Scoring - 2nd
True Shooting % - 1st
Assists - 1st

Wow, the man was mighty close to scoring the most, at the most efficient clip, and helping his teammates score more than ANY other player in the entire decade. Let me just quickly show how rare it is for someone to excel so much in all three of these. Only once has a player lead the league in points and assists (Tiny Archibald in 1973). Only once has a player lead the league in points and TS% (Bob McAdoo in 1974). Only once has a player lead the league in TS% and assists (John Stockton in 1995). Oscar ALMOST did all of those for an entire decade (and DID do the last one), and he wouldve done it if he hadnt been playing in an era with the most prolific scorer in the history of the game. The man quite simply was an offensive beast that gave you big time points at a really efficient clip while giving his teammates the best opportunities to be really efficient too. And for that reason, I gotta say he was the best offensive weapon of all time.

also you can see why he wasn't as engaged as a defender. you can't ask one guy to do everything for the team. in case you're wondering whether his monster individual stats translated into team impact, consider this:

Prior to Robertson’s arrival, the Royals finished fifth in an eight-team league in field-goal percentage. After Robertson’s arrival, the Royals led the league in field-goal percentage for five consecutive years from 1960-61 to 1964-65, finished second in ’65-66 and ’66-67, third in ’67-68, and second in ’68-69. When Robertson was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks for Charlie Paulk and Flynn Robinson in 1970-71, the Bucks became the first team in NBA history to shoot over 50 percent from the field for a season, and four Bucks finished in the top seven in field-goal percentage (Kareem Abdul Jabbar 2nd at .577, Jon McGlocklin 4th at .535, Greg Smith 6th at .512, and Bob Dandridge 7th at .509 [Robertson was 11th at .496]). The Bucks led the league at 49.8 percent in ’71-72, 48.1 percent in ’72-73, and 49.2 percent in ’73-74, Robertson’s final season in the league. The year after Robertson’s retirement, Milwaukee’s field-goal percentage dropped to 46.8 percent, fourth in the league.

[ardee]

I'm not sure why there is so much discussion about Oscar vs. West, considering Oscar was voted in 6 threads ago.

I'd rather see people comparing West to the other candidates on the board: namely Barkley, Nash and Paul as the three who first come to mind right now.

I sadly can't go into details right now but I'm going to look at Nash vs. West later today.

[The Infamous1]

[

West's like Manu's. Ginobili is obviously great player, I sometimes rate him over Kobe (if I ignore minutes played),

.

lol @ this idiot.

Stern is a notorious Kobe hater but I still can't believe he said that

[ardee]

here's what I was refering to regarding Oscar's man defense (or what announcers mentioned during the Knicks-Bucks game):
Jerry West - 12 pts
Mullins - 10 pts, 12 pts
Barnett - 5 pts

I don't have FG% but I'd imagine it was pitiful since those players were high volume shooters.

Oscar was also regarded as the best Jerry West defender in the league. the reason why Royals were so poor is their big men. I would think a fan of Steve Nash would not blame PG for his team's poor D. double standards Doc ?

I don't think he was some underrated all-time defender but he was definitely not a liability. I see Oscar as someone who was an average impact defender and he could turn it up at times but he also gave you leadership, intensity and elite rebounding for a guard. in the 60s he was not a good impact defender, he couldn't have been with how much effort he put in on the offensive end, I've yet to see evidence that superstar guards can make noticeable defensive impact. but if he was put on a better team he had valuable defensive assets. imagine early 60s Oscar on those Bucks, not only do you get his IQ and leadership but also elite athleticism and rebounding. if Oscar 71 could lock up prime Jerry West and Mullins, what would prime Oscar do ? his man defense, rebounding and leadership are underrated parts of his defensive game. his help defense was sub-par, he was really good at getting back on defense though, I remember some quote that Oscar was Bucks only hope of stopping Lakers fastbreak offense, watching his games it really did seem like he was always the first player back on defense.

regarding Oscar's offense being clearly superior to Jerry West, let's remember this:

Was the Big O the best offensive weapon of all time?

I have come to the conclusion that Oscar Robertson was probably the greatest offensive weapon the NBA has ever seen. His production and efficiency in his first ten years are just simply unmatched by any other player in history. Let me list the things that go into an offensive attack.

1. Scoring
During the Big Os first ten years in the league, he scored 29.27 points per game. Total for those years he scored 22009 points. Both of those make him second in the league during that time, behind Wilt Chamberlain, who no one was gonna outscore in those days. And in fact NO OTHER player has had more points total and more PPG in a ten year span than Oscar did in those ten years. NO ONE. Karl Malone scored more points in certain ten year spans because he played in like every game but hes never close in PPG. Kareem scored like 100 more total points in his first ten years than Oscar did but his PPG are lower. Jordan scored more PPG in ten year periods but because he kept retiring he never put together enough years in a row to have the total points. And other than that, no one even beats the Big O in total points OR PPG for a decade. He was simply one of the greatest scorers of all time, and easily the second best scorer of his era.

2. Efficiency in Scoring
Oscar lead the league only once in TS%, in his first year in the league. However, the man was in the top 3 in the league EVERY one of his first ten years. In those ten years he was 1st once, 2nd 6 times, and 3rd 3 times. Two of the times he was second, he trailed only Jerry Lucas, who was on his team and the beneficiary of HIS passes. The fact is that Oscar was EASILY the most efficient scorer of the first ten years of his career. Its probably not even all that close either, because no one else was able to sustain their efficiency for more than a few years.

3. Passing
Oscar lead the league in assists per game 7 of his first 10 years. He got 10.28 assists per game during that period. The next highest person had 7.93 assists. No one was close to him. I mean he got twice the APG of the person with the fifth most APG of the decade. He just dominated this catagory.

So let me recap where the Big O stands in these three catagories in comparison to his peers of his era.

Scoring - 2nd
True Shooting % - 1st
Assists - 1st

Wow, the man was mighty close to scoring the most, at the most efficient clip, and helping his teammates score more than ANY other player in the entire decade. Let me just quickly show how rare it is for someone to excel so much in all three of these. Only once has a player lead the league in points and assists (Tiny Archibald in 1973). Only once has a player lead the league in points and TS% (Bob McAdoo in 1974). Only once has a player lead the league in TS% and assists (John Stockton in 1995). Oscar ALMOST did all of those for an entire decade (and DID do the last one), and he wouldve done it if he hadnt been playing in an era with the most prolific scorer in the history of the game. The man quite simply was an offensive beast that gave you big time points at a really efficient clip while giving his teammates the best opportunities to be really efficient too. And for that reason, I gotta say he was the best offensive weapon of all time.

also you can see why he wasn't as engaged as a defender. you can't ask one guy to do everything for the team. in case you're wondering whether his monster individual stats translated into team impact, consider this:

Prior to Robertson’s arrival, the Royals finished fifth in an eight-team league in field-goal percentage. After Robertson’s arrival, the Royals led the league in field-goal percentage for five consecutive years from 1960-61 to 1964-65, finished second in ’65-66 and ’66-67, third in ’67-68, and second in ’68-69. When Robertson was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks for Charlie Paulk and Flynn Robinson in 1970-71, the Bucks became the first team in NBA history to shoot over 50 percent from the field for a season, and four Bucks finished in the top seven in field-goal percentage (Kareem Abdul Jabbar 2nd at .577, Jon McGlocklin 4th at .535, Greg Smith 6th at .512, and Bob Dandridge 7th at .509 [Robertson was 11th at .496]). The Bucks led the league at 49.8 percent in ’71-72, 48.1 percent in ’72-73, and 49.2 percent in ’73-74, Robertson’s final season in the league. The year after Robertson’s retirement, Milwaukee’s field-goal percentage dropped to 46.8 percent, fourth in the league.

Monster post bastillion

I don't understand why people are disparaging a player who got voted in 6 threads ago.

The crux of the matter is that in 1963 Oscar demolished and tore apart the third best defense ever at an all time statistical level. Personally, going back, I would rate him over Doc. Much more of a well-rounded game and improved his team-mates like few others.

[therealbig3]

Why I would take 07 Nash over 05 Nash:

-RAPM: 05 Nash was 24th in overall RAPM. He was still 1st overall in offensive RAPM with +4.0, but just barely ahead of Ginobili who was at +3.8. 07 Nash was 5th in overall RAPM. He was also 1st overall in offensive RAPM with +7.9, and he had a little bit more separation from 2nd place Baron Davis at +7.5. RAPM seems to say that Nash was a more dominant player relative to the league in 07 than in 05.

-His box score stats are very similar in 05 and 07, so there's no real advantage either way there:

05 Nash per 75 possessions: 17.0 ppg, 12.6 apg, 3.6 TOpg, 60.6% TS (+7.7%), 123 ORating

07 Nash per 75 possessions: 19.8 ppg, 12.4 apg, 4.1 TOpg, 65.4% TS (+11.3%), 124 ORating


His playoff runs:

05 Nash per 75 possessions PS: 22.5 ppg, 10.6 apg, 4.4 TOpg, 60.4% TS (+7.5%), 119 ORating

07 Nash per 75 possessions PS: 19.3 ppg, 13.6 apg, 4.5 TOpg, 57.7% TS (+3.6%), 114 ORating


I understand that the Suns offense was better in 05 than in 07, but that had a lot to do with other factors, such as Stoudemire's and Marion's regressed play.

Nash individually seemed to put up similar production with more impact in 07 than in 05, so I tend to lean towards 07 for Nash.

FWIW: The 05 Suns were +15.1 against the Spurs defense. The 07 Suns excluding the suspension game 5 were +10.2 against the Spurs defense. Again, this is with a regressed Stoudemire, a regressed Marion, and no Joe Johnson or Quentin Richardson.

It is between 05 and 07 to me, and it's nearly a toss-up, but I tend to lean towards what the RAPM is saying and conclude that 07 Nash was a little better than his 05 self.

[nikomCH]

[

West's like Manu's. Ginobili is obviously great player, I sometimes rate him over Kobe (if I ignore minutes played),

.

lol @ this idiot.

Stern is a notorious Kobe hater but I still can't believe he said that

He's right though. Manu has definitely had seasons where he was better than Kobe (04-05 comes to mind). Although ignoring minutes is ridiculous since you can't do that. If you're aren't on the floor to help your team then you aren't as valuable. Dude literally wasn't even averaging an entire half of basketball played last year.

[The Infamous1]

lol @ this idiot.[/quote]

Stern is a notorious Kobe hater but I still can't believe he said that [/quote]

He's right though. Manu has definitely had seasons where he was better than Kobe (04-05 comes to mind). Although ignoring minutes is ridiculous since you can't do that. If you're aren't on the floor to help your team then you aren't as valuable. Dude literally wasn't even averaging an entire half of basketball played last year.[/quote]

Where are these seasons? Manu should never ever be in the same breath as Kobe Bryant as a player I don't give a damn about minutes. See this is the type of disrespect I'm talking about that no other all time great is subjected to. The website is a joke at times

[therealbig3]

Manu was better in 05 for sure, and probably in 11.

[lorak]

Choosing to fixate on negatives when there were obvious negatives for Oscar that hardly got discussed (his defenses were HORRIBLE).

That's simply not true. Robertson in worst case was 0 on defense and from game tape I saw he for sure wasn't worse defensively than West.

What do you mean it's not true? Oscar played on a lot of crappy teams because the defense was utterly incompetent. That's true, and yes, that's a negative.

Really Doc? You want to judge individual point guard defense by looking at quality of his team defense?

I understand the theoretical narrative causes you're talking about here, but I don't see what your evidence is.

We look at stats like PER, both guys look about the same. PER's not a perfect stat, but it's not like we're talking about Oscar putting up huge numbers compared to West by all measurements and West getting similar love for no apparent reason.

Did contemporaries jump on board the West bandwagon and give him undeserving accolades while Oscar languished in obscurity? No, Oscar won the MVP the first time his team was decent. This after winning College Player of the Year 3-times in a row on a program that improved right after he left. I'm not saying he didn't deserve these honors, but the man was getting his fair share of the glory right from the beginning.

By contrast, West had to join an existing superstar's team, who overshadowed him for a good while based on his bigger scoring numbers, which only modern observers really understand was coming off of much worse efficiency.

I do agree that the fact that he got to go to the Finals so much help with his stature though. That's an area where you have to factor in his superior opportunity, and the fact that it wasn't Oscar's fault he didn't have that...but it's not like people back didn't know Oscar was great.

Yes, but tell me - why West was chosen as "the Logo"? Even if Oscar wasn't better than West, for sure Russell was and Wilt was also perceived as far superior player. So why West was chosen as symbol of the league?

[ardee]

Yes, but tell me - why West was chosen as "the Logo"? Even if Oscar wasn't better than West, for sure Russell was and Wilt was also perceived as far superior player. So why West was chosen as symbol of the league?

I would venture to say it was because he was the most clutch player the league has, had, and will ever see.

I know people look down on the concept of being 'clutch' on RealGM, and to some extent I agree, I HATE casual basketball fans saying 'Oh, Wade is better than LeBron, he's clutch LeBron isn't.' But when you're someone like West who is routinely unstoppable and literally never failed when the chips were on the table, it makes you iconic. Hence, he was the poster boy of the league.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnlwljazrvo[/youtube]

This was not an isolated incident of an average player just going for a Hail Mary. This is a player whom you could absolutely positively depend on to come through in pressure situations. 42-13-12 in a game 7 on a broken ankle... This 60 foot buzzer beater... When Baylor got injured in the '65 Playoffs, dragging the Lakers to the Finals by averaging 46 ppg against the Bullets (at least 40 in every game).

The record speaks for itself.

[Irtee]

Manu was better in 05 for sure, and probably in 11.

lol @ this dumass. Manu wasn't remotely close to Bryant.

[SideshowBob]

Manu was better in 05 for sure, and probably in 11.

lol @ this dumass. Manu wasn't remotely close to Bryant.

This dude's ridiculous. This has to be close to his 100th account at this point.

Cue a "You mad???" quote

[Bodhi]

Manu was better in 05 for sure, and probably in 11.

lol @ this dumass. Manu wasn't remotely close to Bryant.

Guys get hurt and have bad seasons. Kobe was at his worst in 05 with the injury and Manu was at his best. Even if you're a huge Kobe homer I don't see why that would be a big deal.

[C-izMe]

Manu was better in 05 for sure, and probably in 11.

lol @ this dumass. Manu wasn't remotely close to Bryant.

This dude's ridiculous. This has to be close to his 100th account at this point.

Cue a "You mad???" quote

Lol I love it. Even Sideshow came back for a you mad post.

[Narigo]

ignore

[Doctor MJ]

So yeah, I'm coming back to this project after not much sleep and an annoying day at work, and I'm pretty sour in general. I've got people PMing me saying they're thinking about taking a break because of all the negativity.

I can't fix everything, but what I can do is remove myself from the fray for a while. It seems like the more I speak my mind, the worse the hostility is getting, and being the project runner I have the unique power to make people feel as if I'm trying to rig the project, so I'm just going to back off. Call it whatever you want.

I am going to make a request though for people to link me to their data about West's in/out as it relates to defense. Evidently there's evidence I just missed that indicates West was typically not showing much on the defense end on that front, and I'd like to see just what it says.