RealGM Top 100 List #13

[dautjazz]

but he did have one of the greatest Finals performances of all time, and what is considered by some the best performance on the losing end ever, his 1998 Finals performance.

Really? I've never heard anyone mentioning '98 Malone as the best finals performance ever, on the losing team. He certainly played well in those finals, much better than he did in '97 (when Rodman was often able to guard him effectively 1 on 1, just like Sheed against Duncan in the 2005 finals), but still, Malone pretty much averaged his usual numbers in the '98 finals - 25/10.5/4 on 55% TS, with a little more turnovers than usual - that's a very good stuff, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing extraordinary. For example, it's not even close to 1966 or 1969 West or 1977 Dr. J as far as the best finals performances on the losing team. Honestly, I'd definitely take 1972 Walt Frazier over 1998 Karl, too - Clyde averaged 23/8/8 on almost 59% from the field, and locked down Jerry West at the same time.

Well ESPN for one regarded them very high. I know, ESPN is BSPN, w/e, just a source of someone that speaks very highly of Malone's 1998 Finals performance. BTW these rankings are since the NBA/ABA merger.

Game 5 of the 1998 finals was considered the best performance by a player that didn't win the series.
http://espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2012/st ... arl-malone

Malone's 1998 series in 18th.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/ ... nces-11-20

[magicmerl]

Through to post 323

10 Kobe Bryant (GC Pantalones, ShaqAttack3234, ardee, batmana, JordansBulls, Basketballefan, DQuinn1575, john248, lukekarts, ronnymac2)
5 Karl Malone (Baller2014, therealbig3, trex_8063, magicmerl, FJS)
2 Dirk Nowitzki (rich316, Quotatious)
2 Jerry West (penbeast0, Notanoob)
2 DrJ (Warspite, Clyde Frazier)
1 David Robinson (shutupandjam)

Leaning Kobe, but not voted (An Unbiased Fan)
Leaning West, but not voted (RayBan-Sematra)
If they had a vote
1 Karl Malone (dautjazz)
1 Isiah Thomas (RightToCensor)
1 Charles Barkley (Purch)
1 Moses Malone (Jim Naismith)
1 David Robinson (BallerTed)

Looks like a runoff may not be needed.

[Texas Chuck]

Is that defensive edge readily convertible to playoff success?

I guess I'd ask you why you think defense wouldn't be convertible? Especially for a defensive anchor whose value isn't particularly match-up dependent.

[DQuinn1575]

The ABA was clearly as tough. Take the example of 1976. You played 6 other teams that year. 1 of those teams was weak, but the other 5 games were against 3 teams who would have been NBA contenders and 2 teams who would have made the NBA playoffs in 76. When the Spurs came over to the NBA, in spite of losing an all-nba 1st teamer, they produced the same level of results the first 3 NBA seasons as the last 3 ABA ones (indeed, their best season was in the NBA). Despite losing notable players the Nuggets were a very successful NBA team, with the 2nd highest SRS in the NBA in 1977. There's every reason to think the teams who beat them, like the Colonels and Nets, would have beaten the NBA teams in in 1976 or 77. It's just the Colonels and Nets teams that were awesome in the ABA didn't exist anymore in 1977. I went through this in great detail.

If the ABA was a worse league, then why did the 2 ABA teams who changed the least have no problem in their transfer to the NBA? Stats of individuals going down/up is no way to look at it, because those depend on how a player is getting used, etc. Dr J went to a situation where he was told to do less. I explained all this on page 1, and you seem to be ignoring it.

Additional info

The aba teams won zero playoff series in 1977

All 4 teams did worse in 1977 in regular season

The sixers had 2 aba Mvps in McGinnis and Erving and couldn't win nba title. Nba teams with 2 Mvps are super teams like 71 bucks 86 celtics 83 sixers 87 lakers


All these plus the two studies are fact based

spurs that had vastly improving 24 year olds kenon and gervin - both excellent players so yes they did get better.






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[Owly]

If we want to know if defense in playoffs performed under/over expectations, then we have to compare playoff series drtg to expected drtg (where exp drtg = (team RS drtg+opp RS ortg)/2).

Results for Spurs with Robinson (negative value is good):

Code: Select all

YEAR   OPP   DRTG
1995   LAL   -9,3
1995   DEN   -4,2
1993   PTB   -2,5
1990   PTB   -2,1
1993   PHO   -0,1
1990   DEN   1,1
1996   PHO   2,4
1995   HOU   3,0
1994   UTA   4,0
1991   GSW   4,1
1996   UTA   5,7


So 11 playoffs series, 4 times Spurs defense performed better than expected, 1 time basically at expectation level (1993) and 6 times worse than expectations. Doesn't look good for Robinson. Of course we should look closely at each series (for example I wouldn't blame DRob for 1991 as it was great coaching job by Nelson, who outcoached Larry Brown), but pattern seems rather clear.

I don't know which set of Robinson defense numbers to trust, but on these ones I'd suggest that there is not a "rather clear" pattern.

So I will elaborate (and if you don't trust my numbers, then check it by yourself ). The same data as above, but with opponents regular season ortg relatively to league average:

Code: Select all

YEAR   OPP   DRTG   opp ORTG
1996   UTA   5,7   5,7
1993   PHO   -0,1   5,3
1991   GSW   4,1   4
1992   PHO   12,6   3,9
1996   PHO   2,4   2,7
1990   PTB   -2,1   2,4
1994   UTA   4,0   2,3
1995   HOU   3,0   1,4
1995   LAL   -9,3   0,8
1995   DEN   -4,2   0,8
1993   PTB   -2,5   0,3
1990   DEN   1,1   -0,1


So Spurs defense usually played above expectations only vs barely average offensive teams - with one exception in 1990 (PTB). Other than that their defense was awful against teams with offenses with at least 1 ortg point above league average. And that's that clear pattern I'm talking about, because Robinson's consistent failures against good teams is something what many people hold against him. Sure, we can say that in 1991 it was Brown's lack of adjusments or in 1995 it was Rodman's bad influence, but it still leaves us with other series and I honestly doubt we can use excuses for every one of them. That was just essential flaw in DRob's game - both on offense and defense - that he wasn't able to perform constantly at good level vs better opponents and his game was exposed in the playoffs.

To clarify (don't know if this is necessary, but feel I should) the trust thing was with regard to multiple people posting different numbers based analysis.

The fuller explanation of the pattern is appreciated because, as I noted previously, the overall impression given by the first set of numbers was that the Spurs met expectations defensively.

Now I'm still not full convinced but this is interesting. My problems/queries:
1) Is your hypothesis that his lesser defensive impact (versus good teams) is playoff specific or more general or do you think it happens in the RS too (and if so do you have evidence for this?)?

2) Isn't team Drtg a rather blunt tool for individual D on fairly small samples (which is another reason I'd be more comfortable with a "defensive impact fell versus good teams" conclusion if had a larger - i.e. regular season - sample.)

3) Do we have comparisons for other defensive anchors with reasonable sample sizes (I'd imagine a good D should be more reliable than a good O in the playoffs - good Ds typically require other positive indicators that help elsewhere good communication, teamwork etc, though perhaps this wasn't happening with Rodman, but I digress - so elite offense maybe should cede to good defense. But do we have evidence on this. Do we have evidence where (the goodness of the) defense is basically all on the anchor (which, with the exception of Rodman, it typically was).

Massive tangent here, do we know Rodman helped the Spurs on D? It's certainly imperfect because of roster turnover, but in 92-93 in a Robinson down year (including defensive statistics) and with coaching turmoil their relative Drtg is -1.2; the next year it's -1.7. Not a huge visible (defensive) impact.

I might be clutching at straws because I like Robinson; but really I'm just curious and want to know more.


And Jim, you're using raw stats again. Please, please stop. You say And DWS is flawed but even if it weren't 2.4 DWS over 1615 minutes isn't better than 2.2 DWS over 1122 minutes
M Malone (3 year peak, playoffs): 0.071331269 DWS/48
D Robinson (3 year peak, playoffs): 0.094117647

Don't use raw Win Shares (offensive, defensive or cumulative) over playoffs because it skews hugely favourable to the guy who played on the better team (or more precisely the team with the longer playoff run in terms of minutes).

Otherwise '93 playoffs Dan Majerle (which Win Shares per 48 and PER agree was below average) was better (2.1 WS) than say '86 playoffs MJ (0.5 WS), '87 or '88 playoffs Olajuwon (2.0 and 1.3 WS) and eight of Bill Russell's thirteen playoffs.

Through to post 323

10 Kobe Bryant (GC Pantalones, ShaqAttack3234, ardee, batmana, JordansBulls, Basketballefan, DQuinn1575, john248, lukekarts, ronnymac2)
5 Karl Malone (Baller2014, therealbig3, trex_8063, magicmerl, FJS)
2 Dirk Nowitzki (rich316, Quotatious)
2 Jerry West (penbeast0, Notanoob)
2 DrJ (Warspite, Clyde Frazier)
1 David Robinson (shutupandjam)

Leaning Kobe, but not voted (An Unbiased Fan)
Leaning West, but not voted (RayBan-Sematra)
If they had a vote
1 Karl Malone (dautjazz)
1 Isiah Thomas (RightToCensor)
1 Charles Barkley (Purch)
1 Moses Malone (Jim Naismith)
1 David Robinson (BallerTed)

Looks like a runoff may not be needed.

Post 307 I cast a tentative vote for Robinson (sorry, I didn't bold it and left it as somewhat of a footnote of a much larger post).

[drza]

I came into this thread fresh off of making that long Karl Malone vs David Robinson and Kobe vs Dirk posts. At that time, of the 4, I was leaning Robinson. I'm still evaluating how I feel about the narrative that his playoff performance declines...and I'm undecided how much that matters because he might still be the best on the board even with those questions.

I wondered how my position might change once I really started looking heavily at Dr. J and West. I still haven't been able to dig into those two like I wanted, but I have done a bunch of reading about Dr. J from old projects and obviously he is the first player that I ever watched exclusively (though at that time it was older Dr. J). The questions about Robinson's playoff performance may be enough for the Dr. to slide past him, but there is still uncertainty about J's performance across leagues that I'm working through.

Kobe is kind of the most known quantity here. He's almost like an incumbent, in that I think this slot is his to win on most ballots unless someone else is presented that's better. I don't have a problem with him going here, as he's kind of like the safe pick at this point. But I do feel that Robinson and Erving were likely better at their peaks; I can't find any separation at all between Kobe and Dirk in pretty much any aspect; and Malone's longevity and consistency keep him in the mix as well. Again, I don't have a great feel for West right now and I could wish that Doc MJ or ElGee were re-posting some of their opinions because in the past they've helped bring West's impact into focus for me. I don't see Moses as a really viable candidate at this point, because I think he is too limited when compared to the others under discussion. And Barkley has no traction at all, so he's not really on my radar at the moment either.

Writing all this out has helped me get a sense for where I'm at right now. I'd rather have more time, but since the end is coming up I'll go ahead and cast my vote for Dr. J, Julius Erving.

People remember the Magic vs Bird rivalry because it is iconic, but many concede that Bird was better than Magic early on before Magic caught him. However, early on in Bird's career, his main rival wasn't Magic...it was Dr. J. And this is the NBA version of Dr. J. J and Bird faced each other in 4 different postseason series in addition to playing 6 times a year in the same division, and they had some wars. The postseason series were split 2 - 2, with both sides having great performances.

Doc has a ridiculous peak. He was a dominant scorer but was able to operate more off-ball, so he didn't have ball-dominant issues. When I think of a present day comp for him, I lean towards a longer, small-forward version of Dwyane Wade (though I did think TLAF's comp of Kevin Durant was unique. J obviously lacks Durant's jumper, but as a dominant scorer that doesn't need the ball a ton to make his impact I can see it). J's athleticism was breathtaking, and his length and handsize are underrated physical aspects that would have helped him dominate in any era. If anything, I think the emphasis on no hand-checking and the 3-point line would have opened things up and allowed Erving to be more effective as a slasher/finisher in today's NBA. And while you can't really quantify intangibles, it seems to me that a team could only benefit by the presence of one of the most well regarded figures in NBA history.

VOTE: Julius Dr. J Erving.

[Witzig-Okashi]

Bottom line:

I wanted to go further here, but I just really don't have time to do it justice and by the time I get the time this thread might be over. So I'll just sum up my thoughts. At the moment, I am believing both sides of the narrative to certain extents. I believe that Kobe has the ability to make outstanding on-ball defensive plays, especially when locked in. I also believe that he isn't locked in that often while putting more of his energy elsewhere, so that could help explain his meh defensive RAPM when compared to perimeter defenders that DO maintain their defensive focus and energy level to much more consistent degrees.

Someone recently mentioned Iguodala...he can match Kobe as a 1-on-1/ball-defender, but he also contributes to the team defense on a nightly basis which is why his DRAPM is much larger than Kobe's. And obviously this is also true of the more purely defensive types like a Bowen, Battier or Christie.

I tend to feel like Kobe's ability to play Doberman defense is a clear positive that can be used in certain situations to team advantage. However, I also feel that because he doesn't regularly do the types of things to move the team defense needle the way that others of his contemporaries on the perimeter/wings do, that he shouldn't be considered one of the best defensive wings of his generation. I think he had great defensive potential, that he used it at times when the situation warranted it, and that he was more valuable defensively than others that have DRAPM scores similar to his because he did have the ability to have more impact in certain situations. But I don't think that makes him defensively elite, or thus that his defense should be used to elevate him all that much with respect to others. Definitely over someone like Steve Nash, but I'm not sure with respect to folks like West or Erving.

Interesting post. I felt that Iguodala was a better defender than both Kobe (and LeBron for that matter, but I do not want to get off topic) during the latter 00s and the early years of this decade (09-11), but didn't get the nods because of reputation.

This post harkens to a time I've heard tskherin stating that he prefers his big men being a team defender like Kevin Garnett rather than a 1-on-1 man defender like Karl Malone. Since bigs do have impact on a larger scale on defense than wings, a player being renowned for man defense like Kobe (though Kobe was capable of play team defense at times) is less likely to be as effective as team defense.

It also reminds me of why people (on RealGM) don't chose Jason Kidd doesn't resonate with certain posters because of his swiss-army type of defensive guarding ability in his prime isn't as necessary for guards to be defensive specialists on a team scale.

NOTE: Not casting judgement on users, just making an observation and recollecting on others...

[Owly]

The ABA was clearly as tough. Take the example of 1976. You played 6 other teams that year. 1 of those teams was weak, but the other 5 games were against 3 teams who would have been NBA contenders and 2 teams who would have made the NBA playoffs in 76. When the Spurs came over to the NBA, in spite of losing an all-nba 1st teamer, they produced the same level of results the first 3 NBA seasons as the last 3 ABA ones (indeed, their best season was in the NBA). Despite losing notable players the Nuggets were a very successful NBA team, with the 2nd highest SRS in the NBA in 1977. There's every reason to think the teams who beat them, like the Colonels and Nets, would have beaten the NBA teams in in 1976 or 77. It's just the Colonels and Nets teams that were awesome in the ABA didn't exist anymore in 1977. I went through this in great detail.

If the ABA was a worse league, then why did the 2 ABA teams who changed the least have no problem in their transfer to the NBA? Stats of individuals going down/up is no way to look at it, because those depend on how a player is getting used, etc. Dr J went to a situation where he was told to do less. I explained all this on page 1, and you seem to be ignoring it.

Additional info

The aba teams won zero playoff series in 1977

All 4 teams did worse in 1977 in regular season

The sixers had 2 aba Mvps in McGinnis and Erving and couldn't win nba title. Nba teams with 2 Mvps are super teams like 71 bucks 86 celtics 83 sixers 87 lakers


All these plus the two studies are fact based

spurs that had vastly improving 24 year olds kenon and gervin - both excellent players so yes they did get better.

Also the example of '76 is clearly atypical as it was clearly a more concentrated league than previously.

So whilst I'd sympathize with Baller in that the Nuggets did well (just had a tough playoff matchup, the Blazers who they played as close as anyone would), that the Spurs basically lost Silas and the Nets didn't exist in the same form ...

And the the two MVP is a little harsh in that the "antergy"(?) (negative synergy, less than the sum of their parts, poor fit basically) between the two (and basically that entire lineup - at least the top few guys - being scorers).

That said, even after factoring in a slightly more concentrated league in '77 (which should be accounted for), I don't see why Baller would argue that individual stats changes don't matter. Player roles and team contexts change all the time (within a season even with injuries, player development etc), can player stats never be compared across years? And why would role changes disproportionately disadvantage ABA players in DQuinn1575's study? And how does it explain why a larger proportion of the (former) ABA players lost a major league job in (a bit of that would be that NBA players already were under contract wheras two teams of ABA players no longer had a team) but it's not like the NBA was signing 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th men to long term guaranteed contracts so there were places available to those players.

[Jim Naismith]

Is that defensive edge readily convertible to playoff success?

I guess I'd ask you why you think defense wouldn't be convertible? Especially for a defensive anchor whose value isn't particularly match-up dependent.

Let's look at the defensive effect Moses and Robinson had on their playoff opponents.

Kareem stats against Moses
1981 playoffs: 26.7 / 16.7 / 4.0 (RS avg: 26.2/10.3/3.4)
1983 playoffs: 23.5 / 7.5 / 3.0 (RS avg: 24.3/8.3/2.8)

Hakeem stats against Robinson
1995 playoffs: 35.3/12.5/5.0 (RS avg: 27.8/10.8/3.5)

[Baller2014]

Additional info

The aba teams won zero playoff series in 1977

All 4 teams did worse in 1977 in regular season

The sixers had 2 aba Mvps in McGinnis and Erving and couldn't win nba title. Nba teams with 2 Mvps are super teams like 71 bucks 86 celtics 83 sixers 87 lakers


All these plus the two studies are fact based

spurs that had vastly improving 24 year olds kenon and gervin - both excellent players so yes they did get better.

Very misleading statements:
1) There were only 4 teams who jumped to the NBA, and only 2 of them got to keep their good players and stay mostly intact, and of those 2 teams the Spurs lost an all-aba 1st teamer and the Nuggets lost a valuable star player too. The fact that the Spurs first 3 years in the NBA are basically better than their previous 3 ABA years in terms of win% is highly impressive. Once they got back a crippled James Silas in 1979 the team was a hairs breath away from making the finals (and probably winning the title).
2) The Nuggets SRS was 2nd highest in the NBA and they won 50 games. Due to seeding distortions, they had to face the one team with a better SRS than them in round 1 (also the team who went on to win the title). It seems pretty absurd to criticise the Nuggets for "losing in round 1" as you do.
3) The 76ers made the NBA finals in 77 and were maddeningly close to winning it all. To criticise their players for losing to Walton in the 1 year he was healthy seems pretty ridiculous. That team was also a poor fit together, and was successful just off their talent alone. Dr J also got hurt. He had no problems leading the team back to the finals in 1980 once McGinnis and World B Free had left the team, and once Collins was crippled by injuries.

I have no doubt some individual players (or even most of them) posted lesser stats, that's because they were put into new situations and asked to play differently. Dr J is a great example of this. But it tells us nothing about team strength, and the teams we do look at (the Spurs and Nuggets especially) show that the ABA teams had no problems playing awesome in the NBA.

[Texas Chuck]

Is that defensive edge readily convertible to playoff success?

I guess I'd ask you why you think defense wouldn't be convertible? Especially for a defensive anchor whose value isn't particularly match-up dependent.

Let's look at the defensive effect Moses and Robinson had on their playoff opponents.

Kareem stats against Moses
1981 playoffs: 26.7 / 16.7 / 4.0 (RS avg: 26.2/10.3/3.4)
1983 playoffs: 23.5 / 7.5 / 3.0 (RS avg: 24.3/8.3/2.8)

Hakeem stats against Robinson
1995 playoffs: 35.3/12.5/5.0 (RS avg: 27.8/10.8/3.5)

I feel like you and I are speaking different languages here. I specifically mentioned his role as a defensive anchor and the impact he has on team defense which imo is far more valuable than individual defense. We all know Dream lit up Admiral in 1995. But we also know that every single Spurs defense Admiral played on was top 10, all but a couple were top 3, many were the best in the league and when he missed a year they went from 3rd to worst.

If you have some data that shows the Spurs team defense completely fell apart during Robinson's career then we can re-visit this, but focusing on individual man defense for a guy with his overall impact seems to being maybe missing the mark. Especially when you cherry-pick series.

[Clyde Frazier]

Starting to wonder where i'll actually end up voting for robinson (unless he just gets voted in first). Looking at his production in the 99 and 03 championship runs, they do hold a fair amount of significance. Although I will say he really took advantage of the knicks' lack of interior depth with a young camby and not much else. I wouldn't hold those games in as high of a regard.

[DQuinn1575]

Additional info

The aba teams won zero playoff series in 1977

All 4 teams did worse in 1977 in regular season

The sixers had 2 aba Mvps in McGinnis and Erving and couldn't win nba title. Nba teams with 2 Mvps are super teams like 71 bucks 86 celtics 83 sixers 87 lakers


All these plus the two studies are fact based

spurs that had vastly improving 24 year olds kenon and gervin - both excellent players so yes they did get better.

Very misleading statements:
1) There were only 4 teams who jumped to the NBA, and only 2 of them got to keep their good players and stay mostly intact, and of those 2 teams the Spurs lost an all-aba 1st teamer and the Nuggets lost a valuable star player too. The fact that the Spurs first 3 years in the NBA are basically better than their previous 3 ABA years in terms of win% is highly impressive. Once they got back a crippled James Silas in 1979 the team was a hairs breath away from making the finals (and probably winning the title).
2) The Nuggets SRS was 2nd highest in the NBA and they won 50 games. Due to seeding distortions, they had to face the one team with a better SRS than them in round 1 (also the team who went on to win the title). It seems pretty absurd to criticise the Nuggets for "losing in round 1" as you do.
3) The 76ers made the NBA finals in 77 and were maddeningly close to winning it all. To criticise their players for losing to Walton in the 1 year he was healthy seems pretty ridiculous. That team was also a poor fit together, and was successful just off their talent alone. Dr J also got hurt. He had no problems leading the team back to the finals in 1980 once McGinnis and World B Free had left the team, and once Collins was crippled by injuries.

I have no doubt some individual players (or even most of them) posted lesser stats, that's because they were put into new situations and asked to play differently. Dr J is a great example of this. But it tells us nothing about team strength, and the teams we do look at (the Spurs and Nuggets especially) show that the ABA teams had no problems playing awesome in the NBA.

1 the pacers did not lose good players they got older and worse, just like kenon and gervin matured and got better. But the 79 spurs and pacers aren't really the 76 aba teams,


2 the 50 win nuggets in 77 were a good NBA team. The 60 win higher srs 76 nuggets were a great aba team. The difference is the league.
That's the point


3 point taken . Not worth the argument so I'll drop this point for any comparison


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[ceiling raiser]

Going with Dirk here, though I don't have an issue with the Kobe vote at this point.

His ability to score on a great volume efficiently really sells this for me. Ever since developing his killer post game, he's been essentially unguardable (shutupandjam's research a few threads ago really illustrates how dominant he's been in the post). The type of coverage he gets creates unbelievable opportunities for his teammates. One of the craziest mismatches we've seen. Some great posts by Chuck, Q, and others in here so far, hoping to see more in the next couple of threads.

I was looking at the Admiral here as well, but I don't feel comfortable voting for him at this point in time. drza and a few others had some solid posts, but in order to justify voting for him, I need to feel extremely confident that he was having a monstrous impact after the injury. RAPM paints him as a legitimate force while playing along side Duncan, but I'd still like to see this period of his career fleshed out. I also still need to watch more tape of him during his first three years, since I wasn't watching at the time. lorak raised some concerns about his playoff defense that I'd like to read more about in the next thread or two.

Dr. J and West are interesting. I've seen very little tape of either guy in their primes, so it's hard for me to gauge where they stand defensively. Both were physical freaks and tremendous athletes who exerted plenty of effort on that end, but in order to vote for them at this point, I'd need to feel very confident about them defensively. Since I don't at the moment, I can't place them ahead of Kobe, who is a superior scorer (though probably worse than both on D, by how much I can't tell...he could be superior on that end), and did his damage in today's league. With the other two, there are questions about how they'd translate that I'm not presently capable of answering.

[Jim Naismith]

I guess I'd ask you why you think defense wouldn't be convertible? Especially for a defensive anchor whose value isn't particularly match-up dependent.

Let's look at the defensive effect Moses and Robinson had on their playoff opponents.

Kareem stats against Moses
1981 playoffs: 26.7 / 16.7 / 4.0 (RS avg: 26.2/10.3/3.4)
1983 playoffs: 23.5 / 7.5 / 3.0 (RS avg: 24.3/8.3/2.8)

Hakeem stats against Robinson
1995 playoffs: 35.3/12.5/5.0 (RS avg: 27.8/10.8/3.5)

I feel like you and I are speaking different languages here. I specifically mentioned his role as a defensive anchor and the impact he has on team defense which imo is far more valuable than individual defense. We all know Dream lit up Admiral in 1995. But we also know that every single Spurs defense Admiral played on was top 10, all but a couple were top 3, many were the best in the league and when he missed a year they went from 3rd to worst.

If you have some data that shows the Spurs team defense completely fell apart during Robinson's career then we can re-visit this, but focusing on individual man defense for a guy with his overall impact seems to being maybe missing the mark. Especially when you cherry-pick series.

I'm not trying question DRob's defense, but I do claim that defense could be quite matchup-dependent. My contention is that:

1) strong RS defense (DRob) does not necessarily translate to playoff wins against elite opponents (Hakeem)

2) adequate RS defense (Moses) is enough translate to playoff wins against elite opponents (Kareem) when accompanied by great offense

[Baller2014]

1 the pacers did not lose good players they got older and worse, just like kenon and gervin matured and got better. But the 79 spurs and pacers aren't really the 76 aba teams,

2 the 50 win nuggets in 77 were a good NBA team. The 60 win higher srs 76 nuggets were a great aba team. The difference is the league.
That's the point

3 point taken . Not worth the argument so I'll drop this point for any comparison

This stuff is also off.
1) The Spurs were completely the same 1976 ABA team in 1977, except for losing an all-aba 1st teamer, which means they should have been worse (not the same). Instead we see that the Spurs results over their first 3 years were as good or better than their last 3 years in the ABA. It's incredible consistency, and suggests with a healthy Silas they'd have probably won at least 1 title in that 3 year stretch.
2) The Pacers were a 463. win % team in 1976 and a 439. win % team in 1977. There is virtually no difference. They weren't the exact same team, but I certainly don't think their talent got better the next year.
3) The Nuggets lost a star player in 1977 (who then went and got finished off by injuries and such), and as a result dropped from a 58.5 win team (I adjusted the %, given that the ABA teams played 84 games not 82) to a 50 win team. Seems perfectly reasonable. They got jobbed by playoff seedings and distortions and lost to the one team with a better SRS than them.

Seriously, if you need 3 titles to get your vote here, you should be voting for Dr J. He has 3 titles. There's every reason to think he could have won those 2 Nets titles in the NBA. Meanwhile look what happened to some of the NBA teams in the post expansion period. They got worse. The Celtics, Warriors and Suns teams who made the finals faded into obscurity and never did anything like that again. I'd take the Nets (and several other ABA teams) over all the NBA champions from 74-76.

[penbeast0]

Starting at magicmer1's post . . .

10 Kobe Bryant (GC Pantalones, ShaqAttack3234, ardee, batmana, JordansBulls, Basketballefan, DQuinn1575, john248, lukekarts, ronnymac2)

5 Karl Malone (Baller2014, therealbig3, trex_8063, magicmerl, FJS)
3 Dirk Nowitzki (rich316, Quotatious, fpliii)
2 DrJ (Warspite, Clyde Frazier, drza)
2 David Robinson (shutupandjam, Owly)
2 Jerry West (penbeast0, Notanoob)

Kobe has 10/24 votes which is not a majority so it looks like a runoff between Kobe Bryant and Karl Malone

[Texas Chuck]

I'm not trying question DRob's defense, but I do claim that defense could be quite matchup-dependent. My contention is that:

1) strong RS defense (DRob) does not necessarily translate to playoff wins against elite opponents (Hakeem)

2) adequate RS defense (Moses) is enough translate to playoff wins against elite opponents (Kareem) when accompanied by great offense

Sure I can agree with both points in theory, but just because it happened in those singular examples doesnt mean Moses is more valuable.

Im not saying you are wrong about Moses maybe being the better player, but I don't think this particular argument is very convincing. The sample size is one series apiece and you chose the worst series of Admiral's career(at least from a narrative standpoint). Can you maybe find some more examples where you think Admiral was subpar defensively?

[Baller2014]

This will be interesting, because there were a lot of voters who didn't get in to vote in time, but who posted in the last 2 threads, so we're likely to see close to 35-40 people end up voting than 24. I think some of the Jerry West/Dr J/Dirk supporters made a big mistake not voting in time. They might have been an even more favourable run off choice here.

[drza]

This will be interesting, because there were a lot of voters who didn't get in to vote in time, but who posted in the last 2 threads, so we're likely to see close to 35-40 people end up voting than 24. I think some of the Jerry West/Dr J/Dirk supporters made a big mistake not voting in time. They might have been an even more favourable run off choice here.

Interestingly, you have professed at least some desire to vote for Doc over Malone. Had you, they'd have had the same number of votes entering the run-off.