Re: RealGM Top 100 List #66

Post #1 » by **penbeast0** » Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:52 pm

PG: Never been sold on Cousy but you have to consider him here. Nate Archibald and Penny Hardaway are the main short peak guys. Tim Hardaway and Mark Price are the best long peak guys left.

Wings: Sam Jones and Bill Sharman should get a look soon; Sharman has more accolades and is better for his day, but the 50s are far less competitive than the 60s. Sidney Moncrief may be the 3rd greatest 2 guard ever . . . for 4 years. Billy Cunningham, Chet Walker, Bernard King, Glen Rice, Mitch Richmond, there are a lot of scorers out there, how many are at this level, I'm not sure.

Best bigs left: My favorite is Mel Daniels with his 2 ABA MVPs and 3 rings (2 as clearly the best player) -- played like Alonzo Mourning offensively and Moses defensively. Bill Walton and Connie Hawkins for short peak guys . . . in that order for me I would guess. Neil Johnston, Amare, Issel, Spencer Haywood have offensive creds but bigs who don't play defense are problematic for me. Ben Wallace, Nate Thurmond, or the Worm also could come up here as well as guys like DeBusschere, Bobby Jones, etc., even Zelmo Beaty and Yao Ming.

Vote: Sidney Moncrief -- very short peak but gives you GOAT man defense and superefficient 20ppg scoring. His peak is at least 1/4 of Walton's peak in my opinion and with Walton only staying reasonably healthy to the playoffs once as a starter, I'd rather take my chances on a 5 year ride with the Squid. He lost out to the Bird Celtics or (when he beat them) the fo fo fo Moses/Erving Sixers during the era of superteams and his playoffs are mixed -- he had some monster runs but also some weak ones -- though his defense shut down several opposing scorers even in the weaker offensive runs.

Of the players let, I think Sid is most likely to help you win a ring.

Moncrief -- the stopper, has the best chance of anyone in history to actually shut down a James Harden type scoring wing.

v. Penny -- Durability and volume scoring are about equal. Penny was a unique player with his size and playmaking creating a lot of hype (though his playmaking was more highlight reel than consistent, his assist numbers were never spectacular despite having Shaq to pass to) but that's his only advantage. Moncrief was more efficient and of course, has a BIG defensive edge.

V. Tiny -- Tiny does have the ridiculous assist numbers and a couple of spectacular scoring seasons. He also had a decent career as a role player. But he couldn't guard anyone and that ball dominant one man show game by a 5'11 guard normally isn't a formula for winning; when he went to a good team in Boston, his numbers are very normal. Terrific offensive force for a few years though.

Post #2 » by **Moonbeam** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 1:16 am

Wow - McAdoo came out of nowhere! Don't mind him getting in - he was coming up for me anyway.

It seems like getting in early is helpful to a given candidate, so I'll throw my hat in for Sam Jones again. I'll repost what I had posted in a previous thread:

As mentioned previously, I think his scoring was an important cog to the Celtics' dynasty. He appeared to have some big scoring performances in series-clinching (and sometimes championship clinching) wins in close series. fpliii posted some great quotes about the Celtics' offensive strategy of running up the pace at the expense of efficiency, which makes Jones' efficiency for the era stand out even more.

Thurmond is next on my list. The direct impact of his inefficiency was not really more harmful than Elvin Hayes, and I think he's a better defender.

I'm also thinking about Bob Cousy. fpliii's point about Boston's offensive strategy helps to alleviate some of my concerns about his inefficiency, though his playoff performance still leaves something to be desired. Still, a key figure in Boston's rise to prominence.

Moncrief is also on my mind. penbeast has done a great job pointing out his greatness, but let me add this. Despite most of his reputation coming on the defensive end with his DPOY status, Moncrief was a prolific and effective scorer in his own right. His Score+ of 2.209 is good for 63rd all time, his PosScore+ good for 37th, and his TeamScore+ good for 61st.

A name I'm surprised I haven't seen pop up yet is James Worthy. Yeah, Magic and Kareem deserve the most credit for the Lakers' run of greatness in the 80s, but Worthy was quite important, too. His ability to ramp up his production in the playoffs was huge for them (particularly in 1988). I think he should probably be the next out of the class of 80s SFs to get in, though Bernard King and Marques Johnson are also on my mind.

Joao Saraiva · Post #3 » by **Joao Saraiva** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 2:19 am

I'll vote Dennis Rodman once more.

One of the best rebounders ever, one of the best perimeter defenders ever, with a lot of team success. Impressive number of seasons leading the league in rebounds while playing with a ton of great Cs, and 2 time DPOY.

SinceGatlingWasARookie · Post #4 » by **SinceGatlingWasARookie** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 4:17 am

It is time for Bernard King. No rings nothing special as a defender but not bad. Longevity is not as bad as some people say.

That one and a half year scoring peak and those 12 playoff games were truly amazing. He was the most unstoppable scorer I ever saw after Jordan. There are things you can do to slow down a scoring big man. There was not much you could do to stop King.

I was not a Knicks fan. I was a Celtics Fan. King almost cost the Celtics a championship.

Post #5 » by **penbeast0** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 3:26 pm

For that matter, Moncrief DID lead the Bucks over the Bird/McHale/Parish/DJ Celtics during their prime . . . only to run into the Moses/Erving/Bobby Jones/Toney/Cheeks Sixers in their great year.

SinceGatlingWasARookie · Post #6 » by **SinceGatlingWasARookie** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 5:44 pm

penbeast0 wrote:For that matter, Moncrief DID lead the Bucks over the Bird/McHale/Parish/DJ Celtics during their prime . . . only to run into the Moses/Erving/Bobby Jones/Toney/Cheeks Sixers in their great year.

The Don Nelson / Moncrief Bucks were the 4th best team in the NBA for many years.

The Moncreif Bucks did wipe out the Celtics 4 games to 0 in 1983 and left the Celtic fans wondering what happened to their supposed championship contenders. That Bucks team had a lot of good players. Marques Johnson, Pressey, Winters, Bridgeman, Lanier, Lister, Catchings.

It was an off year for the Celtics. McHale and Ainge were not yet the players they would become. Archibald and Carr were no longer the players they had been and Ford was retired. Bird missed a game.

Bernard King's supporting cast was not as strong as Moncrief's supporting cast. I never did think of that team as Moncrief and the Bucks. It was the Don Nelson Bucks. The Bucks would take the Celtics to 7 games in 1987 with Terry Cummings as their main man and Paul Pressey as the point forward.

Post #7 » by **trex_8063** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 7:47 pm

Once again on the topic of Bob Cousy (please give it the time, if you've previously disregarded).....

Below is a statistical comparison to the last four PG's voted in (though Iverson perhaps more of a SG). The most recently voted in was a full 9 places ago; the farthest one a whopping 27 places ago!

Spoiler:

So while he doesn't necessarily rate out "well" among these guys, he does appear "in the mix". Although era considerations obviously apply. Still, this isn't comparing to players still on the table; these are all guys voted in some time ago (one as far back as 27 places ago!).

Here he is compared to a couple of the other perimeter players (Sam Jones and Sidney Moncrief) being discussed at this point:

Spoiler:

Again: certainly in the mix here.

Aside from the statistical data we have, Cousy's reputation among media and peers, combined with some team offense indicators, is such that I wonder if his effectiveness went beyond the boxscore. We saw this with Jason Kidd, did we not? Boxscore metrics for Kidd were not overly impressive, yet as Chuck Texas (and to a lesser degree myself) went far to explore, he consistently had a big (even huge) impact on team success. And where his shooting efficiency was poor---and consequently his ORtg often mediocre---RAPM indicates he had one of the highest offensive impacts in the league, pretty much year after year during his prime.

There are some glimmers that the same may have been true of Isiah Thomas. And I suspect the same may also be true of Cousy. As a couple of for instances, I'd note that he was the driving force behind three consecutive #1-rated offenses ('53-'55). And although their ORtg/offensive efficiency fell during the Russell era (even while Cousy was around), part of that was by design: see some of the links (in Moonbeam's post above) to comments/quotes fplii had previously provided, wrt sacrificing efficiency in exchange for greater pace or FGA/g. And though they were generally below average in ORtg, that pace often led to them leading the league in scoring. That they had any reasonable offense at all given Auerbach's de-emphasis of it is pretty impressive.
A quote from Michael Grange's Basketball's Greatest Players:

“.....Boston had only six plays and their fast break, but were the highest-scoring team of their era---and it was Cousy who made it work.”

And during Cousy's final two seasons as a Celtic ('62 and '63), their ORtg was -1.5 and -2.9 relative to league, respectively. The year after he left they dropped to -4.5 (and this wasn't even with sustaining the loss of a prime version of Cousy; this was an older dwindling version whose individual shooting efficiency was pretty lackluster).

The bullet-points of career accomplishment look pretty impressive for Cousy.
*Certainly one could argue that his MVP in '57 was not legitimately earned, and that maybe he shouldn't have been quite as high in the MVP voting other years as well. And that would hurt his standing in career MVP Award Shares (where he ranks #36 all-time, fwiw, and worth acknowledging that the award didn't even exist his first five seasons).
But MVP Award Shares aside, he also ranks #33 all-time in RealGM RPoY shares (and that despite omission of his first four seasons, and that this forum doesn't appear overly generous in their consideration of him---relative to "status quo"---given he's still on the table outside the top 65).

**And where other accolades are concerned----which are, to recap: 13-time All-Star (tied for 10th all-time), 12-time All-NBA (tied for 6th) including 10-time All-NBA 1st Team (tied for 3rd all-time)---you can scrutinize the competition, but it appears majority of these were legitimately earned or at the very least defensible. Certainly you can make comments to the effect of "yeah, but look at the competition" or "weak era"......but even weighting these very lightly due to era, this may still wind up being the most "weighty" list of accolade-related achievement left on the table.

***6-Time NBA champion. For at least 2 of those he was the clear 2nd-best player on the team, and was one other where he was at worst the "2B" on the team. Was never less than the 4th or 5th best/most important player on any of those championship squads. I'd like to quote something from John Taylor's The Rivalry regarding the Celtics dynasty and contributions by players NOT named Bill Russell. He was definitely the keystone for that team, though I think he too often gets credited for having carried them to 11 titles; and I think it gets overlooked just how lucky Russell was a to land where he did:

"…..But Auerbach’s inquiries left him with the impression that, however limited Russell might be in general, in the areas of his strengths he was overwhelming. Russell was not the answer to every coach’s prayers. But working with the players whose skills complemented and extended his and whose talents covered for his weaknesses---players, that is, like the Celtics--he could be the linchpin of an indomitable team…." (pg 64-65)

And lastly I will again bring up something which I think is inseparable from any discussion of "greatness": pioneering, and influence on the evolution of the game.
Cousy was doing things with the ball that nearly no one else was doing at the time (give a little props to Bob Davies and Marques Haynes, as previously discussed), and was certainly at least the most high-profile player doing them, as well as being the most successful at incorporating these techniques into being a highly effective player in the major pro league. In many ways he pioneered or established the classic point guard role. If I can again quote Michael Grange's book:

“When Chris Paul crosses over his man, drags the help defense with him and drops the ball behind him so his teammate can have the easy layup, he is paying tribute to Bob Cousy. It’s the same when Steve Nash looks right and passes left, hitting his teammate for a dunk, or when Rajon Rondo grabs a defensive rebound and sprints for the other end of the floor, leading the herd. They are all bowing to Bob Cousy, the NBA point guard who did it first.”

Cousy absolutely must be on the short-list of the most influential players in pro basketball history, and arguably (likely, imo) the most influential player we've yet to vote in. How much value should be attached to that is open for debate; but imo it absolutely is worth something.

To me, he represent the most weighty and worthy combination of talent, longevity, career accomplishment, and influence still not voted into our top 100.

My vote for #66: Bob Cousy.

Owly · Post #8 » by **Owly** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 8:23 pm

I decided at the end of this thinking it through/where I am with people in the discussion post to vote: Elton Brand
I've put it up here so it's clear and the vote doesn't get lost.

Thoughts on some of those mentioned thus far and some possible candidates by some of the measures I've used to identify candidates...

Cousy: The biggest "name" historically still on the board. Based on average historical published ranking (skews a little pro older, because on older lists the eligible players have less of history to compete with). Not counting Bobby McDermott (pre-NBA and based on just one ranking) Cousy is easily the highest average ranked player left on the board (only 18 players above him, not counting McDermott, an average ranking of 19.6875; the highest are three 9th place all time in the early 90s, then Kalb places him 10th in 2003, the lowest are 34th by Pete Vecsey in '96 and 48th by Lacy Banks in 2004).

The knocks against him are efficiency (actually not bad for his time) and playoff performance during the Russell era.

Sharman and Sam Jones: Personally I'm a fan particularly of Sharman. The best shooter of his era and from what I've read great conditioning, very good D, tough, professional. Jones has minutes issues. Sharman put more of a gap between himself and his peers (and if you count West as an SG,Jones was only 2nd at his position), but Jones was playing in a tougher era. Low total minutes and tendency for most guards within the era (particularly 50s) to have unimpressive metrics mean their era might explain why they aren't showing up on any of my metric rankings. I'm still not sure how best to turn that into a sensible ranking though.

Mel Daniels: Big accolades but in a small league. The short version is, Zelmo Beatty had similar boxscore-metric numbers and NBA career that is good enough to put him ahead of Daniels, and sufficiently non-great to say "Okay, maybe those two didn't have that much competition at the position until Gilmore et al arrived".

Neil Johnston (and Walt Bellamy): Huge numbers. Probably the best boxscore peak left on the board and sustained. The question is if (some of) his teams were bad because of things he did (or if him scoring that much was a gimmick) or whether he was just stuck on awful teams. I guess the worst case scenario is Walt Bellamy-like in terms of how Bellamy seems to be percieved, big numbers but labelled a loser. Johnston was dominant for longer, but with a shorter career overall and in a weaker era. Amare probably also fits with this camp.

Yao: An interesting case. The minutes aren't there consistently but a high (metric, per-minute) peak. Shades of Sabonis in terms of a slightly, "what might have been" career, but played enough minutes at a high level for some consideration.

Moncrief: Super efficient, elite defensive guard who led some very good teams and might have had an Isiah type reputation if he didn't he didn't have effectively career ending injuries and his best teams had came when the path to finals in the East hadn't went through both Boston and Philly (his boxscore short peak is as as good and non-boxscore he's so much better at defense, he's clearly ahead in RpoY and MVP shares etc) if he just had a title he'd be percieved so much differently. Then again I'm not going to argue for Squid to be anchored to where Isiah is because I don't think Isiah should be there (stupidly re-opens can of worms ...). Anyhow only two RPoY shares guys ahead of him, Johnston (35th) and Walton (30th) [edit: and Cousy 32nd]. Only Johnston and Bailey Howell are ahead of him in Win Shares based wins above good (of those that I looked at, though I suspect no one else would beat him) and neither of those two have his defensive reputation (PER/EWA version of WSAG is lower on him placing Neil Johnston, Elton Brand, Amar'e Stoudemire, Walt Bellamy, Grant Hill, Shawn Marion, Larry Nance, Shawn Kemp, Marques Johnson, Bob Cousy, Terrell Brandon, Bernard King and Bailey Howell all above him).

On D only "bigs" (Thurmond, Wallace, I'll call Rodman a big for simplicity): Hard to credit their impact with conventional numbers. I'd say it's better to have a player who's quite inefficient but spaces the floor a bit and might be able to do better in a smarter scheme like Thurmond than a complete no-hoper on O like Wallace (who nonetheless wanted his touches back in the day). Early version of Rodman was better than both, being very efficient on few touches (like a lower usage, less assisting, more rebounding Bobby Jones) but then went into Wallace territory later on. I believe RAPM is high on Wallace (v. limited knowledge here, I seem to recall XRAPM has him as clearly the biggest piece in early Detroit contenders, though it has Billups as negligible and then they didn't fall off when Wallace went so I'm not entirely convinced, anyhow ...). Depending on how hypothetical you want to go Thurmond could benefit from an anchoring comp with Russell (Russell more a team defender, Thurmond more man, Thurmond had more injuries, but plug Thurmond in Russell's place ... well the similarities are there - poor shooting, high-ish fgas through high minutes, elite D and rebounding ...). I don't know. I mentioned Jones here and DeBusschere was mentioned with him by Penbeast, Jones is clearly more efficient, DeBusschere spaces the floor a bit more, metrics like Jones a lot better, DeBusschere could play more minutes.

King: Intangiable concerns (see Utah in particular) may damage his stock. Then too at about his peak means you only have those 2 (1 1/2) seasons at a very high level. He certainly wasn't ever the same after (though that he managed to keep improving each year after the injury was impressive) and the other years (early in New Jersey, then GS and his first year in NY) aren't exceptional. He was very productive in his two short playoff runs in his prime, for what that's worth.

After all that, and strong looks at Marion and Nance, I think I'll vote Elton Brand. On the one hand I know how that sounds (at best 4th best player at position within era) and I'm tempted to pick a Moncrief or Sharman (the best 2s to play primarily in the 50s and 80s respectively). But I think he was as good as his numbers. And in his prime ('02-'07, with '03 a slight downward outlier, probably due to injury) he averaged a PER of 23.5 and .188 WS/48. The one chance he got to play in the playoffs in that span he was very effective. And his Win Shares might be slightly mean on him in terms of him being stuck on crummy teams (so he gets punished in DWS despite a solid or better reputation on D). His usage for that span (24.1%) probably tabs him as a second option on a good team and I think (largely guessing here) he could probably pretty much do that same job with similar numbers on said good team.

I'm willing to listen to arguments and there's guys I want to vote for in the discussion, but looking at it, Brand might quietly have amassed a career that deserves this spot (or around here).

ceiling raiser · Post #9 » by **ceiling raiser** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 9:12 pm

With regards to Bobby Jones (since I see pen mentioned him), he was one of the standouts from some of the new plus/minus data we got from Pollack's guides. lorak calculated net on/off for him, and in his analysis noted that he looks very good by the numbers.

lorak wrote:• Bobby Jones
Code: Select all
YEAR MIN ORTG DRTG NET 1978-79 2304 0,7 -2,7 3,4 1979-80 2125 5,3 -3,1 8,4 1980-81 2046 3,8 -7,0 10,8 1981-82 2181 1,1 -3,1 4,2 1982-83 1749 9,7 -1,3 11,0 1983-84 1761 5,5 -2,1 7,6 1984-85 1633 8,4 -2,0 10,4 1985-86 1519 1,1 -2,7 3,8

I considered Jones as a little bit overrated player, but these numbers will definitely change may opinion about him. He basically looks like Manu, but with better balance between offense and defense. Really nothing bad I can tell here about Jones. Rosters and team strategy changed but his impact was still there on BOTH ends of the floor until very last season of his career. VERY impressive.

SinceGatlingWasARookie · Post #10 » by **SinceGatlingWasARookie** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 9:29 pm

I have been watching Cousy film lately. I don't know how fast Cousy was. I am not sure how good of a defender he was. He definitely was not a good shooter by modern standards.

Cousy's play making, and running of both fast break and half court offenses was definitely elite. He was as good as Nash, Stocton and Magic. Cousy was actually flashier than Nash, Stocton and Magic and yet despite some needlessly fancy passes I didn't see turnovers.

Any "anti-time machine" voter really should give Cousy consideration here. Even plugging Cousy into my pro - peak pro-mental time machine methods Cousy comes out looking good. I wonder if great modern defensive point guards could have neutralized Cousy. I will never know.

If you are awarding ranking points for a player changing the way the game was played then Cousy deserves some extra consideration.
In the 1949 BAA game I watched there were some no look behind the back passes but Cousy took play making to another level.

Post #11 » by **penbeast0** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 10:00 pm

No one has 2 votes yet and here we are at the time mark . . .

Sidney Moncrief -- penbeast0

Sam Jones -- Moonbeam

Dennis Rodman -- Joao Saraiva

Bernard King -- SinceGatlingWasARookie

Bob Cousy -- trex_8063

Elton Brand -- Owly

Owly · Post #12 » by **Owly** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 10:14 pm

SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:I have been watching Cousy film lately. I don't know how fast Cousy was. I am not sure how good of a defender he was. He definitely was not a good shooter by modern standards.

Cousy's play making, and running of both fast break and half court offenses was definitely elite. He was as good as Nash, Stocton and Magic. Cousy was actually flashier than Nash, Stocton and Magic and yet despite some needlessly fancy passes I didn't see turnovers.

Any "anti-time machine" voter really should give Cousy consideration here. Even plugging Cousy into my pro - peak pro-mental time machine methods Cousy comes out looking good. I wonder if great modern defensive point guards could have neutralized Cousy. I will never know.

If you are awarding ranking points for a player changing the way the game was played then Cousy deserves some extra consideration.
In the 1949 BAA game I watched there were some no look behind the back passes but Cousy took play making to another level.

In terms of "definitely was not a good shooter by modern standards" I guess that depends on which definition of shooter you're using. Certainly his fg% is low versus modern day players. Relative to league and positional norms it wasn't bad. In terms pure "shooting" ability his free throw percentage indicates good shooting form/ability (there's also a story about him shooting free throws on the set for Blue Chips, and fwiw I think I've heard the argument that baskets were less "regulation" in that era so ft% arguably might be deflated, though that might just be old timers blowing smoke).

ceiling raiser · Post #13 » by **ceiling raiser** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 10:57 pm

penbeast0 wrote:No one has 2 votes yet and here we are at the time mark . . .

Sidney Moncrief -- penbeast0

Sam Jones -- Moonbeam

Dennis Rodman -- Joao Saraiva

Bernard King -- SinceGatlingWasARookie

Bob Cousy -- trex_8063

Elton Brand -- Owly

I'll vote for Sidney Moncrief here to get him into the runoff. Possibly the GOAT perimeter defender, perhaps the key cog on those Milwaukee teams that were terrific for most of the 80s. Unfortunately for them the East was super loaded, so it was tough to make it out of the conference.

Pretty well-rounded game overall (though I've heard that he wasn't a *superb* ball-handler; haven't watched enough tape so I'll let others comment on that). In the 85 playoffs went against rookie MJ, and seemed to play him pretty well.

Hoping Rodman gets a vote as well, would be very fun to read comparisons of the two.

Post #14 » by **Quotatious** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 11:11 pm

Vote: Chris Bosh

I really didn't have a clear-cut favorite for this spot - a lot of guys seemed to have a good case, but here comes my dark horse candidate - Chris Bosh.

Very good boxscore metrics (career 20.7 PER, 16.0 WS/48, already 98.3 career RS WS, 57.3% TS), some excellent RAPM results (top 10 in the league in prior informed in 2008 and 2010, 12th in 2009, also 19th in 2007), decent playoff performer (clearly not as good as RS, but very few players can match their RS level of play in the playoffs), already pretty good longevity (almost 10 All-Star caliber seasons, in fact he's already made 9 All-Star appearances).

Put up borderline superstar numbers at his peak (like 24/11/2, 25 PER, 59% TS). He's also proven capable of playing many different roles on a team, depending on what's needed of him - became an excellent 3rd option (capable of being #2 when necessary) and one of the premier pick & roll defenders in the league in Miami.

Seeing players like Pau (#53), Billups (#57) or Carter (#60) already in, it feels like Bosh should already be in, as well, considering that he was IMO pretty much in the same class as those guys, in their primes.

Post #15 » by **Clyde Frazier** » Sat Dec 27, 2014 11:18 pm

penbeast0 wrote:No one has 2 votes yet and here we are at the time mark . . .

Sidney Moncrief -- penbeast0

Sam Jones -- Moonbeam

Dennis Rodman -- Joao Saraiva

Bernard King -- SinceGatlingWasARookie

Bob Cousy -- trex_8063

Elton Brand -- Owly

Did I miss somewhere along the line when we changed to 1 day instead of 2 on the initial voting? It's been less than 24 hours.

Post #16 » by **penbeast0** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 2:29 am

mmm, can't count to 2, that's not good . . . Thanks Clyde

Post #17 » by **trex_8063** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 2:46 am

Quotatious wrote:Vote: Chris Bosh

Seeing players like Pau (#53), Billups (#57) or Carter (#60) already in, it feels like Bosh should already be in, as well, considering that he was IMO pretty much in the same class as those guys, in their primes.

Carter perhaps (though I don't think Bosh ever had a year quite as good as Carter was in '01; and Carter likely still has small longevity edge), but I'm less convinced he was as good (at least with any consistency) as Pau or Billups. Yes, in his prime years in Toronto you could basically book him to avg ~22-24 ppg/10 rpg on decent efficiency. But aside from him, those were crap teams; so he was shouldering a huge load. Look what happened when he went to Miami as part of the Big 3: he quite suddenly became an 18.7/8.3 player in '11. And it's not that he declined at all that year; it's just that it was no longer required of him. Those numbers would trickle down yearly until he was avg just 16.2/6.6 last year. He never saw a PER north of 20 during those four seasons.

Then Lebron left.....Miami is once again mediocre and a lot more is once again being asked of him. So although he avg 16.2/6.6 (PER 19) last year, he's bounced up to 21.6/8.2 (PER 22.4) this season.

Point I'm making is that Bosh is the caliber of player who could avg those big numbers ("near superstar", as you noted) on bad/mediocre teams only. Pau and Billups both put up "near superstar" (PER in the 21-24 range, WS/48 north of .200) for contenders.

Post #18 » by **Clyde Frazier** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 7:16 am

Vote for #66 - Bernard King

- 14 year career
- 4x all NBA (2 1st, 1 2nd, 1 3rd)
- 1 top 3 and 1 top 10 MVP finish
- 1x scoring champ

I've done my best to keep from strategic voting, but in this case I'll go for it as I think he's deserving. At his peak, king was one of the most dynamic scorers the league had seen. He was more methodical than flashy, but he knew what he was good at and kept going to it. His turnaround jumper was so lethal that he didn't even have to look at the hoop when releasing the shot. It was all in 1 quick motion where the defender really had no chance to block it. He was also very bull-like in the open court. Not a high leaper, but extremely powerful with long strides getting to the rim.

From 79-85 he put up the following:

REGULAR SEASON
23.6 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 3.2 APG, 1.1 SPG, .3 BPG, 55.1% FG, 70.1% FT, 58.7% TS, .153 WS/48, 111/106 OFF/DEF RTG

PLAYOFFS (20 GAMES)
30.5 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 2.8 APG, 1 SPG, .3 BPG, 56.8% FG, 72% FT, 60.9% TS, .213 WS/48, 122/112 OFF/DEF RTG

His prime was obviously cut short by injuries, but he still put together 11 seasons of solid production when it was all said and done. When he tore his ACL, his career was largely thought to be over given the era he played in. He went on to make an improbable comeback which culminated with him getting back to All NBA status in 90-91 with the bullets. I've alluded to this with other players in the project, but the amount of determination it takes to come back from major injuries and still perform at a high level is really impressive.

[As an aside, the Knicks stupidly released him because he wanted to do his rehab on his own instead of at the knicks training facility. Always would've loved to see even a lesser version of King get to play with Ewing. Could've been a great match.]

He was probably best known for his 1st round game 5 clincher against the pistons in 84:

In a critical and decisive Game 5, Bernard King was his usual unstoppable self putting up 40 points as the Knicks held a double-digit lead with under two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Then Thomas decided to take things into his own hands by putting on a performance of epic proportions, tallying 16 points within the game’s final 94 seconds, to force overtime. King and Thomas exchanged offensive blows like a heavyweight title fight, with King getting the final blow by jamming an offensive put-back in the games final moments, giving him a game high 46 points and the Knicks a 3-2 series win. King showed a national audience that he would become one of the game’s most prolific scoring machines before injuries robbed him of his explosiveness. Game 5 was also arguably the moment that put a young “Zeke” on par with the NBA’s elite.

http://www.theshadowleague.com/articles ... iah-thomas

Notice the splints on both of King's hands...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOLi-9ENtTM[/youtube]

The Knicks would go on to lose to the eventual NBA champion celtics in 7 games, as he played through injuries and still averaged 29.1 PPG on 59.7% TS in the series. The guy was just relentless.

"The key was his preparation," said former Knicks coach and ESPN analyst Hubie Brown.

Part of that preparation included practicing thousands of shots from what King called his "sweet spots." In the half court, he identified three points along the baseline out to the sideline, then extended an imaginary line from a halfway point up the lane to the sideline with three more, then three more extended from the foul line to the sideline. He did the same on the other side of the lane.

Within the lane he identified four spots from the rim to the top of the key. These 22 spots, all within 18 feet of the basket, created a matrix of areas from which he felt supremely confident he could score. If a team tried to deny him the ball on offense, he would move from one sweet spot to another.

"He had the ability to see what all five positions were doing. That's how he could handle double- and triple-teams, because he knew where everyone would be," Brown said. "He knew how to create space for the high-percentage shot or find the guy who was open."

http://espn.go.com/nba/halloffame13/sto ... king-ahead

ronnymac2 · Post #19 » by **ronnymac2** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 7:51 am

Vote: Sidney Moncrief

I'm content rolling with Moncrief over Thurmond based on 2-way impact. Moncrief was a much better offensive player due to his off-ball activity, scoring efficiency, and decent playmaking. Thurmond is obviously much better defensively, but Squid is one of the greatest wing defenders ever. Led some truly great Bucks teams into some classic playoff series.

Post #20 » by **Quotatious** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 12:49 pm

trex_8063 wrote:Carter perhaps (though I don't think Bosh ever had a year quite as good as Carter was in '01; and Carter likely still has small longevity edge), but I'm less convinced he was as good (at least with any consistency) as Pau or Billups. Yes, in his prime years in Toronto you could basically book him to avg ~22-24 ppg/10 rpg on decent efficiency. But aside from him, those were crap teams; so he was shouldering a huge load. Look what happened when he went to Miami as part of the Big 3: he quite suddenly became an 18.7/8.3 player in '11. And it's not that he declined at all that year; it's just that it was no longer required of him. Those numbers would trickle down yearly until he was avg just 16.2/6.6 last year. He never saw a PER north of 20 during those four seasons.

Accepting a (much) smaller role had a ton to do with that, but I actually look at it as a positive accomplishment for Bosh - he sacrificed his own numbers for the greater good which allowed Miami to win two titles. Stats like PER are high on volume scoring, so it's not really a surprise that it went down in Miami.

I think that peak Bosh was very close to peak Carter. Would probably give Vince a slight edge, but it's close.

trex_8063 wrote:Then Lebron left.....Miami is once again mediocre and a lot more is once again being asked of him. So although he avg 16.2/6.6 (PER 19) last year, he's bounced up to 21.6/8.2 (PER 22.4) this season.

Point I'm making is that Bosh is the caliber of player who could avg those big numbers ("near superstar", as you noted) on bad/mediocre teams only. Pau and Billups both put up "near superstar" (PER in the 21-24 range, WS/48 north of .200) for contenders.

I think it's situational more than anything else. Billups and Gasol were #2 options on offense (Chauncey was even #1 pretty often, and really more like 1A/1B with Hamilton in Detroit), Bosh was a (distant) #3 after two ball dominant perimeter players like LeBron and Wade. Actually, Bosh's skillset was IMO perfectly suited for a #2, even more so than #3. I've always wondered how good the 2011 Heat would've been with Wade/Bosh duo, without LeBron. 2011 Wade was still a great #1 option, and a top 3 overall talent in the NBA, and Bosh was coming off his career-best year in the summer of '10 - it seemed like a pretty promising tandem.

Spoelstra always praised Bosh for accepting his role and even called him "the most important player on this team", saying that CB easily could've been a #2 option, but it would force him (Spo) to change his team's gameplan rather drastically, and it wasn't worth it. Basically, incorporating LeBron's, Wade's and Bosh's offensive skillset with each of them averaging their usual numbers (I mean, pre 2010-11), was impossible. Someone had to accept a more limited role (and Wade's deteriorating health after 2011 made the hierarchy on that team even more clear, with LeBron being a clear-cut lead dog, Wade #2, Bosh #3). The fact that Wade was already a Heat legend when Bosh joined, certainly was a factor in terms of their roles, their playing ability wasn't the only thing that mattered.

I see no reason why 2011 Wade/Bosh couldn't have been as good as 2008-10 Kobe/Pau, and Bosh IMO clearly had what it takes to at least match Pau's success with the Lakers (considering that IMO Toronto Bosh > Memphis Pau, and when Bosh signed with Miami, he was slightly younger than Gasol, when he joined to the Lakers).