RealGM Top 100 List #40

[lorak]

To whit, in 2004 Ben's normalized defensive RAPM is +6.8 while Sheed's is +5.4

How was that calculated?

[SactoKingsFan]

Sticking with the Truth for his overall game, well-rounded skillset and longevity. In addition to great longevity, Pierce provides volume scoring on well above league average efficiency, solid/underrated defense, good rebounding and playmaking for a SF and high bball IQ. Pierce was generally a reliable playoff performer capable of elevating his level of play and volume scoring in big moments. After being the lone star on teams with consistently subpar supporting casts, he was able to adjust his game to fit within a co-starring role on a championship team and perennial title contender. This is a positive in my book since not all star players would be willing or able to make such a transition.

VOTE: Paul Pierce

[drza]

To whit, in 2004 Ben's normalized defensive RAPM is +6.8 while Sheed's is +5.4

How was that calculated?

I took that directly from Doc MJ's spreadsheet. My understanding is that he took the 2004 RAPM results from the entire league (I believe Englemann's calculation), calculated the standard deviation for the entire list, and used that as some sort of normalizing factor.

[Texas Chuck]

Official Vote: Mutombo

I keep going back and forth between he and Cowens. Cowens is imo one of the few true franchise players left. But I'm going with Deke.

Best defender left on the board and a guy who compares favorably with some of the top defensive bigs already on the list.

Very strong rebounder. Led the NBA in total rebounds 4 times and was great at both ends leading the league in defensive rebounds multiple times and also leading in O-rebounding. Both in total numbers and in percentage.

Elite shot-blocker and unlike some shot blockers definitely was a discouraging force for teams to even attack the rim.

Not just a good help defender/rim protector, but also a very good man post defender and his career spanned an era where that still mattered quite a bit.

Not a great offensive player, by any means, but not a liability either. A legit 2-way player.

[lorak]

To whit, in 2004 Ben's normalized defensive RAPM is +6.8 while Sheed's is +5.4

How was that calculated?

I took that directly from Doc MJ's spreadsheet. My understanding is that he took the 2004 RAPM results from the entire league (I believe Englemann's calculation), calculated the standard deviation for the entire list, and used that as some sort of normalizing factor.

Yes, but how exactly he did it?

[E-Balla]

How was that calculated?

I took that directly from Doc MJ's spreadsheet. My understanding is that he took the 2004 RAPM results from the entire league (I believe Englemann's calculation), calculated the standard deviation for the entire list, and used that as some sort of normalizing factor.

Yes, but how exactly he did it?

Find the average, calculate for the standard deviation, find what percentile the player's season is in according to how many standard deviations they are away from the average (let's say Wallace is at the 50th percentile), and put it to a number. Basically the scale doesn't really matter much the numbers are all relative.

[lorak]

I took that directly from Doc MJ's spreadsheet. My understanding is that he took the 2004 RAPM results from the entire league (I believe Englemann's calculation), calculated the standard deviation for the entire list, and used that as some sort of normalizing factor.

Yes, but how exactly he did it?

Find the average, calculate for the standard deviation,

I know how to normalize... that's how I discovered flaws in Doc's spreadsheet. What I'm asking about is...

find what percentile the player's season is in according to how many standard deviations they are away from the average (let's say Wallace is at the 50th percentile), and put it to a number. Basically the scale doesn't really matter much the numbers are all relative.

... how exactly he came to conclusion that - for example Wallace - was +6.8 on defense in 2004. So basically how he did what he calls "scaled RAPM". He arbitrary chose that normalized 0 = scaled 0 and normalized 4 = scaled 10?

[drza]

Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo and/or Dwight Howard vs Pierce and/or Reggie

I've been more active in this thread than I've been able to be for awhile, but so far I've done a lot of talking about players that I don't expect to vote for. I would vote for Sheed before Pierce,and I might would vote for AI and/or Manu in the same range, but I don't really expect to vote for any of them in this particular thread. Right now, I'm looking more at the dominant defensive bigs of the most recent eras, particular Zo Mourning, Mutombo and Howard (actually, I guess Sheed may just fit into this group as well, so I won't rule him out as a candidate either).

The players getting the most traction thus far in this area have been Pierce and Reggie Miller. Actually, at the moment it is primarily Pierce. Both are mainly here for their offensive contributions, though Pierce's well-rounded game does include solid defense on the wing as well. But without going into heavy analysis, I feel like the dominant defensive big is a more valuable commodity than a good scoring wing of similar caliber. The big is the more limited resource, he can change the way the game is played, and you could build a strong unit around them without having to bring in other All-Star caliber defenders. No one can make a defensive unit elite by themselves, but if you surround Mutombo or Mourning with 4 reasonable defenders/defensive role players in a good defensive system you should get one of the better defenses in the league. On the other hand, even with a good system, if Pierce is your offensive anchor but your other four offensive players are role players/reasonable offensive types it's unlikely that you've got one of the best offenses in the league.

That was a rambling way to say that. Let me try again. The dominant defensive bigs can be your franchise centerpiece on that end of the floor, and this group can also contribute to some extent on offense as well (varying from offensive neutral with some valuable attributes to semi-offensive force). Pierce isn't really the franchise centerpiece type for a good team at either end...he's more of an excellent offensive lieutenant that can also contribute to the defense. Which is a very valuable thing, but not as valuable to my eyes as a true franchise, dominant defensive big.

Estimating impact
If we wanted to put numbers to it, we'd have to use RAPM as much as possible because the box score stats just don't do relative defensive impact that well. That's another reason that I'm focusing here on players that at least overlapped some of their prime with the databall era, so that we can try to quantify their relative impacts a bit. Once again, using Doc MJ's normalized PI RAPM spreadsheet form 1998 - 2012 (with disclaimers as mentioned before):

3-year peaks (best 3 1-year scores from 1998 - 2012, averaged together):

Mourning: +8.8 *
Rasheed Wallace: +8.2
Howard: +6.7 *
Mutombo: +6.7 *

Pierce: +6.3
Reggie Miller: +5.8 *


(*I put asterisks next to Mourning, Mutombo and Miller because the 1998 cut-off missed big chunks of their primes so their best numbers could be even better. Similarly, Howard's best 3 scores come from 2010 - 2012, but 2009 was very arguably his best season and there's a famous calculation conundrum with calculating RAPM for the 2009 Magic (e.g. that Howard and Gortat played all available center minutes with 0 overlap between them) so I'd argue that it's very possible that Howard's 2009 RAPM score as listed is too low)

There's a clear difference here between the measured RAPM peaks of the best dominant defensive bigs than Pierce or Miller. To me, this helps quantify some of the qualitative descriptions that I rambled through above. Pierce and Reggie were very high impact players, but the bigs had more.

Let's also look at the offensive and defensive splits. Because say, for example, you have a player that's dominant on one end but weak on the other end. With the right coaching you could possibly embellish their strengths and hide their weaknesses enough to make them more valuable than a more rounded player (think Phoenix version of Steve Nash, or perhaps Allen Iverson). Also, keep in mind that the offensive and defensive 3-year peaks may not necessarily be the same years so combining the following 2 numbers won't necessarily result in the numbers above:

Offense 3-year RAPM peaks:
Miller: +6.6 (+6 if do the .77 correction for 1998)
Pierce: +4.6
Mourning: +3.7 (+3.3 with 1998 correction)
Sheed: +3.5
Howard: +3.3
Mutombo: +0.0

Defense 3-year RAPM peaks:
Mutombo: +8.7 (7.9 w/ '98 correction)
Mourning: +6.0 (+5.5 w/ '98 correction)
Sheed: +5.7
Howard: +4.7
Pierce: +3.4
Miller: +0.0

Among this group, Mutombo and Reggie stand out as the furthest "pure defense" and "pure offense" guys that a smart coach could build a unit around (to differentiate from just looking at the pure overall RAPM scores). But even here, Mutombo's defensive impact looks larger than Reggie's offensive. And among the more 2-way players, Mourning and Sheed's defensive impact was larger than Pierce's offensive, and interestingly their offense was also a bit better than Pierce's defense.

Anyway, the point isn't to scrape the decimal points to look for differences because a) RAPM isn't that precise and b) we know of an issue with the 1998 values that could change some of these estimates by some tenths of points. But the point is to look on a more macro scale, and on that scale it seems to me that this group of bigs tends to have overall more impact and more specialized impact than the two wings, making them more valuable commodities.

Now, the longevity point is out there on the table because Reggie (especially) and Pierce both have great longevity. Sheed and Mutombo have pretty strong longevity themselves (if not quite on that level), but by dint of health (Zo) and age (Howard) both of them have about a decade of longevity to work with. Everyone's mileage can (and has) varied widely on what to do with longevity. But for me, I don't think Reggie's or Pierce's longevity advantages are enough for them to shoot to the top of this particular grouping. Thus, my vote in this thread likely comes from among the 4 bigs I discussed here. I haven't finalized my decision yet, though, so I'll either edit a vote in later or make another vote post in a bit.

[drza]

find what percentile the player's season is in according to how many standard deviations they are away from the average (let's say Wallace is at the 50th percentile), and put it to a number. Basically the scale doesn't really matter much the numbers are all relative.

... how exactly he came to conclusion that - for example Wallace - was +6.8 on defense in 2004. So basically how he did what he calls "scaled RAPM". He arbitrary chose that normalized 0 = scaled 0 and normalized 4 = scaled 10?

Doc MJ should weigh in with the exacts. My understanding is that he took one of the multi-year APM calculations, took the standard deviation of that, and used that as his "key" to estimate how much a standard deviation should be worth in his normalized data set.

[DQuinn1575]

Dwight Howard - penbeast0

Gus Williams -- Owly

Paul Pierce - trex_8063, Quotatious

Reggie Miller -- Doctor MJ

Not a lot of voting so far though fpliii has brought up some interesting questions on more abstract issues.

POST 33 I VOTED FOR SAM JONES - I feel completely ignored on this

[E-Balla]

Looks like I'll have time to start participating again but I'll skip this vote. I love the Sheed mention but befote the project I saw him in the 60-70 range so I wouldn't even mention him yet.

But that being said Sheed being picked in the top 50 makes sense when thinking about his career as a whole. By winning 3 more 4th quarters of his career (2000 WCF game 7, 2005 Finals game 7, 2010 Finals game 7 - all of which Sheed's teams led going into the 4th) we'd be talking about a guy with 4 rings who led Portland to one (2000), got sent to Detroit and made them back to back champions instead of just being "good" (04 & 05), and played a large role in getting the 2010 Celtics a ring (starting for Perkins and playing well in game 7).

Can I let 3 quarters effect my ranking of a player that much?

My top 5 for this spot are Reggie, Pierce, McGrady, Zo, and Dwight. Of those guys I'm most likely to vote for Reggie getting in first but I honestly have no clue.

[penbeast0]

POST 33 I VOTED FOR SAM JONES - I feel completely ignored on this

I liked the post last thread comparing Sam Jones with Arizin, Cousy, Sharman, and Dolph Schayes.

[DQuinn1575]

POST 33 I VOTED FOR SAM JONES - I feel completely ignored on this

I liked the post last thread comparing Sam Jones with Arizin, Cousy, Sharman, and Dolph Schayes.

You like the part where Sam Jones has 10 rings, many as the second best player, while the other 4 have 12 - 2 as maybe best player and 1 as second best player.

You can talk about theory all you want with Miller, Pierce, etc. and what they might do in a different situation

For Sam Jones it was put into practice and he did it.

To quote his most famous teammate

It's not how, it's how many

[john248]

Edited post #20 to vote for Reggie Miller.

Looks like I'll have time to start participating again but I'll skip this vote. I love the Sheed mention but befote the project I saw him in the 60-70 range so I wouldn't even mention him yet.

Are you on the voting list?

[E-Balla]

Edited post #20 to vote for Reggie Miller.

Looks like I'll have time to start participating again but I'll skip this vote. I love the Sheed mention but befote the project I saw him in the 60-70 range so I wouldn't even mention him yet.

Are you on the voting list?

Check the Sig.

[trex_8063]

With Dwight getting penbeasts vote, I'm surprised there's not been any more discussion there, or indeed a justification as to why Howard, when you have a number of bigs - MVP-winning bigs such as Cowens and Reed, who are both perhaps overdue some discussion.

Penbeast, what's your reasoning for Dwight over those guys?

While you're not asking me (and I don't necessarily rank Howard ahead of both of them), I'll answer to this.....

While Cowens and Reed are indeed both MVP-winners, I don't think that necessarily need be a big distinction. Both of their MVP's can be taken with a grain of salt as---fairly clearly, imo---neither was ever the best player in the league. In a vacuum, I don't think anyone would seriously have considered taking Reed over West or an injury-free Wilt (or potentially a few others, like maybe teammate Walt Frazier) in '70. In a vacuum, I don't think most would take Cowens over Kareem, at the very least (+/- a few others), in '73. Note, for instance, that while they won MVP's, they ranked only 4th in RealGM RPoY project in their respective MVP years. And fwiw, Howard very easily could have been awarded the rs MVP over Rose in '11.

I'll give my "broad strokes" evaluation of their player qualities. I'm going to use broad categories, listed in what I think of as a rough descending order of importance for a center, and for each I'll rate them with a very simple 6-tiered labeling system (although I'll give some "in between" rates):
Great
Very Good
Good
Fair
Poor
Atrocious

And fwiw, I'm rating them vs other centers only, but to the full player spectrum of centers (i.e. including the Charles Shackleford's of the world as well as the Wilt's, Russell's, and Hakeem's). btw, "Intangibles" refers to a variety of things, including screen setting, leadership (on the court, on the bench, in practice/locker room, as well as with the media, off-season, etc), clutch play, hustle, etc.

Defense
Howard: Very Good
Reed: Good-to-Very Good
Cowens: Good-to-Very Good

Although Howard has three DPoY awards, I simply cannot quite think of him as a "great" defender in the same tier with guys like Mutombo, DRob, and Russell. While he's got all the physical tools, he doesn't appear to have the defensive smarts, instincts and timing to be a rim-protector in the same league as those guys. He's even behind Duncan, imo, as a shot-blocker (note Howard's career best per 100 blocks is 4.3, career avg is 3.1......Duncan's best is 4.5, career avg 3.4; even looking only at Howard's prime ('07-present) and looking at (mostly post-prime) Duncan over the same years, Duncan still holds even with him at 3.3). I posted on this at length some months ago. Howard hasn't consistently seemed to recognize some crucial technique involved in being a dominant shot-blocker, or realize that it's not all about elevation and reach......was Duncan really elevating at age 36 when he avg 2.7 bpg in just 30.1 mpg? It's very much about footwork (getting yourself in a position close to the shooter) and timing (often minimal jump required if you're timing is sound). Howard's more fond of the mega-leap for the big grand-standing "swat".
As a man defender, I don't seem him having the sound fundamentals of some other great defenders, although with the finite number of good offensive centers in the recent era, this hasn't been a big short-coming for him. I only voice these criticisms to site why I think he is definitively NOT a "great" defender. I still think he's worth a "very good", though.

Reed I gather was a fair-to-decent shot-blocker in his prime. I think his skills shined more in a man-defense set, though, where he was good at pushing guys off the block, making them catch the ball further from the hoop than they'd like, bodying up hard, etc. Man defense was a bigger deal in his time, too, because he'd routinely be facing elite offensive centers like Kareem, Wilt, Bellamy, etc. Not much lateral quickness that I could see, though. fwiw, here's some H2H stuff vs. Kareem (I haven't delved too far into the H2H finder for Reed):

Kareem avg’s 1969-73: 31.4 ppg, 8.1 FTA in rs
Kareem’s ‘70 playoff avg’s: 35.2 ppg, 10.1 FTA

Kareem H2H against Reed: 30.0 ppg (-1.4), 7.1 FTA (-1.0) in rs (5-11 record)
34.2 ppg (-1.0), 9.6 FTA (-0.5) in playoffs (1-4 record)

Cowens was the least valuable shot-blocker/rim-protector of the three. However, he too was pretty good at solid physical man defense. And he also appeared to have the best lateral quickness and defensive footwork if caught guarding a perimeter player on a switch. He also had a lot of hustle and heart. There's that one famous clip where he picks Robertson's pocket and hustles down the loose ball that showcases these latter aspects. I think he'd be the best of the three in defending the high pick-n'-roll in a modern context.

Scoring
Howard: Very good
Reed: Good-to-Very Good
Cowens: Fair-to-Good

Some may object to my rating Howard above the rest in this regard, so I'll explain my thinking. Howard's the tallest (if only marginally), arguably the strongest, and certainly the most explosive of the three guys. It has made him the best finisher by far. He also has a decent little jump-hook with either hand (he's almost better with his left than his right at this point). In raw numbers, Howard's scoring volume compares very well. When you pace-adjust it, he comes out significantly ahead, and he did so on better shooting efficiency, too (MUCH better when compared to Cowens). Although he does also likely have the highest turnover rate. Howard also has a much higher foul-draw rate than the other two. Even though he's not a good FT-shooter, the foul draw can still be significant: if teams employ a hack-a-Howard strategy or simply end up fouling a lot to prevent easy hoops that Howard otherwise gets himself in position for, this can lead to both foul trouble for the opposing team, or getting them in the penalty early in the quarter (which may result in FT's for Howard's better-shooting teammates).
I'd also point out that we could claim Howard has, to some degree, been at a disadvantage compared to the other two. The installing of a 3-point line, as well as recent rules changes have sort of stream-lined things for perimeter players on offense, essentially taking shot attempts away from low-post players.

Rebounding
Howard: Great (might reserve a "deity" category for Wilt, Russell, and Rodman)
Reed: Good-to-Very Good
Cowens: Very Good

Intangibles
Howard: Poor
Reed: Very Good-to-Great
Cowens: Good

Passing
Howard: Fair (maybe Poor-to-Fair???? or is that too harsh?)
Reed: Fair
Cowens: Very Good-to-Great

As I see it, Howard certainly seems in the same neighborhood as these guys, and arguably marginally better. Statistical analysis will favor Howard, too:

Prime Reed (‘65-’71)---551 rs games
Estimated Per 100 possessions: 22.7 pts, 15.6 reb, 2.0 ast @ 52.5% TS% (+3.1% to league)
PER 19.0, .158 WS/48 in 36.9 mpg
Career rs WS: 74.9
Career playoff WS: 7.9

Prime Cowens (‘71-’78)--592 rs games
Estimated Per 100 possessions: 20.1 pts, 16.3 reb, 4.3 ast, 1.3 stl, 1.1 blk with 3.1 tov @ 49.5% TS% (-1.1% to league)
PER 17.6, .148 WS/48 in 40.3 mpg (only 1 prime year---’78---with both ORtg and DRtg: 108/97 (+11))
Career rs WS: 86.3
Career playoff WS: 9.4

Prime Dwight Howard (‘07-’14)--604 rs games
Per 100 possessions: 27.9 pts, 19.1 reb, 2.3 ast, 1.5 stl, 3.3 blk with 4.8 tov @ 60.5% TS% (+6.6% to league)
PER 23.1, .191 WS/48, 110 ORtg/97 DRtg (+13) in 36.3 mpg
Career rs WS: 103.1
Career playoff WS: 10.2

At this point, neither Cowens nor Reed has any particular longevity case on Howard.
Howard's got roughly 8 prime seasons amounting to 604 games, and 768 total rs games in 10 seasons. Cowen's has roughly 8 prime years amounting to 592 games, and 766 total rs games in 11 seasons. Reed, quite obviously, has the worst longevity/durability of the three: 7 prime seasons (551 rs games), with just 650 total games in 10 seasons.

Given the longevity concern as well as the above data and analysis, tbh I think Reed has historically been overrated.

Anyway, my 2c on the comparison(s).....

[trex_8063]

Thru post #76:



Dwight Howard (1) - penbeast0

Gus Williams (1) - Owly

Paul Pierce (4) - trex_8063, Quotatious, Basketballefan, SactoKingsFan

Reggie Miller (2) - Doctor MJ, john248

Dikembe Mutombo (1) - Chuck Texas

Sam Jones (1) - DQuinn1575

Tracy McGrady (1) - ronnymac2

I think we've just about hit that 48-hr mark. Should we move on to a Pierce/Miller run-off?

[drza]

Vote: Dikembe Mutombo

I'm still not sure about the order of big men.

I think that Zo may have been the best 2-way threat, with dominant defense in addition to very good offense. I haven't made my mind up on his longevity, though my pops had kidney failure right around the same time as Zo did and I always admired how he fought through it. And though a shadow of himself, I think both his spirit and his defense were significant parts of that 2006 Heat championship so I'm not going to just dismiss his partial years.

I think Sheed also has an argument as the best player of the four, and he had great longevity. But I haven't made up my mind on his bat-feces-craziness. I was hoping to get more discussion going on him, but so far not much. Hopefully that'll change when he starts getting on more people's radars.

But since neither Zo nor Sheed have a single vote, makes no sense to vote for them. Which leaves Mutombo and Dwight, both of whom have one vote each.

Howard has more of the 2-way threat, really similar to a mini Zo in terms of his offensive and defensive impacts. He also has Zo's longevity (currently), though that should obviously get better. Howard was an iron man before the back injury, and longevity/durability may one day be a strength of his. He's also an outstanding rebounder, which deserves it's credit. With him, I can't decide on how I feel about his maturity and (in this list) his longevity. I also have some questions about his portability, as on paper he and Kobe really should have been a good match-up but his desire to be a scorer, his personality clashes, and his inability to fit well in the same frontcourt with Pau Gasol are question marks that need to be answered. Still marinating.

Then, there's Deke. He is the least 2-way of the group, as his offense is essentially a net neutral. He has no range and not much passing ability, but he's long, he can finish near the rim, and he's a great offensive rebounder. With him you'd never take him as a standalone superstar...you'd have to have good offensive talent to carry that side of the ball. But man, his defense was ridiculous. He was essentially a lone-wolf superstar for the Nuggets, and was able to lead them to the playoffs and even to an upset over a contender without a lot of offensive support. That '94 Sonics team had an SRS of +8.7, so that was quite a team accomplishment that Mutombo led them to.

Mutombo was heralded as one of the greatest defensive players of all time even before RAPM ever existed, with 4 Defensive Player of the Year awards. His accolades are actually better than I realized, as to me Mutombo feels the least like a superstar. However, Mutombo was an 8-time All Star that made three All NBA teams, including 2nd team. He led the league in blocks/game three times and rebounds/game twice (and total rebounds 4 times). My point is, his resume as a dominant defensive player/rebounder was set before +/- analysis. But with that +/- analysis we see that...

At the tail end of his prime, Mutombo was measuring out as the best defensive player that we've seen in the last 15 - 20 years. A bit more impactful than KG or Duncan at their best. Better than older DRob or late-prime Zo. Better than either Ben or Sheed Wallace. Better than Howard. The best defensive player of his era. That's a heck of a claim to make, and it's even wilder when you can back up the claim. Mutombo's defensive impact late in his prime was not quite as strong as Phoenix Nash's offensive impact, but it was actually reasonable to compare the two. Nash's offensive impact got him voted in long ago, so it's more than reasonable for Mutombo to be getting serious run here.

Especially because, compared to Nash, Mutombo's impact:

a) Is more robust to different team philosophies.

b) Was demonstrated for more than a decade, across multiple teams

Playoffs +/-
Mutombo was a strong postseason performer as well. He has famous postseason team accomplishments (like leading his #8 seed to upset the #1 seed in '94, or playing a big part in the 76ers Finals run in 2001). We also have net on/off +/- numbers for every postseason since 2001, and Mutombo measures out extremely well there too:

Mutombo's on/off +/- for the 2001 and 2002 playoffs for the 76ers was: +10.4
Mutombo's on/off +/- for every appearance from 2001 - 2009 was +7.9

Both of these were strong marks. By comparison:

Pierce's on/off +/- for his Celtics' peak (02 - 08) was +4.8
Pierce's on/off +/- for every appearance from 2001 - 2014 was +0.6

Sheed's on/off for his Portland years (01 - 04) was +4.2
Sheed's on/off for his every appearance from 01 - 14 was +2.1

Mutombo's late career on/off +/- fit in with the career totals of many that we consider the super elite (Duncan +8.9, Shaq +8.6, Kobe +8.3, LeBron +8.1). Some of the other players in that vicinity for their careers are Vince Carter (+11.7), Ginobili (+11.2), Kidd (+10.2), Billups (+9.3), Ray Allen (+9.2), Pau Gasol (+8.2), Ben Wallace (+8.0), Artest (+6.4), Chris Paul (+6.2), Kevin Durant (+4.8), Steve Nash (+4.8), and Dwyane Wade (+3.7).

It's interesting that there are three players among that group known almost exclusively for their defensive impact.

Sheed and Pierce also had one super-elite long-voted-in player in their vicinity on the career list with Dirk at +1.8. Other good players in that area were Chris Webber (+1.5), Deron Williams (+0.5), and Tony Parker (-0.5).

Conclusion

Mutombo was a dominant defensive player. His defensive impact was clearly larger than Pierce's offense (really higher than Pierce's overall RAPM scores). Defense at that level from a big is a limited resource, it's extremely robust and portable, and it has led to demonstrated impact in both the +/- statistics as well as more anecdotal team results. He had good longevity, was an iron-man through his extended prime, and by all accounts was an excellent ambassador for the game and locker room presence.

[trex_8063]

Vote: Dikembe Mutombo

(It's not 5 yet, so I'm sneaking my vote under the wire. Will add reasoning below)

All good. Wasn't going by a 5 o'clock mark, fwiw, but rather just 48-hours from the starting time-mark of penbeast0's thread-opener (which expires in about 20 minutes, I guess).....

Thru post #78:


Dwight Howard (1) - penbeast0

Gus Williams (1) - Owly

Paul Pierce (4) - trex_8063, Quotatious, Basketballefan, SactoKingsFan

Reggie Miller (2) - Doctor MJ, john248

Dikembe Mutombo (2) - Chuck Texas, drza

Sam Jones (1) - DQuinn1575

Tracy McGrady (1) - ronnymac2

So maybe a 3way run-off???

[penbeast0]

OK, thanks for the vote count . . . and for not missing anyone like I did. Pierce is definitely in, the other would be Miller or Mutombo. I am not a huge advocate for any of the 3 so I won't change my vote; anyone that wants to vote strategically and push either Miller or Mutombo into the runoff is welcome to. I will check back in a bit.