I tend to think that both David Robinson and Dirk Nowitzki should be getting more traction than they're receiving, when compared to West and the Malones. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I'll be voting either the Admiral or Dirk this thread, once it all settles out. Let's start with some facts and see where this goes:
Box ScoresRegular season, 10 year primes per100 possessions Jerry West (1962 - 1971): 29.0 pts (56% TS), 6 reb, 6.4 asts (TO not recorded)
Moses Malone (1979 - 88): 31.5 pts (57.2% TS), 17.4 reb, 2 asts, 4.4 TO
Karl Malone (1990 - 1999): 36.8 pts (59.3% TS), 14.5 reb, 5 ast, 4 TO
David Robinson (90 - 2000): 33.3 pts (58.8% TS), 15.9 reb, 4 ast, 3.9 TO
Dirk Nowitzki (2002 - 2011): 34.5 pts (58.4% TS), 12.3 reb, 4 ast, 2.8 TO
Playoffs, 10 year primes per 100 possessionsJerry West (1962 - 1971): 31.8 pts (55.6% TS), 5.6 reb, 5.9 ast (TO not recorded)
Moses Malone (1979 - 88): 28.9 pts (54.5%), 16.8 reb, 2 asts, 3.4 TO
Karl Malone (1990 - 1999): 35 pts (52.9%), 15 reb, 4.4 asts, 3.7 TO
David Robinson (90 - 2000): 30 pts (54.6%), 16.1 reb, 3.8 ast, 3.7 TO
Dirk Nowitzki (2002 - 2011): 33.4 pts (58.5%), 13.5 reb, 3.5 ast, 3.0 TO
Once again disclaimer: these are West's actual numbers (Edit: corrected), not per 100 possessions. The last estimate that I heard was that West's Lakers were playing at about 120 pace, so if you want you could mentally scale his numbers back a bit compared to the others. But really, I think the point comes across anyway. In the box scores, when looked at per 100 possessions West doesn't at all separate himself from his competitors for this spot in the box score. I acknowledge that his relative shooting percentage difference compared to his actual peers was higher than his raw TS% reflects, and also that the 3-point line would likely improve both his volume and scoring efficiency. Even with that said, in the box scores his scoring is no more impressive to me than DIrk's, definitely, and the big men are in the discussion with him.
Going more general, I would say that Dirk separates himself as a scorer from the three other bigs currently getting consideration. Only Malone can match his volume, but in the postseason Dirk's efficiency blows the Mail-Man away. Going purely off of the box scores, I would say that Dirk is the most impressive offensive player of these five.
On the flip side, I don't even think I need to make the case that Robinson is by-far the best defensive player in this group. I mean, he laps the field. But even with that, when you look at the boxes from both the regular and the postseason, the Admiral was extremely competitive with both Malones on offense (from scoring volume to scoring efficiency to passing, Robinson holds his own in both seasons). And again, he is on the short list for greatest defenders of all-time in the same package.
Non-box-score individual quantificationWe only have full databall data for (just about) the complete career of Dirk. We have +/- data from 1998 on for Robinson and Karl. For the older players, we have WOWY data and/or team transition data for West and Moses. Because of the different scales, we can only get so quantitative with the comparisons of this data. But a few notes:
*West's WOWY data marks him as one of the biggest impact players of his era right along with Russell and Oscar. He measures out as super elite.
*Moses' WOWY and junction numbers weren't nearly as impressive. Mainly from memory from previous projects, but I recall Moses' non-boxscore estimated impacts to be far more pedestrian than West's and not very impressive for a super-duper star.
*Dirk measured out as elite in the +/- studies. In Doc MJ's 1998 - 2012 spreadsheet, he was essentially tied with Tim Duncan for the 4th/5th slots in both 3-year (+10.2) and 5-year (+9.1) peak behind Shaq/LeBron/KG. And Dirk's prime was very long. As I pointed out in the Dirk vs Kobe post, he was posting high +/- scores on pretty much a yearly basis from 2003 on.
*I'll post the Karl and Robinson +/- section from the comparison post I did on them:
Malone
98: 9.0 (+8.8 ORAPM; 0.2 DRAPM)
99: 5.8 (+6.4 ORAPM; -.6 DRAPM)
00: 5.5 (+6.9 ORAPM; -1.4 DRAPM)
Robinson
98:7.4 (+1.2 ORAPM; +6.2 DRAPM)
99: 8.9 (+2.3 ORAPM; +6.6 DRAPM)
00: 8.3 (+2.7 ORAPM; +5.6 DRAPM)
For those that don't know, this data came from Doc MJ's normalized PI RAPM spreadsheet from 1998 - 2012. I only did 1998 - 2000 for both players, because we don't have +/- data in 2001 and only partial for 2002, and by 2003 both were on their last legs. I found these numbers revealing for a few reasons. Malone's value in these years was almost all offense, while Robinson's value was primarily defense.
*For those that believe 1998 to be in Karl's peak, it is interesting that his +9.0 normalized RAPM score from 1998 is almost exactly the same as Dirk's 5-year peak (+9.1) but noticeably lower than Dirk's 3-year (+10.2) and single-season (+11.5) peaks.
*Similarly, '98 Karl and '99 Robinson both had almost the exact same overall normalized RAPM score, though as mentioned Karl's was almost all offensive and Robinson's was primarily defensive.
Mini conclusion: to the degree of granularity that this type of approach and data allows, I would say that West, Dirk, Karl and Robinson all demonstrate impact stats on the order of what I would expect from the elite and that they all separate themselves from Moses here.
Stylistics and eliminationsI just don't think that Moses had the impact of the others, so I'm setting him aside as a candidate for now.
I'm also really having trouble seeing how I would vote for West here, because I just don't see where I would choose him over Dirk. On the link that Clyde Frazier posted for pace adjusted numbers (
https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/spr ... 2YlE#gid=0 ), they compare West offensively to Ray Allen and defensively to Manu Ginobili. West would be more of a combo guard than Ray, but on the whole I think it's an interesting comp. But offensively, I just can't see West posing the mismatch that Dirk does and Dirk's scoring volume and efficiency (with any kind of pace adjustment) are better than West's. Ginobili actually measures out as one of the better per-minute defenders among perimeter players in the DRAPM study around a solid +3 per year. Generally speaking, the very best defensive wings/perimeter players in that study measure out around +3 - +4 vs the elite bigs getting up more around +7. So if we expect something similar from West, it still doesn't really close the gap with Dirk (who's own 5-year DRAPM peak is also around +3). It's been noted that Dirk is a strong defensive rebounder in the postseason, and that he's a solid man defender with an offensive skillset that allows for defensive role players to slot in around him that scores at such great efficiency that it allows his defenses more opportunities to set up.
And that's not even getting into durability and longevity, which aren't trivial and Dirk has clear advantages there as well.
Thus, just on the whole, I'll be voting Dirk before West. So I'll set West aside as a candidate.
This leaves Karl vs Robinson. And as I mentioned before, Robinson pretty much matches Malone in box score offensive production in both the regular and post seasons. Robinson's own postseason scoring efficiency questions are less harmful in a comp with the Mailman, who shares some of the same issues. But Robinson was still an exceptional defender. As Colts18 has pointed out, his career (nor his prime) really ended with the 1997 injury. In 1999 Robinson was a +9 normalized RAPM player that had clearly the highest defensive impact on the team (on a squad that won with defense first), and so much of the '99 Spurs' blazing finish and romp through the postseason was tied to their stifling defense that Robinson was spear-heading. Duncan was a beast that year, so not minimizing him at all. My point here is that 1999 helped prove that Robinson's skill set allowed him to be an elite-impact player whose impact could translate to the postseason on a team scaled up to championship caliber. Robinson's step-function added value as a rookie and the disaster of the 1997 Spurs without Robinson (even factoring in potential tanking) are further evidence of his huge value.
Malone has the monstrous longevity that's to his advantage (as he has on most players), but I believe that Robinson was just the better player. And as I weigh quantity vs quality, I keep finding myself tipped more towards what I perceive to be the quality.
Bottom line:Yeah, as I expected when I began this post, the front-runners for me in this slot are either Dirk Nowitzki or David Robinson. So far most of this thread has been about West and the Malones, but hopefully there are some others willing to chime in on Dirk and DRob to help me parse out how to evaluate them vs. each other.
