Post#99 » by tsherkin » Thu Aug 21, 2014 3:52 pm
Around now is when I'm starting to get comfortable with a guy like Patrick Ewing. I've enjoyed the conversation about Wade. drza's post above about Pettit is interesting.
I waffle here. It does look like this is coming down to Pettit/Ewing, and there I side with Ewing. Pat's offense was a bit overstated by the raw RS volume. His playoff performance is a little undervalued at times because of his high-profile failure in the 94 Finals. He generally shot a lot worse in the playoffs compared to the RS, not just that year, though. That said, a great deal of his playoff career (in fact, 101 of his 139 playoff games) came in his 30s, and then there were the back issues and his knees and all of that. When you combine that with his preference for wielding a 17-footer as a major weapon, it's not too surprising that he Malone'd out in the PS a lot, and after having had some talks with... lorak, I think? I've been reviewing his playoff career and it's... OK. A few strong moments, a trend of weaker scoring... Pat was never supposed to be a score-first guy. I mean, they billed him as Russell with offense coming out of college but he was never supposed to be that big-boom 25 ppg guy. He was defense-first, and he exceeded expectations in a lot of ways, save for being in New York and so high profile. Jordan also got to him a couple of times. Very good player, in any case. Used to rock a pair of Ewings back in the day, actually. Black and purple, baby.
I try not to hold 99 and 2000 against him. Mid/late 30s, I mean, that wasn't Pat, that was Decline Pat. He was crap on O against my Raptors in 2000, but they still won and he still posted nearly 15/10 at 37. Shot like crap, but still, he was there, defending, intimidating. It was good to see.
Peak/prime vs Pettit? I'd go with the defensive guy versus the offense-first guy who wasn't a stunner in most of his postseasons, I think. I figure you can build pretty strong squads around Ewing if you can make it so that John Starks isn't his second-best player, and while Ewing's implosion offensively against Houston is now infamous, he was still playing some very strong defense, which was more his calling card anyhow.
So he's missing some of the accolades, never got a ring, but he was an excellent, top-tier defender for a long time and he rose above his early limitations to become a pretty sound offensive player. Got that jumper, got that Georgetown Shuffl... I mean, mid-post face-up. Had great power. Moved pretty well for a guy his size in his physical prime. He was the anchor for the Knicks for years. When he had some decent coaching and reasonable talent around him, they were sick. Riles was there from 92-95, and the Knicks went for 51, 60, 57 and 55 wins, with Ewing as the centerpiece. They'd been a 39-win team before Riley got there. The main difference between the 91 and 92 Knicks was the staggering defensive turnaround. They added X-Man and Anthony Mason, played a lot less of Kiki Vandeweghe and a lot more of Mark Jackson... and Ewing kept on trucking, actually scoring a little less. Went from 12th of 27 to 2nd of 27 on D. They also became the third-slowest team in the league (25th) at 92.9, dropping from 95.0 and 22nd of 27 in pace, as part of Riley's emphasis on grinder ball.
Anyway, a lot of that is narrative stuff I suppose, but Ewing was able to function as the centerpiece for some quality defenses once he had some good coaching with a firmer vision of how to run the squad. He wasn't dominant enough to do much for his team offense as a volume option, the Knicks were a middle-of-the-pack offense with him in that role, especially because he wasn't an impressive passer/playmaker, but he did what was asked of him and never slacked off. We're generally out of the bracket of the monstrous titans of the league, but Ewing was still a guy who competed well within his era. Had he a legitimate #2, he'd have titled and perception around him would be a little different.
He was never as good on O as his in-era contemporaries at the 5, and that's the biggest separation in my mind. But he was a solid rebounder, an excellent defender, certainly not crap on O and we're getting into territory where he belongs.
Between him and a guy like Wade, I think I might still take Ewing. Feed him 15-18 shots per game, he'll give you a reasonable low/mid 20s scoring average and then you can use him as a defensive anchor. With his J, he'd do well in a PnP offense, which is the offense du jour in the contemporary league, and then put a legitimate #2 next to him and BOOM, contender. That's not a bad deal. Wade is clearly the superior offensive player, but I feel like the gap on O versus the gap on D still leaves me with Ewing ahead. I also don't mind that Ewing has better longevity than Wade, though that typically isn't a major factor for me past a given basic threshold. Wade's prime is busted up by injuries, his legacy impacted by crappy rosters and Shaq's decline/feud. Clearly, though, when healthy, 05-11 Wade was pretty damned amazing, and even a two-way player. He made the defensive leap before Lebron during their solo careers, for example.
I think I'd need to see more Wade-related stuff to swing my vote for him over Ewing, but he's on my mind keenly here, just lurking behind a couple of folks at the moment.
Pettit, what to say... I dither over players from that far back. Clearly, he translated forward better than someone like Mikan, but his playoff performance leaves me wondering. I get that he had a dominant stretch in his time, and in a comparison with a guy like Ewing, I have to be careful about slaughtering him for his postseasons. His first MVP sounds a lot like Dirk's 07 season. 56 was the first of his scoring titles, and he was just wretched crap that year in the playoffs. He beat out a third-year Russell for the 59 MVP, and that was the beginning of Russell's 8-year run of rings. It was also another scoring title for Pettit, and we see that his scoring volume translates forward into the 60s just fine, since he scored over 31 ppg in 62. Too bad about the whole Wilt-scoring-50-per thing. It behooves me to mention that while scoring his career-high 31.1 ppg that year, Pettit also set his then-career-high scoring efficiency at the same time. Couldn't see if he'd have maintained, though, because the Hawks were a 29-win squad who missed the playoffs.
Ultimately, I see a guy who was kind of like Ewing: good to wicked on O in the RS, declined significantly at times in hte playoffs. Ewing retains a defensive advantage, though, and that matters more to me than any perceived advantage at rebounding which Pettit might have, or the narrative of him beating second-Russell's Celtics out for the title in 58, etc.
I like the Gilmore mention. I think he's an interesting player to consider. Gilmore would probably looked upon more favorably if he'd spent more of his 20s in the NBA, I think. He proved in his late 20s that he could still be a low/mid 20s scorer in the NBA, and he was insanely efficient. In his 82 Chicago season, he posted a 70.2% TS. o.O 18.5 PPG on 10.2 FGA/g while he set his career-high FT%. He was 32, playing 34 mpg. The team wasn't that good on offense and was bad on defense, though, so they were not at all successful. That kind of thing sticks out to me, I guess. I'd need to look more at his team results and the way he was deployed.
I guess this one's going to a run-off, though, or at least a two-person finale, so I'm going to vote for Patrick Ewing. I may alter my vote later if I see some really compelling stuff, though.
