RealGM Top 100 List #9

[shutupandjam]

Three things it seems like many are ignoring when talking about the 1979 to 1980 transition for the Celtics:

1. Tiny Archibald suffered an achilles injury before the 1979 season that obviously limited his play: his stats were wayyyy down across the board and he only played 1,662 minutes. In 1980 he bounced back in a big way - he wasn't a volume scorer like before the injury, but he was more efficient and he distributed at a level that he hadn't reached since much earlier in his career. He also played 2,864 minutes that year, 1,202 more than 1979.

2. In 1979, Maxwell was a 23 year old and a year of experience, especially one where he led his team in scoring and rebounding, was probably really important for his development.

3. The team got a new coach - one who unlike the coaches in 1979 team had experience coaching the NBA. Perhaps the most important effect here is that Cowens could focus solely on playing (in 1979 he was a player coach for the majority of the season).

[trex_8063]

Was never clear on whether or not we need to re-affirm our vote if our original vote was for one of the run-off candidates.
If so, my run-off vote is for Larry Bird, for reasons mention in my original post (spoiler):

Spoiler:

My Vote: Larry Bird

Had halfway convinced myself to switch my vote for #8 to Bird when the clock ran out. I’m not going to bother posting much of anything by way of numbers on his offensive game; it’s been done, and besides, his offensive game really speaks for itself.

Doctor MJ made a great observational post about his offense in the last thread:

The more I think about it, the more I think Bird is the more unusual player, from this key perspective:

He's an off-ball savant.

General rule is that the true offensive savants prove their status when they get more control. They are on ball, and they are using their brain & body to force the field of play to be more what they want.

That's not Bird's main thing to me. To me with Bird it's more a guy who seems to accept what's given, see a way to exploit it, and then hustle to make it happen. There are other guys you can talk about doing this to some degree, but typically when we talk about them we're really talking defense as at least half their impact (Walton for example).

Bird has some of that on defense, but obviously it's his offense that's his #1 thing. And when I say "off-ball" that's an oversimplification. If someone called Reggie Miller an off-ball savant I wouldn't say they are wrong, but Bird clearly takes it quite a bit further. It's a distinction along the lines that after everything else, what Reggie's looking to do when he gets the ball is shoot, whereas Bird has a battery of choices at his disposal and the only given seems to be that he already knows what he's going to do before you even know he's going to be there getting the ball.

Of course that doesn't even go into the pre-ball differences. Bird seems to get rebounds like Reggie gets passes, and Bird with his bigger body is able to get where he needs to go with plenty of space without relying on a complicated array of obstacles.

Just looking at the offense, and considering the impact of it when Bird play, the interesting thing to me is this:

I don't think it's as effective as being an on-ball savant at peak, but it's considerably more portable.

People sometimes take issue with Steve Nash because he requires control to do his thing, and I always brush this aside with the statement that a team's a fool to choose to not give him control when he's so good with it, but the thing is, when we look at Bird's rookie year, I think the natural portability of his game has everything to do with him being possibly the most impactful rookie in NBA history. He just makes stuff happen in the moment even if you don't design everything around him.

In the end if you know full well who your savant is, to me it's best to give that guy as much direct control as possible, and that means being more on-ball, and I don't see Bird taking to that as well as Magic, so to me it all aligns pretty well: Offense-only Magic's got the better peak, but Bird had more years with extreme impact, and the reason has less to do with Bird being more mature early on, or even being given more primacy, and more to do with the fact that his game is not as primacy-dependent.

Saying all this: I'll explicitly say I'm not talking about defense here, and I'm not talking about how this would translate across eras. You may already have a sense of how I'm thinking here, but this isn't a vote, and really what I wanted to just spend time pondering was the nature of each guy's tendencies within their characteristic offensive genius.

Do you agree with how I put it? Do you see issues with it?

Great post.

From there I’m going to take a different tack and advocate for Bird’s oft-underrated (sometimes criminally so, imo) defense.

Where Doc described Bird as an “off-ball savant” on offense, I kinda think he was a defensive savant, too. What he lacked in the lateral quickness or natural leaping ability that are near-hallmark features of so many great defenders in NBA history, he made up a lot of with a near-GOAT level of defensive IQ, hustle, and a few other tools I’ll elaborate on.

For one, he was a fundamentally sound low-post defender. He was physical, REALLY used his lower body to great effect, getting (often bigger) offensive players off the block, making entry passes difficult, making shots difficult, etc. YouTube search “larry bird defense” and you’ll find any number of clips that would serve as fine examples of how to play sound and hard-nosed low-post defense (side note: seems like it’s always Jack Sikma in a lot of the ones I’ve seen; poor Sikma just getting owned by the 2” shorter Bird down low).

He had anticipation/intuition that at times appeared to border on precognition, making him one of the all-time great help defenders. Did he gamble a lot? Absolutely, but I’m not sure there’s ever been a player who got a higher rate of return on his gambles. Whether it was coming from the weakside to pick off an entry pass, or sneaking along the baseline from the weakside just as a post-player is about to make his move (wherein Larry would zip by and strip him), or simply playing a passing lane…..obviously not the quickest of fellows in the NBA, but he got a lot of thefts in this manner, and it seemed to me that he did so at a lower rate of failure than most players who gamble on defense.

He lacked great lateral quickness, which was a bit of a liability when having to guard perimeter players. But how many clips are there of Bird picking off a simple post entry-pass (where he’s guarding the passer)? He just seemed to know the exact space to occupy that would bait the guy he was guarding to attempt the entry pass…...and he would pick it off. Again, his anticipation bordered on clairvoyant; he sometimes seemed to know what his opponent would do before the opponent did himself.

And where he could be beat off the dribble by many perimeter players, he seemed to be one of the best in recovering for a block from behind. In fact, in some of the highlight clips you can find, I daresay he LETS them get by so he can do just that. Which brings me to another feature of Larry Bird on defense that was perhaps GOAT-like: his almost inhumanly precise hand/eye coordination. This relates to all those balls he would block from behind when “beat”, those balls he strips on the help-D (usually coming from the weakside), as well as on-ball steals (which he was also good at).
On all of those kinds of plays, the action is moving so fast; everything happens within a second or two, and obviously the ball is not a remotely stationary object. So when he makes these swipes at a fast-moving object, often if his swiping hand is off by even 2 inches in ANY direction, he’ll either miss the ball or commit a foul. But he simply didn’t miss with the customary frequency that would be expected from nearly anyone else. If the rest of us tried for these plays with any regularity, we’d likely foul out early. Larry Bird was nothing short of remarkable in this regard.

Versatility: note that Bird guarded---at one point or another---basically every position in his career. From 6’11”+ centers like Jack Sikma to 6’5” guards like Michael Cooper.

A few numbers regarding Larry Bird’s defense…….

*Per 100 possessions
Larry Bird for his Career: 2.2 STL, 1.0 BLK
Prime (‘81-’88) Bird: 2.2 STL, 1.1 BLK
For comparison, Lebron James to this point in his career per 100: 2.3 STL, 1.1 BLK.

**Career DRtg: 101 (despite DRtg’s generally running a little higher in the mid-late 80’s).

***FOUR times led the league in DWS. And despite his relatively poor longevity, he’s 27th all-time in career DWS.

****Team DRtg of the Boston Celtics over the years (with comments on relevant roster changes).
‘79 (Dave Cowens at the helm): 106.4 (19th of 22)
‘80 (rookie Larry Bird arrives, along with one good perimeter defender in M.L. Carr, and new coach Bill Fitch; Dave Cowens, while maybe free to focus more on D, plays 358 fewer minutes than the year before): 101.9 (4th of 23)
‘81 (rookie McHale and Parish arrive, but Dave Cowens leaves): 102.6 (4th of 23)
‘82: 103.5 (6th of 23)
‘83 (Quinn Buckner added): 101.8 (7th of 23)
‘84 (DJ arrives, K.C. Jones new coach): 104.4 (3rd of 23)
‘85: 106.3 (5th of 23)
‘86 (Buckner, Cedric Maxwell, and aging Carr leave; gain old Bill Walton-->playing just 19.3 mpg; probably Bird’s best season): 102.6 (1st of 23)
‘87 (Bill Walton misses nearly entire year): 106.8 (9th of 23)
‘88 (McHale misses 18 games; big four of Bird/McHale/Parish/DJ miss 37 games combined): 109.4 (17th of 23)
‘89 (Bird misses 76 games, and new coach; obtain down-low tough guy off bench in Joe Kleine at mid-season; other relevant mid-season acquisition is Ed Pinckney; new coach as well): 109.6 (20th of 25)
‘90 (Bird is back, though everyone getting old by this point): 107.9 (12th of 27)
‘91 (Bird misses 22 games; Bird is really sharing a lot of offensive responsibility with Reggie Lewis by this point, perhaps focusing more energy on D--->though past prime, his per 100: 2.3 STL, 1.2 BLK): 106.7 (10th of 27)
‘92 (Bird’s final season, he misses 37 games): 107.0 (9th of 27)
‘93 (Bird has left): 107.8 (14th of 27)

Now obviously there are multiple factors involved in some of these trends, and I tried to hint at what some of them might have been. While Bird wasn’t the isolated factor, what I find to be some interesting observations:
1) the Celtic defense was among the worst in the league the year before he arrived, and 4th best during his rookie season.
2) They only had two below average defensive years during his career, the WORST of which occurred (non-coincidentally??) in the year Bird missed 76 games.
3) Despite NEVER in Bird’s career having what most of would call an “elite defensive anchor”, they nonetheless managed an at least top 7 defense SEVEN years of his career; FOUR times in the top 4, and once the #1 rated D.
4) The immediate drop from 9th of 27 to 14th of 27 in DRtg right after he leaves.

In summary, Bird easily one of the all-time greatest two-way players, truly a player without much in the way of significant weaknesses; one of the greatest winners of all-time, one of the hardest workers of all-time. Would have been a worthy recipient of the #8 slot, imo. Is more than worthy of taking #9.

Also, this:

Realgm-RPOY
1. Bill Russell 10.956
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 10.221
3. Michael Jordan 9.578
4. Wilt Chamberlain 7.818
5. Magic Johnson 7.114
6. LeBron James 6.652
7. Tim Duncan 6.248
8. Larry Bird 6.147
9. Shaquille O'Neal 5.910
10. Julius Erving 5.046
11. Karl Malone 4.649
12. Bob Pettit 4.466
13. Oscar Robertson 4.413
14. Kobe Bryant 4.380
15. Hakeem Olajuwon 4.380
16. Jerry West 3.795
17. Kevin Garnett 3.571
18. Moses Malone 3.478
19. Dwyane Wade 2.601
20. David Robinson 2.431
21. Dirk Nowitzki 2.373

[Baller2014]

Three things it seems like many are ignoring when talking about the 1979 to 1980 transition for the Celtics:

1. Tiny Archibald suffered an achilles injury before the 1979 season that obviously limited his play: his stats were wayyyy down across the board and he only played 1,662 minutes. In 1980 he bounced back in a big way - he wasn't a volume scorer like before the injury, but he was more efficient and he distributed at a level that he hadn't reached since much earlier in his career. He also played 2,864 minutes that year, 1,202 more than 1979.

2. In 1979, Maxwell was a 23 year old and a year of experience, especially one where he led his team in scoring and rebounding, was probably really important for his development.

3. The team got a new coach - one who unlike the coaches in 1979 team had experience coaching the NBA. Perhaps the most important effect here is that Cowens could focus solely on playing (in 1979 he was a player coach for the majority of the season).

I've covered all these before, so I'll be brief:
1) Tiny never recovered from his Achilles injury, back then you just didn't (even today, you really don't). He contributed more in 1980 than 1979, having Bird there to take the pressure off him no doubt helped, but that seems nicely balanced by Cowens playing worse than ever before (so badly, he retired at the end of the season).
2) Maxwell's stats were better the year before Bird came. He looks like the same player.
3) The coaching argument is never consistent or makes sense. In 1978 the Celtics fired Heinsohn mid way through the season because the team sucked, and when the team sucks the coach is liable to be fired. His replacement, Sanders, coached the team to a better record than Heinsohn has managed, so this looks like it paid off. The next season Sanders had a bad start too, and so was fired in favour of Cowens, who just like Sanders led the team to a notably better record than his predecessor had done (and better than both combined had done), so shifting to Cowens seems like it paid off. It wasn't that Sanders or Cowens was bad, if they were they wouldn't have done better than Heinsohn (who certainly wasn't bad), it was just that the roster in 78 and 79 had insufficient talent to win. Fitch was a good coach of course (just like the coaches to come before him), but Bird did more to coach those 80's Celtics teams than any coach did.

[therealbig3]

Well, this was ElGee's breakdown of the 1980 Celtics, and why they improved so much outside of the addition of Bird, and I tend to agree with him.

1979 to 1980 Celtics Changes:
-Took the grumpy and disgruntled Dave Cowens off the sideline as a PLAYER-COACH and replacing with him Bill Fitch
-Tiny Archibald's health improved and minutes increasing by 1100
-Replaced poor-rep guys like Marvin Barnes and Bob McAdoo with ML Carr or Gerald Henderson on the bench
-Jo Jo White, limping around on his last legs to start 1979, retired
-Went from no semblance of a rotation (3 healthy players all year, 11 players at 800 minutes, multiple starting 5's) to a team that was healthy and congruent all year

White, Billy Knight and even Earl Williams were starters at the beginning of the 79 season when they opened 2-13...They weren't on the 1980 team. They went 21-20 after a disastrous start and then finished 4-17. McAdoo and players like Curtis Rowe started and played big minutes down that stretch...and they weren't on the 1980 team.


So this massive changes from -5 to +7 SRS isn't simply the presence of Bird. There were a lot of changes. As a result, it's hard to say stuff like "Larry Bird as a rookie took a -2.3 offense to +4.2!"

Can't say that. Not close.

I think a much better coach, a much improved PG, improved health of the roster, and replacing bad role players with good ones are all major improvements that shouldn't be glossed over. Obviously, when you top that off with a rookie that's already an MVP-caliber player, you get a monstrous turnaround. But the other improvements to the team made a significant difference as well.

And then of course, if Larry Bird as a rookie is worth 32 wins, and the only reason they didn't get even better as he and the supporting cast got better is the law of diminishing returns (imo, maxing out a team pretty much requires a great supporting cast, so the argument that the 1980 supporting cast was basically equivalent to the team in 1979 doesn't really fly for me)...then why exactly did Jordan get voted in as GOAT? His teams clearly had room for improvement from 87-90 (averaged 48 wins/season and maxed out at 55 wins, despite a pretty talented supporting cast). His teams didn't win 60+ games until they were absolutely stacked and they got one of the greatest coaches of all time. Using this logic (a GOAT-caliber player should be able to single-handedly take a bad team and lead them to 60+ wins, because Larry Bird did it as a rookie), there's no way Jordan can be GOAT. And yet, he was pretty overwhelmingly supported as GOAT. It should be impossible under this criteria.

Unless we're also giving him the Hakeem treatment, and saying he magically became a MUCH improved player after 1990, and only realized his GOAT potential at that point. In which case, Jordan only played like a GOAT-caliber player for 6 years. That longevity kind of sucks, so again, he can't be the GOAT under this criteria.

[therealbig3]

I suggest that posters that voted for one of the run-off candidates should be recommended NOT to re-affirm their votes, because it could get confusing when counting. I feel like only posters that are changing their votes (or voting for the first time) should post their choices after the run-off has started.

That way, it's easier for penbeast0 to tally up the votes without the possibility of double-counting by mistake.

Obviously, the actual discussion should still be open to everyone.

[Clyde Frazier]

Was never clear on whether or not we need to re-affirm our vote if our original vote was for one of the run-off candidates.
If so, my run-off vote is for Larry Bird, for reasons mention in my original post

Your original vote counts on its own. No need to re-affirm if it was for one of the runoff candidates.

[HeartBreakKid]

Well, I've commented on this in the past threads but

- Hakeem seems like the 3rd or 4th best defensive player, I think he is pretty much in the same tier as David Robinson and Kevin Garnett. His ability to cover ground, guard the rim at an all time great level and his rebounding (though the arguments against how impactful his rebounding is is enlightening) solidify him as the 9th best player to me. I'm not sure if Bird's offensive impact is overall worth more than that.

- Both Bird and Hakeem are great peak players, but I believe Hakeem possesses the greater feats. His championship runs seem more impressive than Bird's. It's also interesting seeing Hakeem's level of play rise during the playoffs. TBH, I don't punish guys much for slacking in the regular season if they can turn it up when it counts.

My vote goes to Hakeem Olajuwon.

[acrossthecourt]

Not to mention Hakeem did bring an organization that never won multiple titles and when a comparison is fairly close that matters.

Why does that matter? I would say that it doesn't matter at all. Players have no control over which organization drafts them. If the next GOAT is drafted by a team which has already won multiple titles, MJ doesn't get bonus points in the comparison for "leading an organization that never won to titles". I don't see the relevancy of that when comparing the level at which two players played.

Yeah imagine a guy coming into Milwaukee, changing the franchise around, and leading them to a title, compared to like winning a title for Mark Cuban and his fortune or Phoenix, who have had successful teams for a while but never won.

But Kareem and Oscar winning a title four decades ago is more important, not the sorry state of the Bucks.

[john248]

I'm pretty sure people are claiming that. All decades and Ronny among them.

Seemed to me that everyone is acknowledging that Hakeem became a better player after 92. But I believe they're claiming that Hakeem's improvement as a player wasn't as big of a game-changer as the improvement in terms of coaching. He didn't magically become an MVP-caliber player overnight...the circumstances around him changed.

Instead of Don Chaney, you had Rudy T, who the Rockets had already seen improvement under when he took over halfway through 92. He restructured the offense to be more Hakeem-centric, and he built a system designed around ball movement and spacing. Hakeem makes improvements to his own game in terms of his passing and reading defenses. Now, Hakeem would have certainly looked better either way even if Don Chaney remained the coach, but I don't believe he would have all of a sudden been an MVP candidate if it wasn't for Rudy T actually designing an effective system around his talent (which is something that should be expected from every coach).

No real dispute with what you're saying in regards to coaching. Just to add though, Hakeem does say in his book that was quoted somewhere here that he did indeed work on his game after the 92 season. He stressed his more "in-between" game which went from mainly using his speed and spins to what we saw from him at his peak. The per100 numbers do reflect this as his offensive numbers across the board do indeed go up while his defensive numbers take a dip likely due to focusing more on offense. It was also the 1st time he went to the weight room too which helped his endurance which is quite important. So he did clearly change as a player regardless of coaching.

[Baller2014]

And then of course, if Larry Bird as a rookie is worth 32 wins, and the only reason they didn't get even better as he and the supporting cast got better is the law of diminishing returns (imo, maxing out a team pretty much requires a great supporting cast, so the argument that the 1980 supporting cast was basically equivalent to the team in 1979 doesn't really fly for me)...then why exactly did Jordan get voted in as GOAT? His teams clearly had room for improvement from 87-90 (averaged 48 wins/season and maxed out at 55 wins, despite a pretty talented supporting cast). His teams didn't win 60+ games until they were absolutely stacked and they got one of the greatest coaches of all time. Using this logic (a GOAT-caliber player should be able to single-handedly take a bad team and lead them to 60+ wins, because Larry Bird did it as a rookie), there's no way Jordan can be GOAT. And yet, he was pretty overwhelmingly supported as GOAT. It should be impossible under this criteria.

Jordan's year by year results:
- Rookie year in 1985, nobody is going to count that against him (he wasn't the GOAT for what he did as a rookie)
- 1986; Jordan misses most of the season, destroys the playoffs. Did as well as could be expected.
- 1987; team still mediocre, but only one other player on the Bulls this year with a pulse is Oakley (even Paxson was hurt). Jordan still wasn't playing "the right way" of course, so he's still not having the impact that is associated with his GOAT ranking. After this though, he does. In 1988 the team wins 50 games, upsets the Cavs in round 1, and is put down by a far more stacked Pistons team. In 89 they win a few less games, but in the playoffs they go all the way to the ECFs and go down to the stacked Pistons again. In 1990 they still don't quite have the support cast around Jordan, but win 55 and lose in the 3rd round to the Pistons (again). Note also that the East was quite tough at this point, the year they won 47 they had a notably worse record v.s the East.

Anyway, to compare this back to Bird. Obviously, Bird was better sooner, and obviously none of those Jordan teams won 61 games. My response to that is several fold:
1) None of those Bulls teams looks terribly likely to win 29 games without Jordan. I guess the 1990 Bulls might have, but Pippen was still coming along as a player.
2) I'm happy as long as the team failure can be explained. In this case an adequate explanation is "ok, so they weren't going as hard in the regular season because of limited talent, but when they got to the playoffs they got serious. Since the Bulls were only losing to the Pistons from 88-90 (and deep in the playoffs usually) it's hard to be tough on them for that. The situation with Hakeem is way less explainable; he was losing to dog teams in the playoffs (or ones he plainly should have beaten if he had a Bird like impact), and to compound that the team isn't winning enough in the regular season either. Nor is this a few years into Hakeem's career, Hakeem is having these problems through years 3-8, even missing the playoffs. If a guy doesn't have the impact he's supposed to have, I want good explanations why. Jordan's mild underachievement early on is easily explainable (and part of it is on Jordan in the early years). For Hakeem it really isn't.
3) Then of course, we have Jordan destroy the NBA for 6 years after he got increasingly more impactful in his earlier 6 years. Hakeem on the other hand wins 2 titles on Jordan's baseball holiday, and has his 2 titles bookended by defeats to a Sonics team many people wonder if he could have beaten in 94 and 95.

[ardee]

[b]Run-Off Vote: Larry Bird[/]

I think Bird's 1980-1983 years get underestimated. I know I was arguing against them earlier, but that was in comparison to Magic.

I have also been watching some more film, and I think I might've underestimated how good he was on offense even then, despite the worse shooting than he would have later. He was averaging 22 points and 6 assists on 25% USG: that takes a real decision-making savant, making Doc's point about his off-ball play all the more pertinent. Also, he had a sub 100 DRtg every year of those four: not saying it's a perfect defensive stat, but it has to say something about his utility at that end.

So I really think the advantage of Hakeem's pre-prime (1986-1990) isn't really that big of a gap over 1980-83 Bird.

I think 1984-88 Bird > 1993-1997 Hakeem, because Bird was at that really amazing level all five years, while Hakeem's '96 and '97 were not historical years anymore. I'll admit I'm not too knowledgeable about Hakeem's later years, while I do like Bird at least in 1990 and 1991. I mean, in 1991 he averaged 19-9-7 with 2 steals and a block, and the Cs were a 7.3 SRS team when he played. He was still throwing up games like 45-8-8 that season, and managed a 49-14-12 the next. That's really no joke.

Hakeem may have a larger number of years as an impact player, but I just like Bird's prime more, and I think that both his pre-prime and post-prime years are underestimated.

[therealbig3]

Since penbeast0's last count, which had it 15-14 Hakeem...O_6, JordansBulls, and HeartBreakKid voted for Hakeem...ardee voted for Bird.

So it looks like it's 18-15 Hakeem as of right now.

[E-Balla]

Run-Off Vote: Larry Bird

I think Bird's 1980-1983 years get underestimated. I know I was arguing against them earlier, but that was in comparison to Magic.

I have also been watching some more film, and I think I might've underestimated how good he was on offense even then, despite the worse shooting than he would have later. He was averaging 22 points and 6 assists on 25% USG: that takes a real decision-making savant, making Doc's point about his off-ball play all the more pertinent. Also, he had a sub 100 DRtg every year of those four: not saying it's a perfect defensive stat, but it has to say something about his utility at that end.

So I really think the advantage of Hakeem's pre-prime (1986-1990) isn't really that big of a gap over 1980-83 Bird.

I think 1984-88 Bird > 1993-1997 Hakeem, because Bird was at that really amazing level all five years, while Hakeem's '96 and '97 were not historical years anymore. I'll admit I'm not too knowledgeable about Hakeem's later years, while I do like Bird at least in 1990 and 1991. I mean, in 1991 he averaged 19-9-7 with 2 steals and a block, and the Cs were a 7.3 SRS team when he played. He was still throwing up games like 45-8-8 that season, and managed a 49-14-12 the next. That's really no joke.

Hakeem may have a larger number of years as an impact player, but I just like Bird's prime more, and I think that both his pre-prime and post-prime years are underestimated.

No it doesn't. Individual DRTG is about as useful as citing a team's DRTG to show a players defensive impact. Its that dumbest most asinine stat (and by association DWS and WS are right there too). Every time I see anyone use this for any type of analysis (WS too - mainly because DWS is individual DRTG based) I grow a small tumor somewhere.

Sorry to use your post for this but I had to get that one off my chest. It's being used so much in this project (and in comparisons all over) I've been contemplating chemo treatments to make it through.

[magicmerl]

Individual DRTG is about as useful as citing a team's DRTG to show a players defensive impact. Its that dumbest most asinine stat (and by association DWS and WS are right there too). Every time I see anyone use this for any type of analysis (WS too - mainly because DWS is individual DRTG based) I grow a small tumor somewhere.

Sorry to use your post for this but I had to get that one off my chest. It's being used so much in this project (and in comparisons all over) I've been contemplating chemo treatments to make it through.

Why is that? Is it because you feel that the team residual is too large?

What do you think is a better way of capturing defense? I'm happy to give players who play big minutes on great defensive teams a good amount of credit for that. Defense is half the game, even if it's the half we know the least about.

[E-Balla]

Individual DRTG is about as useful as citing a team's DRTG to show a players defensive impact. Its that dumbest most asinine stat (and by association DWS and WS are right there too). Every time I see anyone use this for any type of analysis (WS too - mainly because DWS is individual DRTG based) I grow a small tumor somewhere.

Sorry to use your post for this but I had to get that one off my chest. It's being used so much in this project (and in comparisons all over) I've been contemplating chemo treatments to make it through.

Why is that? Is it because you feel that the team residual is too large?

What do you think is a better way of capturing defense? I'm happy to give players who play big minutes on great defensive teams a good amount of credit for that. Defense is half the game, even if it's the half we know the least about.

The team residual is all DRTG is. Too large is an understatement. I'll use Boozer as a test case mainly because DRTG loves him since he joined Chicago. Why does thos stats love a defensive pariah so much? Well it assumes each player plays the same amount of possessions per minute, it assumes opponents play the exact same each possession, and the major kicker (and the reason why the stat is completely useless) it assumes all players are equal in forcing misses. If Booz lets his man score wide open looks 5 times and Noah stops his man 5 times which leads to Booz getting the rebounds (because he's chasing them and yelling And 1 instead of playing defense) Boozer would have an amazingly high DRTG (he was actually 2nd before and first per 48 for qualifying players twice iirc).

You might as well just cite the percentage of steals, blocks, and defensive rebounds the player got on his team because that's literally all DRTG is (just wrapped up into a nice easy to find number).

I personally think DRTG while on the floor and defensive on/off infinitely better (well technically you can't multiply anything by zero but you know what I mean). For players too old for those numbers good old fashioned eye analysis and WOWY will have to do.

[rich316]

I'm glad it went to a run-off, I wouldn't have been able to vote otherwise!

My vote for #9: Hakeem Olajuwon.

I had Bird as my first pick at #8, but a lot of what I've watched and read in this thread has swayed me. I've come away really, really impressed by Hakeem's defensive impact, and he's gone up into the upper-most tier of non-Russell defenders for me. Hard for me to rank him below Bird with that in mind, as his offensive game isn't really on Bird's tier, but it's probably just below. The one concern about Hakeem seems to be that his offensive game might put a ceiling on the performance of his team, as if he can only be effectively used as a volume, lower-efficiency scorer. I'm not sure why this must be the case - if he had greater offensive talent on his teams, why couldn't the right coach figure out how to use him in a more efficient way that utilized his tremendous physical abilities? He was never a selfish player, so I don't see why he couldn't have been utilized more effectively on offense if he needed to be. As it stands, he was plenty effective already, and lead his team to a back-to-back title run.

I wouldn't be sad at all to see Bird in this spot, it's very close for me. Hakeem just seems like the better two-way guy.

[DQuinn1575]

Three things it seems like many are ignoring when talking about the 1979 to 1980 transition for the Celtics:

1. Tiny Archibald suffered an achilles injury before the 1979 season that obviously limited his play: his stats were wayyyy down across the board and he only played 1,662 minutes. In 1980 he bounced back in a big way - he wasn't a volume scorer like before the injury, but he was more efficient and he distributed at a level that he hadn't reached since much earlier in his career. He also played 2,864 minutes that year, 1,202 more than 1979.

2. In 1979, Maxwell was a 23 year old and a year of experience, especially one where he led his team in scoring and rebounding, was probably really important for his development.

3. The team got a new coach - one who unlike the coaches in 1979 team had experience coaching the NBA. Perhaps the most important effect here is that Cowens could focus solely on playing (in 1979 he was a player coach for the majority of the season).

Maxwell played Less minutes in 1980
He already led league in fg% in 79. His improvement was largely due to bird and archibald.

Yes Nate was better in 80. He is the only starter of the 4 where there is proof of that.

Yes there was a new coach. Cowens performance was virtually the same statistically both years however.

And Fitch's record outside of his 4 years in Boston, coaching over 2,000 games was .408 - a 33 win team.

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[Texas Chuck]

Can we move on from Bird's rookie year already? Seems like most all of us can agree:

Bird was an outstanding player his rookie year.

There were a couple other factors involved in the Celtics' massive w/l improvement that year.

Bird was almost certainly the single most significant factor.

I'd say all three of those are very reasonable statements that should satisfy everyone on both sides. I hardly think anyone is choosing who to vote for based solely or even primarily on Bird's rookie year. So Baller can stop insisting rookie Bird is worth 30+ wins on his own, and the other side can stop trying to come up with every little reason they can think of why its not Bird.

[lukekarts]

2) The situation with Hakeem is way less explainable; he was losing to dog teams in the playoffs (or ones he plainly should have beaten if he had a Bird like impact), and to compound that the team isn't winning enough in the regular season either. Nor is this a few years into Hakeem's career, Hakeem is having these problems through years 3-8, even missing the playoffs. If a guy doesn't have the impact he's supposed to have, I want good explanations why. Jordan's mild underachievement early on is easily explainable (and part of it is on Jordan in the early years). For Hakeem it really isn't.

I don't understand. You've quite heavily referenced team quality for MJ, but don't give Hakeem the same benefit?

In Hakeem's Sophomore season, 1986, he went to the finals. There was a modest supporting cast, with one very obviously good team-mate in Sampson (a 19/11 guy). Sampson was an All Star, and maybe the 5th or 6th best big in the league at that point. Winning 51 games and losing to the Celtics in the Finals was good progress.

Then, Sampson gets injured. He plays little over half the next season, producing 15/9. John Lucas, who was probably the third best player on the team gets exposed as a cocaine user and winds up in Milwaukee. Lewis Lloyd was involved in the scandal and gets suspended early into the season for over a year. All of a sudden, their 5th option Rodney McCray becomes Hakeem's #2, and their 6th/7th men from the season prior start 56 and 63 games apiece. They slumped to 42-40. That record is pretty good, considering. They lost to Seattle in the 2nd round of the playoffs. Seattle largely underperformed in the regular season but had an excellent scoring trio in Dale Ellis, Xavier McDaniel and Tom Chambers that Houston's former bench (now starters) could not contain on the perimeter.

For the 87-88 season, Houston made some moves, with Sampson being traded after 19 games as part of a larger deal, with the main piece coming back being Sleepy Flloyd. Not a blockbuster by any means. Despite some changes to the lineup (Flloyd started, and Leavill came into the lineup), the Rockets still desperately lacked talent and Flloyd was second option producing a measly 13.1 points per game on 43% FG%. The Rockets were offensively challenged. They lost to the 53 win Mavericks, lead by a deep cast of Harper, Blackman, Aguirre and Sam Perkins. Not an upset by any stretch of the imagination.

In 88-89, they traded McCray for Otis Thorpe, brought in Mike Woodson, promoted Buck Johnson to starter and dumped Leavill all the way to the end of the bench. 45 wins was a slight RS improvement, but again they lost to the Seattle side who won 47 games and had Ellis dropping 27.5 points (48% from 3), Nate McMillan (9.3 Assists), Michael Cage (9.6 rebounds) and McDaniel 2nd option on 20ppg. Derrick McKey was also a solid contributor and you could argue Seattle had 5 of the best 7 players in the series. Hakeem had a solid playoffs (25/13/3) - very similar to his RS averages. Houston could not contain the perimeter.

In 89-90, the Rockets were poor. 41 games, first round exit and Hakeem played especially poorly against the 61 win Lakers. His only redemption was 10 blocks in game 2 and his 28/14/4/3/2 statline in the elimination game was admirable. Whatever happened, the Rockets made changes for next year.

The 1991 season saw the Rockets trade for Kenny Smith and improve to 52 games. Smith was a good 17/7 player and exactly what the Rockets needed to progress, as they finally got some production from the perimeter. Vernon Maxwell, a bit part for the season before, emerged as a starter and produced another 17 points (albeit inefficiently). Unfortunately, Hakeem had some injury issues, missing 26 games, and they ran into the 58 win Lakers in the first round.

The 1992 season, much like 1990, was inexcusable. Hakeem had minor niggles, but generally underperformed. 22/12/4 was still a great level of production, but this was the point in which there were reports from Houston that Hakeem was fed up. He'd seen the league being dominated by star tandems of Bird/McHale, Magic/Worthy, Jordan/Pippen... separated by a stacked Pistons team. Whilst Smith and Thorpe were good, other star players (and in context, 2 are already on the top 8 list) - he needed more help. Perhaps notably, Rudy Tomanjovich became head coach after 52 games had passed and the Rockets to

1993 rolls along and everyone's favourite winner is on the Rockets (Horry). 55 wins equalled that of the Seattle team they faced in the Conference Semis, (Seattle now had Payton, Kemp, plus a huge amount of depth in McKey, McMillan, Ricky Pierce, Michael Cage, Sam Perkins and Eddie Johnson and were unsurprisingly the #2 D in the league). Hakeem performed at the expected level (23/13/5/4/2).

Summary

Losing Sampson and the massive disruption that left Houston in mediocrity for a decade was not Hakeem's fault. He had maybe 2 seasons where more could've been expected, but even then, more would not equal more titles. Sampson was the only All Star he played with for some time, and it took quite literally two of top 10 post-seasons ever by Hakeem for him to win championships. His career saw him face the Bulls, Lakers and Celtics legendary teams. The bad boy Pistons were around, and at certain points teams like Dallas and Seattle had clearly superior talent overall. He then only had to get through David Robinson, Ewing and Shaq/Penny to win titles.

[colts18]

1) None of those Bulls teams looks terribly likely to win 29 games without Jordan. I guess the 1990 Bulls might have, but Pippen was still coming along as a player.

You have literally no concept of what players are worth to a team. I shouldn't be shocked because you think some players are actually worth 38 wins to a team. No one is worth 38 wins to a team. You literally think that the 2001 Spurs would have won 20 games without Duncan No chance a Pop team with all-star David Robinson is winning 20 games. Not even close.


Did you forget that the 1986 Bulls won 30 games in a season where MJ missed over 60+ games? If that team could win 30 games, how could say that the 90 Bulls couldn't have when they clearly had the better supporting cast.

If Bird was worth 32 games in 1980, why did the 1989 Celtics only drop off by 15 games without Bird? Was he half as good in 1988 as he was in 1980?