RealGM Top 100 List #46

[penbeast0]

Three different groups have my attention now:

Players with long, consistent careers . . . mainly wings: English, Dantley, Sam Jones, or Vince Carter. Numbers say Dantley, my head says English, my heart says Jones, and eye test says Carter. Would like to see some comps between these guys.

Players with reasonable but not long careers and some peak seasons: Willis Reed, Dave Cowens, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Johnson, Chauncey Billups. Not really feeling this crew but willing to listen.

Players with unreasonably short peaks but who were really extraordinary and special. Bill Walton, Connie Hawkins, Sidney Moncrief. Walton only had 1 year where he made it to the playoffs as a starter; Hawkins similarly only 1 great year though 1 pretty good year after reinventing his game following his first big knee injury; Moncrief 4-5 good years but not as good as the other two.

Vote: Alex English but willing to change my mind.

[trex_8063]

Not sure who I want to go for at this point. As recently as a week ago, I figured I'd for sure be pushing for Elvin Hayes once Schayes was in. However, I'm sort of souring a little on Hayes. Been making a little spreadsheet with some new evaluations of scoring (with more, or rather "better", consideration of efficiency vs. volume).....not so impressed with what I see for Hayes.

I still think he needs to be classified as a better than average scorer.....but perhaps not by all that much (and certainly not near as much as one might think based on some of his ppg averages or the fact that he's #8 all-time in career points scored).

That being said, he's still a good (perhaps VERY good) defensive player, still a very good rebounder, and is arguably top 10 all-time in longevity/durability. So he's still among those I'm considering, but no longer the clear front-runner for me.

I could also get behind Bob Cousy at this point, and I've posted on him previously; although I don't think he'll find much additional support at this stage.
Allen Iverson is another I'm seriously considering at this point, although I've soured on him slightly of late, for same reasons as given above re: Hayes (although in my recent number crunchings, Iverson doesn't suffer from them near as much as Hayes did).

Robert Parish, Ray Allen are both guys I may end up supporting, too. Dave Cowens on my radar now, too.


But it's a couple other guys I'm considering who I wish to discuss right now.....

Seeing all of the support that has suddenly emerged for Alex English, I became curious why Dominique has barely even received a mention as of yet. The comparison looks pretty close imo (and by the numbers, perhaps even in Nique’s favor):

Prime English (‘81-’89)
PER 21.2, .139 WS/48 in 36.6 mpg
77.5 WS, cumulative VORP: 28.9

Prime Wilkins (‘86-’94)
PER 23.2, .173 WS/48 in 37.4 mpg
89.6 WS, cumulative VORP: 32.8


Career English
Per 100 poss (rs): 30.2 pts, 7.7 reb, 5.1 ast, 1.3 stl, 1.0 blk, 3.4 tov @ .550 TS%
19.9 PER, .127 WS/48, 111 ORtg/110 DRtg (+1) in 31.9 mpg
100.7 rs WS
Per 100 poss (playoffs): 31.1 pts, 7.0 reb, 5.5 ast, 0.9 stl, 0.6 blk, 2.7 tov @ .556 TS%
19.9 PER, .129 WS/48, 116 ORtg/115 DRtg (+1) in 35.7 mpg
6.5 playoff WS

Career Wilkins
Per 100 poss (rs): 34.7 pts, 9.3 reb, 3.5 ast, 1.8 stl, 0.8 blk, 3.5 tov @ .536 TS%
21.6 PER, .148 WS/48, 112 ORtg/108 DRtg (+4) in 35.5 mpg.
117.5 rs WS
Per 100 poss (playoffs): 33.8 pts, 8.9 reb, 3.4 ast, 1.7 stl, 0.8 blk, 3.6 tov @ .510 TS%
18.7 PER, .079 WS/48, 106 ORtg/112 DRtg (-6) in 38.8 mpg
3.6 playoff WS

So Nique looks better in the rs, English looks better in the playoffs (though neither made a huge playoff imprint in their careers, nor has a particularly sizeable playoff game sample size).


As a scorer….
I think English’s reputation as a scorer is perhaps a little inflated by the pace and focus on offense that existed on Doug Moe’s Nuggets. During English’s tenure in Denver (third of ‘80 season, then ‘81-’90), the Nuggets had the league’s fastest pace every single year from ‘81 thru ‘89 (sometimes by >5 over the 2nd-fastest team!), and were 2nd in pace in ‘90. Consequently, if you adjust for his numbers for pace, things come back to Earth a little.

English’s best year as a scorer was probably either ‘86 (35.9 pts/100 possessions on +2.15% to league TS%) or ‘82 (30.2 pts/100 poss on TS% +5.75% to league).
Dominique’s best year as a scorer was ‘93 (39.4 pts/100 poss on TS% +3.4% to league).

Prime English (‘81-’89):
32.6 pts/100 poss, +1.9% to league TS%
career: 30.2 pts/100 poss, +1.65% to league TS%
Prime Wilkins (‘86-’94): 36.9 pts/100 poss, +0.8% to league TS%
career: 34.7 pts/100 poss, +/- 0% to league TS%

Couple other measures (career rs stats, fwiw):
Pts/Missed FGA: English--- 2.468, Wilkins--- 2.29
Pts/Turnover: English---- 8.97, Wilkins--- 9.99

So Nique’s obv right there with him as a scorer, possibly marginally better, imo.


Passing/playmaking
This one clearly goes to English. Career per 100 possessions: 5.1 ast vs. 3.4 tov; whereas Wilkins is 3.5:3.5.


As a defender….
My memory doesn’t place one firmly ahead of the other on defense. By reputation, English seems the better defender by a small margin (although he’s FAR from a noteworthy defender).

What data we have (admittedly not overly reliable) doesn’t support any sort of defensive edge for English, however. English has a career DBPM of -1.2; Nique’s is marginally better at -1.0. As mentioned above English has a career DRtg of 110 (+4.0 to league over same years; “+” being bad in DRtg). Nique’s is better at 108 (+0.7 to league).

Yeah, I mentioned the lack of focus for defense of those Nuggets teams which could contribute to Nique appearing better defensively (by the numbers). But fwiw, in spite of this Nique also appears comparable (maybe marginally better) on offensive too: English has a career ORtg of 111 (+4.6 to league); Nique’s is 112 (+4.7 to league). English’s career OBPM is +2.9; Nique’s is +3.3.
fwiw, career stl and blk per 100: English--- 1.3/1.0; Nique--- 1.8/0.8

I know, I know: none of these are particularly accurate actual indicators of defensive impact, but it’s all we have aside from the eye-test. So just putting it out there.


As a rebounder….
English: Career-best reb/100 poss was 11.6, career avg per 100 was 7.7. Career best TRB% was 13.4% (twice); career avg 9.0%.
Wilkins: Career-best per 100 reb was 11.6 (not counting his monstrous 15.2 in ‘99, due to just 27 game sample at <10 mpg), career avg per 100 was 9.3. Career best TRB% 13.0% (again not counting ‘99), career avg was 10.4% (has edge in both ORebs and DRebs).

So there appears to be a small but clear edge for Wilkins.


Contribution to team success….
In the last thread, as part of supportive argument for English, compliment was paid to the #1 offense of the ‘82 Nuggets, and English’s role in producing it. But again, let’s not lose site of the fact that philosophy of that team under Moe was offense over defense: the ‘82 Nuggets were also ranked 23rd of 23 defensively, and were just a 0.13 SRS team overall. The ‘81 Nuggets (also #1 offensively), were 22nd/23 defensively, and a -0.95 SRS team overall.

Career cumulative VORP favors Nique: 41.1 to 35.0 (despite him having a slightly shorter career).
Career avg BPM favors Nique: 2.3 to 1.7.

Wilkins career team records: 626-573 (.522) [Active: 568-506 (.529) Inactive: 58-67 (.464)]
Wilkins career playoff records: 23-36 (.390)
*10 seasons in playoffs, though only 3 times past 1st round, and never as far as a conference finals.
Perhaps his shining team season: ‘87--->headed a team with supporting cast of Doc Rivers and a young Kevin Willis (where the 4th-best player was probably Randy Whitman), and led them to a 57-25 record, 2nd-best SRS, and ECSF.

English career team records: 620-608 (.505) [Active: 604-589 (.506) Inactive: 16-19 (.457)]
English career playoff records: 29-41 (.414)
*10 seasons in playoffs, 5 times past 1st round, 1 time as far as conference finals.
Probably crown jewel of leadership: ‘85--->52-30 rs record, 7th-best SRS, made it to WCF (English played great in playoffs that year); primary supporting cast was Fat Lever, Calvin Natt, Wayne Cooper, 36-year-old Dan Issel (when should he be coming up in discussion, btw?).

So idk…..seems pretty close there, too.


Longevity/Durability
Obviously English was a bit more durable, but for overall longevity, I think it’s very nearly a wash: Nique came into the league an immediate big-minute effective player. English, otoh, was sort of a late bloomer, his first two seasons really adding very little to his overall career value. So although English played approximately a half-season more, amounting to 119 more rs games, Nique’s instant impact puts him very very close in overall longevity. Both had ~9-year primes, too.


So overall it looks very very close to me. With the Blade getting actual votes (plural) in multiple threads now, shouldn’t Dominique at least be in the discussion at this point?

[Clyde Frazier]

Hooray for Schayes!

So now i'm at a bit of a standstill. I came to realize early on in the project that I may value longevity a bit more than the average voter. In an attempt to stay as consistent as possible with my approach, I don't know what to do with guys like reed, cowens, etc. who are pretty deserving at this point, but don't have great longevity. I guess i'll just have to find a balance as best I can as the project moves on.

Still makes me wonder why a peaks project is apparently more difficult, but I guess i'll ask about that in the meta thread.

[Moonbeam]

Great exploration of English vs. Wilkins, trex! I've looked at those two players a lot as well as other 80s SFs, and I think Dantley belongs in that conversation. I'll post some stats later when I get a chance, including a metric for combining efficiency plus volume. As a preview, Dantley comes out looking to be one of the top 3 peak scoring threats of the 80s, and has a sizable margin as the greatest overall scorer across the decade of the 80s. It's a question of durability for Dantley in comparison to English and Wilkins, but as a scorer, he's well ahead of those two. Of course, English has a notable playmaking edge and Nique a notable rebounding edge, but I feel those three are all should be considered around the same point.

In addition to those 3, Reed, Cowens, Sam Jones and Mutombo are all likely to get a close look from me. Maybe Rodman, McGrady and Carter too.

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Tracy McGrady

T-Mac's quality of prime is Kobe-level though much shorter compared to Bryant. In his prime, he combined amazing pick-n-roll play with low turnovers, 3-point shooting, super-high volume/USG%, and solid defense. He never got to prove it really, but I think his game would flourish next to offensive talent.

His final Toronto year shouldn't be discounted either. He was a really good 2-way player with great rebounding and defensive activity.

Spoiler:

Bigs: Dikembe Mutombo, Nate Thurmond, Willis Reed, Dave Cowens, Ben Wallace, Bob Lanier, Bob McAdoo, Robert Parish,

Worms: Dennis Rodman

Wings: Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Tracy McGrady, Paul Arizin, Alex English, Dominique Wilkins, Penny Hardaway, Manu Ginobili, Sidney Moncrief

Point Guards: Nate Archibald, Kevin Johnson, Chauncey Billups, Deron Williams, Mark Price

[tsherkin]

Vote: Tracy McGrady

T-Mac's quality of prime is Kobe-level though much shorter compared to Bryant.
]

Yes, one season in length, as it happens. No McGrady season outside of 03 compares to Bryant beyond raw averages...

[therealbig3]

Vote: Tracy McGrady

T-Mac's quality of prime is Kobe-level though much shorter compared to Bryant.
]

Yes, one season in length, as it happens. No McGrady season outside of 03 compares to Bryant beyond raw averages...

02, 04, and 05 T-Mac compares just fine to 02, 04, and 05 Kobe. Kobe had his best offensive seasons after that, but T-Mac also got injured and was never the same after that...hence, the shorter prime.

They don't compare if you only focus on TS%. There's a lot more to offense than that, and T-Mac was always better at taking care of the basketball than Kobe. A missed shot isn't as bad as a TO.

[Owly]

Vote: Tracy McGrady

T-Mac's quality of prime is Kobe-level though much shorter compared to Bryant.
]

Yes, one season in length, as it happens. No McGrady season outside of 03 compares to Bryant beyond raw averages...

Through '05 McGrady doesn't suffer in the comparison too badly
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:advanced
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... m:advanced

Not just raw averages there though obviously it depends to what degree you buy into the boxscore metrics shown (and obviously somewhat different roles, McGrady "allowed" greater usage, Kobe gets less defensive attention with Shaq and can focus more energy on D). Obviously at '06 the longevity thing really kicks in and Kobe has two of his three percieved/possible peaks ahead ('06 stats, '08/09ish team success). And if you think '06-'10 is more his real prime than Frobe (perhaps clearly so) then you could argue it that way. But just thought I should note that through '05 it's not just the numbers that I'd call "raw" that suggest McGrady looks comparable to Kobe.

[penbeast0]

I've looked at Dantley, English, and Wilkens too. Key things to me:

Dantley looks the best by the numbers. But he had both a GM (Frank Layden) and a team star (Isiah) sour on him plus his team numbers don't always look as good (except in Detroit).

Wilkens looks the best by contemporary accolades pretty clearly. Voters at the time were more impressed by his game. But, his game was, as his nickname suggests, "The Human Highlight Reel," so you would expect it to be impressive to voters. Contemporary players (in a Sports Illustrated poll -- don't have the reference to post anymore) rated him the least interested player in playing defense in the league (behind Gervin). His teams had slow pace for his era which means his scoring volume may actually understate his explosiveness; they also had a defensive focus with shotblocking centers like Tree Rollins and Jon Koncak backing him up so his Drtg is probably overstating his defense a bit.

English was the most versatile, at various times being the main post scorer, the point forward, the main catch and shoot guy, even the frontline defensive stopper (playing with Kiki Vandeweghe and Dan Issel). Issel was the main center behind English, a mediocre defender with little to no shotblocking; Danny Schayes was better but not exactly a defensive stalwart either (and Blair Rasmussen was just putrid). His pace was high but the Nuggets offense was always a movement offense and used less isolation than almost any other in the league (far less than Atlanta) and he shared the ball willingly with Issel, Vandeweghe, Natt, Lever, Adams, etc. So, his scoring within the context of that kind of offense is still pretty awesome and his defense is probably underrated by Drtg -- he had a rep as a willing defender. Remember from the Russell Celtics that high pace doesn't always mean no defensive focus, there were years where Denver played decent defense (not the Issel/Vandeweghe years obviously).

As I said in my post, the numbers say Dantley, but having watched that era, I was most impressed by English (you can't just watch one year, his role and game changed several times).

[Moonbeam]

I've thought about how to combine efficiency and volume in a meaningful way, and as a starting point, I've come up with metrics I'll call Score+ and PosScore+ for now. The idea is to compare a player's per100 possession scoring with what would be expected plugging in league average (used for Score+) and position average (used for PosScore+). This is ultimately what matters on the scoreboard - how many points is a team putting up per possession, relative to league average? The position variation is an important distinction, I feel, because a center giving league average scoring tends to be more replaceable than a point guard giving league average scoring:



I'd like to improve the metric by accounting for increased usage somehow. As it stands, these metrics consider a player with very high usage on +3% TS to be worth an additional 2*0.03*TSAper100 points per 100 possessions than a league- or position-neutral efficiency guy, when having such high usage may tend to yield a drop in efficiency for most players. Nonetheless, the higher the usage, the further away from zero a player's Score+ and PosScore+ will be.

Here are Dominique's top 5 seasons:

Code: Select all

Year  Score+  PosScore+
1993   2.34     2.92
1992   1.32     1.55
1990   1.30     1.55
1991   1.24     1.44
1994   0.08     0.66


Here are English's top 5 seasons:

Code: Select all

Year  Score+  PosScore+
1982   2.89     2.48
1978   2.10     1.93
1983   1.77     1.66
1984   1.55     1.41
1986   1.35     1.12


English obviously has an edge, and those are pretty good values. Only around 27 players with >= 500 MP in a given season will have a Score+ north of 2, and only around 17 will have a Score+ north of 2.5.

Take a look at Adrian Dantley:

Code: Select all

Year  Score+  PosScore+
1983   6.70     6.60
1984   6.21     6.08
1980   5.72     5.40
1986   5.38     5.16
1982   5.18     4.72


There have only been 41 player seasons since 1976-77 (with >= 500 MP) with a Score+ of 5 or more, and only 12 with a Score+ of 6 or more.





Of course, overall volume matters, too. Extending these metrics to season totals, we find the following points above expected:

Dominique:

Code: Select all

Year  TotScore+  TotPosScore+
1993   126.11       156.88
1991    78.27        90.93
1990    74.90        89.39
1992    43.03        50.53
1994     4.27        35.08


English:

Code: Select all

Year  TotScore+  TotPosScore+
1982   199.43       170.68
1983   123.25       115.56
1984   102.12        93.36
1986    90.80        75.37
1985    72.59        80.19


Dantley:

Code: Select all

Year  TotScore+  TotPosScore+
1984   404.84       396.30
1982   361.17       329.17
1981   344.14       338.15
1986   317.51       304.57
1980   310.72       293.58


Amassing all player seasons since 1976-77, Dantley ranks second behind only Reggie Miller in TotScore+ and TotPosScore+.

One again, I'd like to tweak the method by adjusting for usage, but all three of these guys are quite high in usage, so I think this provides a pretty fair comparison of what their scoring actually meant to their teams overall totals.

As it stands, here is a spreadsheet of all player seasons since 1976-77 with a Score+, PosScore+, or TeamScore+ of at least 2.

[Moonbeam]

I've looked at Dantley, English, and Wilkens too. Key things to me:

Dantley looks the best by the numbers. But he had both a GM (Frank Layden) and a team star (Isiah) sour on him plus his team numbers don't always look as good (except in Detroit).

Wilkens looks the best by contemporary accolades pretty clearly. Voters at the time were more impressed by his game. But, his game was, as his nickname suggests, "The Human Highlight Reel," so you would expect it to be impressive to voters. Contemporary players (in a Sports Illustrated poll -- don't have the reference to post anymore) rated him the least interested player in playing defense in the league (behind Gervin). His teams had slow pace for his era which means his scoring volume may actually understate his explosiveness; they also had a defensive focus with shotblocking centers like Tree Rollins and Jon Koncak backing him up so his Drtg is probably overstating his defense a bit.

English was the most versatile, at various times being the main post scorer, the point forward, the main catch and shoot guy, even the frontline defensive stopper (playing with Kiki Vandeweghe and Dan Issel). Issel was the main center behind English, a mediocre defender with little to no shotblocking; Danny Schayes was better but not exactly a defensive stalwart either (and Blair Rasmussen was just putrid). His pace was high but the Nuggets offense was always a movement offense and used less isolation than almost any other in the league (far less than Atlanta) and he shared the ball willingly with Issel, Vandeweghe, Natt, Lever, Adams, etc. So, his scoring within the context of that kind of offense is still pretty awesome and his defense is probably underrated by Drtg -- he had a rep as a willing defender. Remember from the Russell Celtics that high pace doesn't always mean no defensive focus, there were years where Denver played decent defense (not the Issel/Vandeweghe years obviously).

As I said in my post, the numbers say Dantley, but having watched that era, I was most impressed by English (you can't just watch one year, his role and game changed several times).

Great post, particularly about English. Teammate quality needs to be considered, but it's no coincidence that Denver's offense consistently thrived with English at the helm - when I attempted to break down offensive win shares for these guys, English's teammates did have a tendency to outperform expectations much more than Dantley, so that's definitely a factor.

Regarding Dantley's tumultuous relationships, the relationship with Layden was great until the contract holdout at the start of the 1984-85 season. Layden has since moved past it:

Perhaps A.D.'s rocky relationship with former Jazz coach, GM and well-liked funny man Frank Layden still haunts him - even though it shouldn't.

"A long time ago," Layden said, "I made it clear that bygones are bygones. Let's give this guy his due."

The spark to the ancient feud was Dantley's holdout prior to the 1984-85 season.

"If I had it to do over again, he never would have held out," Layden said. "I would give him the money. But for some reason - at the time - I thought I was doing the right thing."

Perhaps it wasn't as much a Layden-Dantley feud as a clash between Layden and powerful agent David Falk.

"I allowed my relationship with Falk to affect my relationship with Adrian," Layden said. "I fought Falk to the point where we both got stubborn [and] Dantley was the pawn. That's when our relationship became strained."

Pondering today's NBA, where nobody scores as efficiently as Dantley, Layden shakes his head.

He saw a recent Jazz game when Memo Okur and Carlos Boozer each scored 30 points.

"We had a guy who averaged 30," Layden said. "Now a guy scores 30 and it's headlines and everybody's ecstatic. . . . One thing I always said when we had Adrian: 'It was like starting the game ahead 30-0.' "

[tsherkin]

02, 04, and 05 T-Mac compares just fine to 02, 04, and 05 Kobe. Kobe had his best offensive seasons after that, but T-Mac also got injured and was never the same after that...hence, the shorter prime.

They don't compare if you only focus on TS%. There's a lot more to offense than that, and T-Mac was always better at taking care of the basketball than Kobe. A missed shot isn't as bad as a TO.

Hmmm....

TM 02: 76 GP, 25.6 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 5.3 apg, 53.2% TS, 111 ORTG
TM04: 67 GP, 28.0 ppg (league-high), 6.0 rpg, 5.5 apg, 52.6% TS, 110 ORTG
TM05: 78 GP, 25.7 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 5.7 apg, 52.6% TS (despite new rules), 109 ORTG

Not a bad player at all, for sure. Very good, even. Crap efficiency for a good volume scorer, but certainly made up for it by rebounding, hitting the offensive boards and exercising his considerable skills as a playmaker.

Of course, 02, 04 and 05 aren't necessarily what you might call Kobe's prime, where he had 9 consecutive seasons of 111+ ORTG and 3 straight of 115. McGrady's prime doesn't really compare because it is assassinated by longevity and he only really reached his stand-out level in one season, whereas Kobe was there consistently for a while.

McGrady doesn't really compare to prime Kobe. He has one season that's actually (by ORTG) better than any Kobe's ever had, and it was a legendary season. He's got a couple of other seasons where his total offensive value is greater than his scoring efficiency suggests, certainly (kinda like LaMarcus Aldridge this past season), no doubt.

As a talent, I surely agree that McGrady as on Kobe's level. As a player, speaking of his career, no, I don't think he performed at a level which could be accurately described as a fair comparison to Kobe's prime during his actual career.

[trex_8063]

I've looked at Dantley, English, and Wilkens too. Key things to me:

Dantley looks the best by the numbers. But he had both a GM (Frank Layden) and a team star (Isiah) sour on him plus his team numbers don't always look as good (except in Detroit).

..snip....

Nice breakdown. I agree Dantley looks the best by the numbers (by far, really). The two primary concerns I've had about him which has kept him out of my top 50 (and largely out of my top 60, too) are as follows:

1) Defense. I honestly don't remember how his defense looked back in the day; his hay-day was back when I was just starting to (or just before I started to) pay attention to the NBA, and I haven't watched enough full game footage of him recently. By reputation he---similar to Wilkins---was considered a somewhat "unwilling" defender. His defensive stats (fwiw) are not impressive either.

2) Positive impact on team offense. One would expect that when you have a star rocking such high usage (at times about 30%), dropping nearly 30 ppg, and doing so on shooting efficiency (TS%) that is +10-12% (+13% one year!) to the rest of the league that you would almost necessarily have to have a high-rated efficient team offense. But in fact that was often NOT the case with Dantley's teams. And I've wondered if this is a little bit the "Wilt Chamberlain effect", seen on some of those Warrior teams of the early 60's: the team gets so used to simply dumping the ball to the star and then standing around and watching/waiting.....they lose all offensive rhythm and aptitude for themselves.
And there was certainly that aspect to Dantley's game: he was a great isolation scorer, and his teammates would sometimes end up standing around while he did his multiple ball-fake thing (sometimes chewing up many seconds off the shot-clock), before ultimately penetrating (often getting to the line: wherein his teammates would again be standing around watching).

Footnote on his team offenses, ORtg relative to league (league rank):
the Jazz
'79 (year before Dantley arrived: had aging Maravich, Spencer Haywood, Gail Goodrich, also Truck Robinson): -4.2 (21st of 22)
'80 (Dantley arrives, along with Ron Boone; Haywood, Robinson, and Goodrich all gone; Maravich gone for most of year): -1.1 (15th of 22; fell to 22nd of 22 defensively)
'81 (Rickey Green and rookie Darrell Griffith arrive): -2.1 (18th of 23)
'82: -0.7 (13th of 23)
'83 (Dantley misses 60 games; also Mark Eaton---offensive quagmire---arrives): -3.5 (20th of 23; defense improves with Eaton, though)
'84: +1.4 (9th of 23)
'85 (Dantley misses 27 games; first year for Eaton getting BIG minutes, rookie Stockton): -4.6 (21st of 23; they do have the #1 defense, though).
'86 (Stockton's role slowly increasing, rookie Mailman): -3.0 (20th of 23)
'87: (Dantley traded to Detroit for Tripucka and Kent Benson): -4.2 (21st of 23)

the Pistons
'86 (before Dantley arrives): +1.8 (7th of 23)
'87: +0.9 (9th of 23)
'88: +2.5 (6th of 23)
'89 (Dantley's traded at mid-season to Dallas for Mark Aguirre): +3.0 (7th of 25)
'90: +1.8 (11th of 27)

the Mavericks (admittedly Dantley's role/effectiveness is on decline by this point)
'88 (before Dantley): +4.2 (3rd of 23)
'89 (Dantley arrives mid-season for Aguirre): -0.4 (15th of 25)
'90: -0.9 (18th of 27)

So other than apparently helping to bring an awful Jazz offense up nearer to mediocre, a consistent positive impact on team offenses is difficult to identify.

[RSCD3_]

I've thought about how to combine efficiency and volume in a meaningful way, and as a starting point, I've come up with metrics I'll call Score+ and PosScore+ for now. The idea is to compare a player's per100 possession scoring with what would be expected plugging in league average (used for Score+) and position average (used for PosScore+). This is ultimately what matters on the scoreboard - how many points is a team putting up per possession, relative to league average? The position variation is an important distinction, I feel, because a center giving league average scoring tends to be more replaceable than a point guard giving league average scoring:



I'd like to improve the metric by accounting for increased usage somehow. As it stands, these metrics consider a player with very high usage on +3% TS to be worth an additional 2*0.03*TSAper100 points per 100 possessions than a league- or position-neutral efficiency guy, when having such high usage may tend to yield a drop in efficiency for most players. Nonetheless, the higher the usage, the further away from zero a player's Score+ and PosScore+ will be.

Here are Dominique's top 5 seasons:

Code: Select all

Year  Score+  PosScore+
1993   2.34     2.92
1992   1.32     1.55
1990   1.30     1.55
1991   1.24     1.44
1994   0.08     0.66


Here are English's top 5 seasons:

Code: Select all

Year  Score+  PosScore+
1982   2.89     2.48
1978   2.10     1.93
1983   1.77     1.66
1984   1.55     1.41
1986   1.35     1.12


English obviously has an edge, and those are pretty good values. Only around 27 players with >= 500 MP in a given season will have a Score+ north of 2, and only around 17 will have a Score+ north of 2.5.

Take a look at Adrian Dantley:

Code: Select all

Year  Score+  PosScore+
1983   6.70     6.60
1984   6.21     6.08
1980   5.72     5.40
1986   5.38     5.16
1982   5.18     4.72


There have only been 41 player seasons since 1976-77 (with >= 500 MP) with a Score+ of 5 or more, and only 12 with a Score+ of 6 or more.





Of course, overall volume matters, too. Extending these metrics to season totals, we find the following points above expected:

Dominique:

Code: Select all

Year  TotScore+  TotPosScore+
1993   126.11       156.88
1991    78.27        90.93
1990    74.90        89.39
1992    43.03        50.53
1994     4.27        35.08


English:

Code: Select all

Year  TotScore+  TotPosScore+
1982   199.43       170.68
1983   123.25       115.56
1984   102.12        93.36
1986    90.80        75.37
1985    72.59        80.19


Dantley:

Code: Select all

Year  TotScore+  TotPosScore+
1984   404.84       396.30
1982   361.17       329.17
1981   344.14       338.15
1986   317.51       304.57
1980   310.72       293.58


Amassing all player seasons since 1976-77, Dantley ranks second behind only Reggie Miller in TotScore+ and TotPosScore+.

One again, I'd like to tweak the method by adjusting for usage, but all three of these guys are quite high in usage, so I think this provides a pretty fair comparison of what their scoring actually meant to their teams overall totals.

As it stands, here is a spreadsheet of all player seasons since 1976-77 with a Score+, PosScore+, or TeamScore+ of at least 2.

I love what you did here but could you alter the SG and SF colors so they don't look so similar like say SG is black.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[RSCD3_]

I've looked at Dantley, English, and Wilkens too. Key things to me:

Dantley looks the best by the numbers. But he had both a GM (Frank Layden) and a team star (Isiah) sour on him plus his team numbers don't always look as good (except in Detroit).

..snip....

Nice breakdown. I agree Dantley looks the best by the numbers (by far, really). The two primary concerns I've had about him which has kept him out of my top 50 (and largely out of my top 60, too) are as follows:

1) Defense. I honestly don't remember how his defense looked back in the day; his hay-day was back when I was just starting to (or just before I started to) pay attention to the NBA, and I haven't watched enough full game footage of him recently. By reputation he---similar to Wilkins---was considered a somewhat "unwilling" defender. His defensive stats (fwiw) are not impressive either.

2) Positive impact on team offense. One would expect that when you have a star rocking such high usage (at times about 30%), dropping nearly 30 ppg, and doing so on shooting efficiency (TS%) that is +10-12% (+13% one year!) to the rest of the league that you would almost necessarily have to have a high-rated efficient team offense. But in fact that was often NOT the case with Dantley's teams. And I've wondered if this is a little bit the "Wilt Chamberlain effect", seen on some of those Warrior teams of the early 60's: the team gets so used to simply dumping the ball to the star and then standing around and watching/waiting.....they lose all offensive rhythm and aptitude for themselves.
And there was certainly that aspect to Dantley's game: he was a great isolation scorer, and his teammates would sometimes end up standing around while he did his multiple ball-fake thing (sometimes chewing up many seconds off the shot-clock), before ultimately penetrating (often getting to the line: wherein his teammates would again be standing around watching).

Footnote on his team offenses, ORtg relative to league (league rank):
the Jazz
'79 (year before Dantley arrived: had aging Maravich, Spencer Haywood, Gail Goodrich, also Truck Robinson): -4.2 (21st of 22)
'80 (Dantley arrives, along with Ron Boone; Haywood, Robinson, and Goodrich all gone; Maravich gone for most of year): -1.1 (15th of 22; fell to 22nd of 22 defensively)
'81 (Rickey Green and rookie Darrell Griffith arrive): -2.1 (18th of 23)
'82: -0.7 (13th of 23)
'83 (Dantley misses 60 games; also Mark Eaton---offensive quagmire---arrives): -3.5 (20th of 23; defense improves with Eaton, though)
'84: +1.4 (9th of 23)
'85 (Dantley misses 27 games; first year for Eaton getting BIG minutes, rookie Stockton): -4.6 (21st of 23; they do have the #1 defense, though).
'86 (Stockton's role slowly increasing, rookie Mailman): -3.0 (20th of 23)
'87: (Dantley traded to Detroit for Tripucka and Kent Benson): -4.2 (21st of 23)

the Pistons
'86 (before Dantley arrives): +1.8 (7th of 23)
'87: +0.9 (9th of 23)
'88: +2.5 (6th of 23)
'89 (Dantley's traded at mid-season to Dallas for Mark Aguirre): +3.0 (7th of 25)
'90: +1.8 (11th of 27)

the Mavericks (admittedly Dantley's role/effectiveness is on decline by this point)
'88 (before Dantley): +4.2 (3rd of 23)
'89 (Dantley arrives mid-season for Aguirre): -0.4 (15th of 25)
'90: -0.9 (18th of 27)

this is troubling for a guy who made his living on offense

What good is a guy who can score if efficiently if his lift is marginal


We've seen plenty of scorers placed on good defensive teams and be able to hold their offense well and he's didn't translate that in detroit or elsewhere








Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Owly]

I've looked at Dantley, English, and Wilkens too. Key things to me:

Dantley looks the best by the numbers. But he had both a GM (Frank Layden) and a team star (Isiah) sour on him plus his team numbers don't always look as good (except in Detroit).

..snip....

Nice breakdown. I agree Dantley looks the best by the numbers (by far, really). The two primary concerns I've had about him which has kept him out of my top 50 (and largely out of my top 60, too) are as follows:

1) Defense. I honestly don't remember how his defense looked back in the day; his hay-day was back when I was just starting to (or just before I started to) pay attention to the NBA, and I haven't watched enough full game footage of him recently. By reputation he---similar to Wilkins---was considered a somewhat "unwilling" defender. His defensive stats (fwiw) are not impressive either.

2) Positive impact on team offense. One would expect that when you have a star rocking such high usage (at times about 30%), dropping nearly 30 ppg, and doing so on shooting efficiency (TS%) that is +10-12% (+13% one year!) to the rest of the league that you would almost necessarily have to have a high-rated efficient team offense. But in fact that was often NOT the case with Dantley's teams. And I've wondered if this is a little bit the "Wilt Chamberlain effect", seen on some of those Warrior teams of the early 60's: the team gets so used to simply dumping the ball to the star and then standing around and watching/waiting.....they lose all offensive rhythm and aptitude for themselves.
And there was certainly that aspect to Dantley's game: he was a great isolation scorer, and his teammates would sometimes end up standing around while he did his multiple ball-fake thing (sometimes chewing up many seconds off the shot-clock), before ultimately penetrating (often getting to the line: wherein his teammates would again be standing around watching).

Footnote on his team offenses, ORtg relative to league (league rank):
the Jazz
'79 (year before Dantley arrived: had aging Maravich, Spencer Haywood, Gail Goodrich, also Truck Robinson): -4.2 (21st of 22)
'80 (Dantley arrives, along with Ron Boone; Haywood, Robinson, and Goodrich all gone; Maravich gone for most of year): -1.1 (15th of 22; fell to 22nd of 22 defensively)
'81 (Rickey Green and rookie Darrell Griffith arrive): -2.1 (18th of 23)
'82: -0.7 (13th of 23)
'83 (Dantley misses 60 games; also Mark Eaton---offensive quagmire---arrives): -3.5 (20th of 23; defense improves with Eaton, though)
'84: +1.4 (9th of 23)
'85 (Dantley misses 27 games; first year for Eaton getting BIG minutes, rookie Stockton): -4.6 (21st of 23; they do have the #1 defense, though).
'86 (Stockton's role slowly increasing, rookie Mailman): -3.0 (20th of 23)
'87: (Dantley traded to Detroit for Tripucka and Kent Benson): -4.2 (21st of 23)

the Pistons
'86 (before Dantley arrives): +1.8 (7th of 23)
'87: +0.9 (9th of 23)
'88: +2.5 (6th of 23)
'89 (Dantley's traded at mid-season to Dallas for Mark Aguirre): +3.0 (7th of 25)
'90: +1.8 (11th of 27)

the Mavericks (admittedly Dantley's role/effectiveness is on decline by this point)
'88 (before Dantley): +4.2 (3rd of 23)
'89 (Dantley arrives mid-season for Aguirre): -0.4 (15th of 25)
'90: -0.9 (18th of 27)

this is troubling for a guy who made his living on offense

What good is a guy who can score if efficiently if his lift is marginal


We've seen plenty of scorers placed on good defensive teams and be able to hold their offense well and he's didn't translate that in detroit or elsewhere

Haven't fully formulated my thoughts on what to make of Dantley with regard to team impact, and what I have put down is probably scattered over different forums and threads.

Anyhow, the gist is, it's certainly disconcerting, not sure whether the burden would be on Dantley-backers to justify/explain apparent non-impact, or skeptics to claim causal link, guess it depends on the nature of the argument. Anyhow yeah there's a lot of moving parts in team level stuff, for Dantley in particular examples would be

- Detroit apparently improved when Dantley left, but had been on a fairly impressive win streak at the time of the trade with Dantley playing big minutes and when Detroit had everyone healthy, iirc they had a similar spell at the start of the season, then the team kept getting niggling injuries which arguably screwed with their rotation; then the next year the offense fell.

- Dallas got worse with post-prime Dantley, but there's mitigating factors around the team situation there, the simple version being their season appears to have started circling the drain from the moment Tarpley got his drugs suspension (though arguable whether Dantley helped, I suspect his heart wasn't in it after he went from a contender to a mess, though after the season the first Rick Barry Pro Basketball Scouting Report compares his intangiables very favourably to his predecessor's).

- In Detroit his arrival coincides with a huge slowdown and Isiah's stats falling off a cliff; arguably he's keeping them afloat on O whilst they prioritise D with Salley and Rodman - plus I believe I've heard Chuck Daly mention that by his percentages and getting to the line so much he helped their D by allowing them to set their D up rather than conceding a live ball ...

I don't know whether these factors help to explain what happens or not, that's just digging around (admittedly more in the hope of finding mitigating circumstances than not), but it should give an flavour as to why I'm not entirely comfortable with using the team level stuff to write him off (not that not voting him at this point would be doing so) because there's so much noise, so much else going on. Still it's certainly problematic.

[Moonbeam]

Dantley is often brought up as a statistical oddity for this very reason - his impact appears very nebulous despite his amazing statistics. I've looked at this in quite a fair amount of detail.

I'll focus on the question of whether Dantley's amazing offensive stats came at the expense of his teammates.

Part of this is taken from a post I made here. You can see similar graphs to what I'll provide for Dantley for other top SFs of the 80s there.

One thing I've taken a hard look at is how to weigh up offensive statistics in the context of team offense. There has been a fair bit of discussion in the Top 100 poll about how to gauge individual performance based on team performance (e.g. Garnett's Minny teams did not generally excel on defense, how to compare Kidd's team offenses to Payton's given teammate quality), so I tried to come up with a rough model of expectations for team offense.

I used offensive win shares as the basis for this analysis. I know many aren't happy with OWS, but on a team-level, it is very strongly correlated with offensive rating, which is a good measure of overall team offensive performance. I looked at all regular season data from 1977-2014 to come up with a set of aging curves to encompass different types of peak shapes. I've used five different levels of peak sharpness and five different peak ages (21, 24, 27, 30, and 33), which makes it possible to model a player's career based on OWS/48, like this:



This is a very simple approach, but I wanted something specific enough to broadly capture the relationship between offensive production and aging, but not too specific as to produce perfect models - I'm interested in the deviations from expectations, after all, so I'm happy with a bit of noise.

Based on these curves of expected OWS/48, I then looked at team offense relative to expectations as judged by total OWS. I'm still looking to road-test this analysis, so if you know of any instances where you felt a team overachieved or underachieved its talent level, I'd be eager to check it against my model!



Over this span, here are the MP-weighted averages for player OWS, % of team OWS, both rate and raw difference of help OWS to expectations:

Code: Select all

Player   WtOWS   %Off  Help Rate  Help Diff
Aguirre  5.112  0.166    1.018      +0.428
Bird     7.429  0.220    1.048      +1.056
Dantley  8.803  0.394    0.844      -2.155
English  6.536  0.246    1.016      +0.307
Johnson  5.954  0.253    1.040      +0.636
King     4.466  0.269    0.887      -1.413
Wilkins  6.084  0.255    1.015      +0.260
Worthy   5.065  0.155    1.116      +2.809


On the surface, it looks like Dantley (and to a lesser extent, King) may be getting their Win Shares somewhat at the expense of teammates, while Bird and Worthy are associated with boosts for their teammates. How much praise (or blame) should be apportioned for performance of teammates is up for debate, but I think it at least provides a framework for comparison.

Taking a look at the 5-year intervals in the OP:

Code: Select all

Player  Years   WtOWS   %Off  Help Rate  Help Diff
Aguirre 84-88   5.920  0.187    1.041      +1.005
Bird    84-88   9.933  0.302    0.989      -0.257
Dantley 80-84  11.213  0.553    1.083      +0.606
English 82-86   7.849  0.268    1.026      +0.548
Johnson 79-83   7.192  0.275    1.057      +0.984
King    81-85   6.675  0.323    0.919      -1.268
Wilkins 86-90   7.835  0.270    1.158      +2.891
Worthy  86-90   6.465  0.180    1.181      +4.496


Dantley is clearly the leader in both OWS and percentage of team offense (some of those supporting casts in Utah look dreadful), but perhaps he didn't provide the "lift" as others (or worse, perhaps his presence deflated his teammates offense). If we split his career into phases, it seems his early career is where his teammates fared the worst (0.731 rate, fit issues with Lakers?), while in Utah they performed nearly to (awful) expectations (0.968 rate), while in Detroit during 87-88, the rate fell to 0.801 (problems of fit with Isiah?), and across 89-90, it was 0.935.

So let's take a look at those Jazz teams. Dantley's teammates were quite poor on offense (producing near bottom-of-the-league OWS, and not different to expectations). Dantley's usage was high, but not exorbitantly so, ranking 7th in 1980, 8th in 1981, 10th in 1982, 6th in 1984, and 3rd in 1986.

Standardizing different components of offense for all Dantley-helmed seasons plus 2 seasons on either side, the Jazz's biggest deficit on offense clearly is in offensive rebounding:



There are clear drops in eFG in Dantley's low minute seasons (1983 and 1985) as well as in 1987 after he leaves. There are also drops in turnover percentage during 1983 and 1985, so any sloppiness effect of "standing around" does not seem to be there. The percentage of assisted field goals is all over the place, so it's hard to make any suggestions. Once Dantley really became a FT machine (1983), the Jazz really took flight in FT/FGA, and fell on their faces in 1987 after he left. However, offensive rebounding really sticks out as the primary culprit, and it remained a problem area for Utah in 1987 and 1988, too. Elgee has done some fascinating tweaks of ORating and DRating to account for offensive rebounding, as it is something that can be strategically discouraged to boost defense. You'd think in that case, however, Utah's defensive rebounding would be much better, but it wasn't. The Jazz simply had awful rebounding throughout the 80s, and it's hard to pin the problem of that on Dantley, though he of course was by no means a noteworthy rebounder there.

So overall in Utah, Dantley had poor offensive teammates (expected OWS generally in the 5-10 range, good for last or near last in the league each year), and the areas where Dantley excelled (efficiency, free throw rate) show up as team strengths over his tenure there. This is where Dantley's offensive excellence was on full stage, and I think he deserved every last OWS that he was awarded there.

Now, to Detroit.



In Dantley's time there, the Pistons saw a notable boost in eFG and FT/FGA, unsurprisingly. They took a concerning dip in percentage of assisted field goals and turnover percentage, however. This suggests that perhaps Dantley was not the best fit in a reduced role as more of a finisher. The main players whose offense took a tumble were Isiah Thomas and Vinnie Johnson. Vinnie had a nice bounceback season in 1989, but fell off hard again in 1990. Isiah's OWS continued to decline after Dantley left. So did Dantley's arrival clash with their styles, or were they simply on a downward trajectory? I think it's a bit of both.

[john248]

Voting Ray Allen here. I was trying to decide between him and Pau but settled in on Ray. He's the best shooter left which is the single most important ability in the sport and makes him valuable to any title team. He has handles and could make the pass, but I wouldn't call him a playmaker in the way I would TMac. Great off-ball player which is where his strength is. Always fun watching him run off of Fortson or Collison on the baseline or off a curl. Mediocre defender.

He's been a part of some great offenses though had some good teammates on that end along the way in Cassell, Glen Robinson, Rashard Lewis, Brent Barry. 01 Bucks were +5.8, and his Seattle teams were always top 5 except his last season there which was 9th. Career 114 ORTG who peaked at 122 in 09 and had a 119 season in 01; career 58% TS while averaging between 22-26 PPG (30-34 per100) from 00-07. 01 and 05 were great playoff performances by him. Had some stinker games and series in the Boston years while having good ones so not the most consistent during this time, but overall was a good playoff performer though the majority of his playoffs games played were once he got to Boston.

I do feel he's the best wing player left. Longevity and ability to score is the best amongst the bunch.

[trex_8063]

Been waiting to see what the distribution of votes would be (I suppose I could guess, based on the last thread), to then perhaps place a "strategic" vote, since I've not been certain where I wanted to place my vote. But I think I’ll just put a feeler vote out there for the guy I’m leaning toward……..Vote: Robert Parish

Parish was an entirely fine two-way player. While I think he’s somewhat more remembered for his offense, he was also a very capable defender, especially early in his career.
During his first SEVEN seasons in the league he never averaged less than 2.8 blocks per 100 possessions (and as high as 4.4). In both ‘79 and ‘81 he was 4th in the league in bpg despite playing just 31.7 and 28.0 mpg, respectively. Was 5th in ‘82 while playing just 31.7 mpg. He had a cumulative DRtg of ~97-98 in that seven-year span. He led the league in DRtg in ‘79; had a DRtg in the top 8 four times during that 7-year span, three times in the top 3.

Offensively, he was a 7-footer who could run the floor reasonably well, a very competent finisher at the rim (making him somewhat functional in transition), was an excellent low-post scorer, and also had a tiny bit of range (out to 11-13 feet, at least). Was an entirely decent FT-shooter for a big-man (72.1% for his career).
The only reason he was averaging just 16-20 ppg during his prime was because he was playing on an extremely stacked team thru most of it. I have no doubt Parish could have avg 23-25 ppg on decent efficiency for a less talent-laden club.

While I don’t think Parish could have been “the man” on a contender, I think we’re well past the point on the list where that is necessarily a consideration. Especially when one has the kind of longevity that Parish had: he had a prime that lasted 13 years (>1,000 rs games), 5 additional seasons as a role player of varying (but certainly relevant) value, and only 3 seasons (years 19-21) that were of minimal value.

While he couldn’t have been #1 on a contender, he certainly could have been the #1 on a 40-45 win playoff participant. And he could have been the #2 on a contender. Indeed, he WAS either the 2nd or 3rd best player on MULTIPLE contenders.
He’s got one ring as the clear #2, another as---at worst---the #2B, a third ring as the clear #3, and then a 4th ring as a limited-value bench player.

During his peak in the early 1980’s, he was 7th in MVP voting in ‘81, 4th in MVP voting in ‘82.

A look at his prime production…….
Robert Parish (‘79-’91) (13 years: 1022 rs games!)
Per 100 (rs): 25.8 pts, 15.6 reb, 2.5 ast, 1.3 stl, 2.5 blk with 3.6 tov @ 58.4%
PER 20.2, .168 WS/48, 113 ORtg/102 DRtg (+11) in 32.4 mpg
Playoffs: (didn’t have this data previously harvested, and per 100 data windows currently not working on bbref).....but he avg 16.2 ppg/9.8 rpg/1.3 apg/1.8 bpg/2.3 tov @ .551 TS%
PER 16.5, .121 WS/48 in 34.9 mpg

Robert Parish (full career)
Per 100 (rs): 24.6 pts, 15.5 reb, 2.3 ast, 1.3 stl, 2.5 blk, 3.5 tov @ .571 TS%
PER 19.2, .154 WS/48, 111 ORtg/102 DRtg (+9) in 28.4 mpg
**And note this is over 21 years, 1611 rs games (more than any other player in history)
Per 100 (playoffs): 22.6 pts, 14.2 reb, 1.9 ast, 1.2 stl, 2.5 blk, 3.1 tov @ .547 TS%
PER 16.6, .121 WS/48, 109 ORtg/105 DRtg (+4) in 33.6 mpg

Career rs WS: 147.0 (#21 all-time)
Career playoff WS: 15.6 (#32 all-time)
9-Time NBA All-Star
2-Time All-NBA (1 - 2nd, 1 - 3rd)

That’s an awful lot of career value, imo. I reserve the right to make a strategic switch of vote as a consensus emerges; but for now, I’m putting my vote for Parish out there.

[trex_8063]

Little past 24 hours in on this thread, I only see four votes:

Alex English (1) - penbeast0

Tracy McGrady (1) - ronnymac2

Ray Allen (1) - john248

Robert Parish (1) - trex_8063

Moonbeam's provided some outstanding data analysis, primarily wrt to Dantley (wish I could "And2" some of that). Not sure if he's leaning toward a Dantley vote or not.