penbeast0 wrote:OK, a challenge. Give me a reason not to vote for Larry Bird
1) Kobe vs Bird: 9-year prime spans
Regular Season per 100: 80-88 Bird: 31/8/13 on 57% TS 24.2 PER 01-10 Kobe: 38/7/7 on 56% TS 24.6 PER
Playoffs: 80-88 Bird: 28/7/14 on 56% TS 21.9 PER 01-10 Kobe: 36/7/7 on 55% TS 23.5 PER
On a pure production level, Kobe was slighty better than Bird.
2) Playoff record
Career with SRS Advantage: 00-12 Kobe: 20-1 80-90 Bird: 20-5
Kobe's one loss to to a lesser SRS team was in 2011 to Dallas, the eventual champs. Kobe didn't play well dropping 23 ppg on 52% TS.
Bird however lost to a team with lesser SRS 5 out the the 10 years.
1980: The #1 seed Celtics lose 1-4 to the 76ers in the ECF, with Dr. J dropping 25 ppg in the series. Can't blame rookie Bird here that much, and game 3 was pretty epic.
1982: Again, the #1 seed Celtics lose to the 76ers. Bird's shooting was off the mark, 18.3 ppg on 45% TS. He did board & assist well though.
1983: Boston swept by the Bucks. Bird shoots 18.7 ppg, on 45% TS
1988: Detroit finally upsets Boston. McHale drops 27 ppg on 63% TS. Bird shoots 19.8 ppg on 45% TS.
1990: Knicks upset Boston in the 1st round. Bird was good though dropping 24/9/9 on 54% TS.
^ I wanted to get specific so people could understand why SRS/HCA advantage can give a good snapshot of success/failure rates. Bird shot 45% TS in 3 of the 5 losses. When we compare playoff records, and success, the difference is pretty sobering. Especially since no one can say Bird didn't have the same level of support.
3) Longevity
Kobe has a longer Pre-prime/Prime/ and Post-Prime.
4) Offense is a wash, but Kobe has the edge on defense. Bird/Kobe are arguably the two most skilled players ever, but Kobe had superior athleticism which allowed him to do things on the court Bird wasn't capable of.
Have a great deal of respect for Bird, but when we look at the criteria used throughout this project, Kobe has the edge on the majority of things.
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why does it matter if Admiral dropped more in relation to his RS self if he still out-performs KG in the PS?
This is what I was talking about in the other thread. It just makes no sense at all to say someone is a better playoff performed based more on the relationship to how they performed in the RS than on how they actually performed in the playoffs.
And frankly most players drop off in the postseason, barring a few notable exceptions. Better teams, better defensives, better coaches, better gameplans, familiarity etc. I tend to credit the guys who raise their games: Dream, Mike, Dirk, etc... but try not to over-react to those whose numbers look worse--Robinson, KG, Malone, etc.
And I would certainly never judge it on a percentage comparison to the RS.
I think he was saying that Robinson dropped off more in terms of box score stats (since we don't have play-by-play data for his prime) in the postseason, relative to his regular season standards. I could be misinterpreting, though.
Now that's the difference between first and last place.
Chuck Texas wrote: In all serious I get where you are coming from regarding KG having a better case over Bird. Just like Dirk has a better case over David Robinson that KG does. Both Dirk v Bird and KG v Admiral a big part of the case has to be longevity but when you flip the comparisons then more edges can be found.
Yeah, I guess it's about the fact that KG/Bird or D-Rob/Dirk had different strengths as players, which makes the comparison more obvious, and allows you to apply your general principle for player rankings (whether you value great #1 scoring options, and elite offensive players - BIrd/Dirk is your choice if you do, or defensive anchors with insanely versatile all-around game - if so, you go with KG/D-Rob). Bird (at least the real prime Bird, 1984-88) may seem like the best combination - he was a great #1 scoring option as well as an amazing all-around performer and a guy with clearly positive defensive impact (obviously KG/D-Rob are top 10 of all-time on D, light years ahead of Larry, but most people would probably argue that Bird > Dirk on defense - I'm not sure if I'd agree, as there are indications that Dirk was consistently an above average defender throughout his career, but not everyone buys that).
Frankly, I'm not really sure what I value more, especially looking at guys who didn't really have any glaring weaknesses (BIrd's perimeter defense and KG's postseason scoring are the biggest weaknesses that I can think of here).
Chuck Texas wrote:
Dirk totally looks like he adopted the hockey tradition of growing a playoff beard. Oh, and as far as mullets, no one beats Jaromir Jagr's mullet, in all of sports. Not blond, but still impressive.
Quotatious wrote: but most people would probably argue that Bird > Dirk on defense - I'm not sure if I'd agree, as there are indications that Dirk was consistently an above average defender throughout his career, but not everyone buys that).
Dirk totally looks like he adopted the hockey tradition of growing a playoff beard. .
1. I think Bird is clearly the better defender than Dirk and I think Dirk while a decent defender, is probably getting too much credit as a defender these days. Irk Nowitzki was never correct, but I don't believe Dirk to be quite as good a defender as some of the numbers suggest he is.
2. Sadly that was the 2013 Mavs "not shaving until we make the playoffs/reach .500 beard. They did eventually get to .500, but the long playoff streak ended
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90sAllDecade wrote:I am open minded about all cases
Now that Hakeem is in you mean?
Honestly, I have a criteria for ranking players and if you look at the straw poll my research is strong in the top 10. After that I hadn't researched the next 11-15 for thier case over Bird (who is the strongest candidate to me right now, but I have to research others).
Watch me this and other threads, I advocated for Olajuwon because no one else did as much to clear up inaccuracies or provide points, due to lack of participating fanbase (Highly knowledgeable Hakeem posters like Fatal or Bastillion weren't voting, although Fatal provided great posts). So the burden was on me to advocate for a severely underrated player imo, that I watched for the majority of his career and had a very deep knowledge of in comparisons to the other top 10 players to contribute.
I never had an agenda ( I used to rank players like a casual fan before my research, Hakeem was below Russell, Kareem, Wilt , Magic/Bird etc. before I really learned and took a microscope to these guys), my criteria is why I ranked Kareem over Russell, Shaq over Wilt, Duncan over Shaq and so on in run offs.
Well, I think that Bird is a slam dunk here at #10, but those other guys you list along with David Robinson are all serious candidates at #11. It's going to be really hard to compare all of these different players.
Yes it will be , and I'll try my best to present that comparison with my criteria for others.
why does it matter if Admiral dropped more in relation to his RS self if he still out-performs KG in the PS?
This is what I was talking about in the other thread. It just makes no sense at all to say someone is a better playoff performed based more on the relationship to how they performed in the RS than on how they actually performed in the playoffs.
And frankly most players drop off in the postseason, barring a few notable exceptions. Better teams, better defensives, better coaches, better gameplans, familiarity etc. I tend to credit the guys who raise their games: Dream, Mike, Dirk, etc... but try not to over-react to those whose numbers look worse--Robinson, KG, Malone, etc.
And I would certainly never judge it on a percentage comparison to the RS.
No, I know, and it's why I think the gap between Robinson and Olajuwon is smaller than most think. Robinson has a decreased level, but he's starting from a higher point.
I'll be looking at Garnett's production in the playoffs adjusted for competition soon.
fpliii wrote:I think he was saying that Robinson dropped off more in terms of box score stats (since we don't have play-by-play data for his prime) in the postseason, relative to his regular season standards. I could be misinterpreting, though.
Yes that is what he is saying. What I don't understand is why that matters.
Career: KG 18/11/3 2.5 combined blocks/steals 53% TS DR 18/11/2 4 combined blocks/steals 55% TS
Best years KG 25/16/5/3.5 52% TS DR 24/13/3/5 58% TS (rounded down considerably since one year is huge outlier)
So when talking about them as PS performers we should look at how they actually performed. Those numbers look pretty darn close to me. Not sure why Robinson in effect gets punished for putting up superior RS numbers. I need an explanation.
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Chuck Texas wrote:So when talking about them as PS performers we should look at how they actually performed. Those numbers look pretty darn close to me. Not sure why Robinson in effect gets punished for putting up superior RS numbers. I need an explanation.
I'll wait for him to respond, but I think his point is that box score numbers =/= level of performance, since we have no way to quantitatively gauge defense or non-box score elements of offense without further data.
Though I suppose that doesn't preclude qualitative breakdowns (drza did a great job a few threads ago, and I assume we'll see more of that in this thread; Robinson will hopefully receive a similar treatment in the project.
Now that's the difference between first and last place.
Chuck Texas wrote:Yes that is what he is saying. What I don't understand is why that matters.
Career: KG 18/11/3 2.5 combined blocks/steals 53% TS DR 18/11/2 4 combined blocks/steals 55% TS
Best years KG 25/16/5/3.5 52% TS DR 24/13/3/5 58% TS (rounded down considerably since one year is huge outlier)
So when talking about them as PS performers we should look at how they actually performed. Those numbers look pretty darn close to me. Not sure why Robinson in effect gets punished for putting up superior RS numbers. I need an explanation.
I think it all goes back to the media of the 90's, and the "soft" label they put on DRob. Everytime he lost, the media would put all of the blame squarely on him. That narrative stuck with him for years until SA finally won.
7-time RealGM MVPoster 2009-2016 Inducted into RealGM HOF 1st ballot in 2017
When it comes to the offensive drop offs of Robinson and KG in the playoffs, I can't penalize them more than I already have since neither simply are as good as putting the ball into the hoop as other players. Come playoff time, they're seeing higher quality teams who game plan against them over multiple games. They're asked to take larger scoring loads than their talent can handle, so they're going to miss more contested shots on tougher looks you get in the playoffs.
I like the Mailman. When it comes to PFs with KG, Dirk, and Barkley, there are times where I rank him 1st amongst this group. I just really like his skill set and especially how his game has evolved.
With Oscar and West being mentioned, Wilt & Russell already in, I'd like to see if anyone has info about Pettit. I know some of the general stuff about how he's the inventor of the PF position, good FT, good shooter, good rebounder, amongst the top 5 til the very end.
90sAllDecade wrote:I am open minded about all cases
Now that Hakeem is in you mean?
I advocated for Olajuwon because no one else did as much to clear up inaccuracies or provide points, due to lack of participating fanbase (Highly knowledgeable Hakeem posters like Fatal or Bastillion weren't voting, although Fatal provided great posts). So the burden was on me to advocate for a severely underrated player imo, that I watched for the majority of his career and had a very deep knowledge of in comparisons to the other top 10 players to contribute.
Just going to start off saying I don't share the same thoughts as magicmerl. But c'mon dude..."severely underrated"? Hakeem had votes far before #9 and traction early on. He's very well regarded in the PC Board.
At his moment I am not sure who I am think is the best player that isn't on our list. The kobe/bird comparison was a little shocking to me.
I have never been involved in such an in depth discussion on individual players. It is hard to keep up with because I can fall 3 or 4 pages of posts behind in a matter of hours. It seems like a lot of people here have notes from prior projects and it is hard to keep up when you don't have any notes to look back on. I am really trying to contribute something to each discussion and not just regurgitate what others are posting.
For this spot I am leaning Bird/Oscar/Pettit/Baylor- with Robinson moving into that group. But then people will talk KG/Dirk/Kobe as well.
Bird- I am starting to question how much impact he really had and how much was his story- poor, blue collar white guy from indiana finds himself at the top of the NBA after black players have all but dominated since integration into the game (Russell/Wilt into Kareem), matched up against Magic from his college days and then put into the Boston/LA rivalry (and put on the 'Blue Collar' team of the two). Everything seemed to fall into place for his story. Then over time its inflated.
Oscar- statistically unbelievable, especially his first 5 years in the league. But he was on **** teams and seemed to have been locked down in the playoffs. Also played his prime during the 60s where I think he loses a lot of steam for most voters.
Pettit- the opposite of bird; has lost steam over time as another big white guy from ages ago who "wouldn't compete today in a more black, athletic league"
David Robinson- Enough has been said about him so far nothing for me to add.
Baylor- Personally, I am not sure how anyone left can compete with what Baylor did while serving those 4 months in Washington, only playing on weekends. You can argue that he only played 48 games, but he wasn't missing games because he was injured- he was in the ARMY! Flying back and forth and average 38-18.6-4.6! And his PER went up in the playoffs that year. To me that is unbelievable. But in reality, that only goes into his peak and that is only a fraction of everything that goes into these votes.
KG/Dirk- KG has continued to get a lot of noise for a while now. I just don't see how KG could be voted in over Dirk. I am excited to see that one play out though- would be awesome if those two came to a run off.
Kobe- Don't think he should be discussed in the top 10 but looks like he will be so I am looking forward to some of these better posters with more in depth statistical stuff picking him apart.
Okay Brand, Michael Jackson didn't come over to my house to use the bathroom. But his sister did.
Chuck Texas wrote:So when talking about them as PS performers we should look at how they actually performed. Those numbers look pretty darn close to me. Not sure why Robinson in effect gets punished for putting up superior RS numbers. I need an explanation.
I'll wait for him to respond, but I think his point is that box score numbers =/= level of performance, since we have no way to quantitatively gauge defense or non-box score elements of offense without further data.
Though I suppose that doesn't preclude qualitative breakdowns (drza did a great job a few threads ago, and I assume we'll see more of that in this thread; Robinson will hopefully receive a similar treatment in the project.
I agree box scores are only a partial answer, but since we don't have many better options for Admiral then we shouldn't ignore them especially since defense which is least represented doesnt figure to be a huge edge for either guy(I lean towards Admiral based on the elite team defenses/classic rim protection, others lean to KG based on his horizontal skill set/versatility).
Im willing to listen to how KG is better than David Robinson, but RAPM is out and the playoff argument that got made doesnt seem to hold much weight. I personally think Admiral was the better player but I rank KG slightly higher because of longevity.
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Chuck Texas wrote:I agree box scores are only a partial answer, but since we don't have many better options for Admiral then we shouldn't ignore them especially since defense which is least represented doesnt figure to be a huge edge for either guy(I lean towards Admiral based on the elite team defenses/classic rim protection, others lean to KG based on his horizontal skill set/versatility).
Im willing to listen to how KG is better than David Robinson, but RAPM is out and the playoff argument that got made doesnt seem to hold much weight. I personally think Admiral was the better player but I rank KG slightly higher because of longevity.
Good points. I need to rewatch a good deal when Robinson starts coming up in the discussion, which is likely sooner than later (and rightfully so).
Now that's the difference between first and last place.
Chuck Texas wrote:I agree box scores are only a partial answer, but since we don't have many better options for Admiral then we shouldn't ignore them especially since defense which is least represented doesnt figure to be a huge edge for either guy(I lean towards Admiral based on the elite team defenses/classic rim protection, others lean to KG based on his horizontal skill set/versatility).
Im willing to listen to how KG is better than David Robinson, but RAPM is out and the playoff argument that got made doesnt seem to hold much weight. I personally think Admiral was the better player but I rank KG slightly higher because of longevity.
Good points. I need to rewatch a good deal when Robinson starts coming up in the discussion, which is likely sooner than later (and rightfully so).
Yup. I'd really like to get my hands on the entire wolves lakers series from 04 before garnett starts to get more votes. Doesn't seem to be on youtube. I watched the entire series live back then, but have really only re-watched bits and pieces of the years.
penbeast0 wrote:OK, a challenge. Give me a reason not to vote for Larry Bird (and for Garnett fans, to support Kevin Garnett over David Robinson other than longevity) . . .
Tackling your second question, the basic non-longevity-based Garnett vs Robinson comparison deals with their approaches to offense and defense. Obviously there are a lot of similarities between the two...they're about the same height, both stupidly athletic for someone that tall, all-history on defense, great on offense, both have the middle name "Maurice'...just a lot of similarities. As far as differences, though, I'd say there are some fundamental differences in those offensive and defensive approaches. And your evaluation of the utility of these approaches will go a long way towards determining which that you believe to be better.
Defense: We've done a lot of talking in this project about defense, and the differences between what we've been calling "vertical" and "horizontal" defense. Traditionally, the vertical approach has been more lauded (e.g. shot-blocking, post defense, controlling the paint). Recently pretty strong arguments have been made that horizontal defense may be more valuable than previously expected, though, especially in the modern game (here's an old blog post from Doc MJ that sort of introduces the concept: http://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/ ... o-garnett/ ).
Boiled down, the vertical defense approach is meant to lower the opponent's ability to make the highest percentage shot in the NBA (near the rim) and to therefore encourage them to operate more from the perimeter, where the shooting percentages are lower. Horizontal defense, on the other hand, is meant to spread defensive help over a larger area, thereby discouraging and lowering the percentages of the most frequently planned for shot attempts.
Robinson and Garnett, obviously, have components of both types of defense in their games. Robinson was very mobile for a center, while Garnett was still a very good shot-blocker. But on the continuum, Robinson was more vertical while Garnett was more horizontal. Since we don't have databall-level data for Robinson's peak, it is difficult to say quantitatively which of Garnett or Robinson had more defensive impact. Perhaps we'll get some new insight on this as we go through these threads.
Some other thoughts about their defense outside of the role generalization.
1) While one could argue that blocks are assumed in the "vertical" defense category, I'd be remiss not to point out that Robinson blocked a LOT of friggin shots. His combined blocks and steals numbers, much like Hakeem's, were crazy and shouldn't be minimized.
2) Despite the fact that KG's horizontal approach kept him further from the rim, his defensive rebounding percentages (25.9% career, 26.9% career postseason, 28.1% prime postseasons (99 - 08)) were higher than Robinson's (23.4% career, 24.3% career postseason, 23.6% prime postseasons (90 - 96)). How much do you factor in rebounding to the defensive whole?
3) How do you factor in KG's "middle linebacker" effect on team defenses vs. Robinson's less vocal approach? Someone (Doc MJ? ElGee?) in this project made the argument that Garnett's vocal quarterbacking on defense, especially in regards to how this leads his teams into defending the pick-and-roll, might be his most valuable defensive quality (Pretty sure it was ElGee. If so, would you mind posting it again?).
Offense On offense, the main difference between them is that Robinson is more of a finisher while Garnett is more of an initiator. Boiled down, the offenses of Robinson's peak teams relied on him more to be the recipient of the final pass to make the shot while the offenses of Garnett's peak teams relied on him to be more of a decision maker and set up offense for teammates. (Again this is general, as both are on the continuum and not at absolutes). Robinson made life easier for his offensive mates by drawing defensive attention. Garnett did this as well, but also made life easier directly with his floor generalship and passing.
Which role is more vital? I guess it depends on how it's executed. I would argue that in general, though, all things being equal the initiator is more valuable. In the last thread, while comparing Larry Bird and Hakeem, I looked at some stylistic impact trends among frontcourt offense initiators with good perimeter scoring games vs. high-volume-big-man-finishers. For those that click the spoiler, I'd argue that Garnett would fit into the examples that I gave for Bird (though more-so with the power forwards listed than the SFs) while Robinson would fit into the ones I gave for Hakeem (Like Hakeem, Robinson also only had an assist-to-turnover ratio over 1 three times in his career, which I argue suggests that he was more finisher than distributor).
Spoiler:
Now, let's pan out and look at the trends. For Bird, I would compare him on offense to other forwards with a) great shooting range, and/or b) excellent playmaking. For Olajuwon, I would compare him on offense to other big men with a) good scoring volume and b) a great post game.
For Bird, the two most obvious comps (IMO) are LeBron and Dirk. Neither are perfect matches, but between them they tend to be most similar to Bird's offensive gifts. According to Doc MJ's RAPM spreadsheet (prior-informed, year-to-year from 1998 - 2012, normalized by year-to-year standard deviation), LeBron and Nowitzki are the two forwards with the highest 5-year peaks in normalized Offensive RAPM (average +8.1 and +7.0 in those 5-year peaks, respectively). The next two forwards with the highest marks are Antawn Jamison (+5.9) and Kevin Garnett (+5.3), one of which scored at volume with long shooting range and the other with a mixture of volume, range and playmaking. If you sort the spreadsheet for 1-year peaks instead of 5 (to help with players that might not have 5 full years in the '98 - '12 range), the next 5 highest forwards that weren't previously mentioned are Karl Malone (+7.3 from '98 - 2000), Charles Barkley (+7.5 from '98 - 2000), Carlos Boozer (+6.9 over his two All Star years of '07 and 08), Detlef Schrempf (+7.0 in '98), Scottie Pippen (+7.0 in '98) and Grant Hill (+6.3 from 98 - 2000). While I wouldn't comp Bird with the pure 4s (Malone/Barkley/Boozer), I would say that Schrempf (big tweener 3/4 with range), Pippen (point forward) and Hill (do-everything-forward) all have enough similarities to be reasonable comps.
For Hakeem (especially pre-'93) the player who I'd be most comfortable comping him to on offense would be Tim Duncan (5-year peak average offensive RAPM +4.8). Shaq is the highest rated post player (+7.6), but I really don't see a lot of overlap between Hakeem's approach and Shaq's so I don't see that as a comp. There really aren't a lot of volume-scoring back-to-the-basket pivots that measure out very well in the '98 - 2012 RAPM data. Perhaps that's due to a talent gap (e.g. there just might not be very many talented post big men this generation). I tried to think of bigs that do their damage in the paint that regularly averaged 20+ points with assist-TO-ratios less than 1, I think of some of these names:
Shaq (1998 - 99, after 2003): +6.6 (98, 99, 04, 05, 06) Duncan (1998 - 2000; by 2002 he regularly had A/TO well over 1): Offensive RAPM + 3.7 from '98 - 00 Zo Mourning (98 - 2000): +3.7 from '98 - 00 Amare Stoudemire: +2.9 5-year peak Dwight Howard: +2.8 5-year peak Zach Randolph: +2.3 5-year peak Yao Ming: +1.9 5-year peak Al Jefferson: +1.0 5-year peak
Food for thought: Normally I call this section 'conclusions', but I didn't put enough here to really conclude anything. This is just food for thought. It seems to me that, generally speaking from the RAPM data that we have since '98, there are an awful lot of players that have similar qualities to Bird that measure out extremely well in the offensive RAPM studies. Meanwhile, the players that seem to play most like pre-93 Olajuwon just don't seem to measure out nearly as well on offense.
Some will look at this post, see "RAPM", and immediately tune it out. I can't do anything about that. But for those that have read this far and at least have an open mind about it, I ask you to consider a few things:
1) Is it plausible (likely, even?) that there really is a "spacing" effect that stretch forwards bring to the table that benefits the offense simply by forcing defenders to account for them further out?
2) Is it plausible (likely, even) that there really is a version of a defensive "warping" effect that volume scoring players have that draws defensive attention (usually from more than one source) to them? And that if there is such a locus around that player, that having the locus on a dynamic or perimeter-based player might distort the defense away from the rim and thus increase the probability that the other offensive players might get higher percentage shots?
3) Is it plausible (almost certain, even) that players that can intelligently floor general/act as an offense initiator for their teams can really put their teammates into great positions to score with the way that they run the offense?
If so, then I would argue that these three things are all elements that can make up great "help offensive" players.
My follow-up theory that I'm working through is that, just like help defense vs. 1-on-1 defense, that "help offense" can have a larger impact on the team's offensive results than 1-on-1 offense. And since the elements of help offense don't rely upon game-to-game scoring efficiency, I'd argue that Bird (even in his 20.5 ppg/50.5% TS days) could have been having a (potentially much) larger positive offensive impact on those early Celtics playoff teams than pre-93 Olajuwon was having on the Rockets.
YMMV as to whether there is anything to this "help offense" concept that I was trying to describe and/or whether some data mining trends from 15 years of current RAPM data that don't hit the mid-90s or before are enough to support the concept. But I will say that this difference in team roles is part of the reason that Garnett's (or Bird's, for that matter) scoring efficiency in the playoffs don't affect their impacts as much as it does for a player like Robinson. If your main offensive role is to score, then failing to do that up to par does more to limit effectiveness.
As an illustration, if you look at Robinson's worst prime shooting performance in a postseason (47% TS in 1994 against the Jazz), his other offensive contributions were 3.5 assists vs. 2.3 TOs . Whereas in Bird's (48% in '83) or KG's (44% TS in 2000 aainst Blazers) worst prime shooting performance in a postseason they were still contributing elsewhere (6.8 asts vs 3.2 TO for Bird, 8.8 asts vs 2.6 TOs for KG). Assists aren't the greatest stat, but they do help illustrate here that the initiators were still able to pull more of their offensive load even when the shots weren't falling.
Bottom Line: I'm happy to see the pendulum swinging back on Robinson, as I've always felt like his postseason scoring is counted too heavily against him at times. I look forward to arguing for Robinson, likely before most are. That said, I do believe that Garnett was a bit better. The defensive debate is difficult to call, but I think Garnett's offensive approach and execution is more valuable to successful team offense than Robinson's.
I advocated for Olajuwon because no one else did as much to clear up inaccuracies or provide points, due to lack of participating fanbase (Highly knowledgeable Hakeem posters like Fatal or Bastillion weren't voting, although Fatal provided great posts). So the burden was on me to advocate for a severely underrated player imo, that I watched for the majority of his career and had a very deep knowledge of in comparisons to the other top 10 players to contribute.
Just going to start off saying I don't share the same thoughts as magicmerl. But c'mon dude..."severely underrated"? Hakeem had votes far before #9 and traction early on. He's very well regarded in the PC Board.
(My tone is a polite one which can't always be read in text) Let me ask you, what criteria qualifies as underrated player or overrated to you?
I'll also start off with this, what usually separates Hakeem from Kareem, Shaq, Wilt or Duncan or others to fans?
The majority of the time to fans its offense and championships or accolades/stats in that vein.
Yes, he is imo. Most fans rank individual players on team based success, offense, and don't do team analysis, competition analysis or rule benefits (which I will do my best for the next threads). There's no stat, accolade or media coverage that showcases it.There is a lack of defensive stats, and RAPM isn't accurate pre 97 (so I'm told). All fan perspective is subjective anyhow and to be accepted.
He also played in a smaller market and wasn't on national TV nearly as much as those other players listed.
(sidenote, there is also a much smaller participating Rockets fanbase contributing or voting in this project. Which is fine and due to a larger outside forum, I like both and the great posts from other fanbases so far.)
Those other factors and championship bias affect his media perspective and really others like Garnett before he won a ring. Garnett was underrated too. I can understand his supporters difficulty overcoming the same things.
The only thing that separated Kareem and Hakeem imo is era rules, pace, competition, team support (like Oscar, Magic and Riley) and media championship/offense bias. (I hold peaks and longevity equal)
Check Kareem's team success without that same team support, his numbers also trend toward a decrease as competition improves.
We can continue this discussion, but since both are already in I don't know if mods will want us to.
Re: the Robinson/Garnett dropoff debate, going back to my average playoff difference spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DsVfN9F888r36jwXbr5apX7NchRXURMn7SwxSz-9AbM/edit?usp=sharing) Robinson does have one of the worst average playoff dropoffs of anyone in the top 100 from the 2011 project, but even after accounting for his drop off, he's still better than regular season Garnett in my metric, and that's taking out Garnett's first four years to compare apples to apples (which takes him from 3.6 to 4.0).
I have already shown that Robinson stacks up to Garnett in rapm at the same age with the years we have for Robinson. So Robinson a) dominates Garnett in the box score and b) is likely his equal in plus minus. At this point I'm not persuaded that Garnett is the better player even given the five-ish years he adds.
My post below covers why I'll be voting for Bird again, in what is now the easiest vote in the project to date. Since virtually everyone is indicating support for Bird, I really think this thread will benefit from letting us discuss the #11 candidates more.
I'm voting for Bird. Same reasons as last time- Vote- Larry Bird
Spoiler:
Baller2014 wrote:As I said last time around, I think I overrated Magic's longevity a little, and that brings Bird ahead of him too. Bird has an insane peak, where he was consistently the MVP in the golden era of basketball (3 times running), and there was nothing controversial at all about those awards. Even as a rookie, Bird's impact was enough to turn a 29 win lotto team around into a 61 win contender, one of the toughest things you can do, and of course Bird only got better after his rookie year. Bird has an amazing 8 year prime, and a few years after that which are still pretty awesome, though he's not prime Bird anymore. Just too much for the next choices of Magic, Hakeem, KG and Dr J. Magic doesn't really have a 12 year prime, he was injured most of his 2nd year, and didn't play at the same level all the way through, whereas Bird was almost immediately Bird. I've covered my problems with Hakeem in the Hakeem mega thread. He's coming up soon, but after Bird and Magic IMO. Anyway, just to remind people what a high IQ player Bird was I'm posting this: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULvo7__wwBU[/youtube]
The thing that makes it pretty easy for me is we just voted in Hakeem, and Bird played during Hakeem's career, and there was no question who the better player was. It was Bird. Bird's one of those few guys where, peak to peak, Hakeem doesn't really have a case. Plus Bird has an 8 year prime, and 2 other excellent years. Hakeem has a bit of a prime advantage, but not nearly enough. And for all except 3 of his prime years he wasn't close to Bird in terms of impact. We saw that from 87-92 (and even 93) particularly.
Not blond, but still impressive.
