RealGM Top 100 List #15

[penbeast0]

Wow, you are more impressed by Karl Malone's defense than I was; I have him as a solid man defender and average help defender. His one defensive skill I had him in elite was the physicality/thug factor. He was very good at getting in that extra hard shot that bruised you up and sapped your energy over time -- I'd have rated him slightly below the level of Maurice Lucas or Buck Williams. Moses was a better help defender than Karl even though that's not his strength. He had a couple of seasons of 2 blocks and for his career blocks shots about twice as often as Karl. In post defense, Moses is bigger and stronger than Karl when it came to denying post position. He wasn't as good as Karl as moving out on the floor or covering PnR. Moses plays a more valuable defensive role as center traditionally has been a more key offensive threat (though that has changed into the 00s) but Karl is better relative to other PFs because there are so many traditional help defending centers that play that valuable role. Maybe why Moses spent several years playing next to Bill Paultz or Clemon Johnson despite their offensive games not working well together; but those teams wanted the shotblocking anchor next to him, even if not elite.

Oh, and Karl's defensive rebounding percentage is a hair higher than Moses (23.5 v. 23.2 career); it's offensive rebounding where Moses is a GOAT candidate.

[The Infamous1]

Malone is one of the best post/man defenders I've ever seen. I saw him lock up prime Duncan the last 4 games of the 04 WCSF one on one. Dude was 40 too.

[penbeast0]

I don't know what happened in Houston those years either. I agree it really makes me question Moses's defense a bit more.

Oh, and Infamous, when we are comparing Moses to Karl, saying "Malone is one of the best . . . " isn't that helpful, lol.

[Basketballefan]

Looks like West will probably win this with no runoff needed. It's going to be real interesting to see who goes where from 16-22.

[D Nice]

Wow, you are more impressed by Karl Malone's defense than I was;

Seems like a combo of that and you're higher on Moses's D than me. I never found him to be a very impressive rim protector, but it's quite possible the 90s spoiled me in that regard. As a point of reference I don't find Shaq to be an elite rim protector either, because there is more to just blocking shots than rim protection for me. If you average 2 blocks per game but are frequently out of position (either due to lack of mobility or lower D-IQ) that doesn't do it for me. Positioning is the most important big-man defensive skill period, everything else is secondary to me (unless you're talking about a particularly foul-prone guy).

And the defensive rebounding mention wasn't necessarily meant to be a direct contrast to Karl, just that in general Moses measures out as a very good defensive rebounder and I'm not sure I place as much value on that (in defensive evaluations) as other posters do, but I see now I could've been clearer there.

[DQuinn1575]

Had this issue before; no preemptive run-off votes. If you want to change your vote strategically to West now, you can. Only votes that show up after the start of the run-off post will be looked at. I'm not going back through the first 10 pages looking for changes after the run-off has started.

Nope - no strategic changes for me ever - my vote pre runoff will be for the player I think is the best.
- I think Moses is best player remaining; I will only change that vote if I change my mind.

Just trying to avoid a day of run-off, but I good with following the rules.

Thanks

[colts18]

Karl Malone facts:

-#3 all-time in Win Shares
-Has more win shares than Michael Jordan

[DQuinn1575]

Regarding Moses, I just want to know what happened in Houston that they were last in DRTG in 78, 2nd to last in 79, 18 of 22 in 80, 16 of 23 in 81 & 82. Philly was 7th in 82 at 103.9 DRTG (106.9 league avg, -3). When Moses joins, Philly improves to 5th at 100.9 (104.7 league avg, -3.8). It's tougher to hide a big on defense, esp a center.

mysticbb Moses vs Dirk: viewtopic.php?p=32949177#p32949177
viewtopic.php?p=32949562#p32949562

In Houston he played with 5-9 Calvin Murphy, 34 yo Rick Barry, and the whopper - Billy Paultz

it's a really a lousy group of defenders. Murphy was older, and never a good defender - Barry lost what defense he had, and Paultz was fairly immobile. Nobody could guard people, and Moses was not a shut down defender, plus
he played with Paultz, or 7-0/6-11 Kevin Kunnert (he changed his height somewhere) so he wasn't always the center - played a fair amount of power forward/center at Houston.


Philly had good defense with Bobby Jones, Mo Cheeks - Moses did replace Caldwell Jones, a defensive star -

Moses wasn't a great defender; he wasn't the shot blocker in the middle like Wilt or Olajuwon.

He rebounded well, and played good man-to-man defense - he wasn't a liability by any means, but he wasn't a top tier defensive center

[Clyde Frazier]

Karl Malone facts:

-#3 all-time in Win Shares
-Has more win shares than Michael Jordan

Considering the large sample size of games played, WS/48 min is more indicative of their impact:

Jordan -- .250 reg season, .255 playoffs
Malone -- .205 reg season, .140 playoffs

[ardee]

Karl Malone facts:

-#3 all-time in Win Shares
-Has more win shares than Michael Jordan

Considering the large sample size of games played, WS/48 min is more indicative of their impact:

Jordan -- .250 reg season, .255 playoffs
Malone -- .205 reg season, .140 playoffs

If you wanted to sum up the contrast between those two guys, that would be the way I would do it.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[ardee]

I don't know what happened in Houston those years either. I agree it really makes me question Moses's defense a bit more.

Oh, and Infamous, when we are comparing Moses to Karl, saying "Malone is one of the best . . . " isn't that helpful, lol.

Houston is more known for his Shaq-like offensive numbers.

It was when he went to Philly people started noticing his all around game more.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[ThaRegul8r]

Karl Malone facts:

-#3 all-time in Win Shares
-Has more win shares than Michael Jordan

Considering the large sample size of games played, WS/48 min is more indicative of their impact:

Jordan -- .250 reg season, .255 playoffs
Malone -- .205 reg season, .140 playoffs

If you wanted to sum up the contrast between those two guys, that would be the way I would do it.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

Since Malone played longer than Jordan and never retired multiple times before finally calling it quits, it should be expected that he'd have more total win shares. I've never understood the point of comparing win shares of two players when one played longer and thus had more time in which to accumulate them.

Now, if the player who played less time actually had more, then that would be notable.

[ThaRegul8r]

Looking at Malone and Dirk, and looking at the relevant criteria, fatal9 had this to say about Malone:

Spoiler:

This would me [sic] my assessment of Malone's scoring, I don't think "scoring without Stockton" is as much of an issue as other things...

- Amazing at getting the ball in traffic and either finishing or drawing fouls due to his strength. He had some of the best hands ever, doesn't matter who is throwing him the ball or what system he is in, he will always find a way to score off other players unless he plays on a team with literally zero ball movement.
- His ability to go to the right spots on the floor is a SKILL. The problem is, that sort of scoring can't be relied upon against a good set defense trying to make a stop. It's a good way to tack on the points when the defense lets up or makes mistakes however.
- In an iso situation, pretty much the only shot prime Malone was shooting was a 12-15 foot fallaway over a defender. He could mix it up over the course of a game, give you a little jump hook sometimes, face you up and drive, but 9 times out of 10, if you give him the ball and get out of his way, it's going to be that fallaway. I hate that shot, well not the shot itself but how many times he shot it. That sort of somewhat one dimensional iso-scoring is the reason he couldn't come through as a scorer in the playoffs at the rate you'd expect from someone with his averages. It's why when his jumper is on, he'll look unstoppable, shoot like 15/26 in one game but be 9/24 and 6/19 in the next two while taking the exact same shots. His consistency as an iso-scorer is just not where you'd like it to be.
- Stockton was responsible for a large number of late 80s/early 90s Malone's points. When people exagerrate and say Stockton spoon fed Malone, this is the version they are referring to. Malone became less and less dependent on Stockton as the years rolled by.
- As the 90s went on, his game progressed to being more finesse based (he could still make midrange shots when he was young, but didn't shoot them as often as later on), he also became a better one on one scorer (but again...I hate that fallaway) and with added experience he of course read defenses better and became a really good passer as well (over the shoulder no look pass being his trademark, great and hitting cutters and outlet passing).
- His conditioning was epic, he was probably the best forward ever at beating his man down the floor for an easy fastbreak basket. This again, is something teams can cut down when they adjust for it in the playoffs.
- PnR beast, in his younger days he attacked more off the PnR, in the MVP years he popped for the jumper.
- In general he got more easy baskets than any 25+ ppg guy I've consistently seen. Combination of playing with the best PG at delivering the ball, the offensive system Utah ran which creates lots of easy baskets off cuts and backscreens and to Malone's credit, him having a scorer's nose for where to be on the floor. Those easy baskets aren't quite as readily avaliable in the playoffs with better defensive teams so that contributes to decline in his playoff scoring as well.

This is why I don't see Malone's drop off in the playoffs as "choking", but as a drop off that can be naturally expected from him given his skills as a scorer. He was better at scoring on paper than a guy like Duncan...but he was better at things that are more likely to be taken away in the playoffs. That is why he's overrated as a scorer.

I posted this about Durant:

“One thing I criticize about Kevin Durant’s game, he still hasn’t learned to post up the little guys that guard him,” Charles Barkley said during the Sprint Halftime Report of Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs. “My criticism of Durant has always been the same,” Barkley said on the postgame show. “He lets little guys guard him.”

Which was also true of Dirk at one point, that players smaller than him were able to guard him, which hindered his ability to effectively employ what he brings to the table to help his team win, but he rectified the point, which helped his team win.

Spoiler:

Five years later, Dirk's got more smarts

Originally Published: May 31, 2011
By Marc Stein | ESPN.com

Who knew?

Who knew that the night of Nov. 27 in Dallas would tell us so much about how this NBA season would be decided?

By now you're surely well aware of the players-only meeting in the visitors' locker room at American Airlines Center on that landmark date. Nearly 45 minutes of air-clearing -- after the Heat fell to 9-8 with an 11-point loss to the Mavs that felt more lopsided than that -- served as the springboard for Miami's turnaround.

Yet it turns out that there were some prophetic words from Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, just outside the clubhouse door, about an hour before that season-turning loss.

Asked to assess the big difference between the 2011 Dirk and the Nowitzki whom the Heat smothered in the Finals five years earlier, Spoelstra welcomed a question about something other than coaching in the face of mounting early pressure and lasered in on one of the biggest weapons Dallas used to conquer the West.

Nowitzki's smarts.

"More than anything, he's seen every coverage," Spoelstra said that night. "Some of the things we were successful with in the Finals, [Nowitzki] carves that up now.

"He's adjusted to all the defenses. It's almost like his mind is a computer now."

There you go. That's the big evolution in Nowitzki's game, if you're desperate to find one, since 2006.

"Experience," Nowitzki says simply.

The Heat's Udonis Haslem had success against him in 2006 -- as did Golden State's Stephen Jackson did in 2007 -- because slightly smaller defenders with a penchant for physicality used to be the toughest for Nowitzki to counter. The rugged Haslem was obsessed with "getting up into Dirk's airspace," as Spoelstra described it, which often led to hurried, harried shots from Nowitzki, who didn't yet have the requisite trickery and precision to shake him.

"He's gotten stronger," Thunder coach Scotty Brooks said in the last round after Nowitzki's 48-point detonation in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. "Earlier in his career you could put a small on him and just really push around him and make him catch where he didn't want the ball. Now you can't do that."

Now?

Nowitzki doesn't rush. He patiently dissects defenses no matter what the coverage is. He either works himself to where he wants to go to shoot over people, spins hard to the bucket when defenders hug him too close as he backs in or punishes double-teams with a passing touch that improves more than anything else in his game from season to season. If opposing coaches hit him with constant switching, or try to trap him with a second defender when he spins, or even load up on his left hand to try take away his strong side, Nowitzki usually has a counter in his head.

Soon-to-be Houston Rockets coach Kevin McHale, working throughout the playoffs for TNT, describes it as the difference between a veteran sage who almost always takes shots he wants to take and the younger version of Nowitzki that often relied on pure talent to make tough shots. Or as Peja Stojakovic -- who became a Mavericks teammate after years of playoff battles against Nowitzki with Sacramento -- is prone to say: "Dirk is a like surgeon now."

A former teammate of some renown sees it the same way.

Steve Nash knows the feeling, because the game has helpfully slowed down for him, too. It's one of the rare upsides to getting older.

Getting wiser.

"Dirk might be marginally stronger than he used to be, but what I see is his total command of the situation," Nash said by phone from an undisclosed vacation location, where he's been sneaking looks at a TV late at night to see two of his best friends -- Nowitzki and Jason Kidd -- chase the ring that has eluded all three of them.

"He's totally in command," Nash said. "He's a machine. He gets the ball in his spots, takes him time and makes the defense pick their poison. That's what really separates him.

"He was always capable of doing these things. He was so good at that at 25, but sometimes you did think, 'What's he gonna be like in his 30s?' He's just more efficient, more patient. He's one of the best closers in the game -- and I think he's been doing it for a long time -- but I don't think he gets as much credit for that as he should."

Said Memphis Grizzlies swingman Shane Battier, who's been matched against Nowitzki frequently over the years: "He's always been an elite shooter. I played against him in a tournament in Paris [when both were teenagers] and it was the same thing … hitting 3s, step-back J's. Same game. Tough to guard.

"But now he's so much more willing to take the punishment when the game's on the line. I think that's really the only [noticeable] difference. When I was in Houston, we had all the [advanced] numbers on Dirk. Usually there's a weakness in a guy's game to tell you which way to shade him to make him ineffective. With Dirk, there's no good answer. Plus he's on a roll right now, so that's why I would not count the Mavericks out in this series."

Link

So that's a plus for Dirk. I looked at ElGee's thread about superstars against good and bad defenses in the regular and postseason again, and the data shows that Dirk doesn't care what defense he faces, while Malone falls off.

These criteria:

3. The possession of the rational self-interest to put ego aside in order to do #1 and #2, disregarding the opinions of irrelevant others who are not on the team and thus have no effect on the team’s success.

4. The ability to block out distractions and anything irrelevant to the maximization of the team’s chances of victory.

A player focusing on anything other than helping his team will receive a lower evaluation. A player’s job is to help bring his team wins. Nothing else matters or is relevant. Basketball players are grown men who make choices. They have the right to make whatever choice they want, but with action comes consequence. That choice they make will be honored and they will be evaluated on the basis of that choice, whether it’s beneficial or detrimental to the team’s chances of winning.

don't seem to be applicable here, as neither of them really had a problem with that.

5. The ability to rise to the occasion during big games and crucial moments in order to bring about the ultimate objective of winning, and the mental fortitude to do so.

Dirk has the edge on this criterion. As I said earlier:

This criterion is relevant in that I want to know if a player is able to effectively employ whatever it is he brings to the table in important moments in his team's quest for a title. Can he still do whatever it is that he does in big games? Players who can, that is a positive in my evaluation, causing them to move up in my rankings. If, for whatever reason, they cannot, that devalues them in my eyes. Whatever it is they bring to the table won't be of much use if they can't do it—whatever "it" is—when his team needs it most. This is what I'm getting at if when I want to know how a given player performs in the postseason. How well did he employ what he brings to the table in the postseason?

To that effect, being able to employ whatever it is that he brings in varying situations and against varying opponents is relevant. He needs to be able to do what he does against whatever opponent his team may face. Every player may have particular bad matchups, but a player who has less of these is more valuable to his team. I'm going to call it "matchup independence." The degree to which the ability of a player to employ whatever he bring to the table to help his team win isn't diminished by particular matchups.

Thus far, I'm leaning Dirk over Malone. I want to know how effectively they can utilize what they bring to the table to help their team win, and Dirk and Malone were both scorers, and the fact that Dirk was "fantastic," able to continue scoring against whatever defense he faced while Malone's "impressive scoring efficiency disappears" puts him over on my list based on my criteria. Fatal said Malone's drop off could "be naturally expected from him given his skills as a scorer," and he never rectified this, while Dirk did what he needed to do in order that his ability to employ what he brought to the table to help his team win wouldn't be hindered.

2. The ability to both identify what the team needs at any given moment in order to realize the ultimate object of winning and provide it.

I care about improvement when it enables the player to better be able to help his team win when not improving hinders his ability to help his team win. Dirk saw what he needed to do to help his team win and did it. That improvement made him more effective as noted by his peers above. The things that worked against him before were rendered ineffective. It made him better able to help his team win, which he did.

[penbeast0]

With basketballefan's vote, West has 14 out of the 26 votes for a clear majority. Calling it here.

[DQuinn1575]