RealGM Top 100 List #18

[ceiling raiser]

Thanks ElGee for the breakdown. You've eased my concerns enough to confidently vote for David Robinson ahead of Moses, though I definitely need to rewatch some tape before forming a more precise opinion as to his position.

Here's my post from the last thread with some of my thoughts: viewtopic.php?p=40916451#p40916451

Note: shutupandjam's research in this thread was definitely eye-opening. I'm really going to have to reconsider how I feel about offense/defense preferences when evaluating players. Since the SDs really aren't as far off from one another as I'd anticipated them being (thanks again for breaking it down), it seems even if you build your team around a dominant offensive C with subpar defense, or a high impact defensive PG who isn't a game-changer on offense, it's not much more difficult to find a supporting cast—since you can make up for the deficits relatively speaking—across the other positions—than with a traditional defensive big or offensive point.

[shutupandjam]

Not that but I've been noticing a lot of boxscore watching. Moses' number one skill is offensive rebounding and the don't see how that translates to the modern era despite Dennis Rodman, Zach Randolph, and Kevin Love showing how valuable the skill is.

The issue with Moses offensively is his horrible assist rate, and I personally just can't get past how bad it is (especially coupled with his relatively high turnover rate).

For reference, Moses's career assist rate is in the 25th percentile of all centers who played over 10,000 career minutes. That's right there with guys like Mark Blount and Vitaly Potapenko. David Robinson, who scored at a higher career rate per 100 than Moses, has a career assist rate in the 84th percentile. Kareem's is in the 92nd, Russell's 88th, Wilt's 88th, Shaq's 87th, Hakeem's 81st, Ewing's 63rd. Why are all the great centers so much better at creating for teammates than Moses? And almost everyone with a worse assist rate is either a defensive specialist or a career backup.

If we bump the minimum up to 20k minutes to weed out the guys without staying power (~70 centers have played 20k MP), only the following centers have a career assist rate worse than Moses: Erick Dampier, Michael Cage, Dikembe Mutombo, Mark Eaton, Olden Polynice, Tyson Chandler, James Donaldson, Tree Rollins, Theo Ratliff, Samuel Dalembert, and Mark West. Nearly all of those guys are defensive specialists.

I'm not saying assists are the be all end all or anything, but it's really concerning to me that such a high usage offensive center like Moses consistently comes out so poorly there. Is there some kind of explanation that I'm not seeing?

[magicmerl]

Some Moses footage for those that never saw him:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgrj7gCh8SE[/youtube]

[E-Balla]

Not that but I've been noticing a lot of boxscore watching. Moses' number one skill is offensive rebounding and the don't see how that translates to the modern era despite Dennis Rodman, Zach Randolph, and Kevin Love showing how valuable the skill is.

The issue with Moses offensively is his horrible assist rate, and I personally just can't get past how bad it is (especially coupled with his relatively high turnover rate).

For reference, Moses's career assist rate is in the 25th percentile of all centers who played over 10,000 career minutes. That's right there with guys like Mark Blount and Vitaly Potapenko. David Robinson, who scored at a higher career rate per 100 than Moses, has a career assist rate in the 84th percentile. Kareem's is in the 92nd, Russell's 88th, Wilt's 88th, Shaq's 87th, Hakeem's 81st, Ewing's 63rd. Why are all the great centers so much better at creating for teammates than Moses? And almost everyone with a worse assist rate is either a defensive specialist or a career backup.

If we bump the minimum up to 20k minutes to weed out the guys without staying power (~70 centers have played 20k MP), only the following centers have a career assist rate worse than Moses: Erick Dampier, Michael Cage, Dikembe Mutombo, Mark Eaton, Olden Polynice, Tyson Chandler, James Donaldson, Tree Rollins, Theo Ratliff, Samuel Dalembert, and Mark West. Nearly all of those guys are defensive specialists.

I'm not saying assists are the be all end all or anything, but it's really concerning to me that such a high usage offensive center like Moses consistently comes out so poorly there. Is there some kind of explanation that I'm not seeing?

This is a guy that created mostly next to the rim. Connecting the way he got his offense and how consistently he got it I don't see an issue with him not passing it much. Sure his assist rate is low but Moses was an odd player. Sounds like you're over thinking his numbers and the oddity of them way too much. All I need to know about Moses was that he was seen as number one at the time, accomplished things top players should accomplish, and he dominated his contemporaries. Sure his assist rate was low but that wasn't his game the same way I could say Walt Frazier had low assist numbers.

[Warspite]

In regards to offensive rebounding if you have a big who isn't much of a defensive factor and who excels at offensive rebounds, great. No real loss to have Kevin Love crash the O-boards(tho he's an odd choice as your example since he's a much better defensive rebounder.) Or if he's paired with a big who hustles back(see Mavs where Dirk got back and Damp and Chandler crashed the O-boards for a great example of this), great. OR if you are Dennis Rodman with Moses like ability to retrieve the ball, but also the athleticism and stamina to hustle back when he doesn't get the ball.

But if not, its generally a higher percentage play to have your best defender(talented big man) get back on defense rather than trying for the <20% chance he gets the ball back. And then Moses wasn't exactly converting all those rebounds into points either. Those of us old enough to have actually watched him play realize that he frequently got those offensive rebounds 2,3, 4 at a time. So what looks on B_R.com like a whole bunch of extra possessions, in actuality isn't.

I posted several threads back about how little being a good offensive rebounding team translates into winning basketball. The best teams tend to among the worst offensive rebounding teams. And I keep hearing this idea that crashing the O-rebound stops fast breaks. That's not really correct. Again <20% of the time you get the ball back, which leaves more than 80% of the time the anchor of your defense who isnt really fleet of foot is 90 feet from the basket he should be defending. What stops the fast break is getting back and setting up defensively.

Look Moses Malone is a great player, but his offensive rebounding really isn't the reason why.

My simple contention is that your conclusion is based on style differences. I think someone can draw the same conclusion that the 3pt shot is not as important as one today may think because historically is not important.

My other issue is that bigman arent really part of transition defense as much as guards are. IMHO style/coaching emphasis changes are more to do with personal than anything else. Maybe the reason offensive rebounding isnt important today is because players just arent very good at it?

More importantly just because something isnt important today does that mean it never was? Its not like the other teams of the 80s decided to give up off rebounding at the time. Its certainly not true that Duncans Spurs beat 80s teams and showed that Moses was overrated.

Are we also going to degrade players that didnt shoot 3pters in the 60s and 70s?

[ThaRegul8r]

I've run the numbers and nothing shows the Spurs defense having a significant falloff in the postseason. I agree with those who have expressed doubt here that without a causal explanation, it seems strange...and it it indeed verified by the results that nothing out of the ordinary happened to the Spurs on defense in the playoffs. There is a small decline against 110+ offenses in the PS as you can see on the graph below, but that decline comprises 33 games.



There is enormous variation in ORtg -- moreso that SRS. For SRS, the 95% significant point for a 33-game sample is about 2 points in differential. The standard deviation for the Spurs DRtg in this sample was 11.1, slightly higher than the 10.6 for their SRS in the same sample. Keep in mind that they only played 53 PS games in these 6 playoffs (Robinson missed 1992), and all of their opponents had a 108 offense or better (rounded). In the PS sample, the Spurs gave up 109.0 pts/100 at -1.4 pts relative to the opponent, a slight decline from their RS performance against 108+ defenses of 108.1 pts/100 at -2.2 pts relative to the opponent. Is that statistically significant?

I did not run a formal statistical test but significance seems impossible given that the variation is higher than the variance in SRS and that difference wouldn't produce significance for an SRS sample. In short, that small decline you're seeing in the Spurs PS defense, it's likely just noise. As an example to illustrate this, the 138-132 OT loss in Robinson's rookie season to Portland cost the Spurs 5 DRtg points that postseason and 0.6 points in the 53 game sample.

And of course, even if the sample were large enough for statistical significance...look at the absolute numbers. Less than 1 point per game...hardly enough that it seems it would matter, even if somehow all of the results could be attributed to Robinson.

PS There was a 0.96 correlation in the RS between opponent RS ORtg and the DRtg of the Spurs...meaning they don't feast on bad teams or anything like that -- their relative performance is essentially constant against all teams. Their graph of the above mapped to relative DRtg has a slope of 0.003.

Thank you. This is along the lines of what I was looking for.

When I ask for something to be addressed, that means it can be falsified. As I said, if a point isn't addressed at all, then I have to keep in mind that there is a voting process involved, and player advocates are going to present what puts their chosen candidate in the best possible light, and it would be in their best interest to leave alone anything that can hurt their chance of being voted in where they want them. I don't care about the voting, so the only thing I'm interested in is whether there was something to it or not.

TrueLAfan withdrew from the project and therealbig3 is off to medical school, so you were the only one from those posts left who could respond, as you said at the time that there seemed to be something to what TrueLAfan was saying, that there was validity to what he said about Robinson's defensive impact in the playoffs if we believe Robinson had a major influence on their defense as an anchor, which lent more credence to those concerns. I don't particularly care for posts that seem to be made because the poster is coming to the defense of a player he likes, which are no better than posts made to bash a disliked player at any available opportunity, so it's nice to see something more objective.

6. Statistics are team-dependent. Doing what is needed in order for the team to win may require sacrificing individual statistics. There will be no penalty levied for doing so, nor will a player’s evaluation be lowered for putting the needs of the team above his own individual statistics. It shows he has the right priority.

So Robinson (after Duncan arrived) and Malone (in LA) were both able to put aside statistics in order to do what the team needed of them, which is a positive in my ranking system, unlike most others, which dismiss them as sidekicks/roleplayers. I'll go look at some posts made on Robinson post-Duncan.

[ThaRegul8r]

Everyone seems to be talking about this like it's offense vs. defense, but David Robinson's offense is quite clearly better than the defense of the others in consideration. This is a guy who led the league in scoring - for reference, neither Barkley nor Moses ever did this

Speaking solely for myself, this doesn't particularly mean much to me, considering he stat-padded in the last game to win it. He never came close to 71 points before or after, and it was done solely to win the scoring title, not to help his team. His teammates deserve some credit for that in aiding him:

The San Antonio Spurs are making no apologies for David Robinson's 71-point barrage that brought him his first scoring title.

Spurs coach John Lucas and his players readily acknowledged [...] that aside from trying to beat the Los Angeles Clippers [...], their goal was to help Robinson secure the scoring title.

"Everyone wanted him to get it and everybody was mad that he was passing some shots up," Lucas said. "David deserves it. Sometimes I have to push David to become selfish."

The Spurs continually fed Robinson the ball during the Spurs' 121-97 victory. Robinson is only the fourth NBA player to score 70 or more points in a game.

If Robinson's coach and teammates weren't intent on him winning the scoring title, he wouldn't have done it. It's as much a team achievement as Wilt's averaging 50 in '61-62.

[tsherkin]

carried a 41-41 team to the finals

This needs to stop getting raised as a major point in his favor.

The 81 Rockets were the 6th seed with a 40-42 record, not 41-41. They beat the Lakers 2-1 in the opening round, which is a shorter series than any we've seen in a couple of decades now. Then they had the opportunity to play ANOTHER sub-.500 team in the conference finals.

This is not an impressive achievement by any meaningful standard... It happened, and Moses generally played well, but he led the team to a sub-.500 record and got massively lucky in the playoffs, then finally caved when there was a normal-length series against legitimate competition. That's not something you want to use to elevate a player. Moses has enough legitimate achievements and accolades upon which to draw that such a thing can be safely ignored for the most part.

Its a general rant. If the shoe fits.... if not discard it. Moses like every player is less appreciated as time goes on. Everything said about Bob Cousey today will be said about MJ in 25 yrs and Kobe 15 yrs after that.

This is inaccurate.

Bob Cousy was not efficient relative to his era and didn't really craft a team offense which was particularly effective even by the rudimentary standards of his time. His team won on the basis of defense, playing with fairly tepid offense. The same is not true of Jordan or Kobe, and your comment doesn't hold any legitimacy as a result of the WILD contextual differences (and the reasons for which Cousy is seen as far lesser than in the proto-form league in which he played).

The eye test is the ultimate judge and any stat that doesnt support the eye test is suspect.

This is a wholly inaccurate statement; the eye test is riddled with inaccuracy and bias, and is the LEAST reliable of all sources of information without appropriate constraint and focus. It's very useful when breaking down certain things, like play types and style, but it is far, far too prone to human mental weakness. Statistics have their own weaknesses, but failing to acknowledge that the eye test has its own problems is just as foolhardy as doing the same for stats. You've managed to ignore the weakness of the human mind AND detract from the objective value of all stats (by lumping all quantitative examination together in a common and errant manner) all at once, and there's nothing of logic or reason to that sort of statement.

"Any stat that doesn't support the eye test is suspect" is a violently incorrect statement; what it actually represents is an opportunity to investigate WHY what we see and what the numbers suggest don't meet. Sometimes, we need to understand more properly what a stat is saying, and all must be examined in context. Sometimes, though, even often, the numbers are telling us something the eye test isn't prepared to accept based on narrative bias. It's ridiculous to pass off a stat just because it doesn't confirm what you already believe you know.

I get the resistance to certain stats: one-number stats are rife with all kinds of potential error. But as contextual data builds up to support an idea, the general infirmity of the eye test starts to fall before that sort of objective onslaught. If it's just one number, then that's something else.

In Moses' case, for example, we see that he's got big volume, good efficiency, great overall offensive productivity... but didn't exert quite as much impact on his teams as his numbers should suggest (especially in comparison with his peers).

His greatest achievements are snaking through an easy-as-hell route to the Finals and losing to Boston... and joining a team that had been to the Finals the year before and making it back, only to win... against a Lakers squad without Worthy and with Nixon and McAdoo hobbled by injuries. A legitimate title, for sure, but people get caught up in the sweep without remembering details of that sort.

He was a dominant player; he was a great player. He was a guy who played a unique style of basketball and he deserves recognition in this range we are now discussing. It's not unbelievable that he could be considered better than any of the handful of guys we're discussing right now. But we're seeing a lot of accolade bias and narrative influence here, and that's not always productive.

Moses was a great player, but the vitriol with which people are supporting certain elements of his narrative evade context, which grows frustrating. Comments like yours, Warspite, just don't make sense. Statistical analysis has significant value. Data tracking is vital to understanding more than what the human eye can tell. Obviously, you need to use both angles of examination to properly understand what's going on, but lending extra credence to the eye test is nothing more than resistance to an idea you dislike more than anything else.

TS% and ORTG, for example, are favorable things for Moses. Some of the issues taken with his game are that his individual dominance didn't create well for the rest of his teammates, so he didn't typically exert a huge impact on team offense apart from dragging it up from crap, as opposed to leading it to elite status. Some of it comes from exquisite career timing. Some comes from excessive credit to largely meaningless longevity. Some of it comes in comparison to peers who achieved more. The disbelief with which some are responding to Robinson being considered ahead of Moses is mildly amusing to me... not because I can't fathom a reason for Moses to be ahead, there's legitimacy to that argument, but because of the dishonest examination of Robinson's value as a player compared to a guy like Moses.

The other comment you made which I thought was interesting, and which you made a definitive statement even though it's not:

If we had a draft he would be a top 10 pick. He would win MVPs in any era he played.

That's not definitively true, no. He'd have had a hard time doing it in the 90s, with the competition present at his own position, let alone MJ, Malone and Barkley. He certainly wouldn't have cracked off three of them in that era.

The 2000s wouldn't have been a ton better for him.

It's very possible that he might have missed out on an MVP in another era, particularly the 90s. He'd certainly have been a perennial MVP candidate in any era because of the magnitude of his value to most teams, but you can't just drop hammer statements like that as if they are accepted fact when there is nothing making them firmly true.

I still dont understand the whole logic of "Moses was a bad passer." That has to be one of the strangest things ever written on RealGM. Why would you want the best player in the world to pass up a 5ft layup so a teammate can brick a 20fter? Those Rockets teams didnt have anyone that could make LBJs Cavs teams yet he still got to the Finals.

This is an exaggeration. Moses did not take every shot from 5 feet, even by your own admission in the same post where you made this comment. The main rip on Moses is that when he had a back-down isolation, he wasn't a particularly adept passer out of the double team. Yeah, his Houston teams weren't stunners in terms of floor-spacing talent, but it wasn't just shooters. You're talking about cutters, basic kick-outs, he really didn't weaponize the pass to any significant extent. This is a guy with ZERO seasons of 2+ apg. He averaged 1.9 AST100 over his career, which is limp.

Yes, big men don't typically flash out crazy volume assist numbers, but because of the nature of his game, he really wasn't about creating opportunities for others and didn't do a particularly good job of leveraging the passing game as an offensive tool. This is part of why his impact was lesser than his individual scoring efficacy. If he's got a good shot, great, but you'd be wildly off the mark to suggest that every possession of every one of the considerable number of games he played, he had a really good shot and couldn't have done better by passing out. That's where it's coming from. Guys like Olajuwon, Duncan, Robinson and Shaq all helped their teams with passing skills and when those skills peaked, you typically saw significant team success above and beyond their usual levels. Moses never really showed any of that sort of passing acumen... even in Philly, when your comments about the quality of his teammates are entirely invalid. He was a 1.3 APG player with the Sixers, and before you start talking about his minutes per game, he averaged 1.3 apg in 37.5 mpg in the 83 title season as well.

Now that season obviously ended very well, so we're clearly not talking about something that's so brutally wrong about the player that it must be called a terrible weakness... but remember that this was true in context of a team that had made the Finals the previous season without him, and which actually DECLINED in offensive efficacy in the 83 season compared to the 82 season, despite Malone coming in with his 24.5 ppg on 57.8% TS and 116 ORTG. You'd imagine such a player would help them improve their offense, but the Sixers were actually 1.6 points per 100 possessions worse on offense. Adjustment periods, etc, etc, myriad explanations, but the point is that there really weren't any major returns on the offensive end and it was their defensive improvement which helped them win those 7 extra games. Moses played one of his only focused defensive effort-full seasons that year, something not a typical characteristic of his game, and it helped make a big difference.

This is the sort of stuff I'm talking about; you don't need to look at RAPM or WOWY or whatever other stat du jour against which you care to rail, you can look at the basic elements of how the team won or lost games and see that the primary focus of Malone's game wasn't helping the team nearly as much as an entirely separate side of the game to which he did not typically contribute that much. Things like that help steal some of the luster his numbers, accolades and achievements produce in our minds. He remains a great player and one who should be recognized among the very best, but when compared specifically to those guys, there are some things which come up that make it wholly reasonable that he's fallen to where he is despite traditional indicators like MVPs and such.

A guy like David Robinson is being elevated here primarily because of his defensive advantage over someone like Moses and because he actually did more with his non-stacked squads than Moses did, 81 luck run through the PS aside. Robinson doesn't have such a story because he didn't play on sub-.500 teams and he never had the luxury of playing an utterly crap squad in the WCFs... he was busy running into the Malone/Stockton Jazz, Olajuwon's Rockets, the 1990 Finalist Blazers, the Finalist Suns and so forth. Very good teams. Hell, even the Warriors were a whole sight better than the Royals teams, and there weren't any best-of-3 series of which to take advantage for Robinson either. So contextually, a guy who generally won more games and still made it plenty deep into the playoffs while facing superior competition is pretty competitive in an argument with someone like Moses... especially since he has some great RS numbers, an MVP, a DPOY, his own host of statistical records and achievements (the quadruple double, the 71-point game, etc) and a fairly palpable value as a defensive presence which helps counter his declining offensive utility in the playoffs. Then when he had help like Moses did, he also won a title (and then another when he was older and in his final season, of course), so it's not like you can even use the traditional "RINGZZZ" argument. You've got to go Finals MVP and forget that the same team sans Moses was in the Finals the year before anyway.


Food for thought: argue Moses, go nuts. He's a great player who deserves support and I was mumbling about him like 10 spots earlier in this project because he really does bear giving some traction in any of the past 8-10 spots, but do it the right way. Don't dismiss logic and data tracking because it doesn't agree with your subjective opinion or nostalgia-laden memories. Evaluate with honesty; if that evaluation leads you to still believe that Moses is the appropriate candidate, great. But try to remember that the point of this project is to be open to influence and reconsideration based on other information and viewpoints.

[E-Balla]

Thanks ElGee for posting the Spurs data. The information we had on Robinson's individual data already showed how well he did against other elite bigs. And this supports what many of us thought about his team defenses as well.


Amazing how much that one series against a top 10 all-time guy has managed to shape his legacy for the bad.

One series? I couldn't name one time this guy played a great big and did a good job. Malone killed him on three separate occasions, Hakeem killed him, and Deke held him to 19/7 in his only 5 series against great bigs (the only time he won was against Deke who is a one sided guy). He's never proven he could outplay any great big head to head when it mattered.

[john248]

My official vote is for Charles Barkley. His offensive ability is legendary and translated to winning basketball. One of the few with a back to the basket ability to score efficiently, and one of just a handful of guys who had the passing ability from that spot on the floor. Being a great rebounder and good ball handler for his position, he could take the ball and go coast to coast while his range became more solid as his career went on. He was always regarded as one of the best players in the league during his time. I feel he's the better player than Karl Malone though Karl won out on longevity. Defense was an issue, but I feel his offense more than made up for it. The ring count might be different if a better defensive player other than Oliver Miller was manning the middle. Probably the most unique player of all-time. Doesn't look like he'll make the run-off though.

[ThaRegul8r]

I said this as far as Moses:

But a plus to DR for playing second fiddle to Duncan (I agree, is a plus) should also mean a plus MM; he went to an already successful, good team, became THE man on that team and didn't screw up chemistry or success but actually helped push them over the top.

Just as I argued for Oscar in regards to his move to Milwaukee being more a validation for what he had done in Cincinnati, this, in my mind, is validation for Moses and therefore a plus that he was able to step into that 76ers Team, be the man and not hold the team back in any way.

Now THIS is your advantage and the area you should emphasize, speaking solely for myself. In my criteria, I don't care what a player brings to the table in order to help his team win, I just want him to use it to help his team win. While Moses wasn't the defender Robinson was, he was able to use what he had going for him to help his team win during his prime, unlike Robinson, and is a plus for him. Also a plus, as you said, he didn't screw up team chemistry. As a matter of fact, he continually showed respect to Erving, who'd already been there and had led the 76ers to multiple Finals and said that it was still Doc's show, he was just to help make it a better show. He didn't step on Erving's toes and continually said it was Erving's team that season. That's another plus for him, helping the team get over the hump while not making the guy already there who'd led the team to three Finals feel marginalized.

Speaking solely for myself, that's what you should be emphasizing. My not liking that Moses wasn't the defender others at his position is irrelevant if one can show that despite this Moses was better able to utilize his respective strengths more effectively to help his team win than Robinson. That's the whole point of me crystalizing explicitly-defined criteria. So long as (in this case) Moses better meets them than Robinson, then he gets ranked higher. Period. That way "feelings" are completely removed from the equation. In my criteria I state that no one way of helping one's team win is valued more highly than another. I just care that they use it--whatever "it" is--to help their team win, which is the first and foremost criterion on my list.

But it was never followed up on.

[Quotatious]

Okay, I'll vote for David Robinson.

Prime D-Rob may've been slightly better than prime KG, and Garnett is in since #11. They're very similar in a lot of areas - Admiral is a better volume scorer, a bit worse rebounder and passer, they're equal defensively, and the Big Ticket has a pretty significant longevity edge (I think that's mostly why Robinson is seriously considered for #18, not 11 like KG, at least by the majority of posters, as there were some who supported him even for #11).

He's IMO a top 5 defensive player of all-time, you can make a case for as high as #2 behind Russell. He just epitomizes the "elite two-way center" phrase. As good of a scorer as he was, he was still a bit of a miscast in that role, but it really tells you how great his all-around game was, if the thing that was his relative weakness, so volume scoring, was still good enough to allow him to lead the league in scoring, at almost 30 a game, on excellent efficiency.

His playoff struggles are a bit exaggerated - sure, he clearly declined, but he was starting from such a high level (he may be a top 10 regular season player ever), that despite the decline, he was still pretty good in the PS, at least if you don't directly compare it to his RS career.
The amount of defensive pressure he faced from his rookie season to 1996 was incredible, as he never really had an especially potent second option (Sean Elliott was good, but not a championship caliber 2nd fiddle)

Here's my post from the previous thread:

One of the best defenders of all-time (I think he's top 5, but top 10 at absolute worst) and an excellent offensive player. Could even be a very good volume scorer in the regular season, when needed (even won the scoring title in 1994, averaging 29.8 PPG, on excellent efficiency - almost 58% TS), although it definitely wasn't his best role. He could fill the stat sheet with the best of 'em - also a really good, and very willing passer for a bigman, very good rebounder, could knock down the 15 footer, pretty consistently, and also one of the most athletic players in NBA history, the way he ran the floor, both running fasbreaks and getting back on defense, was awe-inspiring for a guy who was 7'1''.

His weakness was a relatively poor post game, and that's why he often declined in the playoffs, in terms of his scoring. He was more of a face-up player, relying on his athleticism to beat single coverage and finish at rim, or knock down midrange jumpers, but that's not a reliable way to score in the postseason, when defenses become a lot more intense, and usually focus on opposing star players even more than in the regular season, plus prime D-Rob was the sole focal point of his team's offense, so the amount of pressure he faced was even bigger than many other superstar bigmen, who had the luxury of playing with another star(s) on his team, to take some of that pressure off of them.

Advanced stats also love him - boxscore stats like PER (he's 4th all-time in career regular season PER, at 26.2) and WS/48 (2nd all-time, basically tied with Jordan as the best), and despite his playoff decline, he's 7th in career WS/48 in the postseason, and 15th in PER.

He also looks very well in RAPM, even past his prime.

His longevity is really unimpressive when you compare him to Karl and Moses though. In his prime, between 1989-90 and 1997-98, he played just 26247 minutes. For example, prime Karl Malone, between 1987-88 and 2000-01, played 48582 minutes. That's a HUGE difference. Moses, Barkley and Nash, so the other top candidates for #17, also played more minutes than Robinson.

Honestly, I think that Robinson had the highest peak of the remaining players (except Bill Walton, but Walton's longevity is so bad that he's not even taken into consideration yet), and I'd take Robinson's top 3 consecutive seasons (1994-96) over the top 3 consecutive seasons of a player like Kevin Garnett (2003-05), who's already in since the #11 thread, but longevity really hurts him. His playoff scoring decline, at least to me, isn't really an important factor, because he makes up for it with other things - he's on a totally different planet defensively than guys like Moses, Barkley or Nash, even much better than Karl Malone, who was a very good defender in his own right.

On a sidenote, I feel the same way about Robinson as I feel about Wade - both guys were amazing at their best, but neither sustained that super high level of play for nearly as long as the Malones, Barkley or even Nash.

So, why Robinson over Barkley and M. Malone? Vastly superior defender, and that's what I really value in bigmen - I'm a bit allergic to bad defensive bigs, to be honest.

[ceiling raiser]

I said this as far as Moses:

But a plus to DR for playing second fiddle to Duncan (I agree, is a plus) should also mean a plus MM; he went to an already successful, good team, became THE man on that team and didn't screw up chemistry or success but actually helped push them over the top.

Just as I argued for Oscar in regards to his move to Milwaukee being more a validation for what he had done in Cincinnati, this, in my mind, is validation for Moses and therefore a plus that he was able to step into that 76ers Team, be the man and not hold the team back in any way.

Now THIS is your advantage and the area you should emphasize, speaking solely for myself. In my criteria, I don't care what a player brings to the table in order to help his team win, I just want him to use it to help his team win. While Moses wasn't the defender Robinson was, he was able to use what he had going for him to help his team win during his prime, unlike Robinson, and is a plus for him. Also a plus, as you said, he didn't screw up team chemistry. As a matter of fact, he continually showed respect to Erving, who'd already been there and had led the 76ers to multiple Finals and said that it was still Doc's show, he was just to help make it a better show. He didn't step on Erving's toes and continually said it was Erving's team that season. That's another plus for him, helping the team get over the hump while not making the guy already there who'd led the team to three Finals feel marginalized.

Speaking solely for myself, that's what you should be emphasizing. My not liking that Moses wasn't the defender others at his position is irrelevant if one can show that despite this Moses was better able to utilize his respective strengths more effectively to help his team win than Robinson. That's the whole point of me crystalizing explicitly-defined criteria. So long as (in this case) Moses better meets them than Robinson, then he gets ranked higher. Period. That way "feelings" are completely removed from the equation. In my criteria I state that no one way of helping one's team win is valued more highly than another. I just care that they use it--whatever "it" is--to help their team win, which is the first and foremost criterion on my list.

But it was never followed up on.

Interesting exchange, I'd like to hear his response as well.

blank

Just wondering, do you have a response to ThaRegul8r's post? I'm wondering in particular about your thoughts on the two bolded portions.

[Quotatious]

Current vote count, after more people voted since post #117 (magicmerl's last vote count was post #118)

17 David Robinson -- penbeast0, Doctor MJ, Chuck Texas, trex_8063, ardee, magicmer1, shutupandjam, SactoKingsFan, PCProductions, drza, Owly, colts18, RSCD3_, fpliii, Quotatious, lukekarts, lorak

11 Moses Malone -- Jim Naismith, Ryoga Hibiki, batmana, JordansBulls, GCPantalones, DannyNoonan1221, DQuinn1575, Warspite, FJS, Basketballefan, rich316

6 Charles Barkley -- ShaqAttack3234, Ray-Ban Sematra, tsherkin, Narigo, ronnymac2, john248

1 Bill Walton - HeartBreakKid

Seems like we're in for a D-Rob/Moses run-off.

*+ lukekarts voted for Robinson.

[lukekarts]

I'm going to confirm my vote now, and that's for David Robinson

There has a been a lot of good discussion these past couple of pages (from El Gee, Quotatious & tsherkin in particular) and I'm struggling to see, accolades aside, what makes Moses better.

With regards to Barkley, he's a tough one for me to judge. Fantastic scorer and rebounder but never truly translated that into success and his defensive impact was a negative overall. I'm leaning towards Moses at 19, and Barkley to round of the top 20, before I'll interject with some Wade, Frazier, Stockton comparison.

[Warspite]

tsherkin:

What you said about Moses 81 team could be said about Magic every yr of his career with the exception that Magic never played a team as good as the 81 Lakers in the 1st, 2nd or WCF. I dont care if its a 1,3,5,7 game series. Those were the rules of the time and everyone played by the same rules.

I never would have thought to question your eyes but from your post I will from now on because you dont trust them so whatever you see may be wrong. I dont think Im wrong in my observations as they are the basis of my opinion nor do I believe that my opinion or yours is more valid than anyone elses. I fully acknowledge that my eye test could be as flawed as adv stats but at this point Im so far ahead on points that Im feeling pretty confident.

APG: Can you find evidence that suggests his coaches wanted him to pass more? Sure it would be a great liability in todays game but he played in a different era. Im not going to evaluate a player based on how he would translate to 2014 . I dont believe 2014 is any more important than 1984 or 64.

My belief in Moses ability to win MVPs in any era is based on his ability to beat out his peers who were as storied as any other decade. If I can outplay Bird, Magic, DrJ and KAJ Ill take my chances vs Nash, AI and Derrick Rose. Especially with the MVP today being more about politics and less about play.

I love DRob and I think he should already be in. No shame losing to him. Plenty of reason to like DROb over Moses but because Moses played in different era under different rules with different coaching shouldnt be.

To be fair I like RAPM to a degree but until you can give me RAPM stats of every player from Mikan to today its not valid since I have no baseline to judge what is and what isnt good.

One day players will dunk on 18ft rims and shoot behind the 4 and 5pt line. The game will "advance" and todays players will seem unathletic and uncoordinated just like Cousy does now. They will mock the legends of your day just as they do now of mine. Then you will be that old man who tries to argue that the players of the 90s werent cavemen who had just taken up the game after the last Woolly Mammoth was killed.

The nit-picking doesnt bother me in the slightest (when talking about elite greatness thats all you can do). Do you think that maybe he wasnt an APG player because of the TOs and that his coaches would just rather he finish or force a shot (after all shot selection isnt that important if you can off rebound like that) rather than try to find the open man? Looking at current players maybe Moses simply never became that well rounded player because he didnt play in college. I honestly dont know. I dont recall Rick Barry, Hubie Brown or Tom Hienshon call out his lack of APG as an achilles heel.

I was a fan of the 76ers in the early 80s I just dont recall yelling at the TV for Moses to pass the rock. Shooters just werent that good and it was best for him to try to score or get fouled. Now if he was playing today in Golden State that might be a legit argument. Playing with Calvin Murphy (6% 3pt) or Leavell or Henderson is not IMHO.

If every time Moses got his own rebound and put it in he received an assist instead of an O Reb for passing to himself would you then think he is a better player? I know my eye test results wouldnt change.

[lorak]

Thanks ElGee for the breakdown. You've eased my concerns enough to confidently vote for David Robinson ahead of Moses, though I definitely need to rewatch some tape before forming a more precise opinion as to his position.

Do you think ElGee's method is better than looking at team performance relatively to expected ortg/drtg? If yes, could you explain why, because I don't see it.

BTW, I had mistake in previous table (two series from 1990), here's correct one with opponents R_ORTG:

Code: Select all

year   round   seed 1seed2 G   DRTG   opp RS ORTG
1996   WCSF    SAS   UTA   6   5,7   5,7
1993   WCSF    PHO   SAS   6   -0,1   5,3
1991   WCFR    SAS   GSW   4   4,1   4,0
1996   WCFR    SAS   PHO   4   2,4   2,7
1990   WCSF    PTB   SAS   7   -0,1   2,4
1994   WCFR    SAS   UTA   4   4,0   2,3
1995   WCF     SAS   HOU   6   3,0   1,4
1995   WCSF    SAS   LAL   6   -9,3   0,8
1995   WCFR    SAS   DEN   3   -4,2   0,8
1993   WCFR    PTB   SAS   4   -2,5   0,3
1990   WCFR    SAS   DEN   3   -0,9   -0,1



Tendency is pretty clear, and overall against offenses with +2 or better R_ORTG Spurs defense underperformed by 2.4 DRTG, while against offenses with R_ORTG lower than 2 their defense was better than expected by 2.9 drtg. Pretty significant difference.

Of course some of the Spurs defensive struggles can be explained and it definitely wasn't Robinson's fault (as I showed in previous threads, when talked about 1994 vs UTA or 1991 vs GSW), but what with some other series, especially vs PHO?

EDIT
I vote for Robinson ;]

[lorak]

Thanks ElGee for posting the Spurs data. The information we had on Robinson's individual data already showed how well he did against other elite bigs. And this supports what many of us thought about his team defenses as well.


Amazing how much that one series against a top 10 all-time guy has managed to shape his legacy for the bad.

One series? I couldn't name one time this guy played a great big and did a good job. Malone killed him on three separate occasions, Hakeem killed him, and Deke held him to 19/7

That's not what actually happened. Mutombo played 18 minutes in G1, 36 in G2 and 30 in G3, while Robinson's worst game was G1 (9.9 GmSc, 1 AST, 3 TOV). In G2 and G3 he still shot badly from the floor, but was quite good at passing from double or triple teams (4 and 5 assist) - and Nuggets team defense was the reason why he shot so poorly, not Mutombo. Here's part of G3, where commentators talk about that several different players defended Robinson:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQyaZGWq_GA[/youtube]

[lorak]

Ewing had to take on even more offensive responsibility than Charles did since the other Knicks sucked on offense while Barkley's PHX teammates were good, and Ewing still put up comparable offensive numbers to MVP Barkley. Ewing put up a tremendous 26/13 game in the closeout GM 6. Ewing was not the choker that he's painted to be.

Would you post his 94 Finals line for me, and then say he wasn't a choker again?

One series against GOAT player at his peak should be conclusive? (and while Ewing played bad on offense, he outrebounded and outblocked Hakeem, Olajuwon also averaged 3.6 TPG.)

Maybe we would talk about 1990 vs Boston, when he led Knicks to comeback from 0-2 deficit with amazing performances: 33/19 in G3, a 44/13/5 with 7 (!) steals in G4, and a 31/8/10 in G5?

Or about G5 in 1989 vs Bulls, when in last minute he hit two shots, three FTs and blocked Jordan shot?

Or about 1992 G5 vs Pistons, when Ewing led the Knicks to a victory in the deciding game with 31 points, 19 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocks?

Or about 1992 G6 vs Bulls, when playing on badly sprained ankle and facing elimination Ewing had 27 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks on 13/22 shooting to force the series to game 7?

Or about 1994 G7 vs Indiana, when after winning elimination game on the road, Ewing came up huge with 24 points, 22 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 blocks and gamewinning tip dunk?

Or about 1999 G5 vs Miami, when 36 years old, injured Ewing outplayed prime Mourning?

[ceiling raiser]

Thanks ElGee for the breakdown. You've eased my concerns enough to confidently vote for David Robinson ahead of Moses, though I definitely need to rewatch some tape before forming a more precise opinion as to his position.

Do you think ElGee's method is better than looking at team performance relatively to expected ortg/drtg? If yes, could you explain why, because I don't see it.

BTW, I had mistake in previous table (two series from 1990), here's correct one with opponents R_ORTG:

Code: Select all

year   round   seed 1seed2 G   DRTG   opp RS ORTG
1996   WCSF    SAS   UTA   6   5,7   5,7
1993   WCSF    PHO   SAS   6   -0,1   5,3
1991   WCFR    SAS   GSW   4   4,1   4,0
1996   WCFR    SAS   PHO   4   2,4   2,7
1990   WCSF    PTB   SAS   7   -0,1   2,4
1994   WCFR    SAS   UTA   4   4,0   2,3
1995   WCF     SAS   HOU   6   3,0   1,4
1995   WCSF    SAS   LAL   6   -9,3   0,8
1995   WCFR    SAS   DEN   3   -4,2   0,8
1993   WCFR    PTB   SAS   4   -2,5   0,3
1990   WCFR    SAS   DEN   3   -0,9   -0,1



Tendency is pretty clear, and overall against offenses with +2 or better R_ORTG Spurs defense underperformed by 2.4 DRTG, while against offenses with R_ORTG lower than 2 their defense was better than expected by 2.9 drtg. Pretty significant difference.

Of course some of the Spurs defensive struggles can be explained and it definitely wasn't Robinson's fault (as I showed in previous threads, when talked about 1994 vs UTA or 1991 vs GSW), but what with some other series, especially vs PHO?

EDIT
I vote for Robinson ;]

No, I still prefer relative ORtg/DRtg and a comparison to estimated ORtg/DRtg. However, his suggestions about the small sample size and the low likelihood of this being something more than noise, have put me in a position where I'm once again comfortable voting for Robinson over Moses. If another candidate was on the table for whom the comparison was closer (Dirk or someone else for instance), I'd feel the need to look more closely at the drop offs. This is something I'll have to do anyway when I try and determine an exact placement do for Robinson.

I do think the Phoneix series is a concern, I'm going to have to rewatch some tape and look at it more closely to determine if it was a fluke, or a larger problem.

Just a question: for which post-injury years are you comfortable with crediting Robinson as the anchor of the Spurs defense? Should we include those seasons in the comparison, or do you think they're too far from his prime to merit inclusion? Or do you think Duncan's influence is possibly too big for a fair comparison?