RealGM Top 100 List #21

[Jim Naismith]

I vote for Ewing, because of his GOAT level defensive dominance and at least slightly above average impact on offense. Pettit doesn't impress me that much, especially in light of what we've learned during RPOY project - that for example Hudson was better player during some Hawks playoffs runs.

Lou Hudson started playing in 1966-67, so he never overlapped with Pettit, who retired in 1965.

[penbeast0]

RUNOFF

12 Pettit – penbeast0, Jim Naismith, DQuinn1575, Warspite (62), trex_8063 (67), Ryoga Hibiki (84), Clyde Frazier, batmana, Owly,lukekarts, Chuck Texas, DannyNoonan1221
12 Ewing – ronnymac2, ShaqAttack3234, tsherkin (99), SactoKingsFan (100), 90sAllDecade, drza, GC Pantalones, fpliii, magicmer1, colts18, DoctorMJ, lorak

[lorak]

that for example Hudson was better player during some Hawks playoffs runs.

Hudson? They never played together. I believe you mean Hagan.

Of course you are right

[DQuinn1575]

I want to share some info about how great some of those Ewing & Riley Knicks defenses were.



http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=6205

From 1991 to 1992 the Knicks went from 12th in the league to 2nd in defense.

How?

Minutes 1991 1992

Ewing 3104 3150
Oakley 2739 2309
Vandeweghe 2420 956
Wilkins 2164 2344
Cheeks 2147 x
Jackson 1595 2461
Tucker 1194 x
Starks 1173 2118
McDaniel x 2344
Mason x 2198


They added McDaniel and Mason and gave a lot more minutes to Starks - all 3 very aggressive and very good defenders

They lost 34 yo Cheeks and Tucker, plus gave far fewer minutes to older and never very good on defense Vandeweghe.

They kept Ewing and Oakley, their two best defenders.



In 1993 the all-defensive voting by the coaches

Starks 2nd team 4 first place - 14 points

HM
Oakley 1 first place - 7 points
Mason 1 first place - 7 points
Ewing 1 first place - 6 points


So, the great defense, but the coaches gave credit to 4 of the 5 starters.

This is probably one of the best 5 man defensive units ever - when McDaniel was the weak link and you have 4 great defenders.

Ewing deserves credit for being good, but all-time great defense is due to 5 guys, not 1.

[lorak]

In 1993 the all-defensive voting by the coaches

Starks 2nd team 4 first place - 14 points

HM
Oakley 1 first place - 7 points
Mason 1 first place - 7 points
Ewing 1 first place - 6 points


So, the great defense, but the coaches gave credit to 4 of the 5 starters.

That's very wrong way to look at that, because of positions splits and Ewing's competition at center. Not to mention that we can't be even sure if coaches really vote or theirs assistants or assistants assistants...

[FJS]

I'm going with Pettit. He had individual success and great prime. He was able to win a ring as the man. Still it's pretty close with pat.

[penbeast0]

I don't think it's wrong; his point is that there were a number of good defenders on that team (rather than a 1 man show) and that is evidence supporting that fact. Sanders, Havlicek, and KC Jones were excellent defenders on Russell's Celtics (Heinsohn, Cousy, and probably Ramsey weren't for the earlier incarnation). Doesn't mean Russell and of course Ewing aren't great defenders though.

[Texas Chuck]

In 1993 the all-defensive voting by the coaches

Starks 2nd team 4 first place - 14 points

HM
Oakley 1 first place - 7 points
Mason 1 first place - 7 points
Ewing 1 first place - 6 points


So, the great defense, but the coaches gave credit to 4 of the 5 starters.

That's very wrong way to look at that, because of positions splits and Ewing's competition at center. Not to mention that we can't be even sure if coaches really vote or theirs assistants or assistants assistants...

I think his point is simply that the defense was viewed as a solid team effort, not that any of those other players were more important defensively than Patrick. I think its obvious Pat was the anchor of those defenses. But its like Ben Wallace in Detroit, Duncan in SA, KG in Boston---they also had a good defensive coach and solid teammates up and down the lineup.

edit: and of course Im slower than penbeast...

[DQuinn1575]

In 1993 the all-defensive voting by the coaches

Starks 2nd team 4 first place - 14 points

HM
Oakley 1 first place - 7 points
Mason 1 first place - 7 points
Ewing 1 first place - 6 points


So, the great defense, but the coaches gave credit to 4 of the 5 starters.

That's very wrong way to look at that, because of positions splits and Ewing's competition at center. Not to mention that we can't be even sure if coaches really vote or theirs assistants or assistants assistants...

1. Well, even with position splits the voters picked Ewing 3rd, and only 1 gave him a first place vote. Yes, he had tough competition.
2. What's wrong with the assistant coaches' voting? Do you think they are not knowledgable about who is good on defense? Everyone seems to criticize coaches' voting because of this.

Overall, I think the assistant coaches at the time have a better idea who was good on defense in 1993 then the people on an internet board 21 years later, many of whom never saw even one complete regular season game in 1993. I would bet that every single one of those voters watched more games and tape from the 1993 regular season than virtually anyone on this board.

[DannyNoonan1221]

In 1993 the all-defensive voting by the coaches

Starks 2nd team 4 first place - 14 points

HM
Oakley 1 first place - 7 points
Mason 1 first place - 7 points
Ewing 1 first place - 6 points


So, the great defense, but the coaches gave credit to 4 of the 5 starters.

That's very wrong way to look at that, because of positions splits and Ewing's competition at center. Not to mention that we can't be even sure if coaches really vote or theirs assistants or assistants assistants...

1. Well, even with position splits the voters picked Ewing 3rd, and only 1 gave him a first place vote. Yes, he had tough competition.
2. What's wrong with the assistant coaches' voting? Do you think they are not knowledgable about who is good on defense? Everyone seems to criticize coaches' voting because of this.

Overall, I think the assistant coaches at the time have a better idea who was good on defense in 1993 then the people on an internet board 21 years later, many of whom never saw even one complete regular season game in 1993. I would bet that every single one of those voters watched more games and tape from the 1993 regular season than virtually anyone on this board.

Thank you for this. It solidifies what that very, very small sample of clips in the video posted showed me; definitely a team defensive effort, and while Ewing was the big athletic center "anchoring" it, to me it wasn't the traditional anchoring that has been attached to many of the centers already voted in here. The rotations and spacing and split second decisions made by all 5 defenders is the most vital aspect of that type of defense and to me brings down the amount of impact ewing has been getting for being the center on that team.

[lorak]

penbeast, Chuck,
if that's the point then ok, but it's so obvious that no one in hsitory can alone lead defense to GOAT level that I don't see why somone would make such point? I mean - as you noted - every defensive anchor needed good defensive supporting cast, so how that information changes anything, what was said here about Ewing?

ps
penbesast,
your count above is a little bit off: it was tie 12-12 then, but now with FJS vote Pettit has one vote advantage.

[shutupandjam]

Vote: Patrick Ewing

My approach to the project is this: which guy do I think will give me the most championships on average if I get his career in a random era?

And if I'm honestly choosing between these two, it's just no contest to me - Ewing is clearly superior defensively in any era, and I'm not sure how well Pettit's offensive edge in his era would hold up in others.

[DQuinn1575]

penbeast, Chuck,
if that's the point then ok, but it's so obvious that no one in hsitory can alone lead defense to GOAT level that I don't see why somone would make such point? I mean - as you noted - every defensive anchor needed good defensive supporting cast, so how that information changes anything, what was said here about Ewing?

ps
penbesast,
your count above is a little bit off: it was tie 12-12 then, but now with FJS vote Pettit has one vote advantage.

At least one person called him GOAT on defense
At least one person asked how much of 93-94 was due to Ewing

I'm just providing info that Mason, Starks, Oakley were really good defenders

- imo better individually then the perimeter guys on Boston with Garnett or SA with Duncan.

Ewing was great defensive player - and much better than Pettit (and I voted for Pettit)

[tsherkin]

I think that may be the sunny side of analysing the Knicks performance. The counter-argument might say just two serious contenders (5.87 SRS in '93, 6.48 in '94, no other teams above 4 and playoff performances from Ewing in the following two years that pretty much precluded them from being serious contenders even if you were optimistic about the performance of those teams).

I suppose that's one perspective to be had, but I don't count it a negative against Ewing that his teams didn't do a ton more, 1994 excepted. I think he did pretty well with what he had. I'm not typically a huge pro-Ewing guy because he is most frequently being compared to guys I hold a lot better than him, but stand-alone, I generally appreciate that he did very well without the same kind of offensive support that many others have enjoyed en route to a title.

I'll do so briefly. I don't mind people saying van Gundy (or any coach) wasn't optimising the O so long as we give them credit for where they were strong (so not overcrediting Ewing for D).

Big respect to JVG for defense; I thought the same thing of him when he coached Houston: good D, weak O.

That said, New York's DRTG was roughly the same relative to league average even before JVG got there.

To whit, they were at -4.0 or better from the 91-92 season when Riley got there through the 00-01 season. -8.3 and -8.1 in 93 and 94. -4.1 in the 96 season, with JVG coaching only 23 games and Don Nelson coaching the rest. Don't know how much JVG should get credited for that, as a result. Obviously, coaching was very important because the Knicks weren't anything like that before Riley's arrival, so he gets kudos for maintaining the system, and then adapting to Ewing's decline of course. And keeping the team focused on defense, as well.

The point wasn't that Johnson's efficiency got worse with Ewing, it was that a substantial drop in usage saw minimal affect on his efficiency, with Johnson resuming a larger role we'd expect the efficiency to drop somewhat, though if incompatability with Ewing was the only issue in this drop over this period we would expect him to be at roughly pre-NY level, that he isn't suggests playing Ewing isn't the only thing that hurt him, but it doesn't say that it hasn't done so.

His efficiency would only necessarily return to the same level if he was capable of doing the same things while removing a lot of the less-efficient shots he used to reach that volume in the first place, though, no? LJ wasn't able to move the same way, wasn't able to dominate quite the same way. I don't know, I can't make a firm comment here because I don't remember him THAT much, particularly in the late 90s. But you'd expect that he'd see some element of change based on Ewing's presence or absence if Ewing himself was a significant factor, and that doesn't appear to be the case.

I don't recognise your characterisation of Houston's NY years. After the initital significant fall (a rare double fall in usage and efficiency) upon arrival in NY, his TS% stays nearly identical to the previous year (.001 down) despite a massive boost in usage (22.2% to 26.7%) without Ewing (advanced metrics help corroborate increased producivity). Then Ewing returns and again both ts% and usage fall. Only '00 doesn't really fit in that Ewing is playing essentially playing the same amount (very slight reduction from 53.7190083% of available minutes to 0.513111447). This though hardly disproves that Ewing has impeded Houston's offensive performance.

Houston's USG%, TS%

95: 23.5%, 58.9%
96: 25.4%, 57.6%
97: 22.2%, 53.1% (goes to the Knicks, Ewing plays 78 G)
98: 26.7%, 53.0% (line pulled back out, Ewing plays 28 G)
99: 24.3%, 51.5% (lockout year, 50 GP, Ewing plays 38 G)
00: 24.0%, 56.9% (Ewing plays 62 G)

I don't follow. Houston fell off of a cliff efficiency-wise in 97 with Ewing, sure, but then he got a little worse (basically the same) the year after with Ewing playing less than 30 games. Then he got even worse, but Ewing still played less than half of the season, and then with 62 games played from Ewing in 00, Houston's efficiency returned to form. I don't see the correlation with Ewing's presence very strongly at all.

[quote[it this corroborates suggestions that he might have been a difficult player to build around offensively. [/quote]

Hmm, we may actually be saying the same thing. I don't ultimately debate the idea that Ewing wasn't a great piece to use as a focal offensive weapon. That said, the Knicks were safely a 106+ ORTG team back to Rick Pitino's days in the late 80s every year. Sometimes even higher. They declined some with league average declining in general, and then went 104, 103 and 98 under Van Gundy. That's a marked departure from the offensive efficacy of the team in years past, even featuring Ewing more prominently, so I don't necessarily agree that it's sensible to use the teams where Ewing was in his late 30s as a legitimate way to evaluate his utility as an offensive piece.

Keep in mind, from 86-96, the Knicks hovered around -2.5 under league average ORTG, with a brief spurt in Pitino's last season and in the Don Nelson season. Then in 97 under JVG, they were at +0.4... and then in the two following years with Ewing missing tons of games, they were back down to -2.1 and -2.0.

That kind of flips the idea that his presence correlates with suppression of offense, although it does occur at the same time as high-usage Houston was sucking a lot while Ewing wasn't playing.

I think there's definitely a threshold where older Ewing didn't need to be getting so many shots, but after 97 (which was his last all-star season), he took 15.5, 14.9 and 12.5 FGA/g in his injured seasons and played around 33 mpg. It's not like he was the focus of the offense anymore. So again, I don't see this as a major point against Ewing because it's really fuzzy in terms of the connection between these events, and the relevance to team offense. The late 90s were the beginning of the steep decline in offensive efficacy we saw league-wide, particularly with declining pace, so looking at raw ORTG for the team doesn't do a ton, especially since their differential against league average looked to favor Ewing's presence.

As to teammates getting less efficient, there is essentially an unknown. Houston's decline continued sharply even in Ewing's absence, so there isn't anything but the most tenuous of connections there, especially since his resurgence coincided with the most games Ewing had played since 97 anyway. LJ, couldn't tell you, but he was aging, shooting more and less healthy, so I'm not ultra surprised. He dropped off each year until he retired, with Ewing playing and shooting less and less each successive season, so that's also not an awesome correlation. He also played more than 70 games in 97, and then never again, with his back getting progressively worse.

I suspect strongly that there are multiple reasons for these efficiency drops, and since they happened whether or not Ewing was playing lots of games or minutes, I can't really see the idea that it's clearly related to him. And again, we're talking about a guy in his late 30s, so I don't see the relevance of using that as a way to describe anything about building around him, which is generally done in a player's prime. Pitino put together a team with a 111.1 ORTG around Ewing taking about 16 FGA/g and scoring 22.7 ppg, which looks a lot like the way Riley used him in the mid-90s. Even Stu Jackson was able to produce a 109.4 offense in Ewing's first big-volume season, so it seems more that things were generally OK with Ewing when he was younger.

Maybe if you want to say that the team held onto Ewing as a volume option a little long? He was never the same after the 95 season, his efficiency dropping off and not really recovering aside from one of his injured seasons and he started to turn the ball over quite a bit more. I guess you could say the same thing of his time with Riley; after 92, Ewing wasn't really all that hot an option as a volume scorer, though his usage remained the same through the remainder of the 90s, basically.

(Charles Smith, Xavier McDaniel).

Charles' Smith's efficiency was essentially identical in his first season with the Knicks as it had been the year before with the Clippers (54.2% TS versus 54.3%). It didn't decline until he played half a season in 1998 due to injury. Then it immediately bounced back to 54.4% in 99. It fell off after that, but he played a 73 game season and a 19 game season before retiring, so I don't count that as ultra-meaningful.

Xavier McDaniel played one year with the Knicks, and he had a down year. He shot worse from the line, he got to the line less and he shot worse from the field. He was, of course, an inefficient player to begin with even before arriving in New York, so him going from one below-average efficiency to a worse one for a year isn't entirely strange.

Childs' efficiency went down because in his second season, he posted a career-high FTR, which dropped off the year after, and then he also decreased his 3pt volume.

96: 41.6% FG, 36.7% 3P, 3.3 3PA/g
97: 41.4% FG, 38.7%, 2.8 3PA/g

Not a staggering impact on his actual ability to make shots. The FTR recovered a little in 98, then dropped off again. Also keep in mind that he HIT the league at 27 and was 29 by the time he started playing for the Knicks, so his physical tools were in decline by that point as well. He also set a career-high in 2FG% in 1998, his second year with the Knicks.

And again, we can return to sub-optimal deployment under JVG's offensive scheme as a further point.

One might look at his inability to mesh with Cartwright and Anthony Mason's flourishing as a playmaker outside New York (though Mase didn't increase scoring volume much and lost some shooting efficiency) as further concerns.

Can't imagine Cartwright being a legitimate concern; both were centers, not sure what else could be expected. Cartwright was a weaker passer (as was Ewing) and wasn't a brilliant shooter, had limited mobility... it's hard to mesh with him unless you dramatically cut his usage. He was injured for all but 2 games in Ewing's rookie season, played only 58 games the year after, and then he was a 30 year-old, 20 mpg roleplayer thereafter. There isn't anything else to be said about him, no? He went to Chicago as a similar low-usage roleplayer, so it's not like he flourished after leaving Ewing's side, he actually shot a lot worse once he got to Chicago.

Mason... actually had his two best seasons ITO FG% for the Knicks in 95 and 96. He shot MORE when he left the Knicks, but I don't know if that's really important. Flourishing as a playmaker happened, sure, he was an experimental point forward, but keep in mind that this started in 96 under Don Nelson in noticeable fashion, but even before with Riley.


He generally hit his peak as a player from about 95-97 as he hit 30 and we saw some of it in New York and some of it in Charlotte. I wouldn't go so far as to say he didn't mesh too well with Ewing on the court, though. He was 6MOY in 95 for New York, too.

I'm not hugely against Ewing here just raising concerns because he hasn't been in the discussion for long.

And it's good fun digging back into those Knicks teams anyway.

The most prominent (and recurring) criticisms are that he bought on too many of his mans fakes (a member of the parachute or paratrooper club) and that he fouled too much (though it is suggested he often got away with it due to star status)

He fouled a lot in the 90s because that was literally Riley's mandate. The whole team did. "No layups," remember? And because he was a shot blocker, in part. That said, from 91-97, he averaged 3.4 PF/g. Before that, 3.9 PF/g.

Olajuwon averaged 4.0 PF/g from 85-92 and then 3.5 from 93-97.

It wasn't really out of sorts for such a player to foul a lot.

Wow, this post went on longer than intended.

I know what you mean...

[Texas Chuck]

My approach to the project is this: which guy do I think will give me the most championships on average if I get his career in a random era?

I'm curious about this approach. Don't you think there are dangers in this approach? Why would a player playing in way to maximize his impact under a very specific set of rules and circumstances be punished because you don't think he would do as well under a set of rules and circumstances he never played under? Isn't it clearly more valuable to be the best you can be in your actual era rather than being maybe more suited to playing in more eras? After all you can only play in the time you played.

[ceiling raiser]

The Rick Barry Scouting Bible's gave him
'90 edition (after '89 season): AAA
'91: AAA
'92: A
'93: A
'94: B+
'95: A
'96: B+
'97: A
The most prominent (and recurring) criticisms are that he bought on too many of his mans fakes (a member of the parachute or paratrooper club) and that he fouled too much (though it is suggested he often got away with it due to star status)

Now given some of these are close to average (B - or which in their own words is "middle of the pack) these are surely going too far (and they are just opinions, though presumably informed ones), but it does give you some pause. The biting on fouls might help explain why he didn't (iirc) fare too well in head-to-heads with other elite centers.

Sorry to bother you, but I'm just wondering about a couple of things:

1) Do you have the grades on defense for Olajuwon and Robinson for that same span for comparison?
2) In which other categories are players graded?

It's always great to have more qualitative information with which to analyze players, especially since based on your note about the '90 edition being based on the '89 season, the 8 years of the Guides end right when the play-by-play era begins (96-97).

[90sAllDecade]

I want to share some info about how great some of those Ewing & Riley Knicks defenses were.



http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=6205

From 1991 to 1992 the Knicks went from 12th in the league to 2nd in defense.

How?

Minutes 1991 1992

Ewing 3104 3150
Oakley 2739 2309
Vandeweghe 2420 956
Wilkins 2164 2344
Cheeks 2147 x
Jackson 1595 2461
Tucker 1194 x
Starks 1173 2118
McDaniel x 2344
Mason x 2198


They added McDaniel and Mason and gave a lot more minutes to Starks - all 3 very aggressive and very good defenders

They lost 34 yo Cheeks and Tucker, plus gave far fewer minutes to older and never very good on defense Vandeweghe.

They kept Ewing and Oakley, their two best defenders.



In 1993 the all-defensive voting by the coaches

Starks 2nd team 4 first place - 14 points

HM
Oakley 1 first place - 7 points
Mason 1 first place - 7 points
Ewing 1 first place - 6 points


So, the great defense, but the coaches gave credit to 4 of the 5 starters.

This is probably one of the best 5 man defensive units ever - when McDaniel was the weak link and you have 4 great defenders.

Ewing deserves credit for being good, but all-time great defense is due to 5 guys, not 1.

Accolade voting is often inaccurate and many times incorrect. Just ask Def. 1st team Kobe when he was aging clearly inaccurately voted by those same coaches.

But I will say those guys definitely helped make it a historic defense, but Ewing when he was healthy and was already anchoring a top 10 (5th to 13th range) defense with lesser defensive help/team support and lesser coaching before those guys even became Knicks in 1988:

1988 NY Knicks

7th Drtg

Starting lineup

PG: Mark Jackson
SG: Gerald Wilkins
SG: Kenny Walker
PF: Sidney Green
C: Patrick Ewing (healthy, 3rd season age 25)

Coach: Rick Pitino

None of those guys got defensive voting or consideration in their careers besides Ewing who made the Def. 2nd team tied with Mark Eaton behind only Hakeem Olajuwon, the GOAT modern defensive player.

Also when he was old he was still the anchor of a top 5 defense without Oakley, Starks and Mason, with the 4th Drtg 98-99 Knicks at age 36. He lead all NY players in Drtg in the RS and got hurt in the playoffs.

If he played in an era without Olajuwon and Robinson in his peak, he'd have much more defensive teams and DPOY consideration imo. Mason, Starks and Oakley had nowhere near that kind of defensive talent to compete against position-wise.

Before those three, when healthy Ewing doing what a top defensive anchor does, taking lesser supporting casts and making them good or average defensively.

When he got an all time level coach and defensive talent around him (he still had to carry the offensive load predominantly though) he anchored arguably the GOAT defensive team, was the rim protector, an excellent help defender and lead the Knicks in Drtg the entire time.

[Narigo]

Vote: Bob Pettit

He was the best player in the league in the 50s when Mkan retired from the league. He is definitely one of the best scorers in NBA History. He was great shooter and was good at drawing fouls. He is also one of the best offensive rebounders ever. He was the first player to score 20,000 points ever. He was a average to good defender as well.

[Owly]

The Rick Barry Scouting Bible's gave him
'90 edition (after '89 season): AAA
'91: AAA
'92: A
'93: A
'94: B+
'95: A
'96: B+
'97: A
The most prominent (and recurring) criticisms are that he bought on too many of his mans fakes (a member of the parachute or paratrooper club) and that he fouled too much (though it is suggested he often got away with it due to star status)

Now given some of these are close to average (B - or which in their own words is "middle of the pack) these are surely going too far (and they are just opinions, though presumably informed ones), but it does give you some pause. The biting on fouls might help explain why he didn't (iirc) fare too well in head-to-heads with other elite centers.

Sorry to bother you, but I'm just wondering about a couple of things:

1) Do you have the grades on defense for Olajuwon and Robinson for that same span for comparison?
2) In which other categories are players graded?

It's always great to have more qualitative information with which to analyze players, especially since based on your note about the '90 edition being based on the '89 season, the 8 years of the Guides end right when the play-by-play era begins (96-97).

Olajuwon
'90 edition (after '89 season): AAA
'91: AAA
'92: AAA
'93: AAA
'94: AAA
'95: AAA
'96: AAA
'97: AAA

Robinson
'91 (after '90 season): AAA
'92: AAA
'93: AAA
'94: AAA
'95: AAA
'96: AAA
'97: AAA

From the start they were rated on
Scoring; Shooting; FT Shooting; Ball Handling; Passing; Defense; D Rebounding; Shotblocking; Playmaking; Intangiables; Overall

Playmaking is just for those who play the 1 (including combo guards so in the '90 version MJ has a rating in it because he'd played a little point the year prior); shot blocking is just for "bigs" (4s and 5s).

For the final three years theres a distinct offensive rebounding category (for forwards and centers).

In the written player summaries it's split into
Season summary/scoring; Defense/Defensive rebounding; The floor game [passing, screening, running the court, BBIQ here]; Intangiables and overall.
Except the final edition, which goes: Season summary; His Game; His Attitude; Needs to Work on; Where He's Headed and finally, In a Nutshell

[ccameron]

I'll be more specific about my "great situation" comment:

Wade has been relatively injury prone throughout his career. When he missed time or struggled on the court due to injury pre-lebron, the heat suffered mightily as he didn’t have a great supporting cast. When you bring in the best player on the planet, that changes things. Wade was now afforded the ability to miss time during the regular season (or later on just “rest”) and still have a chance to contribute in the playoffs.

I’m aware that i made a generalization about how much he was a factor in the heat’s success since lebron and bosh arrived. No doubt was he a major factor in the 2012 playoffs when bosh went down, and they don’t win the title without his stellar play. That said, as it relates to what I noted above, wade missed the equivalent of 22 games in 2012 (if it was an 82 game season). If the heat didn’t have such a great team around him, he doesn’t get that opportunity to make that contribution later in the playoffs.

As for your comment about him performing better per 36 min when lebron was off the court, I have a few questions: are you looking at total min each season from 2011-2014, and then extrapolating per 36 min per season? If so, how many total minutes each season are we talking about? From 2011-2014, lebron played 38 MPG, and only missed a total of 18 games in those 4 seasons. I don’t think that allows for an overly significant sample size.

If you want to argue narratives as a reason for wade’s decline, you’re entitled to that opinion. I think it’s pretty clear that the point of those 3 coming together was to push individual production aside for the goal of winning championships, though. I mean, most of us realize that bosh never really declined, he just moved into a different role that didn’t allow him to be a 20/10 guy anymore (although his lack of rebounding did become questionable at times).

If wade was putting up better stats with a few more 1st round exits over the last few seasons, i’m not sure what we’d be saying about the guy here right now…

The only stats I can find off-hand right now were dug up by MuggsyBogues on the Heat board for this past '13-'14 season (I don't know how to access these kinds of stats myself):

Wade with Lebron: 1689 minutes, 110 points per 100 possessions, 53.9 FG%, 58.6 TS%, per 36 minutes: 17.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists
Wade without Lebron: 778 minutes, 106 points per 100 possessions, 52.4 FG%, 57.1 TS%, per 36 minutes: 25.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 5.6 assists

That includes the postseason. Not a huge drop in efficiency, but a huge bump in points and more assists. I was a little surprised at these stats because I didn't particularly think he was great without Lebron this past year. This is as opposed to '13, where Wade looked phenomenal without Lebron - I don't have the stats for that year off hand, but I rememeber they backed up this impression.

As for Wade being allowed to rest with Lebron, that swings both ways. Had they not been title hunting going deep into the playoffs each year, likely Wade would not have postponed the surgery on his knee in 2012, and he would not have tried to play through the bone-bruise in 2013, so the following seasons would be much less impacted by the injuries. As I said before, he's played more basketball than a lot of guys who aren't taking any heat for "missing games" but haven't being going to the finals 4 straight years. On the flip side, contributing to 2 titles of course boosts his image as well, but this is why I think it was a mixed bag for him individually.