RealGM Top 100 List #35

[penbeast0]

Isiah led an NBA team to two titles.
Artis led an team to one playoff miniseries win.

It's not even close.

Vote for Isiah

I agree with you, IF YOU IGNORE GILMORE'S ABA YEARS. Add in an ABA Championship and Playoff MVP as well as 5 peak years and there is a valuation difference.

[Owly]

Gary Payton – penbeast0, SactoKingsFan
Reggie Miller – john248, Doctor MJ
Kevin Durant -- RSCD3_, DQuinn1575
Isiah Thomas – ronnymac2, Warspite, JordansBulls
Artis Gilmore – trex_8063, Quotatious, Moonbeam,
Dikembe Mutombo -- CHuck Texas

So, it looks like a runoff between Artis Gilmore and Isiah Thomas. That said, I cast my runoff vote for Artis Gilmore for his defensive presence, his efficient scoring, his ABA dominance and because I think you have a better chance to win a title with Gilmore and a team of roughly equal power than you do with Isiah; magnified by the fact that a great center tends to have a bigger differential over the average center than a great small guard over an average small guard.

Isiah Thomas – ronnymac2, Warspite, JordansBulls
Artis Gilmore – trex_8063, Quotatious, Moonbeam, penbeast0, Clyde Frazier

Isiah led an NBA team to two titles.
Artis led an team to one playoff miniseries win.

It's not even close.

Vote for Isiah

How many players get to say they led their team to the title when they don't have their teams best playoff PER, don't have their teams best playoff WS total, don't have their team's best WS/48 in the playoffs, aren't close to their team's best defender (on a team winning primarily with D), aren't the finals MVP and you can ditto those facts (which could be applied) to the regular season. Also they didn't make so much as the All-NBA third team. That's Isiah in '89. How low is the bar to have to have "led" a team to a title? Out of curiosity as much as anything, who's the best player on champ to fit all those criteria?

Plus given the remit for this includes ABA the "one playoff miniseries win" is, at best, misleading.

[SactoKingsFan]

Vote: Thomas

I'm not convinced Gilmore has done more in the NBA than Thomas has. Excluding his ABA seasons he was elite in the NBA for only about 7 or 8 seasons.

Why are you excluding Gilmore's ABA seasons?

[john248]

My official vote is for Artis Gilmore. Highly efficient scorer which makes him a capable 2nd/3rd option for much of his career. Prior to his knee injury, was a good man/help defender. Had a rather long career. Didn't seem like a bad teammate.

I do question his longevity a bit though after his knee injury or his Rigor Artis years which is mainly because I'd rather see more from the defensive end from a big. I still see plenty of value in his offense even if he moved in closer to the basket and able to still put the ball in the basket at a high rate while drawing more fouls. I do see an issue with his defensive value though. The teams he was on advanced through the playoffs on the strength of their offense where those defenses were consistently in the bottom half of the league. Part of the defensive issues could be teammates and coaching. But it's tough to ignore that he became mainly a man defender those years where losing a lot of mobility hurt. Still an effective player but I question how much.

In any case, I still rank him over Isiah.

[colts18]

For the Isiah supporters, why did he get no love at all from 87-91 by All-NBA voters despite it being his teams peak.

[Basketballefan]

Vote: Thomas

I'm not convinced Gilmore has done more in the NBA than Thomas has. Excluding his ABA seasons he was elite in the NBA for only about 7 or 8 seasons.

Why are you excluding Gilmore's ABA seasons?

Because this is a top 100 project for nba players if im not mistaken.

[Basketballefan]

For the Isiah supporters, why did he get no love at all from 87-91 by All-NBA voters despite it being his teams peak.

All nba teams should be taken with a grain of salt.

And besides he still made 3 all nba first teams.

Not sure what team peak has to do with solely an individual.

[Doctor MJ]

Runoff Vote: Artis Gilmore

Easy choice for me given that I'd have voted Gilmore in quite a while ago. I see Gilmore as a legit Top 5 level guy at his best, with longevity that is perhaps unexpectedly strong. While attention on Gilmore waned, his focus on efficiency as his abilities fell off was far ahead of his time.

I don't have any wish to go more into anti-Isiah stuff than I need to, but yeah I don't see his prime or longevity as as impressive.

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote: Thomas

I'm not convinced Gilmore has done more in the NBA than Thomas has. Excluding his ABA seasons he was elite in the NBA for only about 7 or 8 seasons.

Why are you excluding Gilmore's ABA seasons?

Because this is a top 100 project for nba players if im not mistaken.

The project includes ABA and NBA play:

Rules: Vote for 1 player. You may change your vote as consensus emerges but if so, go back and EDIT YOUR ORIGINAL POST. Votes without analysis will not be counted. If, after 2 days, there is not a majority consensus, the top; 2 nominees will have a 1 day runoff election to determine the spot on our list. NBA/ABA only, no college, international play, ABL, or pre-NBA play considered.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1328924

[Doctor MJ]

For the Isiah supporters, why did he get no love at all from 87-91 by All-NBA voters despite it being his teams peak.

All nba teams should be taken with a grain of salt.

And besides he still made 3 all nba first teams.

Not sure what team peak has to do with solely an individual.

Why should they be taken with a grain of salt?

Also: Isiah being a 1st team guy earlier in his career doesn't answer the dilemma because Isiah's stature isn't built on those years nearly so much as it is based on the fact that he was later the face of back-to-back champions, during which no one took him serious as a player of that stature based on all the accolades we have.

[Basketballefan]

Why are you excluding Gilmore's ABA seasons?

Because this is a top 100 project for nba players if im not mistaken.

The project includes ABA and NBA play:

Rules: Vote for 1 player. You may change your vote as consensus emerges but if so, go back and EDIT YOUR ORIGINAL POST. Votes without analysis will not be counted. If, after 2 days, there is not a majority consensus, the top; 2 nominees will have a 1 day runoff election to determine the spot on our list. NBA/ABA only, no college, international play, ABL, or pre-NBA play considered.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1328924

Fair enough.

[Quotatious]

Why are you excluding Gilmore's ABA seasons?

Yeah, I understand assigning less value to his ABA career, but completely dismissing it? Doesn't make any sense, because we would have to do the same with the NBA players of that time, too (so for example Kareem would suffer a lot, possibly be just a fringe top 5 player, maybe not even that, Dr. J would be around #25-30, Havlicek and Barry would drop a ton, too).

[Basketballefan]

For the Isiah supporters, why did he get no love at all from 87-91 by All-NBA voters despite it being his teams peak.

All nba teams should be taken with a grain of salt.

And besides he still made 3 all nba first teams.

Not sure what team peak has to do with solely an individual.

Why should they be taken with a grain of salt?

Also: Isiah being a 1st team guy earlier in his career doesn't answer the dilemma because Isiah's stature isn't built on those years nearly so much as it is based on the fact that he was later the face of back-to-back champions, during which no one took him serious as a player of that stature based on all the accolades we have.

I don't put a ton of weight into all star games or All nba teams. They are often based on reputation. I mean look at how much of a joke the all defensive teams have been.

Anyways whether or not he made all nba teams earlier or later in his career really shouldn't matter. It's kind of like Magic won his mvps when he wasn't winning titles. My point is they won titles when they did because that's when their team was at their best, it doesn't make any sense to knock a player just because they didn't receive those accolades simultaneously.

Thomas accomplished more in a tougher era, what exactly has Gilmore done that was so noteworthy?

[Doctor MJ]

I don't put a ton of weight into all star games or All nba teams. They are often based on reputation. I mean look at how much of a joke the all defensive teams have been.

Anyways whether or not he made all nba teams earlier or later in his career really shouldn't matter. It's kind of like Magic won his mvps when he wasn't winning titles. My point is they won titles when they did because that's when their team was at their best, it doesn't make any sense to knock a player just because they didn't receive those accolades simultaneously.

Thomas accomplished more in a tougher era, what exactly has Gilmore done that was so noteworthy?

All-D is a far more difficult task and it's voted on by far less engaged voters. By contrast, ignoring All-NBA voting is basically ignoring what all informed opinion thinks. Not saying you can't disagree - I'm not chained to it either - but it's a big deal to just brush it off.

Re: later shouldn't matter. Yes it should because of how Isiah supporters see him. If Isiah was a mere ensemble piece on that team, then he should be evaluated primarily based on a peak that happened earlier...and it's pretty early to be considering a guy on that level in.

[penbeast0]

Artis Gilmore – trex_8063, Quotatious, Moonbeam, penbeast0, Clyde Frazier, SactoKingsFan, Owly, RayBan-Sematra, john 248, Doctor MJ,

Isiah Thomas – ronnymac2, Warspite, JordansBulls, DQuinn1575(?), basketballefan (?)

DQuinn1575 and basketballefan indicated in their posts that they didn't realize that we were counting ABA seasons. I am counting your votes for Isiah tentatively but would like you to confirm that, given the ABA seasons, you still feel this way.

Thanks

[DQuinn1575]

Artis Gilmore – trex_8063, Quotatious, Moonbeam, penbeast0, Clyde Frazier, SactoKingsFan, Owly, RayBan-Sematra, john 248, Doctor MJ,

Isiah Thomas – ronnymac2, Warspite, JordansBulls, DQuinn1575(?), basketballefan (?)

DQuinn1575 and basketballefan indicated in their posts that they didn't realize that we were counting ABA seasons. I am counting your votes for Isiah tentatively but would like you to confirm that, given the ABA seasons, you still feel this way.

Thanks

I vote for Isiah -I understand we ARE counting ABA seasons, just like we are counting 1955 NBA.

And similar to 1955, I am adjusting the 1972 ABA downward based on quality of competition.

I rate a player in his environment, then adjust his environment's quality to modern times.

I think Artis was probably a top 10-20 player in his ABA years.


I don't think he was a lot better in 1972 then he was in 1977, when he was a Top 10 player.

But to me a guy with maybe 5 Top 10 years and a lot of longevity doesn't rank with guys with higher peaks.


Artis faced little competition in 1972 where he completely dominated the ABA


By far the second best center was Zelmo Beaty, who in 1969 was
6th of 13 in WS/48 for centers > 2,000 minutes at age 29

http://bkref.com/tiny/eLZXC


He jumped to the ABA and started in 1971 with the 2nd highest WS/48 in ABA history
- behind Connie Hawkins in initial year -at age 31

http://bkref.com/tiny/As421

The players Artis faced in 1972:


1972 ABA centers http://bkref.com/tiny/Th8lc


1st Artis

2nd Beaty

3rd teammate Dan Issel

4th Jim McDaniels (23)- .171 ws/48 - NBA .012

5th Mel Daniels (27)- dominated league 1st 3 years when there was no centers. Outperformed by Beaty in Zelmo's first 2 years.

6th - Jim Eakins (25)- 7th round NBA pick

7th - Dave Robisch (22)- 3rd round NBA pick - decent player, but not a power player -
shot from outside, blocked 0.8 shots per game

8th - Randy Denton (22)- 10th round NBA pick - career high 0.6 bpg

9th - Billy Paultz (23) 7th round NBA pick becomes good player


10th - Mike Lewis (25) 10th round NBA pick

11th - Ira Harge (30) 1964 draft pick who didn't make NBA in 1965


So, besides Daniels and Beaty you have:

1 complete bust (McDaniels)
2 7th round picks
2 10th round picks
1 a guy who coulndt make the league
1 an undersized center (Robisch)


a lot of rookies and young guys who couldn't start in the NBA


There were also still 4 ABA all-stars - Bill Melchionni, Freddie Lewis, Art Becker, and Steve Jones,
who were NBA rejects who couldn't make an NBA team and were starring in the ABA.

I think there are a bunch of guys left better than Gilmore - Isiah, Gervin, Durant, Cowens, Reed,Payton to name a few.

He didn't make the NBA 50 greatest, and there are a bunch of guys since then who have passed some of the 50 up.
So, I am counting it; just feel it is worth a lot less than 2 NBA titles.
My takeaway from Artis is to re-evaluate win shares and how I view them.

[DQuinn1575]

Isiah led an NBA team to two titles.
quote]
How many players get to say they led their team to the title when they don't have their teams best playoff PER, don't have their teams best playoff WS total, don't have their team's best WS/48 in the playoffs, aren't close to their team's best defender (on a team winning primarily with D), aren't the finals MVP and you can ditto those facts (which could be applied) to the regular season. Also they didn't make so much as the All-NBA third team. That's Isiah in '89. How low is the bar to have to have "led" a team to a title? Out of curiosity as much as anything, who's the best player on champ to fit all those criteria?

.

Isiah led the team in minutes, points, and assists in both the regular season and playoffs on back-to-back champions.

I'm not sure how many guys can say that.
No Piston made all-NBA in 1989, Isiah was the highest vote getter.

Dumars played great in the Finals in 1989, I don't put a lot of stock in Finals MVP - 4 games is like a Player of the Week award.

[drza]

Isiah vs Gilmore (eventually. Post starts as responses to some of the approaches that I've seen in this thread, but eventually it gets back around to Zeke vs Artis)

For the Isiah supporters, why did he get no love at all from 87-91 by All-NBA voters despite it being his teams peak.

All nba teams should be taken with a grain of salt.

And besides he still made 3 all nba first teams.

Not sure what team peak has to do with solely an individual.

Why should they be taken with a grain of salt?

Also: Isiah being a 1st team guy earlier in his career doesn't answer the dilemma because Isiah's stature isn't built on those years nearly so much as it is based on the fact that he was later the face of back-to-back champions, during which no one took him serious as a player of that stature based on all the accolades we have.

I'm not sure I agree with the logic of this approach, or many of the others I've seen in this thread. We've voted plenty of players in whose championship seasons didn't correspond with their peaks. Personally, Isiah's value was very clear to me long before the Bad Boys started winning rings.

And again, to me, if a player has proven that he can have a major impact (as he did in the pre-championship years) and he also received major recognition in those years (1st/2nd team All NBA every year from '83 - 87) then that establishes to me that he could perform at a certain level. If he then subsumed individual glory to fit into a team with championship aspirations, while maintaining an acknowledged leadership role for the team and continuing to contribute majorly to the effort, if anything that is to be lauded IMO. One of the big knocks on inefficient volume scorers is that their games/styles are considered too selfish to fit into a team concept...Isiah did that, fitting in as needed and then upping his game in the postseason when called upon. I see no reason to discredit this.

Re: Gilmore's accolades vs Thomas'

I find the tact of questioning Thomas' peer recognition for lack of All NBA/MVP votes especially unconvincing when the player that he is up against, Artis Gilmore, NEVER received an All NBA team nod nor much NBA MVP recognition. The obvious counter is that Artis peaked in the ABA where he did win an MVP in his rookie season, but I would point out the extreme unlikelihood that Gilmore would have matched 5 All NBA 1st/2nd team nods even during his ABA years. Gilmore was in the ABA from 1972 - 1976. To get All NBA recognition in all 5 of those seasons he would have had to beat out:

1972 - MVP Kareem or 3rd in the MVP vote Wilt
1973 - MVP Cowens, 2nd in MVP Kareem, and/or 4th in MVP Wilt
1974 - MVP Kareem, 2nd in MVP McAdoo, 3rd in MVP Lanier, 4th in MVP Cowens, and/or 8th in MVP Thurmond
1975 - MVP McAdoo, runner up Cowens, and/or 5th place Kareem
1976 - MVP Kareem, runner up McAdoo, 3rd place Cowens

In 1977, his first year in the NBA, Gilmore didn't make All NBA and finished 5th among centers in the MVP vote behind Kareem, Walton, Lanier and Moses

Now, might Gilmore have made an All NBA team or 2 during those ABA years against that competition? Maybe. But no way he's got 5, and I doubt that he has any 1st team honors (and definitely not 3).

So, does the fact that Zeke had more All NBA blingage mean that he was necessarily better than Gilmore? Of course not. There were a lot of quality bigs in the NBA that would have been competition, and that doesn't necessarily speak against Gilmore. But again, Gilmore's lack of All NBA recognition (that IMO likely he would have still been lacking if he were in the NBA the whole time) to me it makes questioning Zeke's lack of All NBA recognition during the Pistons' championship years a dubious approach for helping to justify a vote for Gilmore.

While we're discussing accolades, another thing that I've seen held against Zeke is that even at his peak he wasn't dominating the MVP votes. He finished 5th in '84, 9th in 85, 9th in 86, and 8th in 87 right at his peak. However, much the way I laid out who Gilmore's competition would have been for All NBA honors, it's important to look at just who was beating Thomas in these votes.

1984: Bird, King, Magic, Kareem, Isiah
1985: Bird, Magic, Moses, Kareem, Cummings, Jordan, King, Moncrief, Isiah
1986: Bird, Nique, Magic, Olajuwon, Kareem, Barkley, Moncrief, English, Isiah
1987: Magic, Jordan, Bird, Mchale, Nique, Barkley, Hakeem, Isiah

The vast majority of the players that beat out Thomas in those MVP votes have (long) been voted into the list. He twice finished behind Bernard King at his absolute apex, and frankly, if King had been able to hold that level for a reasonable career he-too would likely already be voted in. Similar story with Moncrief. There were a couple of other 1-offs in there from other players that we either already have been or soon will be talking about in this project. The only two players that finished ahead of Isiah in all four votes were Magic and Bird.

Again, this doesn't necessarily say that Zeke is better than Gilmore. But what it does is weaken MVP recognition as a line of attack, because the vast majority of the folks that kept Zeke away from MVPs are players that we've already acknowledged as being better than him. And again, doubling back to Gilmore, were he in the NBA all along it's highly unlikely to me that his MVP finishes would have been much better than Zeke's.

Brass Tacks

Interestingly, I've typed a lot of words in this post about what I don't like about the logic I've seen, but I really haven't at all addressed or made a direct Gilmore and Zeke comparison based on their on-court play. I thought the Gilmore post earlier in the thread that showed how large and consistent of a jump the Colonels made when Gilmore came on board was especially effective, and helped me to get some perspective on Gilmore's impact.

However, as DQuinn has pointed out, Gilmore was playing in an ABA that at that time a) wasn't as good as the NBA, especially in big man quality and b) REALLY wasn't as good as the NBA in the 80s post-merger. I have to take that into account when trying to estimate how much value to place on Gilmore's impact (and for the poster that pointed out that this same logic could have been used to question Kareem since the talent was dilluted to the NBA, rest assured that I HAVE used this same logic to try to put Kareem's pre-merger dominance into perspective and this plays a part in why I don't have him as high in my own estimations as the list has him. But I digress a bit).

Because looking at team progression, Isiah also has a demonstrable correlation with a huge uptick in the Piston's offense. The pistons were DEAD LAST in the NBA in team offensive rating in both 1980 and 1981. Zeke joined the squad in '82 and they rose to 17th, 11th in '83, 1st in '84. Now, Zeke did NOT do this alone. Key additions like Kelly Tripucka came with him, Bill Laimbeer and Chuck Daly came soon, and there was lots of steady talent through the 80s when they maintained their top-10 offense on up into the championship years. The improvement was definitely NOT all Zeke alone. But Zeke DID play a big part in that improvement. Again, he was the acknowledged best player and team leader, the leading scorer, leading distributor, leading usage player on the team for pretty much the entire time. No, he wasn't super efficient. But he was able to lead strong units, which to me is more important.

Now, was Zeke's step-function improvement of the Pistons as large as Gilmore's step function improvement of the Colonels? I would say no. However, I would again say that Zeke and the Pistons were doing it in a much more challenging environment which inclines me to find it the more impressive.

Stylistics

I believe there are a lot of paths to success, so I'm not saying that a center can't be great without being dominant on at least one of offense or defense. I think having good value on offense can help mitigate if a player isn't dominant on defense. That said, I've pointed out several times in this project that offensive big men that score primarily in the paint but don't pass well (e.g. assist/TO ratios less than 1) don't tend to show up as big offensive impacts in the +/- data that we have access to. A high efficiency finisher on reasonable volume like Gilmore IS likely to show well in the strongly scoring/scoring-efficiency based box score stats like win shares or even PER, but I strongly doubt that he would move the +/- needle very much on offense.

On defense I don't doubt tat ABA Gilmore had a huge effect on the Colonels, but again, I have to try to estimate how much of that impact to mitigate because of competition level. Dikembe Mutombo was discussed earlier in this thread, and I tend to agree that his defense is well beyond what I would have expected from Gilmore. Hypothetically, I personally believe that if you split Mutombo off into a lesser league in the 90s but left Shaq, Hakeem, Robinson and Zo in the NBA then Mutombo could have been MVP-caliber in that lesser league as well. And I do find myself thinking that the dominant defensive C Mutombo might have had more overall value than the good D/solid O Gilmore. Would Gilmore have had more impact than Zo, who was dominant on defense but merely solid on offense? Or Howard, who also makes his name with defensive value and just ok offense? Again, I'm not convinced, and if he were it would be because his defense was demonstrated to be on that level and not because of his offensive potential.

On the other hand, as the +/- data expands, we just keep getting more examples of relatively inefficient scoring point guards that "shockingly" have great +/- scores. Kidd is an extreme example because of his defensive and rebounding uniqueness, but guys like Baron Davis, Mookie Blaylock, Tim Hardaway and these days Russell Westbrook are all showing extremely well in /- studies. I've already pointed out the much less granular examination of the Pistons' team results suggests strongly to me that Zeke's presence correlates with positive gains on the team, and stylistically I think he compares well with these other high impact scoring point guards.

Because while a lot is made of his scoring and efficiency, not enough is made of Zeke's natural brilliance as a ball-handler/distributor. He had a flair that was almost artistic, and he was a true floor general as opposed to the recent wave of try-my-best-to-score-and-if-I-can't-I'll-throw-you-the-ball-and-you-better-shoot "point guards" that we saw a lot of in the early 2000s.

Bottom line

Isiah is difficult for me to judge, because I don't have all of the data on him that I like to use to help me solidify the impressions that I get from the eye test. And frankly, I REMEMBER how magical Zeke was to me in the mid 80s. Much like the MVP results I posted earlier, the only players that I was convinced were better than him every year in that time was Magic and Bird (and eventually Michael). I would have takend my chances with Zeke against anyone else in that era.

Gilmore, on the other hand, was just before my time. I saw him play, but by then he was at the "Rigor" portion of his career. My dad used to regale me with a tale of Dr. J jumping completely over Artis to dunk the ball, only to be called for a charge and go nuts, eventually throwing a chair and getting tossed from the game. The point is, by the time I started getting into basketball Gilmore was more suited to be the punch line of a "that huge guy got dunked on" story than a superstar in his own right.

Put those two things together, and perhaps that is part of why I tend to lean Isiah in this comparison. Gilmore seems like he was very impressive in his ABA years and still very useful in his NBA years, but to me Isiah just seems like the better player.

Vote: Isiah Thomas

[Warspite]

For the Isiah supporters, why did he get no love at all from 87-91 by All-NBA voters despite it being his teams peak.

.
I have no idea why Jordan and Magic were 1st team.

My guess is that all NBA is realy stats oriented and since you could only see a player 2 or 3 times a yr unless he was a Laker or Celtic Im going to guess its all about the box scores and lets be honest some of these guys had career yrs from 89-90. The other issue is that Isiah is injured. When Mahorn knocks the other teams best player to the ground what do you think they are doing to Isiah when he drives the lane? Ill give you a hint and let you know that they arent handing out fouls that CP3 gets. Whatever the Bad Boys are doing to MJ Oakley is doing to Isiah.


A Train is esssentialy what everyone thought Oden would be. Wouldnt shock me at all if Gilmore was drafted in the top 20-25 all time. I would take him before every SG not named MJ, Every SF not named DrJ, LBJ and every PF not named Bird, Duncan.

[Quotatious]

I would take him before every SG not named MJ, Every SF not named DrJ, LBJ and every PF not named Bird, Duncan.

You would take Gilmore over Kobe? Seriously? What's the reasoning for that?