RealGM Top 100 List #27

[drza]

Pippen vs Frazier

I've got four players I'm seriously considering for this slot at the moment: Frazier, Isiah Thomas, Pippen and Kidd. I've spent my last few posts talking about individuals, so I wanted to do a comparison here. Ideally it'd be all 4 of them in a battle royal, but there is a such thing as too much of a good thing. I'm feeling like I wouldn't be able to do such a diverse comp any justice if I split it four ways here. So instead I'll start off with Pippen vs Frazier, and hopefully I can come back and work Kidd and Zeke in later.

I thought Frazier and Pippen would make an interesting comp because, in a strange way, they actually have some similarities to their general games. Both played a lot of point for their teams, but neither was a traditional full-on distributing point guard. Both were ridiculous on defense, and used their size/athletic ability to give them added versatility at that end of the court. So without further ado, let's take a look at how Clyde and Pip match up.

Box score comp
Regular season, 10 year primes (raw for Walt, per100 possessions for Pippen)
Walt Frazier 1969 - 1978: 20.1 pts (54.5% TS), 6.1 reb, 6.4 ast (TO not kept for most of career)
Scottie Pippen 1990 - 1999: 26.2 pts (54.4% TS), 9.8 reb, 8.0 ast (4.1 TO)

Playoffs, 10 year primes (raw for Walt, per100 possessions for Pippen)
Walt Frazier 1969 - 1975: 21.2 pts ( 55.9% TS), 7.2 reb, 6.4 ast (TO not kept)
Scottie Pippen 1990 - 1999: 25.9 pts (52.3% TS), 10.7 reb, 7.4 ast (4.1 TO)

With the chasm in pace from the early 70s to the 90s, I had to do some sort of pace adjustment. Here I used Frazier's raw numbers and Pippen's per 100 numbers. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it gets them on somewhat more similar pace scales. A few interesting things show up to me in these boxes

*It's interesting that, if the pace adjustment has any validity at all, Pippen was counted on to score at least as heavily (by volume) as Frazier if not more. Frazier is known more as a scorer, while Pippen is thought of more as a jack-of-all-trades. As Penbeast and others have pointed out, pace adjusting might be more beneficial for counting/hustle categories like rebounds than scoring...but still, it appears that Pippen (by scoring volume) was relied on at least as heavily as Frazier on his team/era.

*Frazier is clearly the more efficient scorer, especially in the playoffs. Their efficiencies matched in the regular season without era adjustment, but (depending on how you do it) Frazier was doing his scoring in a more inefficient era which could give him even more "extra credit" in this category. And he doesn't even need extra credit in the postseason, as Frazier's scoring efficiency went up in the postseaosn while Pippen's went down and thus Frazier opens up some space even without era adjustment.

*It makes sense that Pippen (as the small forward) was hitting the boards harder than Frazier (as a point guard). However, you'd expect the reverse in the assists, and you don't get it. I realize that Frazier played in a different era where maybe assists were harder to come by (outside of the phantom 19 assist game) and that the Knicks were more of an ensemble cast that didn't require a ball-dominant PG distributor, but still. Pippen having a two-assist advantage in pace-adjusted assists over Frazier is still counterintuitive, and emphasizes to me that Pippen was acting just as much as a floor general as Frazier was.

The stylistics

Frazier is known as one of the best defensive point guards in history, who was also an excellent scorer and a big-time postseason performer. Pippen is known as arguably the best defensive small forward in history, who was also an excellent point forward that showed that he could be a number one option in MJ's retirement absence. But let's see if we can go a bit further than that.

Frazier was a big point guard who had an excellent mid-range scoring game. Last thread someone used Andre' Miller as a scoring comp for him, with his ability to score efficiently from 17-feet and in. The 3-point line wasn't in the NBA in Frazier's time, and his game was not about stretching the D from long range. He wasn't generating a lot of free throws (career average 5.1 FTA, max 7.2 FTA), and as mentioned he was playing in an ensemble offense where he didn't have to do all of the heavy lifting as a general/distributor for his offenses to work. The Knicks' offense was generally good-not-great during Frazier's prime (3rd, 5th, 8th, 7th, 3rd, 10th from 69 - 74 in a 17-team league) before fading into the double-digits from 75 on. On defense, the Knicks made more of their money with rankings of 4th, 1st, 2nd, 6th, 4th, 5th from 69 - 74 before similarly falling off the cliff in 75. Interestingly at least according to the box scores, Frazier seemed to still be on his game in '75 (78 games played, 21.5 points, 6.1 asts, 4.8 boards, 19.9 PER...those numbers aren't far off of what he produced at his peak, but the team results plummeted as his teammates changed around him.

Pippen is one of the most versatile wings that I've ever seen. At a long 6-7, he had the quickness to defend a lot of PGs but the length to hold his own with power forwards. Pippen was also a high riser, with leaping ability as another area where he was overshadowed by Jordan. Pippen wasn't a natural shooter, but he developed a pretty timely jumper out to 3-point range as his career progressed. He was an excellent ball-handler, capable of handling the ball full-court for entire games at a time without issue. The Bulls tended to flirt often with the #1 offense and/or #1 defense in the league, but it's hard to isolate that to Pippen considering who his teammate was.

Non-boxscore impact

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of numbers to work with here. Frazier missed the databall era completely by 25 years and rarely missed enough games for good In/Out numbers. Pippen overlapped with the databall era at the end of his career, but we don't have a lot to work with in his prime. Often in these cases, I'll look for trends with players of similar style/caliber.

In 1998 Pippen missed a bunch of games, but Dennis Rodman almost doubled his minutes from '97. Essentially, Rodman and Pippen flip-flopped minutes (and possibly role/defensive importance) in those two seasons. As a result, the Bulls's defense in '98 was able to survive with him out so much. But I think that has less to do with Pippen, and more to do with Rodman. But the flip side of the defense not falling off much without him, is that Pip DID score very well on offense. His normalized PI offensive RAPM for '98 was +7.0, good for a tie for 10th in the NBA that year just ahead of Gary Payton (+6.2). It's interesting that he's next to Payton, because stylistically Payton also plays a bit like Frazier (e.g. good size, good midrange game, good finisher, not a mega distributor). The match isn't exact, but I could see their ORTGs being similar.

On the flip side of the ball, the best 5-year normalized DRAPM score a non-big-man from 1998 -2012 belonged to Shane Battier (+4.3) and Ron Artest (+4.1). Meanwhile, the best 5-year normalized DRAPM scores for full-time point guards over that stretch were Jaosn Kidd (+3.3) and old John Stockton (+3.2). The numbers aren't so important here, more-so this is meant as a mild evidence point that great small forwards on defense can generally have a higher impact on team defense than great defensive point guards. I recognize that some believe Frazier to be the defensive GOAT at PG, but likewise many believe the same of Pip at SF. Estimating similar best-case-scenario situations for their projected defensive impact, I'd have to say that I believe Pippen would have a larger defensive impact than Frazier if we had the numbers for it.

Conclusions

As I've looked at this comp, outside of scoring efficiency I would say that Pippen has looked a bit better across the board. A bigger presence on the glass, similar/greater assist numbers, and (I believe) a larger defensive impact. Frazier looks good, but at pretty much every turn I believe Pippen looked better.

All told, I'd have to say that I take Pippen in this particular comparison.

[john248]

I would like to learn a bit more about Pippen.

A few questions:

- how many Prime years did Pippen have, when did his prime start and end?

- when did his defense become great and when did it tail off? I am asking this because the RAPM studies from 97-00 show him as a positive defender, but nothing like his reputation.

-when did his offense become really good and for how long?

- does he have a longevity problem?

-Pippen's prime was from 91-97 or 98

-His defense is praised so much because of his arguably GOAT level perimeter D and defensive versatility. Pip was a very good defender by 90, a very good/great defender from 91-98 and a consistently good and occasionally great defender in HOU and POR.

-his offensive game was good but not great throughout his prime. Tailed off in HOU and POR. More of a role player by then.

-No, don't think he has a longevity issue. Started 1053 games and played 41069 mins during RS.

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Pippen was almost like a stationary player in Houston though I know the numbers disagree with me on this even if the eye test was Pippen just feeding to Hakeem or Chuck and stand around. I was more impressed with him in Portland, but he was more aged by then.

[john248]

double

[Doctor MJ]

Quick thought: What's the argument for Frazier over Chris Paul?

Paul's youth gives him major longevity issues relative to the other guys we've been discussing, but he's already surpassed Frazier's Win Share total. I'm hardly married to that stat, but that to me hammers home Frazier's longevity issues. He's still got an edge over Paul on that front, but for anyone who thinks Paul has a clear peak edge over Frazier, it's hard to imagine letting longevity determine the vote.

I'm currently leaning Pippen here so to some degree it's moot for me, but while I like Frazier, this is one of those facts that left me reconsidering an old player, rather like LeBron's increased longevity I think left us reconsidering whether we can justify ranking Bird & Magic so high.

[Quotatious]

I see that Narigo posted Gilmore's footage - here's some more (full game, so it's a chance to get a good grasp of how he played in his physical prime - his second season in the league, at 23/24 years old, averaged 20.8 PPG/17.6 RPG/3.5 APG in the RS)

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M5hT3Ziri8[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OrUZgsd3Lw[/youtube]

I think it's great because the criticisms of the ABA as a league with very few good bigmen, compared to the NBA at the same time, certainly don't apply here...You have Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel on one team, Mel Daniels and George McGinnis on the other...

Here's the second half of the game that Narigo posted (game 1 of the 1974 Eastern division finals)

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

And for fun, here's the ABA Roundtable from NBA TV - fun to listen to those guys - we basically have 4 of the top 5 best players in ABA history here.

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

Some high praise for Artis - if Rick Barry speaks so highly of you, that's definitely a reason to be proud of your career...You can feel how much respect they all had for Gilmore (including his teammate Dan Issel).

[FJS]

I'm unsure who vote...

Pippen, Isiah, Frazier, Barry were great. The first finals I watch (all seven games) were 88 (I watched some 87 finals too) so I'm a little biased about Isiah and that marvellous 6 game.

As a child I was amazed how that small guy was able to score so many points with a injuried ankle vs so many "giants" around him in the 3rd quarter.

Barry, Frazier, Walton... all got a lot of fame, still I'm not very familiar with their style of play since I didn't watch them play.

I'm going to read you before vote.

[Quotatious]

Throwing a name out there...when's the earliest you guys are comfortable discussing Manu?

Around 45 for me (start getting talked about, not getting votes). Definitely not before Pierce gets selected - looking at their primes, on a year-by-year basis, IMO they're almost even, but Pierce was a borderline superstar even before Manu joined the league, in 2001 and 2002, and obviously way better than rookie Manu in '03, too, but Paul is also much more proven in many different circumstances (carrying a team by himself - he could play heavy minutes on a consistent basis and stay healthy, but he was also able to change his game a bit, and become a part of great ensemble cast, like the 2008-13 Celtics, as one of a few stars of his team - he's a very portable player). Obviously Manu has always been terrific on a per-minute basis, his boxscore stats like PER, WS/48 etc. are great, even better than Truth's, and he's elite in RAPM, but Pierce really doesn't look bad in metrics like that, either, and he has a huge edge in terms of longevity). If you (or anyone else) is interested, here's my year-by-year analysis of Pierce vs Manu:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1322884

I assume we're not taking international accomplishments into account here, and focus just on the NBA/ABA, so Ginobili's success in Europe, before his NBA career, or his success with Argentina, doesn't count.

Okay, enough with Pierce and Ginobili here, as I think that neither is really deserving to be talked about so early.

[penbeast0]

I agree with drza that Pippen numbers seem to favor him. My issue with Pippen (like with Gilmore) is his personality. The key feature of Pippen's personality was insecurity; it showed in his contracts, in his dealing with Jordan and others; it was something talked about a lot in bios of him. He was okay being second banana to Jordan but had bigger issues than even Jordan with Kukoc coming in because, among other things, they played the same spot. Thus the refusal to go into a playoff game when Phil Jackson drew up a last shot play featuring Kukoc rather than Scottie.

This to me seems a guy that will not lift and inspire his teammates, not really a leader type despite having a game that I love to watch. I have similar issues with Gilmore; if he had Zo's personality, he'd have avoided the problems he had in Chicago and probably had another ring or two in Kentucky but he was basically a big, shy kid, uncomfortable in the spotlight or the leadership role. Like Scottie, he's going to go in soon for me but right now I see Frazier as a guy who will lead my team whereas those two will only be outstanding players for my team. Since the numbers are close enough for me (a very subjective thing), I go for the leader.

Frazier v. Isiah. Frazier just seems to be much the better player. Isiah is also a great leader though I disliked him pushing Dantley out the door, freezing out MJ in the all-star game, and echoing Rodman's stupid comments about Bird -- it made me question his intelligence (as did his stint as GM in NY). But he was a fighter who improved under pressure and I think that sort of thing communicates itself to teammates. However, that can be said of Frazier as well. And, while Isiah generate more raw volume stats in terms of points and assists, I see Frazier as a guy who can up his scoring easily if needed and as an excellent team leader in terms of running an offense so the volume argument isn't that strong for me; on the other hand, Frazier is much more efficient (in an era where guards had more trouble scoring efficiently) and a better defender.

Finally, to answer the question about Frazier's offense and defensive game. His offensive game was primarily midrange. He had a nice post-up game and decent range but was mainly about finding seams and getting a little separation to hit leaners or jumpers. Played very well off ball for a PG too which was a requirement in Holtzman's triangle style offense. Defensively, relied on handchecking and physical strength less than most of the other great wing defenders although he was a big, strong guard and did well in the post. Instead, he liked to hang off his man a bit and work him for steals plus use his quickness to trap and recover. He played psych games with opponents, setting them up by showing them openings then changing up on them to generate confusion and mistakes. Fun to watch.

[Texas Chuck]

Wow, I strongly disagree with criticizing Pippen for his personality.

Any player ever on a team with Mike isn't going to be the alpha. But if you have a guy who tried to act like one as opposed to Pippen who willingly accepted playing 2nd fiddle you were going to have issues because Mike would in all likelihood tried to destroy that guy.

Then when Mike leaves for nearly 2 years, Pippen is the clear alpha, and so yeah he's ticked when the shot is drawn up for Toni. Just like Bird was when Jones tried to draw up a play for someone else. But we praise Bird and destroy Pippen. He was also the clear alpha and leader in Portland on a very deep and talented team.

And pretty much everyone associated with the Bulls except Mike praise Pippen for being the real leader of the team. And I think we all know that Jordan is all about what makes Jordan look best.

No Pippen, if anything should get bonus points for his ability to slide into the role the team needs him to, both with his on-court play, but also personality-wise. And there should really be zero question that he was a leader.

[trex_8063]

I would like to learn a bit more about Pippen.

A few questions:

- how many Prime years did Pippen have, when did his prime start and end?

- when did his defense become great and when did it tail off? I am asking this because the RAPM studies from 97-00 show him as a positive defender, but nothing like his reputation.

-when did his offense become really good and for how long?

- does he have a longevity problem?

-Pippen's prime was from 91-97 or 98

-Pip was a very good defender by 90, a very good/great defender from 91-98 and a good defender in HOU and POR.

-his offensive game was good but not great throughout his prime. Tailed off in HOU and POR. More of a role player by then.

-No, don't think he has a longevity issue. Started 1053 games and played 41069 mins during RS.

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Thank you for your response.

Defense:
Here is the thing though, you say very good/great up to 98.
Now the problem I have here is that evidence actually distorts that notion.
This, somehow, is similar to Kobe. His defensive reputation exceeded his impact by far.
Plenty of quotes and praises, but the data tells us a different story.
Neutral defender.
Pippen, in general, is heralded as the GOAT perimeter defender.
The data of his late prime (97,98) disagrees heavily.

Longevity:
8 prime years and 2-3 valuable years as a role player.
This is actually really comparable to someone like McGrady who is criticized for the longevity aspect.


So yes I am really unsure what to make of Pippen.

wrt longevity:
This is over-stating things a bit. Pip wasn't just 8 years an All-Star and 2-3 yrs as a role player....
Pippen had 8 years as a solid All-Star (if not All-NBA) caliber player; I suppose you could discount '98 because he missed 38 games (but he WAS all-star quality when he played). He then had 2 other years at what I would call "borderline all-star caliber" ('90 and '99). And then ~5 years as a valuable role player ('89, '00-'03). He had only two negligible years, as book-ends on his career.

And the McGrady comparison strikes me as a bit of a straw-man: yes, Pippen had an 8-year prime (same as TMac ('01-'08) if measured in years). But McGrady missed more games throughout his prime, such that Pip played 42 more rs games in their respective primes (599 vs. 557), and >1,000 more minutes (22,646 vs. 21,534)......to say nothing of playoff games/minutes. So length of prime at least slightly favors Pippen, and then it's not close as far as other valuable seasons.....
*Pippen has ~7 other valuable (at least role-player) seasons, amounting to 477 rs games.
**McGrady had only TWO other relatively relevant role-player years, amounting to 114 rs games.


Intend to write more about Pippen, his O and his D (addressing your concerns there), etc later on if I find the time.

[E-Balla]

Pippen vs Frazier

I've got four players I'm seriously considering for this slot at the moment: Frazier, Isiah Thomas, Pippen and Kidd. I've spent my last few posts talking about individuals, so I wanted to do a comparison here. Ideally it'd be all 4 of them in a battle royal, but there is a such thing as too much of a good thing. I'm feeling like I wouldn't be able to do such a diverse comp any justice if I split it four ways here. So instead I'll start off with Pippen vs Frazier, and hopefully I can come back and work Kidd and Zeke in later.

I thought Frazier and Pippen would make an interesting comp because, in a strange way, they actually have some similarities to their general games. Both played a lot of point for their teams, but neither was a traditional full-on distributing point guard. Both were ridiculous on defense, and used their size/athletic ability to give them added versatility at that end of the court. So without further ado, let's take a look at how Clyde and Pip match up.

Box score comp
Regular season, 10 year primes (raw for Walt, per100 possessions for Pippen)
Walt Frazier 1969 - 1978: 20.1 pts (54.5% TS), 6.1 reb, 6.4 ast (TO not kept for most of career)
Scottie Pippen 1990 - 1999: 26.2 pts (54.4% TS), 9.8 reb, 8.0 ast (4.1 TO)

Playoffs, 10 year primes (raw for Walt, per100 possessions for Pippen)
Walt Frazier 1969 - 1975: 21.2 pts ( 55.9% TS), 7.2 reb, 6.4 ast (TO not kept)
Scottie Pippen 1990 - 1999: 25.9 pts (52.3% TS), 10.7 reb, 7.4 ast (4.1 TO)

With the chasm in pace from the early 70s to the 90s, I had to do some sort of pace adjustment. Here I used Frazier's raw numbers and Pippen's per 100 numbers. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it gets them on somewhat more similar pace scales. A few interesting things show up to me in these boxes

Those pace scales are nowhere near similar. Walt only hit over 100 possessions per game once (71) and was only close twice (72-73). Basically you're comparing per 100 numbers to per 85 numbers. From 74-78 (half of your sample) Walt averaged 19.2/5.5/5.8 in your sample but in real life he averaged 22.7/6.6/6.9 per 100.

*It's interesting that, if the pace adjustment has any validity at all, Pippen was counted on to score at least as heavily (by volume) as Frazier if not more. Frazier is known more as a scorer, while Pippen is thought of more as a jack-of-all-trades. As Penbeast and others have pointed out, pace adjusting might be more beneficial for counting/hustle categories like rebounds than scoring...but still, it appears that Pippen (by scoring volume) was relied on at least as heavily as Frazier on his team/era.

Even with the pace adjustment not being close to valid yes Scottie was relied on to score more if you ignore era differences. If you look at those old NBA teams they spread the ball more and got a lot of shots around. Compared to the league average Walt was probably asked to score just a little but more. It is close though.

*Frazier is clearly the more efficient scorer, especially in the playoffs. Their efficiencies matched in the regular season without era adjustment, but (depending on how you do it) Frazier was doing his scoring in a more inefficient era which could give him even more "extra credit" in this category. And he doesn't even need extra credit in the postseason, as Frazier's scoring efficiency went up in the postseaosn while Pippen's went down and thus Frazier opens up some space even without era adjustment.

This leads into my main argument against Scottie, we all know he was great but could he be a leader? Toni Kukoc and Phil know the answer and its not really a positive for Scottie. And some would point to his Portland years but he was already old by then and he probably wasn't as hungry for individual success as he was before.

*It makes sense that Pippen (as the small forward) was hitting the boards harder than Frazier (as a point guard). However, you'd expect the reverse in the assists, and you don't get it. I realize that Frazier played in a different era where maybe assists were harder to come by (outside of the phantom 19 assist game) and that the Knicks were more of an ensemble cast that didn't require a ball-dominant PG distributor, but still. Pippen having a two-assist advantage in pace-adjusted assists over Frazier is still counterintuitive, and emphasizes to me that Pippen was acting just as much as a floor general as Frazier was.

This is what made me get into this post. Walt after the pace adjustment should still be over Scottie in APG and after applying an era adjustment (Walt was top 5 in APG 4 times and top 10 every year from 69-75; Scottie was never top 10) Walt comes out way on top. This part of your post was completely based on uneven stats and lack of knowledge of how the game was scored back then (which is totally not like you drza).

The stylistics

Frazier is known as one of the best defensive point guards in history, who was also an excellent scorer and a big-time postseason performer. Pippen is known as arguably the best defensive small forward in history, who was also an excellent point forward that showed that he could be a number one option in MJ's retirement absence. But let's see if we can go a bit further than that.

Frazier was a big point guard who had an excellent mid-range scoring game. Last thread someone used Andre' Miller as a scoring comp for him, with his ability to score efficiently from 17-feet and in. The 3-point line wasn't in the NBA in Frazier's time, and his game was not about stretching the D from long range. He wasn't generating a lot of free throws (career average 5.1 FTA, max 7.2 FTA), and as mentioned he was playing in an ensemble offense where he didn't have to do all of the heavy lifting as a general/distributor for his offenses to work. The Knicks' offense was generally good-not-great during Frazier's prime (3rd, 5th, 8th, 7th, 3rd, 10th from 69 - 74 in a 17-team league) before fading into the double-digits from 75 on. On defense, the Knicks made more of their money with rankings of 4th, 1st, 2nd, 6th, 4th, 5th from 69 - 74 before similarly falling off the cliff in 75. Interestingly at least according to the box scores, Frazier seemed to still be on his game in '75 (78 games played, 21.5 points, 6.1 asts, 4.8 boards, 19.9 PER...those numbers aren't far off of what he produced at his peak, but the team results plummeted as his teammates changed around him.

I already discussed how crappy that team was. He should be getting praised for making the playoffs and hitting around .500 with that team.

Pippen is one of the most versatile wings that I've ever seen. At a long 6-7, he had the quickness to defend a lot of PGs but the length to hold his own with power forwards. Pippen was also a high riser, with leaping ability as another area where he was overshadowed by Jordan. Pippen wasn't a natural shooter, but he developed a pretty timely jumper out to 3-point range as his career progressed. He was an excellent ball-handler, capable of handling the ball full-court for entire games at a time without issue. The Bulls tended to flirt often with the #1 offense and/or #1 defense in the league, but it's hard to isolate that to Pippen considering who his teammate was.

Non-boxscore impact

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of numbers to work with here. Frazier missed the databall era completely by 25 years and rarely missed enough games for good In/Out numbers. Pippen overlapped with the databall era at the end of his career, but we don't have a lot to work with in his prime. Often in these cases, I'll look for trends with players of similar style/caliber.

In 1998 Pippen missed a bunch of games, but Dennis Rodman almost doubled his minutes from '97. Essentially, Rodman and Pippen flip-flopped minutes (and possibly role/defensive importance) in those two seasons. As a result, the Bulls's defense in '98 was able to survive with him out so much. But I think that has less to do with Pippen, and more to do with Rodman. But the flip side of the defense not falling off much without him, is that Pip DID score very well on offense. His normalized PI offensive RAPM for '98 was +7.0, good for a tie for 10th in the NBA that year just ahead of Gary Payton (+6.2). It's interesting that he's next to Payton, because stylistically Payton also plays a bit like Frazier (e.g. good size, good midrange game, good finisher, not a mega distributor). The match isn't exact, but I could see their ORTGs being similar.

On the flip side of the ball, the best 5-year normalized DRAPM score a non-big-man from 1998 -2012 belonged to Shane Battier (+4.3) and Ron Artest (+4.1). Meanwhile, the best 5-year normalized DRAPM scores for full-time point guards over that stretch were Jaosn Kidd (+3.3) and old John Stockton (+3.2). The numbers aren't so important here, more-so this is meant as a mild evidence point that great small forwards on defense can generally have a higher impact on team defense than great defensive point guards. I recognize that some believe Frazier to be the defensive GOAT at PG, but likewise many believe the same of Pip at SF. Estimating similar best-case-scenario situations for their projected defensive impact, I'd have to say that I believe Pippen would have a larger defensive impact than Frazier if we had the numbers for it.

Conclusions

As I've looked at this comp, outside of scoring efficiency I would say that Pippen has looked a bit better across the board. A bigger presence on the glass, similar/greater assist numbers, and (I believe) a larger defensive impact. Frazier looks good, but at pretty much every turn I believe Pippen looked better.

All told, I'd have to say that I take Pippen in this particular comparison.

Pippen is about even looking at regular season performance (scoring volume is a little higher but assists are lower) offensively but in the postseason his performance doesn't hold up to Walt at all. Scottie's best argument is longevity.

[trex_8063]

Have a question or two regarding Frazier's defense.

Obv one of the great on-ball stealers, forced a lot of turnovers in general. That being said, getting steals/forcing turnovers doesn't necessarily make one a good defender (take Iverson for example). So I am STILL wondering where all this GOAT-level perimeter defender rhetoric comes from. Mostly I see vague allusions to '70 game 7, as reference for how he can "take a game over" defensively.

He's got the defensive accolades, but this forum is quick to point out where accolades and award voting is often unjust or inaccurate, including defensive awards (see Kobe Bryant). Also note his competition for All-D awards in the backcourt when he was garnering these: Jerry West (only until '73), Jerry Sloan, Don Chaney (entering prime around '71), Norm Van Lier (also entering his prime around '71), and Oscar Robertson (who didn't actually win ANY, but does have a reputation, only till about '72 or '73 anyway).....and that's largely it. Once some other defensive talents (Slick Watts, Don Buse) entered the league in the mid-70's, Frazier never made All-D again......failed to even make even the 2nd Team during one year of his prime (sure: value of accolades?? jsia).

We do see the Knicks team DRtg make positive strides in '68 (the year Frazier arrived), though I don't think we can correctly credit Frazier too heavily for that, given he was a rookie playing somewhat limited minutes. Other new acquisitions that year included Phil Jackson, Bill Bradley, and (perhaps most importantly?) Red Holzman took over as head coach around mid-season.

I was also taking note of Frazier's bpg average (recorded beginning in '74): just 0.18 per game. I know bpg is of questionable value when evaluating a guard's defense; but <0.2 per game, from a guy who has a height advantage on nearly every other PG (and negligible--if any--height deficit relative to SG's).......idk, makes me wonder if he's actively contesting shots with any regularity. Even 6'1" John Stockton averaged 0.21 bpg, and over a longer career, too.

I further looked at some H2H's (obv apg, topg, FG% data absent):
Jerry West (in 26 rs games) averaged 28.8 ppg, while averaging 10.4 FTA vs Frazier. That's +2.7 ppg and +1.7 FTA compared to his overall averages over that same time period.
In playoffs it does look better: West avg (in 17 po game) 25.0 ppg with 9.0 FTA vs Frazier; that's -1.1 ppg, but +0.1 FTA compared to his overall playoff averages in those same three years.

Oscar Robertson (in 34 rs games) averaged 22.8 ppg with 6.7 FTA when facing Frazier. That's +2.2 ppg and +0.1 FTA compared to his overall averages over that same time period. Is no playoff sample.

Norm Van Lier (in 37 rs games) averaged 12.4 ppg with 4.8 FTA vs Frazier. That's +0.6 ppg and +1.1 FTA compared to his overall averages. No playoff sample.

Archie Clark (in 43 rs games) averaged 15.6 ppg with 5.0 FTA vs Frazier. That's -1.4 ppg and -0.4 FTA compared to his overall averages.
In the playoffs (18 game sample), Clark averaged 17.6 ppg with 5.3 FTA vs Frazier. That's +/- 0.0 ppg and -0.1 FTA compared to his po avgs in those same three years.

That's as far as I've gone with H2H's, but so far this hasn't really illuminated much; most players actually had their averages RISE when facing Frazier (and this cannot be accounted for by NY's pace.....if anything the pace of game NY tried to play should skew things downward, as they consistently throughout Frazier's prime had one of the---if not THE---slowest pace in the league).


For the record, I am NOT trying to imply Frazier was a mediocre defender (far from it, actually). I'll state again that I'm merely wondering where this GOAT-level perimeter defender reputation comes from; the balance of available data/evidence just doesn't appear to support that.

And fwiw, I do think we need to establish Frazier as a near-GOAT perimeter defender to plug him well inside the top 30 all-time......because imo his offense is very good, but not great, and his longevity is mediocre (even for the time period it's barely above average). So his defense has to be beyond exemplary to garner him a position this high; especially because we're talking about defensive impact from the PG position (which supposedly is of limited value.........That's why/how we've got Nash voted in as high as #25, because his meh defense is in part "masked" by his position, right?).

[Owly]

Wow, I strongly disagree with criticizing Pippen for his personality.

Any player ever on a team with Mike isn't going to be the alpha. But if you have a guy who tried to act like one as opposed to Pippen who willingly accepted playing 2nd fiddle you were going to have issues because Mike would in all likelihood tried to destroy that guy.

Then when Mike leaves for nearly 2 years, Pippen is the clear alpha, and so yeah he's ticked when the shot is drawn up for Toni. Just like Bird was when Jones tried to draw up a play for someone else. But we praise Bird and destroy Pippen. He was also the clear alpha and leader in Portland on a very deep and talented team.

And pretty much everyone associated with the Bulls except Mike praise Pippen for being the real leader of the team. And I think we all know that Jordan is all about what makes Jordan look best.

No Pippen, if anything should get bonus points for his ability to slide into the role the team needs him to, both with his on-court play, but also personality-wise. And there should really be zero question that he was a leader.

Mike challenged everybody. He wouldn't hide his contempt (at very least not internally) for guys he didn't think could help him win, I don't know that he'd have issues with someone being more assertive than Pippen. If someone clearly not at his level starts taking more shots sure. But I'm not sure I buy that MJ would be a problem to any superstar that isn't thin-skinned.

I don't get any defense of Pippen on the Kukoc thing. You can rationalise it "His team, Krause loved Kukoc, etc"; but you can't justify it. The he's the star now thing is the worst of the excuses. Firstly do you want to be so predictable as to always go to the star, no you look for the best shot available. And even if that weren't the case, I have no sympathy with any guy demanding the last shot who is a sub 75% ft shooter (Pippen's a career .704, worse that year, though oddly hot from ft for that playoffs fwiw). If you're not above average at making uncontested 15 feet shots, you don't get to demand the last shot. Then there's the point that going to Kukoc was based on the assumption of having Scottie as decoy. It's not saying "We wouldn't like you to take big shots (or shots in general) all things being equal", it's saying "They're probably expecting it to go to Scottie, we'll go to Toni". Then too you can look at it in the context of how Pippen was shooting from the field in the series thus far (or from the field over the playoffs), or how Pippen's failure to even get a piece of the rim with his last shot. Then too it wasn't unprecedented to go to Kukoc for the last shot. I'm not a microcosm guy. I'm not too much of personality analysis guy in terms of there's a lot we don't see. I don't mind people saying it's one mistake, these things happen to all of us. I don't mind if people say, hey the Bulls went 2-2 the rest of the way, he apologised, it didn't affect anything. But I can't see any defense, any real justification for that move. The message is "I'm bigger than this team. I don't need to listen to the coach. I call the shots, and if I don't get my way then I'm taking my ball and going home". Maybe you could get away with if you were an MJ level player. I just think if that happened on a more legit contender (Bull's were a peripheral contender at best, with a 2.87 SRS, 11th best in the league, their W-L% overrated them massively) and they lost the game it might have made it tougher to forgive or trust Scottie (for teammates) and they might have had to shop him. Anyway it's one mistake, and you certainly shouldn't judge his career on it, but it is one you can't justify.

Post comeback MJ called Scottie the leader because he realised by that point (and at that point), Scottie responded better to praise than criticism.

I can go with we don't really know about his personality most of the time. But I can't go with he can fit in any role. For me, there's too many nagging issues to interpret the career he had and come out so definitively confident about Scottie as a leader.

[Texas Chuck]

I;m not defending Scottie for refusing to go back into the game or trying to justify it. It was the wrong decision.

But trying to use one incidence where we all know the back story with regards to how Toni was treated vs how Scottie was by Bulls management to try and criticize Scottie's personality seem like an enormous reach.

Do I think Scottie should have done that? Absolutely not. Do I understand why he was so upset in the moment? Yeah I do. Considering what an absolute aberration that moment is for his career, I hate that guys use that as some career-defining narrative.

edit: I put no weight at all on MJ's comments good or bad on Pippen. Mike looks out for Mike. I don't put much weight on Phil's either --even tho he speaks very highly of Pippen. He's always looking for any edge.

Where I do put weight is all the other guys who ran through the Bulls dynasty and how highly they speak of Pippen's leadership on and off the court and how he was the guy constantly there supporting all the role players in any ways he could. And on the court, the substitution patterns were always Mike left and rested with the starters while Scottie was the guy playing into the 2nd quarter leading the 2nd unit--another telling sign of his leadership.

I just have a real problem using isolated incidents and trying to define a guy on them.

[Owly]

I;m not defending Scottie for refusing to go back into the game or trying to justify it. It was the wrong decision.

But trying to use one incidence where we all know the back story with regards to how Toni was treated vs how Scottie was by Bulls management to try and criticize Scottie's personality seem like an enormous reach.

Do I think Scottie should have done that? Absolutely not. Do I understand why he was so upset in the moment? Yeah I do. Considering what an absolute aberration that moment is for his career, I hate that guys use that as some career-defining narrative.

edit: I put no weight at all on MJ's comments good or bad on Pippen. Mike looks out for Mike. I don't put much weight on Phil's either --even tho he speaks very highly of Pippen. He's always looking for any edge.

Where I do put weight is all the other guys who ran through the Bulls dynasty and how highly they speak of Pippen's leadership on and off the court and how he was the guy constantly there supporting all the role players in any ways he could. And on the court, the substitution patterns were always Mike left and rested with the starters while Scottie was the guy playing into the 2nd quarter leading the 2nd unit--another telling sign of his leadership.

I just have a real problem using isolated incidents and trying to define a guy on them.

I'm not sure about the "how Toni was treated vs how Scottie was by Bulls management" story. Scottie demanded a long term contract (Krause claims he advised Scottie against it) thereafter Scottie got annoyed after they wouldn't rework his deal (why would you if you're trying to build a contender). Oh and Krause praised Toni. Hardly surprising given he wanted him to leave Europe.

I think those who have doubts about Pippen mentally tend to cite more than this game (though other criticisms are more circumstantial), I think the usual arguments/ possible concerns are
- Migraine
- '92 versus Knicks, McDaniel
- Ugly departure from Houston
- 2000 G7 WCF (espcially) Q4
- Suggestions he was poor finals player (based primaily on boxscore)

And you might add to that the suggestions that the Bulls weren't always stable when he was the number 1 guy e.g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7SbG-8Bvgk (though this doesn't necessarily implicate Pippen) and the chair throwing (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995 ... toni-kukoc).

It might be worth digging up examples of the underlined. For what it's worth I'm not saying I'm doubting it. For me I believe he was generally well liked (based on Sam Smith's Bulls books, especially the 2nd one). That said the cumulative effect of the issues (not to say I buy into all of them or blame him for all of them) would give me pause about endorsing

ability to slide into the role the team needs him to, both with his on-court play, but also personality-wise. And there should really be zero question that he was a leader.

[tsherkin]

<snip H2H analysis>

It bears mention that Frazier was often guarding the 2, not the 1, so a direct H2H analysis isn't necessarily the most accurate way to go about doing this. In G7 of the 70 Finals, for example, he wasn't on West for large chunks of the game, he was guarding Garrett.

[Basketballefan]

Throwing a name out there...when's the earliest you guys are comfortable discussing Manu?

Not anywhere in the top 50 and not before Parker gets in.

Manu does have an edge over Parker in peaks, but Parker has been more consistent and less injury prone.

[SactoKingsFan]

Throwing a name out there...when's the earliest you guys are comfortable discussing Manu?

Not anywhere in the top 50 and not before Parker gets in.

Manu does have an edge over Parker in peaks, but Parker has been more consistent and less injury prone.

I agree with you on Manu not being in the top 50, but I have him ranked ahead of Parker. He clearly peaked higher, provides much better defense, and has been the more impactful player in the RS and PS (PS Parker is not very impressive). Even with his injuries and limited minutes, I'd still give the edge to Manu.

[penbeast0]

Frazier -- penbeast0, GC Pantalones, Moonbeam,

Thomas -- JordansBulls

I'm very comfortable with Frazier over Isiah; I agree that Chris Paul is an interesting challenge. Paul's had some good playoffs but I think Frazier's defense, versatility, and finals perfomances still give him an edge over Paul's superior playmaking (Paul is one of the best playmakers ever). I think a few players have a good argument here. Pippen is the two way wing, maybe Drexler, Durant is the best pure scorer, maybe English, Gilmore v. McHale is an interesting argument -- both very efficient scorers, both with good defensive reps with Gilmore more of a traditional vertical anchor and McHale more comfortable out on the floor in a horizontal role, Gilmore the better rebounder, McHale less mental issues. I don't see McAdoo here any more than I see Neil Johnston; don't see Havlicek over Pippen, interesting argument of Havlicek v. Arizin (I would assume Havlicek but not sure).

[Basketballefan]

Throwing a name out there...when's the earliest you guys are comfortable discussing Manu?

Not anywhere in the top 50 and not before Parker gets in.

Manu does have an edge over Parker in peaks, but Parker has been more consistent and less injury prone.

I agree with you on Manu not being in the top 50, but I have him ranked ahead of Parker. He clearly peaked higher, provides much better defense, and has been the more impactful player in the RS ans PS (PS Parker is not very impressive). Even with his injuries and limited minutes, I'd still give the edge to Manu.

I respectfully disagree but your assessment is fair nonetheless.

I'm not a fan of Parker at all but i feel he does get a tad underrated here, he was a clear top 10 player in 2012 & 2013. That's at least 2 years as a top 10 player, which is something Manu cannot say he has one maximum. I understand the players in the league at that time were different but still.

Parker is up and down in the playoffs but i wouldn't say he's a garbage playoff performer either though. He has had his moments of good and bad play.