RealGM Top 100 List #22

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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#61 » by ThaRegul8r » Sat Aug 23, 2014 2:01 pm

DannyNoonan1221 wrote:
ThaRegul8r wrote:
Basketballefan wrote:I dont understand this logic. Mikan was "the first superstar so lets put him top 25".


He's giving his own vote, not telling everyone else how they should vote. "I'm voting for Mikan."


I don't see basketballefan's response as wrong…. essentially all of our discussions lead to discussion about what's most important. I agree with basketballefan- fine, vote for Mikan, but why does it matter if Mikan was the first or the last big to play the game? We are trying to figure out who was the best player. Who came before you and who came after you doesn't matter.


Well you don't see the response as wrong because you agree with it. I never see anyone defend (And-1, rep, like, whatever system is used to show approval) a post that doesn't mirror what they think. Whether I agree with someone else's choice is irrelevant. (If I were making the case for Mikan, that wouldn't be one of my selling points, but, again, that's irrelevant. Everything isn't about what I would do.) The point is other people have a right to their choice, and no one voting has disclosed the criteria they're using to choose the player they've voting for anyway.

For instance, in the years I've been on internet sports forums, one of the things I've seen mentioned as a point for Jordan's "GOATness" is "he was the first to win without a dominant big man and showed you didn't need one to win." (Even though the next decade would be dominated by teams led by Shaq and Duncan, who were dominant big men.) So if "first to win without a dominant big man" has been accepted as a valid point, I don't see how "first to show the center was the most impactful position" is any less valid. As I keep saying over and over again, the player one chooses depends on the criteria the chooser is using.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#62 » by Doctor MJ » Sat Aug 23, 2014 2:22 pm

ushvinder88 wrote:In terms of actual ability I doubt Bill Russell is any better than George Mikan. It is kinda funny that mikan is viewed as a player of his times, while people feel russell is comparable to modern greats like olajuwon and shaq.


So, to me this is a post clearly written by someone seeing things right now and then looking back into time and seeing the '50s and '60s as the dark ages.

As I've written in this project, from what I see, the shift between the '50s and the '60s is bigger than the cume shift from the '60s until now.

Whether it be a sports league, a business, a population, whatever, things tend to follow S-curves:

Image

The infancy of basketball existed before pro-leagues were serious.
The expansion of basketball happened basically from the 40s to the 60s.
We've been in maturity ever since.

If you have questions about this let me know.
If this makes sense to you and you still don't see how Russell was more impressive, let me know.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#63 » by Doctor MJ » Sat Aug 23, 2014 2:41 pm

RSCD3_ wrote:Are you stating that Westbrook is holding Durant and OKC back from getting the most out of one player at a time?

Because I wondered also whether the offense was more free flowing and less predictable without Russ there.

It seemed like the ball moved better and his teammates were more effective specifically the bench players

I still think they would have suffered come playoff time but the redundancy is real in that Westbrook benefits from KD more than vice versa.

I wonder if it forced Scott brooks' game plan to change and it worked better, can any people who saw a lot
of okc verify this

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Agree. Westbrook is absolutely holding Durant back, though a tricky aspect is that OKC is better off having Westbrook out there handicapping Durant than not having Westbrook at all.

But as you say, how much of this is solvable with a better coaching scheme?

As a UCLA fan I remember Westbrook as a Bruin. He was very much a self-less team player. His transition to being associated with selfishness is thus rather astonishing, and it's my belief that Westbrook would be happy to play another way. The issue is just that as long as he's forced to really create as the team's facilitator, he's going to look selfish because he's just not a natural facilitator. And so I think OKC should really explore more sophisticated schemes that don't rely on any player so much.

Of course this always makes me think back to Harden. Harden sure looked like a natural passer in OKC, and that team offense sure looked great with Harden on the floor in '11-12, and jeez didn't OKC offense in the '12 playoff look more robust than what we've seen since. It's not quite so simple to say it all went south after Harden left because Durant & Westbrook kept right on improving with Harden gone, but sometimes I think that with Harden Brooks was on the verge of lucking into the solution to his offensive scheming struggles and the team tied a hand behind his back.

Anyway, it's my hope that Brooks goes into this year knowing that if he runs the same stuff again and it doesn't work he's fired. OKC is a great team that had the misfortune of going up against a buzzsaw in the Spurs, but the only time to play it safe in the face of what appears to be ill optimization is if you're already doing so well that it's not worth the risk of trying a solution, and 3 years being stuck not making the championship leap despite clear improvement individually from the OKC stars means there's no way that's the case here.

Also, if Brooks survives another year after this without such success and without really showing something original and impressive in his coaching, that really damns Presti imho. We've long known that his golden boy status had a lot of luck involved, and really from the moment of the Harden trade he's been suspect. Already right now it makes sense to question whether he actually understands basketball well enough to judge his coaches. If we get another year of the same from both his coach and himself, the only other explanation I can even think of is that he's too much a careerist coward to be an executive.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#64 » by lorak » Sat Aug 23, 2014 3:22 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
ushvinder88 wrote:In terms of actual ability I doubt Bill Russell is any better than George Mikan. It is kinda funny that mikan is viewed as a player of his times, while people feel russell is comparable to modern greats like olajuwon and shaq.


So, to me this is a post clearly written by someone seeing things right now and then looking back into time and seeing the '50s and '60s as the dark ages.

As I've written in this project, from what I see, the shift between the '50s and the '60s is bigger than the cume shift from the '60s until now.

Whether it be a sports league, a business, a population, whatever, things tend to follow S-curves:


I'm sorry Doc, but you are brining s-curve here like some sort of deus ex machina. Sure, things tend to follow s-curves (however not always!), but we have to first make proper diagnosis - so evaluate when "infancy" and other stages started and ended (for example in my opinion NBA's infancy stage lasted until three point line was introduced). Because right now it's just your "eye test" with height/weight and being more black as only evidence (and do we really know what exactly is correlation between weight/height/skin's color and level of play?). What we should focus is actual level of play (because that's what we are talking about), so how player's performance changed over time. And so far I didn't see any evidence suggesting that between 50s and 60s difference was bigger than between 60s and now.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#65 » by trex_8063 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:08 pm

ThaRegul8r wrote:
Well you don't see the response as wrong because you agree with it. I never see anyone defend (And-1, rep, like, whatever system is used to show approval) a post that doesn't mirror what they think.


While generally this is no doubt true the vast majority of the time, I'm sure there are rare exceptions. Anecdotally: I've been in disagreement (and subsequent debate) with Doctor MJ a few times, and while I've not seen him publicly change his opinion, he has And1'ed some of my counter-arguments (even though he apparently doesn't agree).


ThaRegul8r wrote:For instance, in the years I've been on internet sports forums, one of the things I've seen mentioned as a point for Jordan's "GOATness" is "he was the first to win without a dominant big man and showed you didn't need one to win." (Even though the next decade would be dominated by teams led by Shaq and Duncan, who were dominant big men.) So if "first to win without a dominant big man" has been accepted as a valid point, I don't see how "first to show the center was the most impactful position" is any less valid. As I keep saying over and over again, the player one chooses depends on the criteria the chooser is using.


Everyone's criteria is his own, as you say, and I don't really have a strong opinion on whether being "the first" to do this or that is super-important (unless it's something very stylistically innovative, and helps shift the game permanently: guys like Maravich, Cousy, Monroe, maybe David Thompson come to mind). However, could Jordan's arguably being the first AND LAST to do that be relevant? (arguable because, idk, is Bosh considered a "dominant big man"; or 37-year-old Duncan?)
To each his own (for criteria; maybe none of this is relevant to many). But that's one thing that maybe sets Jordan's "first" apart from Mikan's: Mikan may have been the first, but he certainly wasn't the last.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#66 » by ushvinder88 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:24 pm

ThaRegul8r wrote:
DannyNoonan1221 wrote:
ThaRegul8r wrote:
He's giving his own vote, not telling everyone else how they should vote. "I'm voting for Mikan."


I don't see basketballefan's response as wrong…. essentially all of our discussions lead to discussion about what's most important. I agree with basketballefan- fine, vote for Mikan, but why does it matter if Mikan was the first or the last big to play the game? We are trying to figure out who was the best player. Who came before you and who came after you doesn't matter.


Well you don't see the response as wrong because you agree with it. I never see anyone defend (And-1, rep, like, whatever system is used to show approval) a post that doesn't mirror what they think. Whether I agree with someone else's choice is irrelevant. (If I were making the case for Mikan, that wouldn't be one of my selling points, but, again, that's irrelevant. Everything isn't about what I would do.) The point is other people have a right to their choice, and no one voting has disclosed the criteria they're using to choose the player they've voting for anyway.

For instance, in the years I've been on internet sports forums, one of the things I've seen mentioned as a point for Jordan's "GOATness" is "he was the first to win without a dominant big man and showed you didn't need one to win." (Even though the next decade would be dominated by teams led by Shaq and Duncan, who were dominant big men.) So if "first to win without a dominant big man" has been accepted as a valid point, I don't see how "first to show the center was the most impactful position" is any less valid. As I keep saying over and over again, the player one chooses depends on the criteria the chooser is using.

I dont think the 1960s is even remotely close to modern basketball, neither is the 1970's. Mikan is lkely a better offensive player than russell and probably by a big margin, bill's legacy is soaked with hype. You are judging this based on skin colour.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#67 » by PCProductions » Sat Aug 23, 2014 5:05 pm

I'd really be interested in seeing just how effective Frazier's defense was, because at a glance I'm thinking "no way in hell" is this guy above guys like Nash, Ewing, Mikan, etc.

Are we that impressed with his leadership or something? Is this a guy whose career impact was as strong as Ewing's? That would be very surprising to me, to say the least, but I'm all ears.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#68 » by Warspite » Sat Aug 23, 2014 5:25 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
ushvinder88 wrote:In terms of actual ability I doubt Bill Russell is any better than George Mikan. It is kinda funny that mikan is viewed as a player of his times, while people feel russell is comparable to modern greats like olajuwon and shaq.


So, to me this is a post clearly written by someone seeing things right now and then looking back into time and seeing the '50s and '60s as the dark ages.

As I've written in this project, from what I see, the shift between the '50s and the '60s is bigger than the cume shift from the '60s until now.

Whether it be a sports league, a business, a population, whatever, things tend to follow S-curves:

Image

The infancy of basketball existed before pro-leagues were serious.
The expansion of basketball happened basically from the 40s to the 60s.
We've been in maturity ever since.

If you have questions about this let me know.
If this makes sense to you and you still don't see how Russell was more impressive, let me know.


Where is the rest of the business cycle that is an inverse S? If you follow the business cycle correctly you see the NBA peaks around 1990 and then declines in the inverse S to the point that today is on par with the begining of the league.

Just finished watching the 1962 all star game. My observations.

1. Pettit is K Malone but with a better jump shot and a great, great rebounder (played against Russell and Wilt most of the game)

2. Oscar is a beast. closest thing to MJ I have seen.

3. Cousy is making passes that bounce off of players faces. His passing is 20 yrs ahead of its time.

4. West blows my mind with his length. he is Durant at guard. His release is so high.

5. Baylor looks great as a finisher just not a creator like LBJ. a rich mans James Worthy?

My fav play is a Russel block and then outlet pass to Cousy. Russell then outruns everyone even though he gives them all a 10-15ft head start and runs the right wing and would have an easy dunk with no defender in the paint except that Wilt is already at the basket waiting for the pass.

280 pts scored and not 1 dunk. IMHO that is the whole eff difference. If you dont let players dunk and force them to shoot tear drops and shoot off the high glass those FG% are going to drop. I saw Cousy, Pettit and Arizen make an Int 3pter.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#69 » by ThaRegul8r » Sat Aug 23, 2014 5:36 pm

ushvinder88 wrote:
ThaRegul8r wrote:
DannyNoonan1221 wrote:
I don't see basketballefan's response as wrong…. essentially all of our discussions lead to discussion about what's most important. I agree with basketballefan- fine, vote for Mikan, but why does it matter if Mikan was the first or the last big to play the game? We are trying to figure out who was the best player. Who came before you and who came after you doesn't matter.


Well you don't see the response as wrong because you agree with it. I never see anyone defend (And-1, rep, like, whatever system is used to show approval) a post that doesn't mirror what they think. Whether I agree with someone else's choice is irrelevant. (If I were making the case for Mikan, that wouldn't be one of my selling points, but, again, that's irrelevant. Everything isn't about what I would do.) The point is other people have a right to their choice, and no one voting has disclosed the criteria they're using to choose the player they've voting for anyway.

For instance, in the years I've been on internet sports forums, one of the things I've seen mentioned as a point for Jordan's "GOATness" is "he was the first to win without a dominant big man and showed you didn't need one to win." (Even though the next decade would be dominated by teams led by Shaq and Duncan, who were dominant big men.) So if "first to win without a dominant big man" has been accepted as a valid point, I don't see how "first to show the center was the most impactful position" is any less valid. As I keep saying over and over again, the player one chooses depends on the criteria the chooser is using.

I dont think the 1960s is even remotely close to modern basketball, neither is the 1970's. Mikan is lkely a better offensive player than russell and probably by a big margin, bill's legacy is soaked with hype. You are judging this based on skin colour.


I don't see where Russell's name was mentioned, and, what, exactly, am I "judging based on skin color?

Looking above and seeing you randomly said that you doubt Russell is better than Mikan, you're carrying it over into an unrelated conversation with a poster who couldn't care less. The answer to my above question is likely to be something senseless that has nothing actually to do with me and has to do with some held preconception.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#70 » by FJS » Sat Aug 23, 2014 6:20 pm

trex_8063 wrote:John Stockton
Wicked prime; from '88 thru '97 (10 seasons in which he missed FOUR GAMES TOTAL).......
Per 100 rs: 21.8 pts, 4.1 reb, 17.9 ast, 3.6 stl, 4.7 tov on .619 TS%
22.7 PER, .221 WS/48, 122 ORtg/104 DRtg in 36.2 mpg
Per 100 ps: 21.4 pts, 4.8 reb, 16.2 ast, 2.8 stl, 4.5 tov on .574 TS%
20.4 PER, .163 WS/48, 117 ORtg/108 DRtg in 39.0 mpg

And fwiw, the only reason I'm declaring '97 the end to his prime is because '97 was the final season in which he was playing "star level" minutes. His level of play otherwise didn't really decline significantly: from '88 on (the last SIXTEEN seasons of his career, right down to the bitter end), he NEVER had a season with a PER <21; he had only 2 seasons out of 16 with a WS/48 <.200; he had TWO seasons in his post-prime with the league's best ORtg (while also only having TWO seasons of his final six which I am calling his "post-prime" in which his DRtg was worse than league average). For impact stats, we only have data for these years that I am classifying as his post-prime, and yet the results could be construed as "eye-opening" to say the least. Here is his league rank in combined PI RAPM for each year:
'98--->7th
'99--->8th
'00--->8th
*'01--->3rd (*NPI)
'02--->12th
'03--->13th

Dude has left a massive statistical footprint on the game......
#1 all-time in career rs assists and steals, and has such a sizable lead in both that these are records none of us are likely to see broken in our lifetimes: has 3,715 more assists than the 2nd-place guy, 581 more steals than the 2nd-place guy. Is #5 all-time in career rs win shares.
Is #2 all-time in career playoff assists and #4 in career playoff steals, too; #16 all-time in career playoff WS. He's also inside the top 50 all-time in career rs points, inside top 40 in career playoff points.

Anyway, he's got a more than credible resume for the spot, and really should be gaining a lot of traction now that we're out of the top 20, imo.




As Trex said, plus:
All-NBA First Team (1994, '95);
All-NBA Second Team (1988, '89, '90, '92, '93, '96);
All-NBA Third Team (1991, '97, '99);
All-Defensive Second Team (1989, '91, '92, '95, '97);
10-time NBA All-Star;
Olympic gold medalist (1992, '96);
One of 50 Greatest Players in NBA History ('96)

Lead the league in total assists and apg in 9 years in a row. (87-88 to 95-96)
- Only 3 players have assisted 1000 assits in a single season = Isiah Thomas, Kevin Porter did it once each other. John Stockton did it 7 times.

- Led the league in steals in 89 and 92.

5th of all time in Win Shares
5th of all time in Offensive win shares
4th in Offensive ratings
9th in true shooting pct.

Led the league in total assists 15806, 3700 more than the second (J.Kidd) and 5500 more than Steve Nash... you can't argue about longetivy, Kidd played as well 19 seasons and Nash 18.
This is right now an unbreakable record

Led the league in total steals 3265, being Kidd second, with 600 less. The next players in active are Kobe, KG, Marion, Artest or Pierce... all near to retire and even have not arrived to 1900...

This is how really difficult and unmatchable Stockton carreer is.

My vote goes to John Stockton
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#71 » by 90sAllDecade » Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:02 pm

Warspite wrote:
280 pts scored and not 1 dunk. IMHO that is the whole eff difference. If you dont let players dunk and force them to shoot tear drops and shoot off the high glass those FG% are going to drop. I saw Cousy, Pettit and Arizen make an Int 3pter.


I don't necessarily agree with everything said, (I'm sure that can be said for every poster with others and myself), but this is a good point imo.

I'm also try to find the best actual player in history, but I also value era translation and this includes present to past eras. So not being allowed to dunk would likely affect many player's FG% and thus TS%.

Nothing to do with your post, but I don't really sympathize with arguments bringing up past players having to play in converse because some players understood how to take care of their feet and really, potentially created better ankle support than some players with 80s or other types of basketball shoes.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdZmvwQD4A[/youtube]

Era translation goes both ways, like how a past player would perform with modern technology and medicine. So I try to acknowledge that in considering players of earlier eras. So Mikan will be in my top100, I just don't know where yet; as his game doesn't translate as well as say Wilt, Russell, Pettit or others.

And honestly, I'd vote McGrady before him, although I currently have Mikan before Cousy but I'm open to hearing cases to help him. Like what rules or trends of his era would limit modern players etc.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#72 » by Doctor MJ » Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:54 pm

lorak wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
ushvinder88 wrote:In terms of actual ability I doubt Bill Russell is any better than George Mikan. It is kinda funny that mikan is viewed as a player of his times, while people feel russell is comparable to modern greats like olajuwon and shaq.


So, to me this is a post clearly written by someone seeing things right now and then looking back into time and seeing the '50s and '60s as the dark ages.

As I've written in this project, from what I see, the shift between the '50s and the '60s is bigger than the cume shift from the '60s until now.

Whether it be a sports league, a business, a population, whatever, things tend to follow S-curves:


I'm sorry Doc, but you are brining s-curve here like some sort of deus ex machina. Sure, things tend to follow s-curves (however not always!), but we have to first make proper diagnosis - so evaluate when "infancy" and other stages started and ended (for example in my opinion NBA's infancy stage lasted until three point line was introduced). Because right now it's just your "eye test" with height/weight and being more black as only evidence (and do we really know what exactly is correlation between weight/height/skin's color and level of play?). What we should focus is actual level of play (because that's what we are talking about), so how player's performance changed over time. And so far I didn't see any evidence suggesting that between 50s and 60s difference was bigger than between 60s and now.


I've yet to hear any other theory by anyone else. If you think something else makes sense, explain it. I can only assume you see there being a huge leap forward from the 1930s when a 6 foot 4 Tarzan Cooper was the best center in the world. What do you think happened after that?

Also, the numbers I pointed to before weren't an "eye test". Under the assumption that the NBA was seeing a transformation, the obvious thing to do is to look for trends in numbers. They exist right where I'd expect them to, so the whole thing seems pretty obvious to me.

EDIT: I'm just going to add this in. Your criticism of me is that I lack utter proof, and so you see me making assumptions. My impatience here is because I don't think it realistic to expect such proof to ever exist - and I don't mean proof of what I present, but proof of anything along these lines. Given this, to me the productive way to be is to work with postulates and correlation. I've presented something that to me makes perfect sense, and I've seen no other countertheories based on any explanation at all. Until I see something like that, I'm not going to be moved, not because I refuse to consider that I might be wrong, but because it doesn't get us anywhere.

Whether people realize it or not they are creating some kind of curve in their mind to weight the players from different eras, so it's not a question of whether to use one or not, it's whether to use one with something logical backing it up or whether to continue to use something that many voters aren't even aware they are using.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#73 » by Doctor MJ » Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:58 pm

Warspite wrote: Where is the rest of the business cycle that is an inverse S? If you follow the business cycle correctly you see the NBA peaks around 1990 and then declines in the inverse S to the point that today is on par with the begining of the league.
.


That doesn't make any sense at all. Yes businesses and industries sometimes die, but there's no reason to assume it will happen, let alone on a particular timeline, and it sure as hell isn't happening while revenue explodes.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#74 » by ceiling raiser » Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:08 pm

Going with Ewing again, here's my post from the last thread:

Spoiler:
fpliii wrote:My vote in the runoff is for Ewing.

So, I've been in favor of Ewing the past couple of rounds (though I don't believe I've casted actual votes). Pettit wasn't a defensive liability, but Pat is one of the all-time greats in that regard (lorak had a great breakdown here: viewtopic.php?p=40970379#p40970379&#41;. Pettit was the superior rebounder, but I don't feel at this time that his range or post game were superior to Ewing's to offset the defensive advantage. Again, I don't want to make it a bigger issue than it is, but the racial composition of the league when Pettit played is still a major concern for me.

There's been some quality discussion of Baylor, and I really liked this post by Doc: viewtopic.php?p=40981128#p40981128. He raises some interesting points:

Doctor MJ wrote:It's similar to what I've talked about with Wilt except much more transparent in this case. If a player's reputation is built on a particular statistic that quite literally when you look at you see signs that his team would have been better off if he had NOT put up, the right thing to do is to completely reconsider how we think of the guy. And this is necessary specifically because it's the rare circumstance where we can realistically say most people from the time probably didn't fully understand what was going on when they built the narrative that was carried forward through history and thus represented our own individual starting points when first started looking into him.

I know some people are thinking "There Doc goes again", and are probably shaking their head at how I seem to have such love or hate responses to guys from early basketball eras, but the fact of the matter is that when people are operating largely based on their own intuition in the absence of good data, some guys go in the right direction, and some go in the wrong direction. Happens even now, but it was more dramatic back then.

Now that leaves open the argument of "Well I'm judging them based on how I think they'd do now?", and I get that, but that's why I ask: How are you estimating that? Because it's not at all realistic to start from a pseudo-accomplishment from the '60s and extrapolate from their like it's something real. If Baylor in those years in fact should have been scoring at 20 points per 100 possessions, then you should be extrapolating from there, not from some big inefficient volume.

Some thoughts of mine...

When looking at players who played before I started watching, it's really, really difficult to separate reputation from quality. Obviously you can watch as much tape as possible, but as the selection of tape to watch is likely going to be informed by popular perception, sample(/visibility, since the further back you go, the less tape is available) bias and winning bias are going to be very real concerns. Hell, I don't trust my own opinions from watching live in the pre-databall era (92-93 through 95-96 for me), so going back further, scouting from watching tape and looking at team ORtg/DRtg trends and available WOWY data (available to us thanks to ElGee's of course :) ), without having lived through those eras and experiencing the league at the time, is a very inexact science.

I do think some accounts are trustworthy. If we have a large enough volume of qualitative data to sort through, one would think there's a reasonable probability that we can parse out high quality information from first hand accounts. Things such as media accolades, comments effusing random praise, and the like aren't going to help us that much, but if we get specific, detailed descriptions of how these guys played, it can really help us paint a more complete picture. Unfortunately, sources are quite limited even for these accounts the further back one looks. There seems to be a reasonable wealth of information spanning the late 60s, 70s, and 80s (as well as tape becoming increasingly available as you move forward), but that doesn't really help us all that much when discussing Pettit and his contemporaries. Yes, if you do the legwork there is some good stuff out there (I admittedly haven't done as much research on Pettit in particular, so I may be understating the material, but I don't know that enough exists on his contemporaries (particularly earlier in his career) to draw conclusions about him in which I'd be reasonably confident (Samurai and johnlac1, as well as others, are tremendous assets since they seem to know a ton about pretty much every significant player thereafter).

Anyhow, what's my point? I do trust the team ORtg/DRtg trends and WOWY numbers a ton, but what I perceive them as telling us—namely how much players were impacting the game at the time, given the leaguewide trends/rules/competition etc. in place—isn't necessarily telling me everything I'm trying to learn, since a large part (perhaps the largest) portion of my evaluation is determining how a player would translate into today's game. The closer we get to the present era (need it be the last 5, 10, or 15 years), the closer the aforementioned data (+ RAPM) comes to answering these questions. Doc (and ElGee as well in the past, in addition to some other great posters on this board) in his post above, in the bolded portions, really forces me to question how I'm coming to the conclusions I'm reaching. While I stand by my criteria for evaluating players, I do admit that there is subjectivity/guesswork involved. If I can learn more about guys I can limit those elements (though naturally they can't be eliminated), but it's not as easy (or perhaps possible at all, if the resources don't exist).

With Wilt, while I'm not absolutely certain about he he'd play today, there are enough datapoints that I'm comfortable enough with the written accounts we have of him to project his game into today's league. As for Baylor (#17 on my pre-project list) and Pettit (outside the top 25 in my initial list, though he probably wouldn't be too far off)? Not so much. Again, a large portion of the burden is on me to investigate both guys to the best of my abilities, and I can't honestly say I've done all that can be done. A big part of this is asking the right questions, and asking others or finding reliable primary sources for myself to answer them.

I do think Doc has raised enough doubt about Baylor to force me to reevaluate slotting him so early on my initial list. If so much of his reputation is due to his ability to score (positionally, he was a very good passer, a plus rebounder, and not an abysmal defender from my understanding...but I think we'd need to see something more in the WOWY data if the non-scoring elements of his game were valuable enough to consider him here), even if he had more room today in which to operate with better spacing, I think it's a stretch to pick him here. Especially considering apparent issues with him adapting his game (I believe not figuring out a solution with West, not taking a lesser role when Wilt arrived, among other examples have been cited here). Since he played later than Pettit, the racial composition of the league isn't as huge an issue for me, but I do have to admit that it is perhaps something to consider. I'm not sure how to feel about his injuries, so I can't comment on whether they would've been more preventable/treatable in today's league (maybe someone more familiar with his injury history can comment on this).



From skimming Baylor seems to be his primary competition, a lot of the above applies here as well. With regards to Wade, I love watching the guy play but health is a real, legitimate concern for me. I did note earlier in the thread that Frazier is someone who came to mind as well, but I'm trying to be careful not to overcredit him for the team defense. His play on that end is definitely very strong for a superstar perimeter player, but I'm not sold on him as an offensive anchor.

trex_8063 wrote:
Chuck Texas wrote:why in the world would Dwight or Zo get consideration before Deke? If we are talking about the best defensive big man of the modern era left on the board, he' s got to be the guy. And while he's not the scorer the other 2 are, neither of them should be drawing consideration based on their offense.


I agree Dikembe is the best defender PERIOD left out there. However....


Just saw this. Doc and I had a brief exchange early in the project over the value of largely stationary rim protectors in today's league, and we were wondering whether the prototype for a super elite defender has changed. A guy like Hibbert (and maybe Jordan, as well as a few others) demonstrates that this type of defender can still be a legitimate game changer on that end, but there do seem to be at least a few mobile guys who also blocked shots on the board.
Now that's the difference between first and last place.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#75 » by Doctor MJ » Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:11 pm

ushvinder88 wrote:I dont think the 1960s is even remotely close to modern basketball, neither is the 1970's. Mikan is lkely a better offensive player than russell and probably by a big margin, bill's legacy is soaked with hype. You are judging this based on skin colour.


Well, ThaRegul8r is the best historian we have on here, knowing all sorts of details no one else knows. So, you've jumped in with a new group of people, and basically assumed that they are the stupidest of stupid people of the world long before you had any basis for making such judgments simply because they disagreed with you.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#76 » by penbeast0 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 9:51 pm

ushvinder88 wrote: ...
I dont think the 1960s is even remotely close to modern basketball, neither is the 1970's. Mikan is lkely a better offensive player than russell and probably by a big margin, bill's legacy is soaked with hype. You are judging this based on skin colour.


Ushvinder, I have been reading your posts for awhile now and with the exception of one series of arguments where you gave some reasoning, all you do is spew raw opinions with nothing to back them up. This project has a much higher standard than that; if you are going to keep posting here, you need to pick up your game badly.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#77 » by penbeast0 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 10:02 pm

Clyde Frazier wrote: (about Rick Barry) . . .
Are you saying with his talent and teammates that he should’ve won multiple championships? From 70-79, no team won back to back championships, and the knicks and celtics were the only teams to win more than one. The league was wide open, and there’s always the theory that talent being split between the ABA and NBA created more parity (although I think it’s overstated). Winning a championship isn’t easy. I’m not going to proclaim his championship run one of the best of all time, but his win in 75 with a rookie jamaal wilkes and the likes of butch beard and charles johnson was impressive nonetheless.

Michael Jordan, who most consider the best player of all time was seemingly overly critical of his teammates, and held them to higher standards than anyone else. I take intangibles into consideration as well, but I think there can be separation between an on the court persona and off the court persona. I’d have to look into this further as it relates to him specifically. I’m not voting for barry here, but I’d probably start thinking about him in the ~25 range as opposed to the 30+ range.


I agree that his 75 run was one of the most impressive carry jobs of all time. My issue is that outside 75, I just didn't see impact beyond what you would get from any high volume scorer. Maybe I'm wrong, but he wasn't as impressive in the ABA as guys like Billy Cunningham and outside of 75, I would easily take Alex English over him as well. So . . . what can you show me outside of 1975 that says that he's more than a high usage, selfish, no defense scorer that generates a lot of points and assists without particularly making his team better?

Willing to be convinced.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#78 » by Warspite » Sat Aug 23, 2014 10:02 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
Warspite wrote: Where is the rest of the business cycle that is an inverse S? If you follow the business cycle correctly you see the NBA peaks around 1990 and then declines in the inverse S to the point that today is on par with the begining of the league.
.


That doesn't make any sense at all. Yes businesses and industries sometimes die, but there's no reason to assume it will happen, let alone on a particular timeline, and it sure as hell isn't happening while revenue explodes.


Are we talking about the business side or the talent side? There is no question that the talent pool is at an all time low demographically and thats why the NBA altered its rules to allow easier FIBA transition. W/O the 100 Int players the NBA would look pathetic.

Every occupation goes through the cycle. Once there is a saturation/maturity talent moves to other sports/occupations. That talent continues to drain until demand and access catch up. Sometimes it doesnt. If you look at demographics in China and the West its frightening. Not only are we running out of young people but we are running out of disposable income to support entertainment as we have to work harder to support the elderly.
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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#79 » by DQuinn1575 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 10:06 pm

DQuinn1575 wrote:Real heavy lean to Mikan.

Unquestionably best player in league for a number of years.

Dominated best black players of his team in games against former world champion globetrotters.

Obviously played against weaker opponents, but it's not under his control.

If we disregard era we have top 3-4 player.

Those who say no way let me know about where he should rank.

Vote for Mikan - most dominant player left by a decent margin. I am taking best player from one era over 5th-10th best player of other eras.


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Re: RealGM Top 100 List #22 

Post#80 » by DQuinn1575 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 10:34 pm

penbeast0 wrote:
I agree that his 75 run was one of the most impressive carry jobs of all time. My issue is that outside 75, I just didn't see impact beyond what you would get from any high volume scorer. Maybe I'm wrong, but he wasn't as impressive in the ABA as guys like Billy Cunningham and outside of 75, I would easily take Alex English over him as well. So . . . what can you show me outside of 1975 that says that he's more than a high usage, selfish, no defense scorer that generates a lot of points and assists without particularly making his team better?

Willing to be convinced.


Rick Barry had a few more things than just 75 - He's on my radar for somewhere in the top 30-


Rick Barry highlights

Finals MVP
Regular season finished 4,4,5,7 in MVP voting
5 time first team all-NBA, 4 time first team all-ABA


1967

Swept Lakers in PO (no Jerry West)

Beat Hawks (Hudson,Wilkens,Beaty,Bridges,Caldwell - very solid lineup)

Lost to super team in 6 games averaged 40+ ppg versus 67 Sixers


1976

Best player on best team in RS

Lost in PO to Suns (who lost to Celtics in classic series) - with a double OT loss and 1 point loss


1973

Beat Jabbar and Oscar in PO - leading scorer on balanced team

1975

Took team to title
Led league in steals



1969

Best WS/48 for any ABA player in history with 1,000 minutes

Better than Erving, Gilmore, Connie Hawkins, and Billy Cunningham

http://bkref.com/tiny/2mCOe


1969-1970

Led ABA in TS% 2 years while scoring 34.0 and 27.7

He lost a year due to sitting out in jumping leagues, and with injuries only played 146 games from ages 23-26.

Great passing forward with great shooting range - Bird was compared to Rick Barry coming into the league.

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