RealGM Top 100 List #9

[90sAllDecade]

With regards to this project, I personally don't punish winners or punish losers, I personally view it as ranking individual players based on individual play and not team based accolades or stats.

If we're going to analyze a player and credit team based success or failure, then let's do it fully with a team support, competition and rules impact comparison.

More information helps and when placed in context can open up new perspective on old subjects.

If anything the establish perspective is as the media has always perpetuated for fans, Championships first then offense. The branching team based stats/accolades (MVPs voting/FMVP, resumes by reputation, Winshares, +/- family data to some degree have reduced potential lineup noise, regular season records/SRS) and offensive stats or accolades (PER, scoring titles, more available statistical data versus defense) all play a part in how fans have historically ranked players all time.

If anything guys are rewarded for team based achievements without team analysis, hopefully this will slowly change as perspective and new data arrives for historical eras, but it will likely be very slow imo.

If anything traditionally guys get punished for others with better team support without analyzing individual play, for example here is a normal casual fan or media top 10 list.

1. Jordan (6 rings, all time offense)
2. Russell (10 rings, all time defense)
3. Kareem (5 rings, all time offense)
4. Wilt (2 rings, Incredible offensive raw stats)
5. Magic (5 rings, all time offense)
6. Bird (3 rings, All time offense)
7. Shaq (4 rings, all time offense)
8. Duncan (5 rings, two way player) or Kobe (5 rings, all time great offensive player) or Hakeem (2 rings, two way player)

Garnett is usually not mentioned due to rings until he won one, his struggle by supporters is similar to others without team support imo. And he is a two way player with less emphasis on offense.

This is all subjective though (which is fine btw and to be accepted) and unless media emphasis changes, it likely won't as rings and offense sell more tickets and ratings. Defensive championships don't have as big a financial draw, that why rule changes have historically benefited wing players imo.

Hopefully times do change, with that there will be fear of threatening traditional views and ideas. Hopefully we can gain a consensus of ranking individuals as such and not on team based success or stats without detailed team support and competition comparisons.

There are no stats, or resume accolades for lack of team support, rule differences or higher competition level that we can easily identify and rank players with.

[Exodus]

I disagree emphatically with the list that has been voted up to this point. Ok, now that has been said, if Hakeem and Bird are the available options @ #9, then I would go with Larry Legend.

[FJS]

Sometimes people forget that to lose with HCA first, you have to win your HCA seed.
People don't punish Garnett or Olajuwon for their failures playoffs due to most of times they were losing without HCA.
Excuse me, if you don't have HCA it's because you aren't able to make your team as good as to have HCA.
Then they punish Karl Malone or Larry Bird for lost some series with HCA. C'mon, let's be serious.
If you lost with HCA, at least you played a good regular season. There's only one champion. But if you lose early in playoffs, you didn't make your job. Not enough good RS, not good PO.

At least Olajuwon overcome some of their not pretty good RS with their PO, and this show he was truly great.

The concern makes plenty of sense though. If a player is less effective in the playoffs because of some regular season advantage that evaporates when things get serious, then using the regular season and its accolades to start your analysis doesn't actually make much sense.

Similar for players who seem to get better in the playoffs.

Certainly there are people here who I think go a bit overboard with the concern, and seem to see relative performance between the regular & post seasons as the true litmus test of a player. That doesn't make sense at all.

In the case of Larry Bird, his team got upset a lot in the playoffs, and stats like PER showed a pretty clear falloff. There certainly may be arguments to explain this that have nothing to do with Bird, but short of them, why would you ignore this information?

And of course, in this particular comparison, he's up against a guy in Hakeem whose playoff individual and team performance only seems to get better.

I understand what are you saying, but my point it's:

Player a (Say Karl Malone or Larry Bird) make a 60 Win season, then lose with HCA, say in semifinals.
Player b (Say KG) make a 50 win season and finish 7th and lose in first round.

Which player have more impact? Because Bird is punished by that (Karl too) and KG did not overstep in PO when he was the alpha guy. He never was able to step in offense.

Sure Celtics and Jazz had epic failures... but they went to WCF without HCA too, and nobody give props to them (example in 94 or 96), but then other people talk about Suns series in 90 (they upset lakers too) or Mavs in 2001 when they were tied in record. Their truly fail were vs Warriors in 87 and 89, but sometimes this happens. Nobody punish Lebron with HCA vs Magic or Celtics when they were the best team in the league. And Celtics.. well, their biggest upset was vs Philadelphia in 82... in 88 vs pistons... but they went 5 times to the finals... you can't punish Bird for that... more when Phila and Pistons were amazing teams and won the championship in 83, and 89 and 90.

[Doctor MJ]

The concern makes plenty of sense though. If a player is less effective in the playoffs because of some regular season advantage that evaporates when things get serious, then using the regular season and its accolades to start your analysis doesn't actually make much sense.

Similar for players who seem to get better in the playoffs.

Certainly there are people here who I think go a bit overboard with the concern, and seem to see relative performance between the regular & post seasons as the true litmus test of a player. That doesn't make sense at all.

In the case of Larry Bird, his team got upset a lot in the playoffs, and stats like PER showed a pretty clear falloff. There certainly may be arguments to explain this that have nothing to do with Bird, but short of them, why would you ignore this information?

And of course, in this particular comparison, he's up against a guy in Hakeem whose playoff individual and team performance only seems to get better.

I understand what are you saying, but my point it's:

Player a (Say Karl Malone or Larry Bird) make a 60 Win season, then lose with HCA, say in semifinals.
Player b (Say KG) make a 50 win season and finish 7th and lose in first round.

Which player have more impact? Because Bird is punished by that (Karl too) and KG did not overstep in PO when he was the alpha guy. He never was able to step in offense.

Sure Celtics and Jazz had epic failures... but they went to WCF without HCA too, and nobody give props to them (example in 94 or 96), but then other people talk about Suns series in 90 (they upset lakers too) or Mavs in 2001 when they were tied in record. Their truly fail were vs Warriors in 87 and 89, but sometimes this happens. Nobody punish Lebron with HCA vs Magic or Celtics when they were the best team in the league. And Celtics.. well, their biggest upset was vs Philadelphia in 82... in 88 vs pistons... but they went 5 times to the finals... you can't punish Bird for that... more when Phila and Pistons were amazing teams and won the championship in 83, and 89 and 90.

I really do understand where you coming from, just as long as you realize when you asked "which player had more impact?" after showing the RS & PS records, that there's no way to tell based on the records alone.

[Texas Chuck]

He's not saying that tho. He's simply showing the holes in the argument being made in regards failure with HCA. Just like some of those Jazz losses with HCA are hardly upsets some of the series the Wolves lost with HCA were close matchups. All HCA situations are not the same and thus we can't use a broad brush and just compile overall records in that regard.

[tsherkin]

HCA should be examined ESPECIALLY closely when it was allocated to mid seeds, given that division leaders can take it with weaker records. In general, we should be looking at SRS differences and matchups more so than HCA, because it's not really all that meaningful a datapoint on its own. I know JB loves it, but basically it tells us that in general, when a team is better, they win a lot of the time in a series. This isn't stunningly informative, nor does it account for much in the way of contextual data with regards to the series itself (injuries, any of the aforementioned, etc).

I generally ignore HCA; it's one of the least useful pieces of information out there.

[PaulieWal]

I know JB loves it

Don't forget leading a franchise that never won before to a title and its importance in ranking players .

[andrewww]

HCA should be examined ESPECIALLY closely when it was allocated to mid seeds, given that division leaders can take it with weaker records. In general, we should be looking at SRS differences and matchups more so than HCA, because it's not really all that meaningful a datapoint on its own. I know JB loves it, but basically it tells us that in general, when a team is better, they win a lot of the time in a series. This isn't stunningly informative, nor does it account for much in the way of contextual data with regards to the series itself (injuries, any of the aforementioned, etc).

I generally ignore HCA; it's one of the least useful pieces of information out there.

What Chuck from the Mavs Forum said is true in that we have to examine every series individually on a case-by-case basis, but what the stat does help understand is whose team's generally came through (or didnt come through) when they were the favourite/underdog. I know RS record isn't the end all by any stretch, but it's a stat worth keeping in mind, especially for the more prominent players in this project who have more influence on a team than some journeyman. It adds to the discussion, just like RAPM does but both stats factor in other variables of the team so it can be inaccurate if viewed in just a vacuum.

[tsherkin]

What Chuck from the Mavs Forum said is true in that we have to examine every series individually on a case-by-case basis, but what the stat does help understand is whose team's generally came through (or didnt come through) when they were the favourite/underdog.

I agree with the case-by-case analysis. HCA is like the PER of postseason datapoints, though; it has a theoretical use which is trumped too easily by other, more substantive things. If one team is +0.1 SRS and has HCA, I don't really call them a significant favorite, you know? Anyway, as always, one stat or piece of info doesn't trump everything.

That's why, actually, I've had two or three rant-y posts recently questioning basic premises and pointing out things we need to really discuss in depth before we gain too much further progress in this project. We're making and working off of a lot of disparate assumptions, criteria and biases without discussing them all that frequently and we're starting to see that show up a little more as we move on. We should probably slow down and address them a little bit more.

[tsherkin]

I know JB loves it

Don't forget leading a franchise that never won before to a title and its importance in ranking players .

Yeah, that's another pointless criterion. I guess in the sense of building narrative, it has value; Jordan, for example, struck gold with the timing of his career. Entirely out of his control (or any player's, really), but he was shafted in the draft in favor of Hakeem and Bowie (although at least Hakeem was worth the selection), went to a city where he basically built the franchise's rep while entertaining and exciting with a unique and distinguishing image and personality and a whole pile of other stuff that doesn't really relate to your chances to win at the game of basketball. It really helped his narrative, though, as did the whole "fail before succeeding" thing.

Then we get back to that old "is it better to lose in the CFs than in the Finals" thing that seems to come up with MJ and then guys like Lebron and Kobe.

[PaulieWal]

I know JB loves it

Don't forget leading a franchise that never won before to a title and its importance in ranking players .

Yeah, that's another pointless criterion. I guess in the sense of building narrative, it has value; Jordan, for example, struck gold with the timing of his career. Entirely out of his control (or any player's, really), but he was shafted in the draft in favor of Hakeem and Bowie (although at least Hakeem was worth the selection), went to a city where he basically built the franchise's rep while entertaining and exciting with a unique and distinguishing image and personality and a whole pile of other stuff that doesn't really relate to your chances to win at the game of basketball. It really helped his narrative, though, as did the whole "fail before succeeding" thing.

Then we get back to that old "is it better to lose in the CFs than in the Finals" thing that seems to come up with MJ and then guys like Lebron and Kobe.

I agree. This isn't limited to JB but I see a few posters who have their favorite players and have devised their own narratives/"pointless criterion" to argue for and against player they like or dislike.

[tsherkin]

Don't forget leading a franchise that never won before to a title and its importance in ranking players .

Yeah, that's another pointless criterion. I guess in the sense of building narrative, it has value; Jordan, for example, struck gold with the timing of his career. Entirely out of his control (or any player's, really), but he was shafted in the draft in favor of Hakeem and Bowie (although at least Hakeem was worth the selection), went to a city where he basically built the franchise's rep while entertaining and exciting with a unique and distinguishing image and personality and a whole pile of other stuff that doesn't really relate to your chances to win at the game of basketball. It really helped his narrative, though, as did the whole "fail before succeeding" thing.

Then we get back to that old "is it better to lose in the CFs than in the Finals" thing that seems to come up with MJ and then guys like Lebron and Kobe.

I agree. This isn't limited to JB but I see a few posters who have their favorite players and have devised their own narratives/"pointless criterion" to argue for and against player they like or dislike.

I think that's my favorite part of this project, challenging my own biases and trying to reveal what hang-ups I have while learning new things. I have a hard time letting go of Magic as a top-5 player, for example, partly due to nostalgia, partly due to accolades and team successes, partly due to amazing statistics. He's got all of the eye test action, all of the conventional arguments in his favor. He's even got narrative arguments in his favor. I mostly struggle with the notion that Shaq and Duncan were better overall players, or at least "greater" in context, but watching how the arguments have gone and learning some of the things people have brought up has been highly engaging. Gotta be open-minded and not married to any specific idea as you enter a project like this, and pet analytical anchors become almost a crutch in such an environment.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Wow, I guess I really should have participated in this thing to try to save this basketball board from the black eye of dropping Bird from its Top 10. Sometimes you can outclever yourself.

[FJS]

He's not saying that tho. He's simply showing the holes in the argument being made in regards failure with HCA. Just like some of those Jazz losses with HCA are hardly upsets some of the series the Wolves lost with HCA were close matchups. All HCA situations are not the same and thus we can't use a broad brush and just compile overall records in that regard.

This
Thank you.