RealGM Top 100 List #10

[Ryoga Hibiki]

drza did a great breakdown of Robinson vs KG, and explained pretty well why I tend to side with KG prime vs prime. KG's a more valuable offensive player when the level of talent scales up, and you're not asking your big man to be a volume scorer. When that happens, KG has more valuable skills.

This is what I really really don't see.
Robinson is actually one of the best big men I can think about contributing without needing to be a first option, a role that was not his. He had a decent range 15ft (40% from there) and was an absolute monster finisher, thanks to how quickly he could roll/cut, go up and finish with foul, something Garnett was not really that good at.
As far as total offense I believe this is way more valuable than Garnett's playmaking (that to me was not that impactful, actually, because how little of a threat he was from the high post or at the top of the key, like Webber) and more extended range, especially once you consider one is a center and the other a forward that in most cases you'll need pair with another post defender who'll likely will be limited offensively, while Robinson could be paired with a cheaper stretch four.
Of course, you can play Garnett as your center but then you're losing a lot of the defensive benefits he's bringing.

[colts18]

Mikan Lesson for Peoplr - there were no Euros for him to place against. The 1956 and 1960 Olympic teams, made up of college and AAU players destroyed the rest of the world. There were very few, if any, NBA calibre players outside the US.

Mikan against Black players - Okay, as at least some of you know, the Harlem Globetrotters were a great team in the 40s and 50s. They won a world championship tournament played in Chicago and were competitive in it many years. They also played against top college seniors each year in the "World Series of Basketball' . The Trotters won
the series every year, winning against early pros like Arizin, Rodgers, Gola, Bridges, etc.
http://www.apbr.org/wrldsers.html

Well the Trotters, one-time world champions, and probably the best black basketball team in the early 50's played the Lakers http://www.apbr.org/trotters-lakers.html

The Trotters won the 1st 2 games - Lakers star Jim Pollard missed the second. The Lakers won the next (and final) 6,.

Mikan played 7 games against the Trotters - 204 pts in 7 games with a high of 47 and a low of 19 - 29 points a game
And the total score was 461-405 - so Mikan was scoring about 50% of the total the Trotters did.

Most of his opposition came from Nat "Sweewater" Clifton, who was one of the first black players in the NBA, and Goose Tatum, who was an all-time Trotter who was MVP against the College All-Stars twice.

You are making my point. There were no Euros in that era that were good so Mikan should be punished for that in comparison to today's players.

I'm not even sure why you are bringing up exhibition games against Globetrotters. That should tell how weak the NBA was in that era when the Globetrotters were able to consistently compete against NBA teams. Are we going to say that Marco Bellinelli is a stud because he dominated summer league against teams that had black players?

It's much different to play in a league with 78% blacks, 15% foreigners than it is to play against 100% white guys who never grew up playing basketball, and worked others jobs in the offseason. The talent level of Mikan's era was embarrassing.

[ElGee]

I think your definition of a small sample size differs with mine. A 5 year sample is a small sample size in my book. A 13 year sample is more than adequate. You trying to act like you're the final judge on whats a respectable sample size doesn't really mean that that's the case at all.And I would appreciate if you would stop talking down to me, like I can't judge for myself what an adequate sample size is if you happen to disagree with it.

I understand that people's egos can be inflamed when talking about math. I try to be gentle when pointing out a misstep, because IMO people judge themselves too harshly on these matters. I'm all ears if you or anyone else can suggest a more delicate way to point out other people's missteps. Since you're someone I've never interacted with:

-if you know everything on a subject, then no one can possibly "talk down" to you because they would be confused.
-if you don't know everything on a subject, then when people "talk down" you are perceiving a gap in education that might actually exist.

In the issue of sample size that you just cited...this is not a subjective issue. You can't decide for yourself what's an adequate sample independent of the population data -- I (tried to) explained this in my previous post. Neither can I. Unless we know the variance. Given that you think interpreting sample size is subjective, I understand why you think I'm talking down to you. What I'm suggesting to you is not that I'm arbitrarily better at sample size judgment, but that sample size judgment is not arbitrary.

Spoiler:

"Significance" levels are subjective -- if you want to say very low likelihood is compelling for you, that's your call...maybe you're an economist.

Similarly, concluding that "10 of 13" times isn't really relevant is not arbitrary, but based on the fact that 70% of the time all stars have their efficiency drop.

[andrewww]

I have the vote as follows:

Larry Bird ((12) Baller2014, DQuinn1575, ClydeFrazier, Warspite, rich316. DHodgkins, acrossthecourt, trex_8063. ronnymac2, Moonbeam, ChuckTexas, DannyNoonan1221

Kobe (3) andrewww, GCPantalones, AnUnbiasedFan

Garnett (2) PCProductions, therealbig3

DRobinson (1) magicmerl

I think ardee voted for kb if I'm not mistaken. Not that it'll likely matter at this point though.

[drza]

For the KG fans,

How do you explain Minnesota having a -1.0 offense in the playoffs from 99-04? It's clear that the drop is like 90% explained from KG.

No, it's really not. I'll put some brief responses below in answer to the second part of your quote, but the easy answer is to actually go through those series in depth and look at the games themselves. That's one of the good things about discussing KG in the postseason...it was recently enough to have direct memories, we have all of the boxscores, extended boxscores, and even +/- data (from 2001 on) on basketball-reference, and the time span you defined is short enough to be able to look at all of the series in question in some depth (e.g. not just team ORtg or Drtg, but actually look at the context and what the numbers mean).

Don't have time to do it now (I'm at work), but hopefully next thread we'll get to really break this down because I'd argue that the exact opposite of your conclusion is actually the case. KG was doing heavy lifting just to try to keep those teams competitive in the postseason against that level of competition.

He had years where his offensive supporting cast played up to par but he disappointed them (04). You can't praise KG for taking the TWolves to a top 6 offense while ignoring the fact that his decline in the playoffs made them a below average offense.

This one is easy to address briefly, and also fun to address in depth. The short, easy answer is to appeal to logic:

The Wolves beat the Nuggets in 5 games with no issue.

The Wolves beat the Kings in 7. Cassell's already showing signs of the hip injury. KG beasts in the 4 wins

The Wolves lose to the Lakers in 6. Cassell is done, meaning Wolves are stupidly outgunned.

Again, without even going into any detail...how could you possible construe this as a KG disappointment? Asked another way, who would you have put in KG's place and expected them to beat those Lakers? Keep in mind, even if you choose Shaq, he would have been facing himself. And the rest of the teams would have looked like the 2004 versions of:

Kobe, Malone, Payton and George/Fisher

against

Sprewell, Hassell, Ervin Johnson and Hoiberg/Wally/Darrick Martin

Do you really think even Shaq (or Jordan or LeBron or whoever) is leading those Wolves past those Lakers?

[therealbig3]

and was an absolute monster finisher, thanks to how quickly he could roll/cut, go up and finish with foul, something Garnett was not really that good at.

I disagree, I think Garnett was just as good at this. It was drawing fouls in isolation that Garnett wasn't good at, which Robinson was. However, in terms of catching and exploding to the basket for a finish, Garnett was excellent.

especially once you consider one is a center and the other a forward

I think this difference is overstated. KG can play C, and his defense would remain the same tbh...a super mobile C that blows up PnRs and cleans up the defensive glass is still extraordinarily valuable. And he still provides some rim protection, just not on the level of Robinson. We saw Garnett switch to C during his last few years in Boston, and his defensive impact was consistently off the charts.

And PFs and Cs are basically interchangeable anyway.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I have the vote as follows:

Larry Bird ((12) Baller2014, DQuinn1575, ClydeFrazier, Warspite, rich316. DHodgkins, acrossthecourt, trex_8063. ronnymac2, Moonbeam, ChuckTexas, DannyNoonan1221

Kobe (3) andrewww, GCPantalones, AnUnbiasedFan

Garnett (2) PCProductions, therealbig3

DRobinson (1) magicmerl

ardee & JordanBulls both voted Kobe.

[MacGill]

One thing I haven't heard Kobe fans address yet are his attitude issues (the same ones that they placed heavy emphasis on during the 3-peat era) and questionable shot selection at times (or not taking them at all).

How much value should we be putting here because, as I was told before, we can't just let this slide.

[ElGee]

For the KG fans,

How do you explain Minnesota having a -1.0 offense in the playoffs from 99-04? It's clear that the drop is like 90% explained from KG. He had years where his offensive supporting cast played up to par but he disappointed them (04). You can't praise KG for taking the TWolves to a top 6 offense while ignoring the fact that his decline in the playoffs made them a below average offense.

(1) Here are Garnett's teams postseason performances (99-11) by SRS then relative ORtg then KG's TS%:

1999 0.87 0.20 48.8%
2000 4.37 4.10 44.1%
2001 1.42 -3.60 56.9%
2002 -6.29 -0.90 51.4%
2003 -3.62 2.15 53.9%
2004 3.62 0.05 51.3%
2008 7.49 4.35 54.2%
2010 7.68 6.68 53.0%
2011 5.64 1.23 47.9%

There is a -0.26 correlation between the team's ORtg and KG's TS%. Notice in the 2000 series, when KG passed the ball a lot and had better offensive teammates, Minny's ORtg and overall series performance was quite good against POR despite poor TS%. In 2001, KG shot well and the ORtg against the Spurs was 94. So I don't know how one conclude's the drop is "90%" from Garnett. (You're reference to 04 is doubly confusing for me.)

(2) Using BBR, The 99-04 Wolves PS offenses were +0.4. The weighted RS from 99-04 were +2.5. Do you think that's outside the bounds of standard variance in a 39g sample? Do you think it's possible other players might have contributed at all? What about injuries? Have you isolated the team performance against these opponents in the RS with the same lineups?

(3) Most importantly...KG doesn't have to be good at leading poor offensive teams. What's not sticking about this idea? If you imagine a player in worse and worse scenarios to try and differentiate his goodness, what does that have to do with how much he helps teams win?

[Basketballefan]

Vote: Bird..my reasoning from the last thread

One of the best shooters and offensive players this game has seen, great rebounding at the SF position. Point forward and leader on his title teams, took the Celtics from a a scrub team to contenders in the first year of his arrival. One of the best passers ever, arguably GOAT passing forward, at worst 2nd. Although not elite at defense, was still very good. Just an amazing all around player.

3 time champion
2-time FMVP
3 MVPS ina row
12 time all star
9 time all nba first team etc etc

Incredible Peak and stretch from 84-86 when he won 3 mvps and 2 FMVPS, one over a Lakers team that had Magic, Kareem, Worthy etc.

Some of his numbers in his title runs in the playoffs:
1984: 28 11 6 61TS% Finals: 27 14 4
1986: 26 9 8 62TS% Finals: 24 10 10 58 TS%

Regardless of the % of votes Bird ends up with i don't think the runoff will be necessary it's clear he's going to take this going away.

[Basketballefan]

One thing I haven't heard Kobe fans address yet are his attitude issues (the same ones that they placed heavy emphasis on during the 3-peat era) and questionable shot selection at times (or not taking them at all).

How much value should we be putting here because, as I was told before, we can't just let this slide.

Although i hear where your coming from i think the attitude thing is a little overblown. Kobe was a hard worker and was extremely successful in the nba that should be what's most important here.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I couldn't disagree more. It's like me saying "well, look, my cousin's great, great, great uncle was the first guy to come up with the concept of throwing a javelin. Sure, he could only throw it 20 yards, but he was an innovator who was the best in his whole village!" Sorry, but that is not a good argument. The first caveman to make fire with flint was "the first", but that doesn't mean his intellect was on par with Einstein or Newton.

What's unfair is taking points away from players for being born too late.

Newton himself disagrees with you "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
You're free to have your own parameters to discus greatness, but I believe that's it's quite narrow minded to just report anybody to "if he was playing today".
My biggest point is that you're totally not considering it reversed, what if some of the current guys were born 6o years earlier. You can say that a combination of racial segregation and lower popularity of the sport make the competition lower in certain moments.
But I could answer you that modern players had the luxury to develop watching and imitating older players, are thought by much better coaches and had the privilege of modern training, nutrition and medicine.
To succeed decades ago you had to be much more of an innovator and have a natural understanding of the game, while now a lot of those basic fundamentals will be thought to you by a full coaching staff.
Back to Pettit, his time I think overlapped way too much the the one of other greats we're ready to put in the top20 to just dismiss his achievements. The fact that guys like Wilt or Oscar are more similar to the modern stars can not undermine what Pettit actually did playing against them.

[MacGill]

One thing I haven't heard Kobe fans address yet are his attitude issues (the same ones that they placed heavy emphasis on during the 3-peat era) and questionable shot selection at times (or not taking them at all).

How much value should we be putting here because, as I was told before, we can't just let this slide.

Although i hear where your coming from i think the attitude thing is a little overblown. Kobe was a hard worker and was extremely successful in the nba that should be what's most important here.

Respectfully disagree! If it counted against Shaq, than the same goes for Kobe. Being a hard worker doesn't mean anything when he caused the same riffs with players & teammates alike.

[andrewww]

One thing I haven't heard Kobe fans address yet are his attitude issues (the same ones that they placed heavy emphasis on during the 3-peat era) and questionable shot selection at times (or not taking them at all).

How much value should we be putting here because, as I was told before, we can't just let this slide.

Firstly I'd like to clarify that those who are or have voted for Kobe aren't necessarily 'Kobe fans' only because otherwise you'd have some outrageous votes having already been placed in earlier slots than #10.

Secondly, no one is letting this slide. If he didnt' have these flaws, I'm pretty sure he'd be ranked higher.

He was an integral part of 5 championship teams who made 7 Finals appearances despite the shot selection issues. And as I've illustrated in earlier comments, his 'attitude issues' never directly impacted a single Finals appearance, something I can't say for Bird when his bar fight directly impacted the '85 Finals. Imagine it was KB who committed the same mistake, he would have been grilled!

The Shaq/Kobe drama was immaturity and stubbornness on both sides, and those who feel KB ran Shaq out of town couldn't be more wrong. Shaq demanded the owner Dr. Buss "pay him" in front of everyone at practice, and once famously said "I got injured on company time so I'm going to heal on company time". Say what you want about KB being stubborn and not handling certain situations with the most maturity, but it goes both ways especially when many perceived Shaq as the leader of those 3peat teams.

Fact is, his longevity and 2-way play (he actually played some great man-to-man defense during the 3peat despite revisionist theories) if we're following the precendent set by this project, you can make an argument for him at this slot. Now I have no problem with Larry Legend being voted in either because he's a more than deserving candidate, but remember Magic's longevity was held against him in a similar vote dynamic that saw LeBron get in before him.

[SactoKingsFan]

Voting for Bird over Oscar was a tougher decision than I thought it would be.

Oscar: Put up insane numbers and might be the most impactful offensive player remaining. Comparable prime and superior longevity.

Bird: Great passer, rebounder and offensive anchor with GOAT level BB IQ. Larry's also an underrated defender (more of a two-way player than just an offensive anchor) which is significant when comparing his overall impact to Oscar's.

I ended up voting for Bird since I think his combination of BB IQ, defense, shooting range and portability gives him the overall edge over Oscar.

Vote: Larry Bird


Sent from my G2 via Tapatalk

[DQuinn1575]

Mikan Lesson for Peoplr - there were no Euros for him to place against. The 1956 and 1960 Olympic teams, made up of college and AAU players destroyed the rest of the world. There were very few, if any, NBA calibre players outside the US.

Mikan against Black players - Okay, as at least some of you know, the Harlem Globetrotters were a great team in the 40s and 50s. They won a world championship tournament played in Chicago and were competitive in it many years. They also played against top college seniors each year in the "World Series of Basketball' . The Trotters won
the series every year, winning against early pros like Arizin, Rodgers, Gola, Bridges, etc.
http://www.apbr.org/wrldsers.html

Well the Trotters, one-time world champions, and probably the best black basketball team in the early 50's played the Lakers http://www.apbr.org/trotters-lakers.html

The Trotters won the 1st 2 games - Lakers star Jim Pollard missed the second. The Lakers won the next (and final) 6,.

Mikan played 7 games against the Trotters - 204 pts in 7 games with a high of 47 and a low of 19 - 29 points a game
And the total score was 461-405 - so Mikan was scoring about 50% of the total the Trotters did.

Most of his opposition came from Nat "Sweewater" Clifton, who was one of the first black players in the NBA, and Goose Tatum, who was an all-time Trotter who was MVP against the College All-Stars twice.

You are making my point. There were no Euros in that era that were good so Mikan should be punished for that in comparison to today's players.

I'm not even sure why you are bringing up exhibition games against Globetrotters. That should tell how weak the NBA was in that era when the Globetrotters were able to consistently compete against NBA teams. Are we going to say that Marco Bellinelli is a stud because he dominated summer league against teams that had black players?

It's much different to play in a league with 78% blacks, 15% foreigners than it is to play against 100% white guys who never grew up playing basketball, and worked others jobs in the offseason. The talent level of Mikan's era was embarrassing.

Maybe it's your choice of words - Mikan played against the best competition available.

How can you "punish" him because he was better than all the European players? So was Russell and so was Jordan.
Should we punish Jordan because he hardly faced any Europeans?

Trotters-
These weren't like summer exhibition games - these were in the middle of the season, headline in Sports section games played between the 2 best teams in the world. The Trotters 60 years ago were composed of some of the best of those 78% - There players were definitely NBA calibre - a far cry from what they were even in the 60s.

If the best black players were competitive with the NBA - that shows it was weak?

The quality of the players is better today than it was years ago - no doubt.

But all you can really do is
(1) determine how good someone was in their time/conditions, and
(2) determine how much you want to adjust for those times/conditions.

But Mikan didn't shy away from playing anyone - he shouldn't be "punished" or have a "black mark" against him. As far as I know he personally did nothing wrong. He played very well against the players in the NBA. When he faced the top black players in a very competitive setting he also played very well.

Reasons to adjust should be:

1. There are no Europeans in the NBA prior to 1990 or so, and few until 2000
2. Number of teams in league relative to population
3. Quality of leagues ABA is the only non NBA league included here.
4. Impact of limitation of blacks in league
5. Impact of expansion

And I'm more than willing to try to quantify and adjust Mikan, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Rick Barry, Moses Malone, and anyone else.

[Basketballefan]

One thing I haven't heard Kobe fans address yet are his attitude issues (the same ones that they placed heavy emphasis on during the 3-peat era) and questionable shot selection at times (or not taking them at all).

How much value should we be putting here because, as I was told before, we can't just let this slide.

Although i hear where your coming from i think the attitude thing is a little overblown. Kobe was a hard worker and was extremely successful in the nba that should be what's most important here.

Respectfully disagree! If it counted against Shaq, than the same goes for Kobe. Being a hard worker doesn't mean anything when he caused the same riffs with players & teammates alike.

The point i'm trying to make is it may have a small effect but it's not going to be the difference between kobe going 11th or 2nd.

[colts18]

The Wolves lose to the Lakers in 6. Cassell is done, meaning Wolves are stupidly outgunned.

Again, without even going into any detail...how could you possible construe this as a KG disappointment? Asked another way, who would you have put in KG's place and expected them to beat those Lakers? Keep in mind, even if you choose Shaq, he would have been facing himself. And the rest of the teams would have looked like the 2004 versions of:

Kobe, Malone, Payton and George/Fisher

against

Sprewell, Hassell, Ervin Johnson and Hoiberg/Wally/Darrick Martin

Do you really think even Shaq (or Jordan or LeBron or whoever) is leading those Wolves past those Lakers?

I definitely think Peak Shaq could lead that TWolves team past the Lakers. He was in a similar situation in 2000. In 2000, The pacers had much more talent than his supporting cast.

Let's compare 00 Shaq vs 04 KG:

2000 Pacers: 56 wins, 4.16 SRS
2004 Lakers: 56 wins, 4.35 SRS

Those are equal quality team so we can compare what Shaq and KG did.

Shaq's cast played worse than KG's. Here is what their casts did in those series. The situations were even comparable because Cassell missed 2 games and so did Kobe (In a previous post I showed that 04 Cassell>00 Kobe).

per 36 minutes:
Shaq: 12.1 PPG, 4.5 AST, 3.8 AST-1.6 TOV, .510 TS%
KG: 12.2 PPG, 4.9 Reb, 2.6 AST-1.4 TOV, .528 TS%

Advanced:
Shaq: 6.56 game score per 36, 0 guys with a 10+ game score, 109 O rating-117 D rating, -7.3 O rating- D rating diff
KG: 6.70 game score per 36, 1 guy with a 10+ game (14.4), 107 O rating-108 D rating, -0.7 O rating- D rating diff

As you can see, KG's cast performed better than Shaq's cast against similar caliber opponents. Do you want to know why Shaq's team won and KG's lost? It's because Shaq stepped up when his team was overwhelmed while KG wilted. Shaq had a 31 game score while his next best player only had a 9.7 game score. KG puts up only a 18 game score while his next best player puts up a 14.4 game score. Shaq steps up with a 116 O rating (best player at 96 O rating) while KG steps down with a 100 O rating (next best player at 105). Shaq puts up a 35 PER, KG only puts up a 22 PER. It's easy to see why Shaq was a much superior player

[Reservoirdawgs]

Firstly I'd like to clarify that those who are or have voted for Kobe aren't necessarily 'Kobe fans' only because otherwise you'd have some outrageous votes having already been placed in earlier slots than #10.

Secondly, no one is letting this slide. If he didnt' have these flaws, I'm pretty sure he'd be ranked higher.

He was an integral part of 5 championship teams who made 7 Finals appearances despite the shot selection issues. And as I've illustrated in earlier comments, his 'attitude issues' never directly impacted a single Finals appearance, something I can't say for Bird when his bar fight directly impacted the '85 Finals. Imagine it was KB who committed the same mistake, he would have been grilled!

I personally don't care too much to bring up attitude issues for the most part, although I did want to address these two points.

1) UBF had mentioned that he was going to vote for Kobe at #6...if we're going to consider votes "outrageous" then that's one that would count as Kobe is typically seen as an 11-13 player.

2) The 2004 season and Finals can be characterized as Kobe's "attitude issues" directly impacting the Finals. I give Kobe and Shaq equal blame for their inability to maturely handle their own ego issues, but Kobe's obvious issues in the 2004 Finals where he played outside the team concept because he felt he had something to prove. He was deservedly bashed for it after the Finals as well.

[Clyde Frazier]

And I'm more than willing to try to quantify and adjust Mikan, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Rick Barry, Moses Malone, and anyone else.

How would you go about quantifying and adjusting erving and (to a lesser extent) barry? This is something i've been struggling with as we get closer to erving, as I think his ABA years should be valued relatively highly.