RealGM Top 100 List #21

[Owly]

Pettit vs Baylor: what's Pettit's case?

I've seen a lot of votes for Pettit in this thread, and I've seen others say that this spot is essentially between Pettit and Ewing. I've said all along that it's really hard to do cross-era comparisons, but Pettit has a contemporary still on the board that I'm struggling to see how he beats him. Keep in mind, a lot of this stems from my last few posts where I looked harder at the box score stats (late last night) after previously looking again at Pettit's postseasons vs his regular seasons. Taken together, Baylor just looks clearly better to me. But I'm definitely willing to be educated, for those that have Pettit as clearly the guy. But this is what I see:

Regular season, 10 year primes
Bob Pettit 1956 - 1965: 27 pts (51.3% TS), 16.5 reb, 3.0 ast (TO not kept)
Elgin Baylor 1959 - 1968: 28.1 pts (49.1% TS), 14.2 reb, 4.2 ast (TO not kept)

Playoffs, 10 year primes
Bob Pettit 1956 - 1965: 25.5 pts (50.1% TS), 14.8 reb, 2.7 ast (TO not kept)
Elgin Baylor 1959 - 1968: 30.7 pts (50.3% TS), 14.1 reb, 3.9 ast (TO not kept)

First, theer's not much need for pace adjustment here because those 10-year peaks almost completely overlapped outside of Pettit's 3-year head start. So if we just go macro and look at box scores, it certainly looks to me like Baylor is pretty clearly the more impressive of the 2. Pettit had small advantages in efficiency and rebounds in the regular season (vs. Baylor's small advantages in scoring volume and assists), but in the postseason Baylor improved his volume and efficiency while Pettit slid with the end result that Baylor seems to outperform him significantly in the postseason. Am I mis-reading this?

Accolades
I hear a lot about Pettit's 2 MVPs, his First Team All NBA finishes every season, and the championship that his team won over the Celtics. But again, even a cursory look indicates that these aren't really boons in comparison to Baylor. Baylor, too, was All NBA First Team every year during his 10-year prime. Which leaves the MVPs and the championship. So let's look closer at them:

Petit's first MVP in 1956
None of Russell, Wilt, Oscar, Baylor or West are in the league yet so (in a comparison with Baylor) it's fair to question whether Pettit's '56 would have been MVP-worthy just a few years later when Baylor was peaking. Also, look at Pettit's postseason that year:

Pettit in 1956
Reg: 25.7 ppg (50.2% TS), 16.2 reb, 27.3 PER (led NBA), .236 WS/48
Post: 19.1 ppg (48.2% TS), 10.5 reb, 21.5 PER, .108 WS/48

Pettit's production went through the floor that postseason. In his peak, Baylor never had a postseason this poor. So despite Pettit's regular season MVP (on a below .500 team) (at a time in between superstar talents), I don't see this season as anything that would give him an advantage over Baylor.

Hawks Championship year 1958
The fact that Pettit's Hawks beat Russell's Celtics is used as one of the big supports for Pettit's candidacy. However, upon closer examination: Russell was injured. That's not Pettit's fault, of course, but to me it takes the "he broke up Russell's dynasty!" card away from being played too hard. The Hawks that year were an 0.82 SRS team in the season (3rd out of 8 teams, well behind the Celtics' leading 5.02 SRS mark). So perhaps the narrative could be that Pettit dragged his average cast through the postseason to meet up with those Celtics, putting them in the right position to take advantage of Russell's injury?

But no, Pettit wasn't the one stepping up in the postseason to drag the average cast. It was Cliff Hagan who did that. 1958 playoffs;

1958 playoffs
Petit: 24.2 ppg (47.2% TS), 16.5 reb, 22.6 PER, .134 WS/48
Hagan: 27.7 ppg (57.6% TS), 10.5 reb, 27.5 PER, .312 WS/48

Hagan led the NBA in the 1958 playoffs in scoring, True Shooting Percentage, PER, FG% and WS/48. Essentially, he did in that championship run what I'd have expected Petit to do, and honestly I think superficial analysis leads many to believe that Petit in 1958 DID do what Hagan did. But he really didn't.

So again, let me be clear. The Hawks won the title, and Pettit will always have that Game 7. Those are great accomplishments, and not taking them away. But if I'm comparing Pettit with an era peer like Baylor, I don't see how that title should be used as a boost to Pettit's candidacy. In his peak, Baylor's postseasons were regularly stronger than the one that Pettit turned in and he didn't get the advantage of facing a Celtics squad with an injured Russell.

Pettit's 2nd MVP year: 1959
This is the last of the major accolade seasons that a cursory accolades count might use to rank Pettit ahead of Baylor. But again, in the words of the legendary Rafiki, "Look haaarder..."

Pettit won that MVP off his outstanding regular season performance, but rookie Elgin Baylor was right there with him finishing 3rd in the MVP vote. Baylor's Lakers, who just a season before were (by-FAR) the worst team in the NBA with 19 wins and a -5.79 SRS (next worst was 33 wins and -1.47 SRS) jumped up with rookie Baylor to a playoff-worthy 33 wins and -1.42 SRS (2nd in their division behind Pettit's Hawks with their 49 wins and +2.89 SRS). So it appears that the Hawks were clearly the better team, but in the regular season Rookie-of-the-year Baylor was very competitive with MVP Pettit. They were the two forwards on the All NBA 1st Team.

In the 1959 postseason as a whole Pettit's box score numbers were better than Baylor's:
Pettit: 27.8 ppg (50.4% TS), 12.5 reb, 22.9 PER, .188 WS/48
Baylor: 25.5 ppg (46.9% TS), 12.0 reb, 19.3 PER, .104 WS/48

However, Baylor led his 33-win Lakers to defeat Pettit's 49-win Hawks 4 - 2 in the Western Division Finals before eventually getting swept by the Celtics in the Finals (led by a fully healthy Bill Russell).

Again, my point here is not to say that Pettit didn't have a great season or that he didn't deserve his MVP. But if we're comparing with Baylor, and as a rookie that season Baylor was extremely competitive with Pettit in both the regular and postseason while leading his team to an upset victory over Pettit's Hawks...I just can't see how this season should be a feather in Pettit's hat.

Conclusion

Across their 10-year primes, it certainly looks to me like Baylor was competitive with Pettit in the regular season and clearly the better post-season performer. Pettit's accolades were deserved, but upon closer examination don't appear to give him any real advantage in this comp. So I ask again, for those voting Pettit here...what's his case over Baylor?

The difference is in league norms. Pettit's RS ts% (over their careers) edge isn't nothing (1.7 "percent", ts% not really a percentage). But in '55 (Pettit's rookie year) the league ts% was 0.455315731 and in '56 it's 0.457900659
. By '68 it's 0.497823894. Those are probably the extremes (the first year of your Pettit sample and the last of Baylor's). Ideally it would be more systematic but there's a fair chasm in terms of efficiency relative to the league in the non-mutual span and that shows up in the advanced metrics (Pettit prior to Baylor's arrival: 26.5 PER, .216 WS/48; Baylor after Pettit's retirement: 19.9 PER, .121 WS/48).

It's hard to get good info on either's D, but it seems like Baylor may not have been great, particularly in terms of possibly losing some mobility after his injuries.

Those are the reasons that came to mind for me in terms of what separates them.

The playoffs might be worth a closer look but with the smaller sample, the effects of competition (particularly Boston) and team performance, I'm less confident in it (and particularly metrics) as a fair barometer.

[Owly]

I hope people think about it a little more before "punishing" Stockton in the rankings because of not winning titles with Malone. We just had a Wade/Lebron pairing which is a guy who might even get ranked higher than Stock(tho he shouldn't) and a guy ranked much higher than Malone at his peak and they were one miracle away from only getting one title and they could easily have fallen to an old Celtics team in the ECF in 2012 and had none.

For a group of guys who hate "ringzzzzzzz" as an argument for, this sure seems odd as a reason to artificially push Stockton down the list. Winning championships is really hard and only one team gets to do it each year. Which is why those guys who have a bunch should be praised way more than those guys who don't have any should be critized, but the opposite seems to be happening here which really doesnt seem to make much sense.

It's not so much they didn't win a title, most years they didn't even come close. For example from 88-95 they got knocked out in Round 1 four times. It's not like they were 60 win finals teams every year

Remember, were holding them to "2 top 25 player all time standards".

The Warriors were a terrible matchup for the Jazz that year, similar to the Warriors against the Mavericks a couple of years ago. Coincidentally the coach was Don Nelson both times. The Warriors used Manute Bol, a nonfactor on offense who was hanging out in the perimeter, to pull Eaton out of the middle, negating Eaton's defensive effectiveness. There was no zone defense at that time. The Warriors used their speed, quickness, and outside shooting to beat Utah's size. Chris Mullin killed the Jazz with his outside shooting and nobody on the Jazz could slow him down. Bailey couldn't keep up with him. Besides Stockton the Jazz lacked ball handlers and guards who could create their own shots.

I agree with your assessment of that series, as that was my memory as well. Which was actually one of the hidden points of my post: Malone and Stockton were IMO too limited to be considered among the best-of-the-best All-Time. On offense they were stupidly ridiculous at the pick-and-roll and also very good at some other things, but as a duo they weren't able to either volume-score or facillitate enough team offense to outgun the best opponents. And on defense, while they were good at their particular skill sets (i.e. 1-on-1 D against a good big man, annoying perimeter D for Stockton) they weren't difference makers at that end of the court.

So what you were left with was 2 players that put up outstanding numbers over the course of their long and illustrious careers but could only be difference-makers in certain, specific ways. If the opponent didn't cooperate and play the game in a way that fit their skill sets (which the very best opponents tended not to), they couldn't win.

And again, this criticism likely comes out harsher than I intend, but the fact that there were TWO of them is what sways me. One All-time great player, by himself, is generally able to put a stamp on his team barring a perfect storm epic-failure to put anything around him. So if you have TWO of those players, in a stable environment for a decade-plus, I just can't buy the "there wasn't enough support" argument.

If Malone is a top-15 of All-time player, he should only have required a modicum of help to get his team to at least 50 wins on the regular. Any more than a "modicum" of help should have been a legit contender. There shouldn't be a whole lot of holes in his game that couldn't be covered by reasonable teammates. A great player with him should lead to at least one ring.

But if you go beyond even "great player" and put a TOP-30 PLAYER OF ALL-TIME with him, one that happens to be great in areas where Malone wasn't perfect (playmaking, clutch scoring), if both are REALLY that impactful as players, then that should lead to titles (plural) over 15 years. Luxuries like a DPoY, a great coach, a 6th man of the year candidate...those should just be piling on, taking an already championship caliber core to dynasty-level status. And the fact that it WASN'T...that they needed all of this extra support and still rarely even got to the big stage and never won...that is telling to me. It tells me that they aren't quite as impactful as their "All Time Rankings" suggest they should be.

Regarding the general point, I'm with Chuck. Certainly if it's put as they should have more titles that's a poor argument. I mean you can go along those lines but you have to do it year by year and say where they should have done better (probably looking at RS and playoffs). Otherwise it's very superficial. It's also not clear whether it's an argument against Stockton or Malone, so given we're not going to go back and redo Malone it's saying "Well here's a general criticism and we can't affect Malone now so we'll put all the blame on Stockton." Thats the impression that's left because, as noted, Malone's locked in. So if you say "2 top 25/30 (or whatever) guys can't have a career together and not win a title (or achieve whatever)" the presumed desired effect is to move down Stockton. Whereas where Stockton goes should be on the merits of John Stockton (and his merits relative to those in his ballpark).

[Owly]

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.

I think there's an issue with the bolded. Even if you think Starks was his second best player, he had an excellent defensive team around him in the mid-90s.

Oakley, Mason, Starks and Harper were all highly regarded defenders at their positions.

I suspect some might have Ewing theory issues whether he was compatible with offensive talent (these are certainly not stars, and injuries came into it but Charles Smith and LJ saw usage rates fall with a consequent bump in efficiency, Allan Houston's efficiency actually collapsed as well as his usage and his 1 good year "with" Ewing was the year Ewing played just 26 games; Chris Childs saw a drop off in both areas too, McDaniel's usage stayed the same but his ts% fell a little). Obviously you'd want to look closer to be confident on this, but I think it's worth considering how well he blended with more offensive-minded talent, if we're to bemoan a lack of it.

[DQuinn1575]

Pettit vs Ewing's ten year primes adjusted for pace in the playoffs was posted last page and anyway you look at it, Ewing is better offensively, tied or better as a rebounder and much better defensively in the postseason.

The big difference in Pettit's favor was the 29 ppg/17 reb in the finals to lead his team to victory versus
Ewing's finals performance

Now, if we look at who was better in their era again that has to do with competition. This board has Jordan, Olajuwon, Malone, Barkley, Robinson, Magic all as better players than Pettit already voted in. Imo, Pettit wouldn't have been top 8 in Ewing's era.

Agreed - I have (or would have) voted each of those players before Pettit.

This is why best player in era isn't comparing apples to apples either (especially "regarded" imo), because all those players weren't in the league in the 50s/60s, in their primes/peaks, with comparable rules, team support and competition as Pettit. Ex: Pettit isn't the league's best player competing against peak Jordan, Hakeem, Malone or Magic etc. imo. Pettit also had no all time great PF challenging him at his position. Ewing had the greatest collection of center talent in one era all time to compete against. If Pettit stayed at center he would get much less All NBA teams (or none certain years), with Wilt and Russell routinely beating him for that accolade.

Agreed again - each player's circumstance, environment, etc. is unique.

Also, Pettit stopped being the best player when Russell entered the league in 57-58 imo and it's questionable if he was better than Neil Johnston in 54-55. So that is a two year window, one of which (again I don't hold stock in accolades) Bob Cousy was regarded as MVP over him, which may or may not be correct individually.

Remember the players voted for MVP back then - and most of them voted Pettit MVP in 59.
As a matter of fact, it was the biggest margin in the 1st ten years of MVP voting, with the largest share
and the 3rd largest ever, behind Wilt in 1967 and Lewis Kareem in 1971.

In 58, Russell was first, but you can point to Pettit's championship -


So you have a 2 year period (58-59) where you have a good case that Pettit was equal to the 3rd best player of all-time.
Debatable, but how many people are in a debate with Russell? Wilt and Pettit.

And then a different 3 year period (61-63) where he is pretty equal with Oscar.

And go 62-64 pretty even with West.

It's hard to compare eras- I just think Pettit was better in his than Ewing's in his, and enough so t vote for Pettit.

[DQuinn1575]

Regarding the general point, I'm with Chuck. Certainly if it's put as they should have more titles that's a poor argument. I mean you can go along those lines but you have to do it year by year and say where they should have done better (probably looking at RS and playoffs). Otherwise it's very superficial. It's also not clear whether it's an argument against Stockton or Malone, so given we're not going to go back and redo Malone it's saying "Well here's a general criticism and we can't affect Malone now so we'll put all the blame on Stockton." Thats the impression that's left because, as noted, Malone's locked in. So if you say "2 top 25/30 (or whatever) guys can't have a career together and not win a title (or achieve whatever)" the presumed desired effect is to move down Stockton. Whereas where Stockton goes should be on the merits of John Stockton (and his merits relative to those in his ballpark).

Okay, take 89,90,91,92,93,96,99

That is 7 years in the playoffs where Malone and Stockton are pretty much in their prime, and are the 2 best players in the series. Get a pass for losing to MJ, Magic, or Hakeem.


Seven times they lost when they were the two best players in the series, who are in the Top xx of all time.
Anybody else in the top 20 have anything like that?

[Texas Chuck]

89--Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond were pretty good players in their own right, particularly Mullin.
Malone puts up 31/16 and STockton 27/14 both on really good efficiency.

Im not looking any further because its pretty clear they can play really well and their team still lose, no?

edit: LOL this looks worse and worse for you as I glance at a couple years. 1991 Drexler might have a say as being as good a player, no? Drops a triple double for the series. Malone only does 30/15 and Stockton 18/15 60% TS

In most if not all the years you listed the other team had comprable players that year(isn't really relevant how they rank all time, but simply their level that year) and Malone and Stockton mostly performed at high levels, especially Stockton.

If KG can be as high as he is with his prime team playoff results, Im stunned this is even an conversation and dropping it all in the lap of John Stockton is incredibly unfair.

[colts18]

Wade vs Nash in RAPM:

06-11 6 year study (Nash and Wade's prime):
Nash- +7.7 (4th overall)
Wade- +6.1 (7th)

08-11 4 year RAPM:
Nash- +7.8 (2nd)
Wade- +6.7 (7th)

01-14 14 year RAPM:
Nash- +6.0 (7th)
Wade- +5.6 (13th)

Nash has a lead in the RAPM stats.

[G35]

Stockton kind off opens up a can of worms especially this early and so close to Malone. Let's say he was voted at 21 or the next list at 22. The jazz would've had according to realgm the 17th and 21st/22nd best players to ever play this game(and people were trying to get Malone in much earlier) for their entire peaks/primes(and basically their entire careers) but had relatively mediocre postseason success. 1st round exits, multiple upsets, only 2 finals in 20 seasons and of course no titles.

This doesn't make sense. Either one would have to argue either

A. the jazz had historically poor coaching/supporting casts teammates
Or
B. One or both of them is not as good as we think.

What if we for example had other combinations of some players voted in that range for the same amount of time as that jazz duo.


Kobe/Drob
Barkley/Dr J
Dirk/Bird
M. Malone/Oscar

but had the same amount of success in the PS?

Well I think the argument to that point, which is a fair point, is each duo is not created equally.

The era each played in is different and the amount of sustained success (which is a big part of the Malone/Stockton arugment) is not there for some of these players e.g Moses, Oscar, Barkley. Also The Jazz of the 80's were going up against the Magic/Worthy/KAJ Lakers and no one else in the WC was really having much playoff success, besides Moses.

In the early 90's the Blazers had the best all around team, then Barkley's Suns. The years where the Jazz I think can be dinged for not winning was the Rockets years. But they weren't the only team to blow it, Payton/Kemp Sonics should have won in 1994, the Suns should have won in 1995.

But those other players can have playoff failures against them as well.

Dirk in 2006 and 2007 were big marks, but he redeemed himself in 2011
Erving (my favorite player) losing in 1977, 1980 and 1982, redeeming himself in 1983
Barkley from 1993-1995
Oscar having pretty much no success until he went to play with Kareem
DRob not having much success until Duncan came along

Stockton is in the 25ish range for me and that seems right. They did get to two finals and that's an accomplishment. Could Lebron and Wade have won any titles if they didn't have Bosh? That third piece is crucial and helped the Magic, Bird, Kareem, Jordan, Duncan all have success in the playoff's.....

[Jim Naismith]

Ultimately, I see a guy [Pettit] 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 question the magnitude of Pettit's decline in the playoffs.

He was 25.5 ppg / 14.8 rpg (22.6 PER) in the playoffs.

7-year run: 28.0 ppg / 16.0 rpg (23.7 PER).

He led the league twice in playoff PER, including in 1963 over Baylor, Oscar, and West.

Playoff scoring

Pettit is 8x top-10, 7x top-5, 5x top-3
http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _10_p.html

Playoff rebounding

Pettit is 8x top-10, 7x top-3
http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _10_p.html

Playoff PER

Pettit is 8x top-10, 6x top-5
http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _10_p.html

[tsherkin]

I question the magnitude of Pettit's decline in the playoffs.

Fair enough. I haven't looked into it TOO much, and might be facing undue emphasis on the 56 postseason.

Looking at 56-64, his best run of RS production, he posted 27.3 ppg on 21.9 FGA/g in 39.2 mpg. He posted a 43.9% FG, and 10.7 FTA at 75.9% FT for 51.3% TS. He led the league in RS PER in each of the first four of those seasons, then dropped from four straight seasons of 26+ PER to never posting higher than 25.2 again, and only managing 25+ twice in that span.

So that's 9 years. He had 8 postseasons in that time frame. He posted 26.1 ppg on 21.3 FGA/g in 41.1 mpg. He managed 41.9% FG, 10.7 FTA/g and 77.3% FT for a 50.2% TS.

So it seems you're right: his volume production slipped, both in per-game average and in terms of his rate (he was scoring less in more minutes on similar shooting volume), but his efficiency decline and what-not isn't totally out of sorts with the decline we see from plenty of other volume scorers in the postseason, and he counters his abysmal 56 with a pretty remarkable 63, leading the playoffs in PER, posting his best playoff TS% (54.3%) and so forth.

So perhaps I am indeed unduly influenced by his Ewing-esque collapse in the 56 playoffs. I should maybe cut him some slack for that being both his second season and his first postseason, upon reflection.

I still value Ewing's defense over what Pettit brings, so it doesn't change much now, but probably in an upcoming slot, it'll change what my opinion might be.

[tsherkin]

I think there's an issue with the bolded. Even if you think Starks was his second best player, he had an excellent defensive team around him in the mid-90s.

Oakley, Mason, Starks and Harper were all highly regarded defenders at their positions.

Absolutely. And when he had all of them, the Knicks were a 55 to 60-win team that went to the semis, ECFs, Finals and then the semis. That's a pretty strong team, despite generally not being that good on offense.

I suspect some might have Ewing theory issues whether he was compatible with offensive talent (these are certainly not stars, and injuries came into it but Charles Smith and LJ saw usage rates fall with a consequent bump in efficiency, Allan Houston's efficiency actually collapsed as well as his usage and his 1 good year "with" Ewing was the year Ewing played just 26 games; Chris Childs saw a drop off in both areas too, McDaniel's usage stayed the same but his ts% fell a little). Obviously you'd want to look closer to be confident on this, but I think it's worth considering how well he blended with more offensive-minded talent, if we're to bemoan a lack of it.

Houston and LJ didn't even enter the picture until Ewing was in his mid/late 30s, so I consider them entirely irrelevant. Never mind the fact that JVG was never a stunner as an offensive coach at any stop during his career. Great defensive coach, but sub-optimal in his offensive tactics.

Ewing was 31 by the time the Knicks made the Finals the first time. Houston and LJ didn't join the roster until 1997, by which point Ewing was already 34 years old and obviously declining (plus not 100% healthy any longer, either). I don't consider evaluation of his mix during that period to be super keen as far as examining him because he was old and unhealthy and playing for a lesser coach.

Meantime, LJ, who was experiencing worsening health of his own, saw his arrival on the Knicks coincide with a roughly 4.5% INCREASE in his 2FG% compared to his final year in Charlotte. In his first three years with the Knicks, he posted 57.0%, 53.9% and 55.4% TS. He'd been a 55.9% TS player in Charlotte over his time there, so there isn't an appreciable difference in his scoring efficiency. Johnson's efficiency dropped as Ewing played LESS, but not in his 78-game season. That doesn't really conjure the correlation I believe you're trying to convey.

With Houston, his 3P% dipped off as the line was pulled back out in his second year with the team, dropping him under 40% from 3 for a couple of years, and again, Ewing was playing less and less. He's a little bit more interesting a case, but presumptively, if it were Ewing's presence causing him problems then we'd have seen a boost in his efficiency immediately after that first season with Ewing playing so much less. We did not. He roughly maintained in 98 and then worsened in 99 before breaking out in 2000. We also see Ewing playing considerably fewer minutes per game even when he was playing in the 98 and 99 seasons, then playing a similar number of minutes when he played (62 GP) in the 2000 season. More Ewing, more efficiency. Little Ewing, less efficiency (in fact, Houston's WORST efficiency of that stretch). It's by no means a perfect correlation, but it's enough to cast doubt on that theory.

He worked well enough with Starks in the Finals season of 94, it's just that Starks wasn't good enough, and sucked terribly in the elimination game 7.

I agree that using Ewing as a high-20s scorer wasn't a good option. Kind of like the discussions we've had about Wilt's highest-volume days, it seemed more that the team benefited from a reduction in his volume more than him carrying the load at quite that level. Riley had him down from his peak scoring volume as well, and that seemed to work out for the best.

[Jim Naismith]

I question the magnitude of Pettit's decline in the playoffs.

I still value Ewing's defense over what Pettit brings, so it doesn't change much now, but probably in an upcoming slot, it'll change what my opinion might be.

Do you have Ewing above Dirk as well?

[DannyNoonan1221]

Pettit vs Baylor: what's Pettit's case?

I've seen a lot of votes for Pettit in this thread, and I've seen others say that this spot is essentially between Pettit and Ewing. I've said all along that it's really hard to do cross-era comparisons, but Pettit has a contemporary still on the board that I'm struggling to see how he beats him. Keep in mind, a lot of this stems from my last few posts where I looked harder at the box score stats (late last night) after previously looking again at Pettit's postseasons vs his regular seasons. Taken together, Baylor just looks clearly better to me. But I'm definitely willing to be educated, for those that have Pettit as clearly the guy. But this is what I see:

Regular season, 10 year primes
Bob Pettit 1956 - 1965: 27 pts (51.3% TS), 16.5 reb, 3.0 ast (TO not kept)
Elgin Baylor 1959 - 1968: 28.1 pts (49.1% TS), 14.2 reb, 4.2 ast (TO not kept)

Playoffs, 10 year primes
Bob Pettit 1956 - 1965: 25.5 pts (50.1% TS), 14.8 reb, 2.7 ast (TO not kept)
Elgin Baylor 1959 - 1968: 30.7 pts (50.3% TS), 14.1 reb, 3.9 ast (TO not kept)

First, theer's not much need for pace adjustment here because those 10-year peaks almost completely overlapped outside of Pettit's 3-year head start. So if we just go macro and look at box scores, it certainly looks to me like Baylor is pretty clearly the more impressive of the 2. Pettit had small advantages in efficiency and rebounds in the regular season (vs. Baylor's small advantages in scoring volume and assists), but in the postseason Baylor improved his volume and efficiency while Pettit slid with the end result that Baylor seems to outperform him significantly in the postseason. Am I mis-reading this?

Accolades
I hear a lot about Pettit's 2 MVPs, his First Team All NBA finishes every season, and the championship that his team won over the Celtics. But again, even a cursory look indicates that these aren't really boons in comparison to Baylor. Baylor, too, was All NBA First Team every year during his 10-year prime. Which leaves the MVPs and the championship. So let's look closer at them:

Petit's first MVP in 1956
None of Russell, Wilt, Oscar, Baylor or West are in the league yet so (in a comparison with Baylor) it's fair to question whether Pettit's '56 would have been MVP-worthy just a few years later when Baylor was peaking. Also, look at Pettit's postseason that year:

Pettit in 1956
Reg: 25.7 ppg (50.2% TS), 16.2 reb, 27.3 PER (led NBA), .236 WS/48
Post: 19.1 ppg (48.2% TS), 10.5 reb, 21.5 PER, .108 WS/48

Pettit's production went through the floor that postseason. In his peak, Baylor never had a postseason this poor. So despite Pettit's regular season MVP (on a below .500 team) (at a time in between superstar talents), I don't see this season as anything that would give him an advantage over Baylor.

Hawks Championship year 1958
The fact that Pettit's Hawks beat Russell's Celtics is used as one of the big supports for Pettit's candidacy. However, upon closer examination: Russell was injured. That's not Pettit's fault, of course, but to me it takes the "he broke up Russell's dynasty!" card away from being played too hard. The Hawks that year were an 0.82 SRS team in the season (3rd out of 8 teams, well behind the Celtics' leading 5.02 SRS mark). So perhaps the narrative could be that Pettit dragged his average cast through the postseason to meet up with those Celtics, putting them in the right position to take advantage of Russell's injury?

But no, Pettit wasn't the one stepping up in the postseason to drag the average cast. It was Cliff Hagan who did that. 1958 playoffs;

1958 playoffs
Petit: 24.2 ppg (47.2% TS), 16.5 reb, 22.6 PER, .134 WS/48
Hagan: 27.7 ppg (57.6% TS), 10.5 reb, 27.5 PER, .312 WS/48

Hagan led the NBA in the 1958 playoffs in scoring, True Shooting Percentage, PER, FG% and WS/48. Essentially, he did in that championship run what I'd have expected Petit to do, and honestly I think superficial analysis leads many to believe that Petit in 1958 DID do what Hagan did. But he really didn't.

So again, let me be clear. The Hawks won the title, and Pettit will always have that Game 7. Those are great accomplishments, and not taking them away. But if I'm comparing Pettit with an era peer like Baylor, I don't see how that title should be used as a boost to Pettit's candidacy. In his peak, Baylor's postseasons were regularly stronger than the one that Pettit turned in and he didn't get the advantage of facing a Celtics squad with an injured Russell.

Pettit's 2nd MVP year: 1959
This is the last of the major accolade seasons that a cursory accolades count might use to rank Pettit ahead of Baylor. But again, in the words of the legendary Rafiki, "Look haaarder..."

Pettit won that MVP off his outstanding regular season performance, but rookie Elgin Baylor was right there with him finishing 3rd in the MVP vote. Baylor's Lakers, who just a season before were (by-FAR) the worst team in the NBA with 19 wins and a -5.79 SRS (next worst was 33 wins and -1.47 SRS) jumped up with rookie Baylor to a playoff-worthy 33 wins and -1.42 SRS (2nd in their division behind Pettit's Hawks with their 49 wins and +2.89 SRS). So it appears that the Hawks were clearly the better team, but in the regular season Rookie-of-the-year Baylor was very competitive with MVP Pettit. They were the two forwards on the All NBA 1st Team.

In the 1959 postseason as a whole Pettit's box score numbers were better than Baylor's:
Pettit: 27.8 ppg (50.4% TS), 12.5 reb, 22.9 PER, .188 WS/48
Baylor: 25.5 ppg (46.9% TS), 12.0 reb, 19.3 PER, .104 WS/48

However, Baylor led his 33-win Lakers to defeat Pettit's 49-win Hawks 4 - 2 in the Western Division Finals before eventually getting swept by the Celtics in the Finals (led by a fully healthy Bill Russell).

Again, my point here is not to say that Pettit didn't have a great season or that he didn't deserve his MVP. But if we're comparing with Baylor, and as a rookie that season Baylor was extremely competitive with Pettit in both the regular and postseason while leading his team to an upset victory over Pettit's Hawks...I just can't see how this season should be a feather in Pettit's hat.

Conclusion

Across their 10-year primes, it certainly looks to me like Baylor was competitive with Pettit in the regular season and clearly the better post-season performer. Pettit's accolades were deserved, but upon closer examination don't appear to give him any real advantage in this comp. So I ask again, for those voting Pettit here...what's his case over Baylor?

I was trying my hardest to keep my bias towards Baylor out of this; his production while serving in the reserves and flying around the country to meet the team for games on the weekend to me is absolutely amazing. Which is why as I looked at Pettit I think I was leaning away from Baylor trying to compensate for that baylor bias. But this post has changed my mind.

I originally looked at Baylor's shooting percentages and thought they were too low, but to see how much he stepped up during the playoffs is enough to sway me.

I am changing my vote from Pettit to Elgin Baylor

[Jim Naismith]

According to this retrospective All-Defensive Team post
(from http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showth ... p?t=190405)

Bob Pettit

3x All-Defensive 1st team: 1956, 1958, 1960

6x All-Defensive 2nd team: 1955, 1957, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1964

So perhaps, Pettit is closer to Karl Malone or Kevin McHale on defense than he is to Dirk.

[Jim Naismith]

Pettit vs Baylor: what's Pettit's case?

I was trying my hardest to keep my bias towards Baylor out of this; his production while serving in the reserves and flying around the country to meet the team for games on the weekend to me is absolutely amazing. Which is why as I looked at Pettit I think I was leaning away from Baylor trying to compensate for that baylor bias. But this post has changed my mind.

I originally looked at Baylor's shooting percentages and thought they were too low, but to see how much he stepped up during the playoffs is enough to sway me.

I am changing my vote from Pettit to Elgin Baylor

The drza post you refer to curiously omits Pettit's 1957 playoffs.

In 1957, Pettit took the Celtics (with Russell and MVP Cousy) to 7 games, losing by 2 in double OT.

Pettit was #1 in scoring, #1 in PER, and #3 in rebounding that postseason.

[tsherkin]

Do you have Ewing above Dirk as well?

No, but Dirk is a different magnitude of offensive player than either, and a superior playoff performer by a considerable margin, so that's a little different in my books.

Pettit was a very good offensive player. Less effective in the playoffs than normal, but within the bounds of the usual decline.

If we're shaving off Pettit's first and last seasons to examine his best consecutive stretch, then we can do the same for Dirk. Nowitzki's best run was from 02-12, his chain of consecutive All-Star seasons.

He averaged 24.3 ppg and 8.6 rpg in the RS on 17.8 FGA/g in 37.1 mpg. He posted 58.3% TS. We'll ignore ORTG for now because we can't compare between the two. But in short, he was an elite offensive star during that stretch, one of the very best of all-time. He even had several years over 25 ppg, for the volume-inclined.

During that same stretch in the postseason, he averaged 26.2 ppg and 10.4 rpg on 18.5 FGA/g in 41.4 mpg. He posted 58.4% TS. So we're seeing increased volume with INCREASED efficiency and considerably improved rebounding.

In short, unlike Pettit, he maintained/improved his already incredible offense in the postseason. So in that respect, he was a more valuable offensive performer. Then we come back to Ewing; I like Ewing's offense, but I like the prospect of my focal offensive star being able to perform at a remarkable level without decline in the postseason, especially because he had more mobility as a big than most other big volume scorers in league history, and the longevity of his top-order offensive game was quite long as well.

As a result of that and his deviation from league average offensive efficiency/productivity, I find his offense to more valuable than Ewing, since it's clear that Dirk hasn't stood in the way of good team defenses for a long time now. In terms of a ranking list, I will generally argue for them to be very close to one another. Both played at times of strength at their respective positions. Ewing had Olajuwon, Robinson and Shaq as his peers (and even Moses and Kareem, earlier on). Dirk had Garnett, Duncan, even a bit of Karl Malone, and of course while Ewing was fighting for only one spot on a 1st Team and Dirk 2, Nowitzki still had to deal with Lebron, Melo, etc, etc. Ewing got a little more play on the 2nd team, Dirk a little more on the 1st team. Dirk has 12 years making an All-NBA team, Ewing 7. Dirk has 3 consecutive (and total) top-3 MVP finishes; Ewing, none. Ewing, though has 6 top-5 finishes to Dirk's 3, and scattered from 89-95, so a longer period of recognition. Dirk's got the MVP victory, he's got the ring, he had some pretty incredible postseason performances... and then the 06 Finals and the 07 first round to shave the edge off of his otherrwise-dominant postseason resume.

I find them very similar, but I rate Dirk just a little higher. IN terms of preference for team construction, I'd probably side with Dirk because of his legendary offense, but even in that respect, I find the two players to be in the same tier, close together.

[Owly]

Regarding the general point, I'm with Chuck. Certainly if it's put as they should have more titles that's a poor argument. I mean you can go along those lines but you have to do it year by year and say where they should have done better (probably looking at RS and playoffs). Otherwise it's very superficial. It's also not clear whether it's an argument against Stockton or Malone, so given we're not going to go back and redo Malone it's saying "Well here's a general criticism and we can't affect Malone now so we'll put all the blame on Stockton." Thats the impression that's left because, as noted, Malone's locked in. So if you say "2 top 25/30 (or whatever) guys can't have a career together and not win a title (or achieve whatever)" the presumed desired effect is to move down Stockton. Whereas where Stockton goes should be on the merits of John Stockton (and his merits relative to those in his ballpark).

Okay, take 89,90,91,92,93,96,99

That is 7 years in the playoffs where Malone and Stockton are pretty much in their prime, and are the 2 best players in the series. Get a pass for losing to MJ, Magic, or Hakeem.


Seven times they lost when they were the two best players in the series, who are in the Top xx of all time.
Anybody else in the top 20 have anything like that?

No offense but this is still superficial. Firstly the burden of proof would be on the people making a claim (though I'm not quite sure what the claim is). And then were going superficial again, just because a team has the players with the best careers it doesn't mean they are or should be expected to win (New Jersey this year, Portland '01 are extreme examples at a whole team level, and obviously this gets even more hazardous if you're only looking at the top couple of players). Otherwise its still the same "you can't have x top players in top y and not win a title" argument. Chuck has already covered this but you can't just look at all time rankings. Is it for instance your contention that beyond the top 2, Buck Williams was worse (or equal to) than Jeff Malone, that Duckworth and Clifford Robinson were worse than Mark Eaton and Mike Brown, ditto Jerome Kersey versus Blue Edwards, Danny Ainge, Mark Bryant and Walter Davis versus Thurl Bailey, Delaney Rudd and Tony Brown. Because if not (and I hope not) then what does saying they got eliminated by a team without top 20 (all-time) guys prove? It's not analysis. It's arbitrary. Feel free to show actual instances where you could say, "he didn't sufficiently outplay Terry Porter [to the degree you would expect of a player going here]" or "He was outplayed by Gary Payton" and those arguments will be evaluated on their merits and (if agreed with) weighted according to voters individual preferences. But to pretend their entire careers are dissapointing (and again at this point I'll re-emphasise, Malone is in, we're looking to evaluate Stockton now. I don't know the best place to argue wrongness with regard to Malone would be, probably a new thread; but not here) and alter Stockton's position based on surface level analysis of team performance, just seems odd to me.

[colts18]

Stockton and Malone from 88-95. Great post by some user on this forum:

The general opinion of most people is that a team with one ATG (Top 25) will usually be pretty good unless the supporting cast is quite bad and management is incompetent to do anything about it. If you pair two players in this range with a good coach you should have a perpetual front-line contender that regularly turns in dominant RS performances. If the two players in question have games that are perfect fits for each other and never suffer injury than you should expect regular deep runs in the post-season.

The 88-95 Jazz had these ingredients but the results didn't come close to expectations.

First the facts:

I. Cumulative Regular-Season Performance

2nd Best RS WP%
4th Best RS SRS

II. Individual RS Performance

1 season that ranks in the top 25 for wins over these 8 years
1 season that ranks in the top 25 for SRS over these 8 years

III. Post-Season performance

Code: Select all

    W   L      MOV  SRS of opponent
    33  37   -.09   3.96

4 1st Round exits in 8 years.

The 88-95 Jazz were consistently good from 88-95 but almost never great. While they turned in one dominant RS in most years they were a secondary contender.

In the PS, their performance was quite average. In half the seasons they didn't even get out of the first round and never made it to the finals. Only twice did they reach the conference finals.

The accepted wisdom is that Stockton and Malone were both in their prime during these years and that the former was at his peak. They were never hurt during the RS or PS. Jerry Sloan is assumed to be a good coach. At various times they had impact players on the defensive and offensive end of the court.

[Jim Naismith]

Do you have Ewing above Dirk as well?

No, but Dirk is a different magnitude of offensive player than either, and a superior playoff performer by a considerable margin, so that's a little different in my books.

Pettit was a very good offensive player. Less effective in the playoffs than normal, but within the bounds of the usual decline.

If we're shaving off Pettit's first and last seasons to examine his best consecutive stretch, then we can do the same for Dirk. Nowitzki's best run was from 02-12, his chain of consecutive All-Star seasons.

He averaged 24.3 ppg and 8.6 rpg in the RS on 17.8 FGA/g in 37.1 mpg. He posted 58.3% TS. We'll ignore ORTG for now because we can't compare between the two. But in short, he was an elite offensive star during that stretch, one of the very best of all-time. He even had several years over 25 ppg, for the volume-inclined.

During that same stretch in the postseason, he averaged 26.2 ppg and 10.4 rpg on 18.5 FGA/g in 41.4 mpg. He posted 58.4% TS. So we're seeing increased volume with INCREASED efficiency and considerably improved rebounding.

In short, unlike Pettit, he maintained/improved his already incredible offense in the postseason. So in that respect, he was a more valuable offensive performer. Then we come back to Ewing; I like Ewing's offense, but I like the prospect of my focal offensive star being able to perform at a remarkable level without decline in the postseason, especially because he had more mobility as a big than most other big volume scorers in league history, and the longevity of his top-order offensive game was quite long as well.

Pettit allegedly negative RS-PS delta and Dirk's positive RS-PS delta aren't especially relevant. Their PS performance relative to other contemporaneous players are pretty similar.

Playoff scoring

Pettit is 8x top-10, 7x top-5, 5x top-3
http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _10_p.html

Playoff rebounding

Pettit is 8x top-10, 7x top-3
http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _10_p.html

Playoff PER

Pettit is 8x top-10, 6x top-5
http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _10_p.html

Look at how often each name (Dirk's or Pettit's) pops up in the above year-by-year top-10 playoff lists. (In fact Pettit probably has an advantage.)

As a result of that and his deviation from league average offensive efficiency/productivity, I find his offense to more valuable than Ewing, since it's clear that Dirk hasn't stood in the way of good team defenses for a long time now. In terms of a ranking list, I will generally argue for them to be very close to one another. Both played at times of strength at their respective positions. Ewing had Olajuwon, Robinson and Shaq as his peers (and even Moses and Kareem, earlier on). Dirk had Garnett, Duncan, even a bit of Karl Malone, and of course while Ewing was fighting for only one spot on a 1st Team and Dirk 2, Nowitzki still had to deal with Lebron, Melo, etc, etc. Ewing got a little more play on the 2nd team, Dirk a little more on the 1st team. Dirk has 12 years making an All-NBA team, Ewing 7. Dirk has 3 consecutive (and total) top-3 MVP finishes; Ewing, none. Ewing, though has 6 top-5 finishes to Dirk's 3, and scattered from 89-95, so a longer period of recognition. Dirk's got the MVP victory, he's got the ring, he had some pretty incredible postseason performances... and then the 06 Finals and the 07 first round to shave the edge off of his otherrwise-dominant postseason resume.

I find them very similar, but I rate Dirk just a little higher. IN terms of preference for team construction, I'd probably side with Dirk because of his legendary offense, but even in that respect, I find the two players to be in the same tier, close together.

All your pro-Dirk points sound like good arguments for Pettit over Ewing

[ronnymac2]

Stockton and Malone from 88-95. Great post by some user on this forum:

The general opinion of most people is that a team with one ATG (Top 25) will usually be pretty good unless the supporting cast is quite bad and management is incompetent to do anything about it. If you pair two players in this range with a good coach you should have a perpetual front-line contender that regularly turns in dominant RS performances. If the two players in question have games that are perfect fits for each other and never suffer injury than you should expect regular deep runs in the post-season.

The 88-95 Jazz had these ingredients but the results didn't come close to expectations.

First the facts:

I. Cumulative Regular-Season Performance

2nd Best RS WP%
4th Best RS SRS

II. Individual RS Performance

1 season that ranks in the top 25 for wins over these 8 years
1 season that ranks in the top 25 for SRS over these 8 years

III. Post-Season performance

Code: Select all

    W   L      MOV  SRS of opponent
    33  37   -.09   3.96

4 1st Round exits in 8 years.

The 88-95 Jazz were consistently good from 88-95 but almost never great. While they turned in one dominant RS in most years they were a secondary contender.

In the PS, their performance was quite average. In half the seasons they didn't even get out of the first round and never made it to the finals. Only twice did they reach the conference finals.

The accepted wisdom is that Stockton and Malone were both in their prime during these years and that the former was at his peak. They were never hurt during the RS or PS. Jerry Sloan is assumed to be a good coach. At various times they had impact players on the defensive and offensive end of the court.

1988 — Lose WCSF in 7 games to Peak Magic and 4.81 SRS (3rd in league) Lakers, who eventually win title
1989 — Lose first round in sweep to gimmicky, below average Warriors team
1990 — Lose in first round 3-2 to Phoenix Suns (7.09 SRS, 1st in the league)
1991 — Lose WCSF in 5 games to Portland Trailblazers (8.47 SRS, 2nd in the league)
1992 — Lose WCF in 6 games to Portland Trailblazers (5.7 SRS, 3rd in the league, eventually push ATG Bulls team to 6 games in NBA Finals)
1993 — Lose in first round 3-2 to Seattle Sonics (6.66 SRS, 1st in the league)
1994 — Lose WCF in 5 games to peak Hakeem Olajuwon and eventual NBA champion Houston Rockets (4.19 SRS, 6th in league)
1995 — Lose in first round 3-2 to peak Hakeem, prime Clyde Drexler, and super-hot eventual champion Houston Rockets (Put up all-time great offense in the 1995 playoffs)

The only real disappointment in those 8 years is the 1989 result where a young Stockton and Malone lost to a meh GSW team that matched up well against them. 1989 DPOY Mark Eaton, who blocked 3.8 shots in the REG SEA, blocked 0.7 in that series against a jump shot happy Warrior team.

I'm not even voting for Stockton here, but to point to the team result is not fair to Stockton. Point to Stockton's play. Don't point to the team result. Utah as a team did just fine.