RealGM Top 100 List #26

[penbeast0]

CENTERS
Artis Gilmore or Dwight Howard are the next greatest 2 way centers but Artis seemed to lose his competitive fire when he came to the NBA and Dwight has not been the same dominant player since Orlando. Alonzo Mourning and Mel Daniels are the other 2 candidates that came to mind, very similar players in many ways; plus probably Dikembe Mutombo is a candidate as the most impactful defender left (and not a complete disaster offensively).

FORWARDS
Baylor, McHale, Pippen, Havlicek, Rodman, and even Kevin Durant. Interested to see who starts getting support. Baylor seemed to have efficiency issues even for his day, McHale is super efficient but worked against single teams in the post more than any great post scorer in history and was a mediocre defensive rebounder (though the presence of Larry Bird that gave him so many single teams also stole some rebounds from him). Pippen does everything well, but has some issues with clutch situations and mental fragility. Havlicek seems to have nerves (and lungs) of steel but was even more inefficient through the mid 70s than Baylor. Rodman is the GOAT rebounder, but also a disruptive force and barely above the Ben Wallace level offensively, and Durant's career is just starting. A lot of talent, a lot of questions.

GUARDS
I see Walt Frazier as a step up over Stockton for his ability to take over games with both his scoring and defense, over Payton, Kidd, or Isiah for his scoring efficiency and superior all around game. Chris Paul is also a legit candidate but hasn't yet exploded to dominate an NBA finals the way that Frazier did.


Based on his finals heroics, the way his teams in NY (of all places) ran like well oiled machines with almost no ego problems, superior durability, and the fact that as a fan, I feared facing him more than I did any of the others, I will cast my vote for:

WALT FRAZIER

[JordansBulls]

Vote: Isiah Thomas

Led the Pistons to back to back titles in an era that was tough as nails. Had to deal with peak Bird and Magic in the process. Also won finals mvp, lost only 1 series in his career with HCA. Took a franchise from the bottom to the top as well in the process.

[Jim Naismith]

Leaning toward Baylor (who's been somehow dropped from the conversation), followed by Isiah.

[Basketballefan]

I feel like Hondo deserves to be in by now, but being he's not getting any traction i won't bother voting for him yet.

[john248]

Considering Stockton, Pippen, Baylor, and Frazier. Need to read and see more of Hondo.

[magicmerl]

Leaning toward Baylor (who's been somehow dropped from the conversation), followed by Isiah.

It's weird how players get brought up too early, but then at their 'proper' place, there's voter fatigue. I suspect something like that happened to Hakeem too.

[DQuinn1575]

Considering Stockton, Pippen, Baylor, and Frazier. Need to read and see more of Hondo.

Game 6- 1974

http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 00BOS.html


Hondo scores 36 in maybe the greatest game I ever saw.

Hits an incredible high arching shot over Kareem to give the Celtics a one point lead, only to have Kareem answer.

Super clutch player, we all know he stole the ball.

One of the great pieces who fit-

2nd fiddle in college to Jerry Lucas - excellent athlete almost made NFL as wide receiver
Becomes super sub on Celtics
Over time becomes 2nd/3rd best player along with Sam Jones
The big guns retire- the team rebuilds-
They win 2 titles plus have 68 win season in time of Wilt, West, Jabbar, Frazier, etc.


Good defender who ran and ran all day long - one of those guys I would have hated to guard.

Did what it takes to win - I seriously considered him last time.

[tsherkin]

Lots of fantastic options here.

Isiah, Hondo, Stockton and Frazier come to mind most readily here for me.

Outlier name to discuss is Bill Walton, because he's one of the few MVPs remaining not really on anyone's radar at the moment. Short, short career, plagued with injuries, but still in the discussion. I should also put Dave Cowens on the map, re-raise Willis Reed as a thought, Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes.

Hell, we haven't even talked about Billy Cunningham. He was a ~ 21/10/4 player for 7 years in the NBA, with a 4-year peak around 24/13.5/4.5 (mostly very inefficient, but not relative to his era), who then buggered off to the ABA for two years, won an MVP, then played his last two years back in the NBA. Won a title in 67 with Wilt. Snaked 4 ASGs in the NBA and 1 in the ABA. 3 All-NBA 1st Teams and a 2nd Team. 3rd and 5th place finishes in the NBA vote.

Definitely another semi-uncommon name worthy of consideration. He's a guy known for his defense but who could rebound and pass to a degree rarely discussed (and of course, basically no one mentions his ABA MVP). Pretty good coach, too, but that's not super relevant here. Scoring overstates him and his ball-handling wasn't amazing but he was pure hustle who rebounded, terrorized you on defense and could pass.

Bob McAdoo was a 27/12/3 player through his first 8 seasons. Three straight scoring titles, each at 30+ ppg. Led the league in scoring and TS% in 74, the first of his scoring titles. Averaged 55.5% TS over that time, though 104 ORTG (15.6% TOV, 11.1% AST, 7.7% ORB).

It's a bit interesting that such a potent scorer and an MVP guy hasn't been discussed yet. Rookie of the Year, MVP 2 years later (2nd in the MVP vote on either side of his win in 75, as well). 74-76 was a pretty great stretch for him in the RS. Far less remarkable in the playoffs, of course.

Prior to joining the Lakers, he posted a 51.6% TS, 97 ORTG, 14.0% TOV, 6.8% ORB, 9.0% AST postseason on 30.3 ppg over 28 games. Then he went to LA as a roleplayer and won a pair of titles. He was actually pretty strong in 82, averaging 16.7 ppg on 56.4% FG (58.6% TS, 108 ORTG) over 14 games. A jump shooting big around 6'9, 6'10, he's definitely a guy who Walt Bellamy'd and really dropped from people's perception, though his late-career renaissance with the Lakers has helped him some.

I won't vote for him yet, but I definitely think he deserves a mention. Wicked shooter, and he was one of the earlier guys with tons of turnarounds and bankers and whatever. Lots of hyperbole about his shooting; Bill Russell once called him the best shooter in the game. Not best-shooting center, just in the game. Was noted to have taken around half of his shots outside of the lane, often from distance, and was still shooting over 50% from the field over his career (and again, posting good scoring efficiency, especially for his era). NOt a great defender and a bit of a difficult personality, but damned if he couldn't score.



Anyway, that's just for some of the less-discussed players. I am not sure for whom I will vote just yet, but I wanted to spark some discussion.

[colts18]

A good breakdown of Stockton vs Isiah

I. Awards and Honors

Let’s take a look at the qualitative information first:

Both players are in the Hall of Fame.
Stockton was an 11-time All-NBA selection (two first team, six second team, and three third team) while Thomas received five All-NBA nods (three first team and two second team).
Stockton was selected to five All-Defensive teams, all of them second team nods. Thomas was never named to the All-Defensive team.
Stockton received MVP votes in 12 different seasons, Thomas in 10. Each player received just a single first place vote, Stockton in 1994-95 and Thomas in 1983-84.
Thomas was named to 12 All-Star teams, Stockton 10.
Thomas was named All-Star MVP two times, Stockton once (co-MVP with Karl Malone).
Thomas played in three NBA Finals, won two titles, and was MVP of the 1990 Finals. Stockton appeared in two NBA Finals, losing both times to the Chicago Bulls.

In my opinion the qualitative evidence comes out on the side of Stockton, but it’s close. Let’s dig a little deeper and see what stories the numbers have to tell us.
II. Offense

There are many things a player can do on offense to help his team, but the five most important skills are probably the following:

Make shots from the field.
Get to — and make shots from — the free throw line.
Minimize turnovers.
Create shots for others.
Extend possessions with offensive rebounds.

Let’s compare and contrast Stockton and Thomas in these categories.
Make shots from the field

Stockton was one of the most efficient shooters in league history: his career effective field goal percentage of .546 is good for 25th all time among players with at least 2,000 field goals made.

Thomas was nowhere near as efficient as Stockton, as his .465 effective field goal percentage places him 522nd on the all-time list.

Some will argue that Thomas shot at a much higher volume than Stockton did, making a direct comparison of their effective fields goal percentages a bit unfair.

The first part of that is true: Thomas did take a lot more shots from the field. Over his career, he averaged almost 60 percent more field goal attempts per 36 minutes than Stockton (16.1 for Thomas, 10.3 for Stockton).

And that led to Thomas scoring more points from the field, as he averaged 15.0 points per 36 minutes from field goals while Stockton’s corresponding average was 11.2 points.

But think about it this way: In order to score 3.8 more points per 36 minutes, Thomas had to take 5.8 more shots per 36 minutes. That translates to an effective field goal percentage of .328.

I have no way of definitively proving this, but I find it almost impossible to believe that Stockton’s effective field goal percentage would have even dropped below .500 had he been forced to shoot as much as Thomas.

In fact, in the 70 regular season games in which Stockton attempted 16 or more field goals, his effective goal percentage was .526. That’s a bit lower than his career mark, but still well above Thomas’ career effective field goal percentage of .465.

Verdict: Big edge, Stockton.
Get to — and make shots from — the free throw line

As noted above, Thomas took more shots from the field, so as one might expect he took more shots from the line: 5.4 attempts per 36 minutes as opposed to 4.4 for Stockton.

But Stockton was more efficient from the free throw line — a free throw percentage of .826 compared to .759 for Thomas — so Thomas’ edge at the line comes out to about half a point per 36 minutes.

If we look at free throw attempts relative to field goal attempts, we find that Stockton actually comes out well ahead of Thomas: 42.4 free throw attempts per 100 field goal attempts for Stockton, an advantage of about nine attempts over Thomas (33.4).

Verdict: Push.
Minimize turnovers

Stockton averaged 20.8 turnovers per 100 plays*, the sixth-highest turnover rate in NBA history (minimum 15,000 minutes played). Thomas was much better in this regard, averaging about four fewer turnovers per 100 plays.

* A play is defined to be a sequence that ends with the player (a) attempting a shot from the field, (b) taking two (or three) shots from the line, or (c) turning it over.

But this doesn’t take into account the numerous sequences that ended with an assist, sequences where both players presumably possessed the ball for a relatively long time.

If we look at turnovers per 100 individual possessions*, Stockton’s average of 20.7 is about the same as his average per 100 plays, but Thomas’ rate of 19.0 is much higher than his rate per play.

* The formula for individual possessions was developed by Dean Oliver. It takes into account most offensive statistics that can be found in the box score.

Regardless, I would score this category as a win for Thomas.

Verdict: Edge, Thomas.
Create shots for others

Thomas assisted on approximately 37.4 percent of his teammates’ field goals while he was on the floor, good for 14th (since 1964-65) among players with at least 2,500 assists.

But when it comes to assists, Stockton is in a league of his own. Stockton registered an assist on a little over one-half of his teammates’ field goals while he was on the floor, making him the career leader by almost four percentage points over Chris Paul.

Verdict: Big edge, Stockton.
Extend possessions with offensive rebounds

Neither player was a gifted offensive rebounder — Thomas’ career offensive rebound percentage was 2.9, Stockton’s was 2.5 — so there’s really nothing that needs to be said here.

Verdict: Small edge, Thomas.
III. Defense

What about defense? That can be harder to measure, of course, but let’s take a look at the evidence we do have, namely:

Team Defense
Defensive Rebounding
Steals
Blocks
Personal Fouls

As in the section above, let’s compare and contrast Stockton and Thomas in these categories.
Team Defense

Thomas played for five teams that finished in the top five in points allowed per possession, although none of those teams led the NBA. He was on a top 10 defense in just over one-half of his seasons (seven out of 13).

Stockton played for six teams that finished in the top five in points allowed per possession, and four of those teams finished first in the league. He was on a top 10 defense in just over two-thirds of his seasons (13 out of 19).

Verdict: Edge, Stockton.
Defensive Rebounding

There’s not much to say here, as this was not a strength for either player: Thomas’ career defensive rebound percentage was 7.8 while Stockton’s was 7.5. I don’t consider that a significant difference.

Verdict: Push.
Steals

Thomas finished his career with 1,861 steals, 15th most in NBA history. Expressed as a rate statistic, Thomas averaged 2.52 steals per 100 defensive possessions, placing him 53rd on the all-time list (minimum 15,000 minutes played).

Once again, though, we find that Stockton is in a league of his own when it comes to this category. He finished his career with 3,265 steals, the all-time record by almost 600 steals over Jason Kidd.

Stockton was efficient too — surprise, surprise — averaging 3.46 steals per 100 defensive possessions, the eighth-highest rate in NBA history.

Verdict: Big edge, Stockton.
Blocks

This is another category where neither player shined: Stockton averaged 0.46 blocks per 100 opponent two-point attempts, while Thomas averaged 0.41.

Verdict: Push.
Personal Fouls

Stockton and Thomas both averaged 3.0 personal fouls per 36 minutes. Per 100 defensive possessions, those numbers are 4.2 and 4.1, respectively.

Basically, neither player really helped his team by avoiding fouls, nor hurt his team with excessive fouling.

Verdict: Push.
IV. The Decision

With the caveat that I would not place equal weight on all categories (e.g., shooting efficiency is much more important than offensive rebounding), Stockton gets the edge in four categories (three big, one small) and Thomas gets the edge in two categories (one small), with four pushes.

About ten years ago I developed the win shares system for basketball. In simplest terms, it is an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player through his offense and defense. Stockton finished his career with 207.6 win shares (sixth all time), while Thomas earned 80.7 win shares (135th all time).

“That’s nice,” you might say, “but Stockton played in 525 more regular season games than Thomas did.”

That’s true, but Stockton also averaged .209 win shares per 48 minutes, the 14th-best rate in NBA history (minimum 15,000 minutes played). Thomas’ career average was .109 win shares per 48 minutes, which puts him 304th on the all-time list.

I’m not convinced the gap between them is as big as win shares suggests, but then again I have enough confidence in the system to say that I absolutely believe that Stockton did more to help his teams win games than Thomas did.

I know there are plenty of fans out there who are passionate about Isiah, but I’m sorry folks: this one is a majority decision for Stockton.

http://statitudes.com/blog/2014/08/11/s ... ah-thomas/

[RayBan-Sematra]

Typed out this out using info from a Kalb book I own.

When Isiah Thomas entered the league he joined a terrible Detroit team that had won 21 games the year before.
Immediately Detroit improved by leaps and bounds winning 39 games.

Thomas was the Captain and the unquestioned leader of the Bad Boys.

He was the MVP of the 1990 Finals when he averaged 28 / 5 / 7apg.
Isiah scored 16pts in the 4th quarter of G1 rallying the Pistons from 10 points down with seven minutes remaining.
Later in those Finals he would score 22pts in a quarter.

He had 24pts in a 3rd quarter against Atlanta in an 1987 playoff game. It is a feat not even Jordan or Wilt can match.
Thomas set an NBA Finals record in 1988 when he scored 25pts in the 3rd quarter of game 6.
____________________________________

The 1984 Playoffs

Maybe Thomas's most memorable playoff performance was in the 1984 playoffs VS the Knicks.
He scored 16pts in the last 94 seconds in the 4th quarter of the deciding 5th game.

In that 1984 playoff series New York struck first in Detroit winning by a score of 94-93.
King scored 36.

In the second game Detroit jumped out to a 38-33 first quarter lead. Then King had 23 straight pts for New York in the quarter.
He would score 46pts in the game.
Isiah dished out 13 assists and had 10pts but it was Laimbeer (31) and Kelly Tripucka (27) who did most of the offensive damage for Detroit.

New York pushed Detroit to the edge of elimination in the 3rd game winning by seven as Bernard King had 46 more points.

In the 4th game Thomas scored 22pts dished out 16 assists and grabbed 7 rebounds. Detroit won and extended the series.

In the deciding 5th game King dropped 44pts. Isiah led a furious rally (16pts in 94 seconds) to send the game into OT. The Knicks won in OT but Isiah played valiantly scoring 35pts and getting 12 assists.

Matt Dobek : I remember Bernard King averaging about 40 points per game in that series, and in the fifth game we were down late in the 4th. Isiah willed the game into OT. I've never seen anything like those 16 points in 94 seconds.

______________________

Thomas VS Frazier

Kevin Loughery : Gotta go with Frazier. Walt was a better rebounder & defender.
Isiah had the toughness, though. Zeke was an incredible streak shooter.

Matt Guokas : Clyde was so elegant and graceful. He moved so smooth.
Isiah was more bulldog. Feisty. He played with a vengeance.
Frazier accomplished the same as Thomas but did it with a much different gait.
Isiah did whatever it took. I played against Frazier for 10 years and I never saw him change facial expression.
Isiah would take on the big guys. He would shoot his team back into the game. He did whatever it took.

[Doctor MJ]

Leaning toward Baylor (who's been somehow dropped from the conversation), followed by Isiah.

Well he's never seriously been in the think of the debate. He's been mentioned a couple time and there were conversations that followed relating to him, but there's yet to be a time when he starts getting serious numbers of votes. If a player gets votes, and then they go away, that is peculiar, but a guy who just gets run up the flag pole every few threads is totally normal. Keep doing it, one of these times, it will spur a serious candidacy for him. Might even be this thread - but then again, it might not be a while yet. Just hard to say.

[FJS]

My vote goes to john Stockton.
I've argued about him since 22 spot.
I'll argue for him another time later.

When you post your argument, repost your vote and I will count it

[Ryoga Hibiki]

His peak is too high compared to other guys remaining

Going controversial and voting for Kevin Durant.
As short as his career has been so far, his accomplishments rival all the other guys left on the table
- 1 MVP and 3 2nd places, as a contemporary of peak LeBron. His has been one of the greatest campaigns ever
- already 13th all time in MVP shares
- 5 consecutive and unanimous 1st all NBA teams
- historical combination of scoring volume and efficiency
- already one final, 2 WCF and one WCSF in the PS
- GOAT MVP acceptance speech
all this before turning 26
His peak is so much ahead all the other guys left that I'm ready to take 5-6 years of him than the other contenders for a full career.
We all know in the next project he'll be ranked much higher than this, ma imo there's really no point waiting.

[Quotatious]

Right now, my top 3 options are:

1. Stockton
2. Frazier
3. Pippen

Not sure who I'll vote for, to be honest, because I still don't know what to do with Gilmore...He seems to be a very strong candidate, as well, I just don't know nearly as much about him as I know about Stockton or Pippen.
Well, if Ewing is in since #22, Artis probably should already be in as well...In my mind, there's always that dilemma when I have two players strongly linked to each other, but when one of them gets selected a lot earlier than the other, I often start rethinking not only where those two should be ranked, but also (or rather mainly) those guys who get selected in between of the two (like Ewing and Gilmore - honestly, I have a feeling that we may all be underrating Artis).

[penbeast0]

trex_8063 asked me to post this for him:


Stockton
Stockton holds the all-time records in career assists and steals. This is obviously relevant for anyone who values statistical footprint, but also is telling of both the quality of his play and the length of time (and consistency) that he played. These records are literally unbreakable. They are as unlikely to be broken as Wilt’s 50 ppg season; but unlike Wilt’s 50 ppg season, they did not come about thru stat-padding, gimmick, or because of a specific motive (shared by the whole team) to break records.
The steals record came about because he was a smart, savvy, and always aggressive defender (more on his D later) who played 19 years at a high level/significant minutes while also being remarkably durable.
The assists record came about because he is the gold-standard prototype of the pass-first PG, who consistently played a fundamentally sound and high level game for 19 years while also being remarkably durable.
He may not have been the #1 offensive weapon on that team, but he was the general. He orchestrated the assault, he directed the army (unfortunately for the Jazz, at times Malone by himself was primarily the army, with little additional help).
They nonetheless put it to outstanding effectiveness:
*The Jazz had at least a top-11 rated offense FOURTEEN years in a row.
**They were SEVEN TIMES a top-4 rated offense.
***FIVE TIMES a top-3 offense.
****Were once the #1 rated offense in the land.

Stockton had some very impressive numbers from his prime:
Prime John Stockton (‘88-’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, 0.3 blk, 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

As I’ve stated before, I only cut off his prime at ‘97 because it’s the last year he really plays “star-level” minutes (although he would never average less than 27.7 mpg in his twilight/post-prime). His level of play otherwise would NOT significantly decline, even right down to his 19th season. He never once in his final SIXTEEN SEASONS had a single season with a PER <21. He only TWICE in his finals SIXTEEN SEASONS had a WS/48 <.200. His pts/100 possessions would never fall lower than 20.9 in his late years. His ast/100 possessions would never fall below 14.0 in his late years. Compare all of this to Walt Frazier, whose PRIME numbers look like this:

Prime Walt Frazier (‘70-’76)--529 rs games
Per 100 rs (only have data ‘74-’76): 23.0 pts, 7.2 reb, 7.1 ast, 2.4 stl, 0.2 blk on .546 TS%
19.8 PER, .191 WS/48, 96 DRtg (‘74-’76; league avg in that span was 97.9) in 41.2 mpg
Per 100 ps (‘74-’76): 26.9 pts, 9.1 reb, 5.4 ast, 2.5 stl, 0.3 blk on .564 TS%
19.9 PER, .198 WS/48, 98 DRtg (league avg those years-->97.7) in 43.3 mpg

wrt to defense, Stockton’s DRtg (relative to league average) is marginally BETTER than Frazier’s (for the years we have data for Frazier). I know some don’t like DRtg as a stat, though, so I think it’s worth noting Stockton’s DRAPM data (only available for his post-prime): he has a net-positive effect defensively ALL SIX SEASONS of his post-prime, usually fairly significantly so. In ‘00, his DRAPM is +3.06, which was BETTER than ‘00 Shaq (+2.31) and ‘00 Tim Duncan (+2.78). This in spite of the data (shutupandjam?) presented wrt the average PG being a defensive negative.
His league rank in combined RAPM for those years was as follows:

‘98---7th
‘99---8th
‘00---8th
‘01---3rd (NPI)
‘02---12th
‘03---13th

vs. Nash….
Both his prime and career ast/100 possession numbers are better than those of Steve Nash, for both rs and playoffs.
Both his prime and career individual ORtg’s are better than those of Steve Nash for the rs, and are tied with Steve Nash’s for the playoffs.

Stockton has the longevity case over Nash (smallish margin) and Frazier (large margin).


All things considered, Stockton has a more than legit case for this spot, imo. My vote for #25: John Stockton.

[Owly]

I'm voting for John Stockton, reasoning towards the end of the post, but first some digressions on other topics

Spoiler:

Typed out this out using info from a Kalb book I own.

When Isiah Thomas entered the league he joined a terrible Detroit team that had won 21 games the year before.
Immediately Detroit improved by leaps and bounds winning 39 games.

Thomas was the Captain and the unquestioned leader of the Bad Boys.

He was the MVP of the 1990 Finals when he averaged 28 / 5 / 7apg.
Isiah scored 16pts in the 4th quarter of G1 rallying the Pistons from 10 points down with seven minutes remaining.
Later in those Finals he would score 22pts in a quarter.

He had 24pts in a 3rd quarter against Atlanta in an 1987 playoff game. It is a feat not even Jordan or Wilt can match.
Thomas set an NBA Finals record in 1988 when he scored 25pts in the 3rd quarter of game 6.
____________________________________

The 1984 Playoffs

Maybe Thomas's most memorable playoff performance was in the 1984 playoffs VS the Knicks.
He scored 16pts in the last 94 seconds in the 4th quarter of the deciding 5th game.

In that 1984 playoff series New York struck first in Detroit winning by a score of 94-93.
King scored 36.

In the second game Detroit jumped out to a 38-33 first quarter lead. Then King had 23 straight pts for New York in the quarter.
He would score 46pts in the game.
Isiah dished out 13 assists and had 10pts but it was Laimbeer (31) and Kelly Tripucka (27) who did most of the offensive damage for Detroit.

New York pushed Detroit to the edge of elimination in the 3rd game winning by seven as Bernard King had 46 more points.

In the 4th game Thomas scored 22pts dished out 16 assists and grabbed 7 rebounds. Detroit won and extended the series.

In the deciding 5th game King dropped 44pts. Isiah led a furious rally (16pts in 94 seconds) to send the game into OT. The Knicks won in OT but Isiah played valiantly scoring 35pts and getting 12 assists.

Matt Dobek : I remember Bernard King averaging about 40 points per game in that series, and in the fifth game we were down late in the 4th. Isiah willed the game into OT. I've never seen anything like those 16 points in 94 seconds.

______________________

Thomas VS Frazier

Kevin Loughery : Gotta go with Frazier. Walt was a better rebounder & defender.
Isiah had the toughness, though. Zeke was an incredible streak shooter.

Matt Guokas : Clyde was so elegant and graceful. He moved so smooth.
Isiah was more bulldog. Feisty. He played with a vengeance.
Frazier accomplished the same as Thomas but did it with a much different gait.
Isiah did whatever it took. I played against Frazier for 10 years and I never saw him change facial expression.
Isiah would take on the big guys. He would shoot his team back into the game. He did whatever it took.

Regarding Kalb on the implied connection between Isiah's arrival and the Pistons' turnaround

1) Who was Thomas replacing? Ron Lee, Larry Drew and Larry Wright are the pg's in the prior year. All of them look sub-replacement level. So improvement at the pg would be from a low baseline.

2) Who else arrived? Tripucka (who did better in MVP voting), Laimbeer (traded for in the season but 30 games) and Vinnie Johnson (stuck behind the improving John Long, played 1191 minutes for Detroit).

3) How good was Isiah that year? Below average. See his PER and WS/48 (caused by 4.2 turnovers per game and poor fg% and ts% versus league norms). And based on the limited bits I've heard he was a bad defender early in his career.

Also my Isiah shouldn't be in consideration yet stuff from the last thread

Spoiler:

Slightly off topic as its the runoff but as Isiah got more than one vote it might be time to make some of the anti-Isiah points. His case (anywhere near this high) is contigent on valuing the playoffs quite highly. Yet even then, just looking at point guards, I see a lot of guys who are some way from being selected who are in his ballpark in playoff productivity.

Firstly the accuracy of Isiah's DWS are somewhat sketchy. Unless you think he made more defensive impact than anyone else on the '90 Pistons.

So here's the playoffs career OWS/48 for a handful of 80s and 90s pgs

G Williams 0.138920086
Porter 0.104798172
A Hardaway 0.101818182
K Johnson 0.094044857
Cheeks 0.076237624
Thomas 0.062618596
Price 0.062448255
Strickland 0.060112711
Harper 0.058952812
T Parker 0.051153173
T Hardaway 0.021052632

It doesn't blow you away. Now Thomas is a pretty good rebounder for a guard, so maybe that's part of what's hurting him, but then his playoff defensive rebound % is worse than Kevin Johnsons so he's not way out ahead of the pack. His PER is a bit more positive

G Williams 0.138920086 - 20.37
Thomas 0.062618596 - 19.8
A Hardaway 0.101818182 - 19.76
K Johnson 0.094044857 - 19.08
T Parker 0.051153173 - 17.24
Strickland 0.060112711 - 17.23
Price 0.062448255 - 17.17
Porter 0.104798172 - 17
Cheeks 0.076237624 - 16.61
T Hardaway 0.021052632 - 15.7
Harper 0.058952812 - 14.21

Even so I think it's giving too much credit for steals when Thomas was a gambler (and considered a poor defender earlier in his career, perhaps around average maybe slightly above by this point) and skews against less scoring inclined points like Cheeks (and to a lesser degree, Porter, Strickland and Harper - all of these guys are better defenders too which PER ignores).

Then too Thomas has the advantage that his longest playoff runs come when he was playing well and his playoff absences coincide with the three worst years of his career.

Cast the net wider to the 70s and 2000s and you could throw in Baron Davis (who'd come out well ahead) and Calvin Murphy (ahead in OWS/48, behind in PER); cast it deeper (lower tier player and less minutes) and there's Johnny Moore (slightly behind in PER, comfortably ahead in OWS) who at least have similar ballpark playoff numbers.

As ever these metrics are imperfect, particularly in the playoffs and arguably with pgs. Still I don't think there's enough in the playoffs to suggest he's significantly better than a lot of this pack (indeed at all by comparison with Gus Williams, other than a longevity edge). He doesn't have the stats for most of this tier of pgs (Stockton, Nash, Frazier, Paul) or the D that makes others arguable (Payton, Kidd).

Anyway to my vote is for Stockton, here's the last thread reasoning, some is redundant because it's versus Nash

Spoiler:

Vote: Stockton

Would have voted him in the main ballot but had limited time. Anyway the reasoning for

- Crazy career added value (5th all-time in Win Shares, 1st in WARP, and being 31st in career PER, and 8th in career minutes so he'd be right up there in EWA too).

- Not a crazy peak but not bad for what's left on the board
Those with a better WS/48 peak season

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Wilt Chamberlain
LeBron James
Michael Jordan
David Robinson
Chris Paul
Kevin Durant
Shaquille O'Neal
Larry Foust
Oscar Robertson
Dirk Nowitzki
Kevin Garnett
Earvin "Magic" Johnson
Vern Mikkelsen
Charles Barkley
Chet Walker
George Mikan
Karl Malone
Dolph Schayes
Neil Johnston
Amare Stoudemire
Tracy McGrady
Paul Arizin
Jerry West
Chauncey Billups
Tim Duncan
Kenny Sears
Ed Macauley
Moses Malone
Bob Pettit
Emanuel Ginobili
Larry Bird
Bob McAdoo
Dwyane Wade
Bill Russell

He's 36th. The bolded are off the board, what's left tends to be either older era, didn't mantain the peak productivity or still active guys who (at least arguably) haven't had enough of a career.

PER he's lower

Wilt Chamberlain
Michael Jordan
LeBron James
David Robinson
Shaquille O'Neal
Dwyane Wade
Tracy McGrady
Chris Paul
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kevin Garnett
Charles Barkley
Karl Malone
George Mikan
Kevin Durant
Elgin Baylor
Bob Pettit
Dirk Nowitzki
Kobe Bryant
Larry Bird
Oscar Robertson
Amare Stoudemire
Hakeem Olajuwon
Tim Duncan
Earvin "Magic" Johnson
Moses Malone
Neil Johnston
Elton Brand
Yao Ming
Walt Bellamy
Dwight Howard
Julius Erving
Allen Iverson
Patrick Ewing
Bob McAdoo
Alonzo Mourning
Grant Hill
Paul Arizin
Dolph Schayes
Kevin Love
John Drew
Terrell Brandon
Bernard King
Robert Parish
Nate Archibald
Chris Bosh
Vince Carter
Jerry West
Bill Walton
Bob Lanier
Carmelo Anthony
Arvydas Sabonis
Brook Lopez
George Gervin
Chris Webber
Adrian Dantley
Dominique Wilkins
Anfernee Hardaway
Andrei Kirilenko
Ed Macauley
Emanuel Ginobili
Rick Barry
Harry Gallatin
Pau Gasol
Alex English
Carlos Boozer
Clyde Drexler
Brandon Roy
Gilbert Arenas
Kevin McHale
Marques Johnson
Russell Westbrook
Chris Gatling

73rd this time but it does seem to skew pro bigs and perhaps against PGs (certainly the pro scoring bias doesn't help Stock). The only points still on the board with a better PER peak are Paul (still active), Terrell Brandon (outlier peak), Nate Archibald (scoring pg, injuries), Penny Hardaway (outlier peak with injuries, scoring pg) and Gilbert Arenas (scoring pg, injuries, 2/3 year peak).

xRAPM (http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/1992.html ; http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ra ... .html&#41; and WARP (http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1196 ; http://www.basketballprospectus.com/art ... print&#41; seem to like his peak too.

The boxscore might not fully capture his D either.

Given worse boxscore peak, less longevity in his prime, and worse D, I'd have to be buying very strongly into Nash as an offensive catalyst that would give him pretty substantial (overall) edge at peak, and whilst I'm not super confident on where Nash's (net) extended peak impact is, I'm reasonably sure it isn't enough to overturn the above.

On the arguments that Stockton wasn't ever clear cut the best at his position (though I'd be curious if anyone is in doubt he was the best at the position in '95; the only guy I could hazard a guess at is Penny and he played a lot with Brian Shaw so it's far from a given he's a pg but even then the metrics suggest calling Penny better would be a stretch), perhaps not but nor was say Ewing, who's in now. And post Magic ('92-'97) he's consistently leading all pg's in the metrics year on year (in '93 Price is better by the per minute metrics but behind in WS playing 483 less minutes and of course, he was a worse defender and sadly had a dissapointing playoffs; in '94 Price has a very slight edge in PER - but again minutes, D and playoffs are disadvantages; '96 Penny and Brandon have outlier years, both better in PER and WS/48; Penny is better in total WS, Brandon slightly worse in total WS due to less minutes, KJ better by PER but plays 908 less minutes; in '97 KJ better by PER but plays 238 less minutes). If it's not mention above then Stockton led. Most years Stockton was winning by most categories, when he wasn't it was most often in PER which skews more pro scorers, and he was often behind players who played less minutes and were worse defenders than he was. And then as noted by others those close to him in one year weren't close to him over a five or ten (or 15) year stretch or they'd be getting consideration here cf: http://bkref.com/tiny/FAOwo .

On the scoring volatility I've already said I'm not certain on that (in terms of whether that shows "when needed" scoring) and I think you'd also want to look at the flipside (e.g in '06, his most scoring minded season in Phoenix, in 7 RS games of 9 or less points for Nash they were outscored when he was on court by 52 points and he shot a ts% 0.31779661 (for 6ppg); now there's issues here, lower than usual minutes - because of garbage time, given more minutes shooting would regress to the mean and theres a selction bias because if he's making his shots then he won't have less then 10 points, and then if that were the case his teams wouldn't be being beaten by so much with him on the floor. Still in those games he's playing 29.95238095 mpg, getting 7.571428571 assists and accruing 3 turnovers per game.

Stockton's best (100 pos) scoring year is '90. He has 8 sub 10 point games.
We don't have plus minus but he's shooting 0.400874636 TS% (6.875 ppg); 32.875mpg; 13.25 apg, 2.625 tpg. I'd be very reluctant to draw any strong conclusions based on tiny samples different pace and era etc. But the suggestion would be that not only is Stockton probably less likely to stray significantly below his average (I haven't looked at SDs and in this instance Stockton has one more sub-10 game but it's from a lower scoring baseline 17.2ppg rather than 18.8) but he seems more able to maintain efficient playmaking when apparently not posing a scoring threat, whilst Nash becomes a pedestrian playmaker with a 2.5 a/t ratio (was he contigent on being a scoring threat to open up playmaking, was it an issue with that team ...)

As I say it's small samples, probably means nothing, but then to me I'm not sure a handful of 30+ppg games are a huge deal either.

So yeah, solid peak (especially by metrics in comparision with other pgs). Seems like a good fit with other good players (spaces floor, passes, defends, shoots a high percentage). Incredible longevity /career value added.

[drza]

Kidd, Pippen and Zeke currently on the frontburner

I wrote quite a bit about Jason Kidd last thread, and how the expansion of +/- data since the last time we did a Top 100 in 2011 fully supports my stance from the time that Kidd is a very high impact player, despite his unorthodox style. I made the case that at his best his impact was just a small notch below Nash at his best, but that he was able to maintain a strong impact under a wide variety of different situations for a much longer period of time. Kidd remains on my radar, but there are others as well.

I hope to be able to put some time into Scottie Pippen for this thread, as I think he's very deserving here.

But I'm going to start by posting some of the Isiah Thomas stuff that I wrote in the last Top 100 project. Ultimately I think that comparison posts are more valuable, but with Isiah I need to establish a baseline on how I think he was performing. Live action, my feeling was that Isiah was one of the best players in the NBA in the 80s, just a short step down from the Magics and Brids of the world. However, the advancement of box score/efficiency based statistical analysis around the turn of the century paints Isiah in a worse light due to his relatively inefficient brand of ball. Plus, since the Bad Boys won with a much stronger defense than offense, there are many that say that Isiah wasn't contributing much to the team because defense wasn't his forte.

In the last project, I went back through those Pistons teams in the Isiah era to get a grasp on what I believed about his impact. In one thread it led to some interesting conversation with Lorak (then David Stern), who did not agree with my assessments. Lorak felt that Isiah's inefficiency made him less effective than his hype,a nd that not only was he not a defensive key but that he was subordinate to other Pistons (for example Laimbeer) as offensive performers in that stretch. So in this post, I'll re-post my review of how I saw Isiah impacting the Pistons offensively through the years (incidentally, this post also sets the stage to possibly discussing Dennis Rodman in the foreseeable future). In a subsequent post I'll re-post some of Lorak's questions about Isiah, and my answer to those. That should set the baseline nicely, I think, for us to move the debate forward in this project (I'd say Owly will soon be chiming in with similar sentiments to Lorak, based upon his last posts on Thomas).

I spent a lot of time tonight going back through the 80s Pistons, trying to get a grip on what I think went on. Right now I'm working with the hypothesis that there were 3 men that stood to the forefront for that team: Isiah Thomas was the offensive key, Dennis Rodman was the defensive key, and Chuck Daly was the mastermind. Dumars, Laimbeer, Microwave, Salley, Tripucka, Dantley, Aguirre, Mahorn, etc. all played their parts and played them well, but it seems to me that Zeke and Rodman are the two that stood out based upon how their arrivals on the scene and their eventual departures (or declines) changed their units for the better or worse.

Sticking with Zeke, the 1981 Pistons were 21 - 61 with an O-Rtg of 98.1. In 1982 Zeke and Kelly Tripucka came on the scene (and a year later Laimbeer came aboard), and for the next 2 years the team jumped to an average record 38 - 44 with all of the improvement coming on offense (O-Rtg average of 105.6, +7.5 from '81. The 2-year D-Rtg actually got 2 points worse from '81).

Then in 1984 Chuck Daly came in the coach. The team record immediately jumped up to 49 - 33, again with all of the improvement coming on offense (O-Rtg up to 111.5, 1st in NBA, while D-Rtg slipped to 108.1, 16th in league). Zeke, Tripucka and Laimbeer were still the main offensive cogs. Over the 7 years from 1984 thru 1990 the Pistons O-Rtg would never vary outside of the range of 109 to 111.4 pts/100 possessions. This is important, because almost all of the moving parts would change over this period...except for Zeke and Daily.

During Zeke's tenure from 1982 - 1986, the defense was pretty consistently around average in the league. After Daly came aboard, with Zeke running the ship, the Pistons averaged more than 47 wins per year from '84 - '86 with a strong offense (average O-Rtg 110, avg rank 5.7/23 teams) and a slightly below average defense (avg. D-Rtg 107.7, rank 13.3/23 teams). Dumars and Rick Mahorn joined the squad in 1986.

Then in 1987 the Pistons added two young guys to their big man rotation: Dennis Rodman and John Salley. They teamed up with Laimbeer and Mahorn to form a nasty defensive frontline, and the Bad Boys were born. Meanwhile, Tripucka got replaced as the frontcourt scorer by Adrian Dantley in '87, and 2 years later Dantley became Mark Aguirre. But the offense never really changed. For the next 4 years the offense stayed the same (avg O-Rtg 110.1, avg rank 8.5/24 teams) but the defense got stingy (avg D-Rtg 104.8, rank 3rd/24 teams). Rodman grew from a role player in '87 to their co-leading rebounder in '88 an '89 to the Defensive Player of the Year in '90 and '91).

Built on the consistently strong Isiah-led offense and the now dominant Rodman-led defense, the Pistons won 2 titles ('89 and '90) after coming bad-luck short of 2 more possible titles in '87 and '88. Then, in 1991, things started going down hill.

First, in '91, Isiah missed a lot of the season injured. Those that do the yearly in/outs point out that the Pistons didn't tank without Isiah, and this is useful to know. On the other hand, with Zeke playing roughly 3000 minutes per season the Pistons had been rock-solid around their average 110 O-Rtg for 7 years. I don't think it's coincidence that this season, with Zeke hobbling to only 1600 minutes and some change, they turned in their lowest mark since '83 (108.2 ORtg). That wasn't so steep of a decline on offense, but it was enough to have a definite negative impact on the win-loss record. The Defense was still strong, with Rodman winning his second straight DPoY while leading a stingy unit, but the magic was gone and the team won only "50" games.

Even though he would come back and play all of the next year, Isiah was clearly in decline by this point. And the offense continued to decline with him, down to 107.5 ORtg the next year (team wins 48 games, largely due to the still strong defense). Daly left after '92, and in '93 the offense maintained at a 107.4 Rtg but the defense fell off with Rodman missing 20 games and the Pistons were below .500 (40 - 42). Then, in '94, Rodman was gone and Zeke was a shell of himself in the last year before he retired, and the team won only 20 games.

Conclusions: So, all of that says what? To me, it illustrates that Zeke was the offensive "man" for those Pistons. His leading frontcourt scorer could swap out from Tripucka to Dantley to Aguirre with no discernible change in the team offense. The offense was the same from before Dumars to early less prominent Dumars to Finals MVP Dumars. The moving parts didn't matter, as long as Zeke was the one running the show. It wasn't until Zeke started missing games and slowing down due to injury/age that the offense started to slide. We don't have any good +/- data for the period, and we don't even have any in/out data until Zeke's last years. But after looking at the whole, I'm satisfied that he was having a consistent and large offensive impact for those Pistons teams. That essentially, he was their offensive anchor. He wasn't the leader of that dominant defense...that honor belongs to the defensive front line, eventually led by Rodman, but the offense stayed consistently strong and was still a vital (perhaps the limiting) cog in their titles. I'm satisfied with Zeke, here.

And frankly, especially after that ridiculously in-depth Rodman site that DocMJ linked a few threads back ( http://skepticalsports.com/?p=1214 ) and now really taking a closer look at those Pistons, and then subsequently Rodman's path through the Spurs and Bulls, I'm extremely tempted to nominate the Worm right now. I'm going to leave my nomination as TMac for now, as I nominated him last thread and he seems to have some traction right now, but Rodman needs to have his case made soon and I very well could still change my mind.

[drza]

Second re-post on Isiah Thomas from 2011 Top 100

Some here will will disagree, but it's pretty clear to me Isiah was the most important player on those Piston teams, both strategically and emotionally. We've entertained significant evidence on behalf of guys like Russell that's basically narrative based, and I see no reason not to with Isiah.

There's clear connection between Russell's impact and Celtics defensive dominance. On the other hand there's no such connection between Isiah's impact and Pistons defensive dominance.
Well, maybe Bill Laimbeer was more valuable to Bad Boys than Thomas?

I know you were being somewhat flippant with your last sentence, but after really taking them to the lab more last night the pattern of those Pistons really seems clearer to me. And one thing that I noticed was that Laimbeer was NOT the lynchpin for that defense. Essentially, it seems to me that the 2 units for the Pistons developed in opposite ways: The offense was more unipolar early then grew to more ensemble later, while the defense was more ensemble early and grew to unipolar later. And in both cases, when there was a more unipolar period, the main figure was pretty clear: Zeke on offense, and Rodman on defense.

I go back to those ORtg and DRtg lists that you posted at the top of pg 2 of this thread as evidence. Offensively, you don't show 1981 (year before Zeke), but the first huge jump for the Pistons was from 1981 to 1982 when Zeke (and Tripucka) were the primary new additions. The next big jump was from '83 to '84, when Daly came in as coach and Zeke/Tripucka were still the main 2 options. You mentioned in that post that "With Dantley and Augirre Pistons had two of three best offenses during Isiah career", but let's be more specific and check out the Pistons' top 6 offenses in that period:

1) 1984 - Main options Isiah, Tripucka (+3.9)
2) 1989 - Main options Isiah, the Dantley/Aguirre combo, Dumars (+3.0)
3) 1988 - Main options Isiah, Dantley (+2.5)
4) 1986 - Main options Isiah, Tripucka, Laimbeer (+1.8)
5) 1990 - Main options Isiah, Dumars (+1.8)
6) 1985 - Main options Isiah, Laimbeer, Tripucka (injured a lot) (+1.7)

See, "In/out" is only one way to do rough "impact" measurement when we don't have access to +/-. Another way to estimate impact over time is through "common thread" analysis. The Pistons team offense was extremely consistent from 1984 - 1990 (O-Rtg around 110 every year), but over that time period all of the moving parts changed...except Zeke. By the late 80s the Pistons offense had become much more ensemble, and another guard in Dumars was stepping forward to take more responsibility. But the common thread in all of those offenses was still Zeke, and when Zeke started fading was when the Pistons' offenses started sliding.

A similar trend, but in reverse, happens on the defense. I won't go into as much detail, but it certainly appears that Laimbeer was NOT the factor. He was there for 4 years from '83 - 86 while the team defense was average or slightly below. In fact, to my memory, in those early days Laimbeer was more of an offense guy than a defender. In '86 Mahorn joined him in the rotation, but the defense was still slightly below average. It wasn't until '87, when Sidney Green, Salley and Rodman joined the mix, that we see the Pistons defense ratings/rankings/relative-to-average-marks really improve. In '87 it was an ensemble (Laimbeer, Green, Salley, Mahorn and Rodman all saw minutes in the big man rotation) but by '90 Green and Mahorn were gone and Rodman had clearly become the defensive leader (that was his first DPoY season). The defense, converse to the offense, went from ensemble to unipoloar...but the common thread in all of those elite defenses was Rodman.

[drza]

Third re-post from 2011 on Isiah Thomas, focusing more on what the 1991 season might say about his impact.

drza,
obviously I would not argue that Laimbeer was more important, but what is your stance on:

1. Pistons without Thomas in 1986 (small sample) and 1991 (big sample and most games Isiah played before injury, so he still was in his prime, several months after he won finals MVP) had better offense than with him.

2. Pistons were champions because of defense, it's clear they became very good, when they started to play very good defense ('87). So why Thomas is seen as the most valuable part of this team and not for example Rodman?

PS
Yes, Pistons improved offensively a lot in Thomas rookie year, but it's more Tripucka's impact than Thomas. Kelly played ~500 minutes more than Isiah and was MUCH MORE efficient.

1) I'd say the 1986 sample is just way too small. 5 games does nothing for me in this instance. I hesitate to put much even into 10 game absences, so in 5 games unless the difference is monstrous I don't even consider it.

The 1991 is a much larger sample, I agree. I look at it several ways:
* As I pointed out, for 7 straight years from 1984 - 1990 the Pistons O-Rtg was rock solid around 110 with Zeke playing about 3000 minutes/year. From '88 - '90 when the Pistons were Finals teams, the ORtg was 110.4 and the DRtg was 104.5 with Zeke averaging 2948 minutes.

* In 1991 not only did Isiah miss a lot of games, but he also played the fewest minutes per game (34.2) that he had since his rookie year. And with Zeke playing 1657 minutes total the DRtg was rock steady (104.6) but the ORtg dropped to 108.2.

*Now, that' s not a huge drop on offense, but it is a lower mark than any the Pistons had had during their run of elite play and it certainly seemed to have an impact on their records (average 59 wins/year from '88 - '90, 50 wins in '91).

2) The Bad Boy Pistons were a defense-first team. But as the previous paragraphs illustrate, the defense couldn't make them contenders alone. The defense in '91 (DRtg 104.6) was every bit as strong as it was during the '88 - '90 Finals runs (avg DRtg 104.5). But the team record dropped by 9 wins in '91 as the offense wasn't as strong. Yes, the defense was the dominant unit on the title teams, but the defense alone wasn't enough. The offense, which was Isiah's purview, had to be there as well. And without Zeke in the games and at full speed, it wasn't.

Conclusion I see a healthy Isiah being the difference between the Pistons having an offense strong enough to dominate the season/win titles vs being a still strong team based on their defense but more of an also-ran. That's not a trivial difference.

*PS. All of this discussion focuses on Isiah, but as I'm sure you've noted, we are in agreement on Rodman's importance. He did develop into the force behind the defense for the Pistons, and he eventually did it again in Chicago. I remember during the Pippen vote you asked how to explain the Bulls defense not falling off in '98 with Pippen missing so much time, and after looking at it last night I think the difference is all Rodman. He stepped up in a major way when Pippen was out. In '97 when the Bulls had the 4th rated defense Pippen played 3095 minutes while Rodman played only 1947. In '98, when Pippen was hobbled and could only manage 1652 minutes, it was Rodman who stepped up to 2856 minutes played and held the defense steady at 3rd in the NBA.

[FJS]

My vote goes to Stockton

Two untouchable records, even fot good/great pgs who played more or less same seasons as him (Kidd, Nash, Jackson)
Do you realize Nash (2nd) playing only one season less has made 2/3 part of assists Stockton did? 5000 assist less.
Same in steals.

Record in apg too, 14.5 apg.

Perennial all-star and in all nba teams (1st, 2nd or 3rd)

Great shooter, great defender. One of the best offensive minds in the game. Probably best PG in mid court.

Best PG in the 90's.

Never missed games, and his game decline in minutes, but not in production, even with 41 years.