Okay so I'll make this my vote, but my mind is still open.
Vote: Charles Barkley
On the whole I find the criticism of Barkley to be not inaccurate, but I find the way his positives are brushed aside to very problematic.
So, we've got people here very much debating Barkley vs Pettit. While I personally see Pettit as a legit talent in any era and defend his early inefficiency, the gap between Barkley and Pettit as an offensive threat is massive.
When you factor in pace, it makes sense to see Barkley at at least comparable volume to Pettit.
Pettit at his best was in the 52-53% TS range, while Barkley was more like 65-66%. I know the league is a bit more efficient nowadays, but I don't think I have to go into detail for people to realize this gap is insane. And of course, it's insane not because of Pettit - my point is not to trash Pettit - but because Barkley is such an outlier.
So when people say "Yeah Barkley put up numbers like the other guys we voted in but he had a bad attitude", well no, Barkley didn't put up numbers comparable to the guys we've been voting in, he puts most of these guys to shame. The bad attitude is why he wasn't a serious candidate for the Top 5 or Top 10, but now we've long since gone past the guys who could make a case for being as impressive by the numbers he's strong at.
None of this means I consider him a lock here though for my vote. People asked about Ewing, and that's a great name to bring up. Frankly I would expect to draft Ewing over Moses who just got in a rather shocking landslide, presumably because I've heard talk that he won 3 MVPs.
So how do I choose between Barkley and Ewing?
Well I'll say up front that it is hard to choose against a 2-way big, which is the holy grail of prospects even today where bigs seem less important. My concern with Ewing is about how 2-way he typically was.
Just taken with more basic stats, this was a guy typically scoring well above 20 PPG with meh efficiency on teams that weren't really killing it on offense. Right there if you think like I do that most bigs shouldn't be shooting that much, you have to question whether Ewing was being used correctly. And of course Ewing theory doesn't help there.
If I go a bit more advanced and look at Offensive Win Shares, let's compare him, Barkley and their recently voted in peer:
Barkley 123.3
Robinson 98.5
Ewing 45.0
Pretty massive gap here between Ewing & Robinson let alone Barkley. Of course people end up debating Robinson vs Ewing, but that's because they think Robinson got worse in the playoffs. Barkley on the other hand if anything became even more dominant in the playoffs.
I'm hammering all this in because y'all know Barkley was much better than Ewing on offense, but you probably don't think of Barkley being 2-3 times as impactful.
And if we go into RAPM, it may get even worse. With the ubiquitous caveat in place that we don't have the earlier years, here's the Offensive RAPM for these two guys as we have them:
'98: Barkley 8.67, Ewing 0.51
'99: Barkley 7.81, Ewing 0.52
'00: Barkley 5.93. Ewing 0.47
This was what the guys looked like late in their career, with Ewing scoring a bit less than before, and Barkley outright NOT being his team's first option. Both almost certainly were better at their best, but holy crap, do you see the difference there? One guy is still an offensive superstar despite adjusting his role, while the other guy's impact is basically non-existent.
This sticks with me. It's be tough to vote for a true two-way superstar below Barkley, but I don't think that's what Ewing was. He might have been there briefly, but that's about it.
Now as I say all this I have to point out, if I gave the overall RAPM for these guys in those years Ewing's numbers are better than Barkley's.
I'll pause there to emphasize it.
You might be thinking, "Bloody hell Doc, how can you possibly go against Ewing if even in those circumstance he comes out on top?"
Thing is, late Barkley truly was awful on defense, and that's was gives Ewing the edge. If Barkley can be anywhere near neutrality, he wins this easily with that offensive edge, and in the end, I have trouble accepting that in his prime when things were truly on the line, Barkley was a major net negative on defense. He was just such an aggressive player getting boards, and steals, and even blocks. I'm not going to say he was great, but to truly claim that he was a millstone on defense and THAT is why I pick some offense-neutral big over him seems really, really bold to me.
