Re: RealGM Top 100 List #66

[penbeast0]

Sidney Moncrief -- penbeast0, fpliii, ronnymac2,

Sam Jones -- Moonbeam

Dennis Rodman -- Joao Saraiva

Bernard King -- SinceGatlingWasARookie, Clyde Frazier

Bob Cousy -- trex_8063

Elton Brand -- Owly

Chris Bosh -- Quotatious




Okay, Moncrief v. King

Scoring -- Obviously, King scores more. He's more of an isolation scorer than Moncrief, loving that post up bump and shoot game. King will get you 25ppg in his prime, Moncrief only about 20. He also played most of his career on mediocre to bad teams where he was given the green light and expected to score; Moncrief's team had a lot of wing scorers (Winters, Pierce, Bridgeman, Pressey, Hodges, etc.) plus Marques Johnson and Terry Cummings to share the load.

Efficiency -- Slight edge to Moncrief. Despite King's higher volume, Moncrief draws more fouls.

Range and variety -- both good midrange shooters with limited 3 point skill who liked to go into the paint. About even.

Playmaking -- Moncrief has a clear edge, both in willingness and in court vision. King tended to be mono focused on scoring, which to be fair, is his role.

Rebounding -- Both give you a rebound rate in their prime of about 9; King has a slight edge (more of one pre-prime) but Moncrief plays both guard spots where King was pretty much a forward. Slight edge Moncrief

Intangibles -- Moncrief has a large edge. King left two teams unhappy behind him and had some personal issues as well as his injuries. Moncrief was not universally loved as he had that Kobe/MJ type of intensity, but he was a leader in making that Don Nelson small ball culture work with his intensity on both ends. It's interesting that the Moncrief Bucks were always among the team defensive leaders throughout his prime despite having mediocre big men defensively . . . that defensive strength actually continued one year AFTER Moncrief's prime with him injured and unimportant before falling back to mediocrity. Part of that was a career year by Paul Pressey but I tend to think of his attitude carrying over (one reason I rate him high). On the other hand, Moncrief was up and down in the playoffs offensively (though always terrific defensively). King carried the Knicks singlehandedly against the Celtics in a couple of prime time matchups that made his rep but basically those 2 years are his entire playoff resume. He did make the playoffs 3 more times to little effect outside his prime.

Longevity -- King has a large edge. King had huge injury issues but 6 solid years as a good player in addition to his 5 year prime. Moncrief had the great 5 year prime but little else. It wasn't a new injury, teams knew he was going to be fragile coming into the draft, but once he started breaking down, it was a very quick descent.

Defense -- Moncrief won the 1st two DPOY's and is probably the best perimeter man defender of all time; King was mediocre.

That's how I see the breakdown and why I support Moncrief. King lasted twice as long but did a lot less in his prime;

[RayBan-Sematra]

VOTE : King
Pen had me strongly considering Moncrief but I am gonna go with King due to his better longevity.

[Quotatious]

Run-off vote: Sidney Moncrief

King was an amazing offensive force at his peak, but it only lasted for less than two seasons ('84 and 55 games in '85) - Moncrief was a star for 5 consecutive seasons. Obviously King's peak seasons in the mid 80s weren't his only All-Star level campaigns, but I just don't see him as all that special, aside from his peak. Good volume scorer, averaging 20-25 PPG on mostly good efficiency, and I'll give him credit for being able to make a successful comeback after having some really bad knee injuries (even averaged over 28 PPG on almost 53% TS at 34/35 years old in 1990-91, which is a very rare occurence when you have a volume scorer like King, who had to deal with serious injuries earlier in his career), but even though Moncrief had very little significant contributions aside from his '82-'86 stretch, he was a pretty special player on both ends of the court - King was just a scorer (and a decent rebounder), but he was a poor playmaker and defender. Moncrief had very few weaknesses, and he's one of the best perimeter defenders ever. He wasn't really a stunner in the playoffs, but not a liability, either (to be fair, King's postseason numbers look very impressive, but he only played 28 PS games in his career, so the sample size is very small). King doesn't really wow you with his advanced metrics. In terms of prime (let's say the best 5-year stretch of a player's career), Moncrief is IMO in the same class as players like Drexler, Pippen or Payton, as far as super versatile guards/wings go. Not necessarily the best (might even be the worst), but he's in the same ballpark, and all of those guys are top 40 players of all-time. Longevity is the only thing that separates them from Sid.

In terms of peak, I'd probably take '84 King over any version of Moncrief (especially considering how dominant he was in the playoffs that year), but for a more extended period of time, ie. "prime", I'm going with the Squid, and he's my choice here.

[trex_8063]

Run-off vote: Sidney Moncrief

You can make a case Bernard King in '84/'85 was as good (maybe even marginally better???) than peak Moncrief, but he dropped off pretty quick on both sides of that time-frame. A prime vs. prime comparison looks like this:

Moncrief ('82-'86)--381 rs games
Per 100 poss: 27.4 pts, 7.6 reb, 6.1 ast, 2.0 stl, 0.4 blk, 3.4 tov @ 59.2% ts (+5.3% to league)
PER 20.5, .212 WS/48, BPM +4.9, 120 ORtg/104 DRtg (+16) in 36.9 mpg

King ('81-'85)--360 rs games
Per 100 poss: 33.8 pts, 7.8 reb, 4.3 ast, 1.5 stl, 0.4 blk, 4.3 tov @ 59.8% ts (+6.0% to league)
PER 21.4, .168 WS/48, BPM +3.0, 114 ORtg/107 DRtg (+7) in 35.3 mpg

......which favors Moncrief by a small margin, imo, and this is without any metric that gives adequate recognition to Moncrief's defense.
I'd rate their off-prime years as a pretty even comparison, fwiw.

So this alone would put him behind Moncrief for me.

And then there's also the fact that King really just doesn't have much to show for his career by way of accomplishment. Now I know part of that is context, bad luck that he just never really found himself with a good supporting cast surrounding him. But let's face it: luck (good or bad) plays a significant role in outcome of the careers of most greats, and thus influences how we perceive their careers. I'm generally not inclined to do too much "well, what would have happened if I completely changed the context of his career" type of speculation (and argued against doing that too much in the early stages of this project). What is, is. I'll simply use the career context (luck) to judge what is either more leniently or strictly.

[Clyde Frazier]

And then there's also the fact that King really just doesn't have much to show for his career by way of accomplishment. Now I know part of that is context, bad luck that he just never really found himself with a good supporting cast surrounding him. But let's face it: luck (good or bad) plays a significant role in outcome of the careers of most greats, and thus influences how we perceive their careers. I'm generally not inclined to do too much "well, what would have happened if I completely changed the context of his career" type of speculation (and argued against doing that too much in the early stages of this project). What is, is. I'll simply use the career context (luck) to either adjust what is either more leniently or strictly.

I try not to play the "what if?" game too much in this project, either. I'd at least acknowledge that moncrief was fortunate to play with much more talent in his prime (pressey, cummings, ricky pierce, marques johnson, and a past his prime but still effective lanier) compared to king, though. King had super john williamson in NJ, notorious ball hog world b free in GSW, bill cartwright in NY, and... not much else. He did play with moses and jeff malone, but it was post ACL tear in 88. They took the #2 SRS ranked pistons to 5 games in the first round that year. With the talent he had around him, I don't think king really underachieved in the playoffs, or getting there as much as he did, for that matter.

[Moonbeam]

Nice runoff between two players I really like. I'll cast my vote for Sidney Moncrief. I agree with the notion that King may have had the better peak, but Moncrief had the better (if shorter) prime. Bernard's main calling card was as a deadly scorer (which he was), but Moncrief has him beat in efficiency, and when you combine them via Score+, he still comes out ahead in most measures:

Code: Select all

Player    Score+  Total Score+  PosScore+  Total PosScore+  TeamScore+  Total TeamScore+
Moncrief   2.209    1065.91       2.541        1226.04        1.977          953.98
King       1.530     952.27       1.469         914.40        2.225         1384.80


Even with King's great longevity, Moncrief comes out ahead in Total Score+ and Total PosScore+. The big jump King takes in TeamScore+ shows just how poor his teammates were on that end of the floor in general, so it's worth considering that he had a higher load to shoulder. Of course King has that monster postseason in 1984 (and 1983 was great, too), but Moncrief also had great postseasons (like 1985 in which he had a Score+ of 6.154 and an O+ of 28.22). Moncrief consistently led those Bucks teams to the playoffs, though I'm not convinced they didn't underachieve a little there. Yes, he had good teammates, but I feel like he was the best player. Elsewhere, King gives you an edge in rebounding, but Moncrief gives a bigger edge in assists (though part of that could be King's offensively poor teammates) and he takes care of the ball slightly better. On defense, there's absolutely no comparison.

[penbeast0]

I try not to play the "what if?" game too much in this project, either. I'd at least acknowledge that moncrief was fortunate to play with much more talent in his prime (pressey, cummings, ricky pierce, marques johnson, and a past his prime but still effective lanier) compared to king, though. King had super john williamson in NJ, notorious ball hog world b free in GSW, bill cartwright in NY, and... not much else. He did play with moses and jeff malone, but it was post ACL tear in 88. They took the #2 SRS ranked pistons to 5 games in the first round that year. With the talent he had around him, I don't think king really underachieved in the playoffs, or getting there as much as he did, for that matter.

You are really understating the talent in Golden State:
1981
C Joe Barry Carroll (talented but unmotivated -- still capable of 20/10 most years of prime)
PF Larry Smith -- Mean Mr. Smith, one of the best offensive rebounders in the game, Rick Mahorn type enforcer/thug
SF King
SG Purvis Short -- Mr. Rainbow, outside scoring to complement Carroll and King
PG John Lucas -- like Carroll, a #1 choice in the NBA draft, outstanding passer, decent defender, destroyed by cocaine

6th man World B. Free -- absolutely a gunner but despite his outside game, great foul draw for efficiency
7th man Sonny Parker -- good defense, decent offense, solid reserve
8th man Clifford Ray -- Aging center that was good enough in prime to get the Warriors their only championship

That's a deep talented team, albeit overloaded with wing scorers (sort of like Milwaukee); just the talent didn't play as a team

In 82, they did start Free over Short and replaced Lucas with a PG by committee and Ray with Ricky Brown (replacement level player) so a dropoff in talent but Carroll and Smith were more valuable (at least at the time) than Free whose style was considered too playground.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Nobody in the History of the NBA other than Bernard King has scored more than 33 points a game at a better than 55 FG% for a playoff season lasting more than 5 games.

Bernard King scored 34.8 points per game at a 57.4 FG% during his 12 game 1984 playoff run before the Knicks were knocked off in seven games by the 1984 champion Celtics.

King had a longer career than Moncrief. King in and Moncrief were such different players but when you look at their per 36 minute career numbers they look very similar except that King shot more and scored more. For instance both players shot 6.7 free throws per 36 minutes. Bernard has the better fg percentage and Sidney has the better ft percentage with the result being TS 56 percentage for Bernard and TS 59 for Sidney. Bernard King's career PER, 19.2 and Sidney Moncrief's career PER is 18.7. King averaged 3.5 assists per 36 minutes and Moncrief 4.3 assists per 36 minutes.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... gbe01.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... rsi01.html

King played from age 21 to age 36. Moncrief played from age 22 to 36.
9 of King's 14 years were off peak and drag down King's career numbers.
King's five peak years had PERs at or above 20. King's best PER was 25

5 of Moncrief's 10 years were off peak years.
Moncreif's 5 peak Years had PERs at or above 20 with his best PER at 23

King's career playoffs had a PER 22.6 and a TS % at 60%
Moncrief's career playoffs had a PER at 15.5 and a TS % at 57%
King's great 1984 playoffs had a PER of 27.6 and TS 62% WS/48 234 and 34.8 points per game with 10.3 fta
Moncrief's great 1985 playoffs had a PER 20 and a TS 69% WS/48 .217 and 23 points per game with 9.4 fta

Moncreif's years on the Bucks match up with the years when the Bucks were the 4 th best team in the NBA
Terry Cummings was the Bucks best player in Moncreif's later years
King's teams never had the success that the Bucks did.

Bernard had a good season and playoffs for 1982-83 Knicks but after defeating the Nets they were swept 4-0 by the 76ers. But those 76ers also swept the Lakers and beat the Bucks 4 games to 1.

Kings's 1981-82 Warriors won 45 games but did not make the playoffs. Can a team with World B Free, Purvis Short and Joe Bararry Carroll, have the character needed to reach a higher level. Larry Smith was a high character guy. Bernard King would have had to have taken over the leadership of that team but World B Free was the older more established player. Maybe Moncrief the committed defender had better intangibles than King.

The team that Moncrief Joined had been in the playoffs 2 years earlier and had a high character guy / ddidicated defender at point guard in Quinn Buckner. They also had 9 year veteran Bob Laneir join the team that year. They had the young star Marquess Johnson and defensive minded Harvey Catchings who had been a member of the 76ers team that lost in the finals to the Blazers.

I don't doubt that Moncrief helped create the winning defensive culture of the Bucks. But despite Moncrief's years being the Bucks great 1980s years I think Moncrief had a lot of help. There is nothing wrong with picking Moncrief here. Moncrief was definitely a great player and a great defender. Bernard King's ability to efficiently carry the scoring load for the Knicks in the playoffs was one of the greatest feats in NBA playoff history.

[E-Balla]

I just decided to peek in since I haven't been able to keep up (a short while before Finals week and during the week I was way too busy to keep up with the thread) and how is there no mention of Sheed or Carmelo at all in these last few threads?

Hell I think Melo should definitely be in before King. Between them King might have peaked higher (84 and the half of 85 he was healthy) but outside of that Melo has the next few best seasons (09, 10, 13, 14). Another thing is King only has 4 seasons (at best) where he was top 30 level. Melo has a decade of top 30 play and 3 possible top 10 seasons. Carmelo also has a load more of postseason performances.

The case of Sheed was already brought up and talked about but I think Sheed over Moncrief is a major possibility.

Hell Nique over Carmelo is a damn shame at this point (and hilariously Nique fell at 61 - I have Melo at 60) and he still got in before Melo somehow as horrible as he was when it mattered (the postseason).

I do think Moncrief should be picked here but I'll leave the voting to people who've been actively following the threads (for all I know I missed a monster post about him in thread 59).

[Quotatious]

I just decided to peek in since I haven't been able to keep up (a short while before Finals week and during the week I was way too busy to keep up with the thread) and how is there no mention of Sheed or Carmelo at all in these last few threads?

Hell I think Melo should definitely be in before King. Between them King might have peaked higher (84 and the half of 85 he was healthy) but outside of that Melo has the next few best seasons (09, 10, 13, 14). Another thing is King only has 4 seasons (at best) where he was top 30 level. Melo has a decade of top 30 play and 3 possible top 10 seasons. Carmelo also has a load more of postseason performances.

The case of Sheed was already brought up and talked about but I think Sheed over Moncrief is a major possibility.

Hell Nique over Carmelo is a damn shame at this point (and hilariously Nique fell at 61 - I have Melo at 60) and he still got in before Melo somehow as horrible as he was when it mattered (the postseason).

I do think Moncrief should be picked here but I'll leave the voting to people who've been actively following the threads (for all I know I missed a monster post about him in thread 59).

Not sure about Sheed (I don't know if he's better than guys like Marion or Nance), but definitely agree about Melo. I'd prefer him over Dominique and King, as well. There's very little difference between those guys, especially Wilkins and Anthony, but I'd rather have Melo because he's a better off-ball offensive player and shooter than Nique.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I try not to play the "what if?" game too much in this project, either. I'd at least acknowledge that moncrief was fortunate to play with much more talent in his prime (pressey, cummings, ricky pierce, marques johnson, and a past his prime but still effective lanier) compared to king, though. King had super john williamson in NJ, notorious ball hog world b free in GSW, bill cartwright in NY, and... not much else. He did play with moses and jeff malone, but it was post ACL tear in 88. They took the #2 SRS ranked pistons to 5 games in the first round that year. With the talent he had around him, I don't think king really underachieved in the playoffs, or getting there as much as he did, for that matter.

You are really understating the talent in Golden State:
1981
C Joe Barry Carroll (talented but unmotivated -- still capable of 20/10 most years of prime)
PF Larry Smith -- Mean Mr. Smith, one of the best offensive rebounders in the game, Rick Mahorn type enforcer/thug
SF King
SG Purvis Short -- Mr. Rainbow, outside scoring to complement Carroll and King
PG John Lucas -- like Carroll, a #1 choice in the NBA draft, outstanding passer, decent defender, destroyed by cocaine

6th man World B. Free -- absolutely a gunner but despite his outside game, great foul draw for efficiency
7th man Sonny Parker -- good defense, decent offense, solid reserve
8th man Clifford Ray -- Aging center that was good enough in prime to get the Warriors their only championship

That's a deep talented team, albeit overloaded with wing scorers (sort of like Milwaukee); just the talent didn't play as a team

In 82, they did start Free over Short and replaced Lucas with a PG by committee and Ray with Ricky Brown (replacement level player) so a dropoff in talent but Carroll and Smith were more valuable (at least at the time) than Free whose style was considered too playground.

The 1979-80 Warriors with Robert Parish and Ray, Parker, Phil Smith, John Lucas, Purvis Short, Wayne Cooper, Jo Jo White, Darnell Hillman won 24 games.

In 1980-81 Parish, Cooper and Phil Smith are replaced by rookie Joe Barry Carroll, and Rookie Larry Smith, and Free and and Parker loses his minutes to King and the Warriors win 39 games.

In 1981-82 Lucas is replaced by Mike Gale and the team wins 45 games.
In 1982-83 without Bernard King but while still having Joe Barry Carroll, Larry Smith and Purvis Short the Warriors win 30 games.

The 1981-1982 Knicks in 33 games. The Knicks trade a very talented player Michael Ray Richardson for Bernard King and win 44 games in 1982-1983

[E-Balla]

I just decided to peek in since I haven't been able to keep up (a short while before Finals week and during the week I was way too busy to keep up with the thread) and how is there no mention of Sheed or Carmelo at all in these last few threads?

Hell I think Melo should definitely be in before King. Between them King might have peaked higher (84 and the half of 85 he was healthy) but outside of that Melo has the next few best seasons (09, 10, 13, 14). Another thing is King only has 4 seasons (at best) where he was top 30 level. Melo has a decade of top 30 play and 3 possible top 10 seasons. Carmelo also has a load more of postseason performances.

The case of Sheed was already brought up and talked about but I think Sheed over Moncrief is a major possibility.

Hell Nique over Carmelo is a damn shame at this point (and hilariously Nique fell at 61 - I have Melo at 60) and he still got in before Melo somehow as horrible as he was when it mattered (the postseason).

I do think Moncrief should be picked here but I'll leave the voting to people who've been actively following the threads (for all I know I missed a monster post about him in thread 59).

Not sure about Sheed (I don't know if he's better than guys like Marion or Nance), but definitely agree about Melo. I'd prefer him over Dominique and King, as well. There's very little difference between those guys, especially Wilkins and Anthony, but I'd rather have Melo because he's a better off-ball offensive player and shooter than Nique.

Nance is a good one. I'd say Sheed is definitely over Marion IMO (I'll hold on Nance because I don't know much about his Phoenix years).

Offensively Marion at his best (03-07) was averaging 25/13/3 per 100 possessions on 56 TS (110 ORTG) but only 25/12/3 on 53 TS (109 ORTG) before Nash (03 & 04). Marion was traded halfway through the 2008 season and he went from having a 59 TS% (for the third season in a row) to a 50 TS in Miami. The next year he played with Wade and Bosh (52 TS%) and after that Dirk (53 TS).

The main thing I noticed about his efficiency is that outside of 01 and 03 he was never any good. His efficiency when he wasn't next to a top 10 offensive player was always crap and outside of the Nash years (where he had 59 TS seasons) he's always been blah even next to top 10 guys.

Now Sheed was too unselfish but he scored his points independently when he needed to. From 2000-04 (remember what era this is when looking at his efficiency - it's the one where Marion had a 53 TS and 109 ORTG) Sheed averaged 26/11/3 per 36 on 55 TS (109 ORTG).

Even if we say Sheed is slightly worse offensively I think we can all agree that Sheed has a sizeable defensive cushion on Marion and he's got better intangibles (as dumb as he was with his temper he still was a team leader everywhere he went). I even have to give Sheed credit for what he did in NY and that was mostly as he was injured.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I just decided to peek in since I haven't been able to keep up (a short while before Finals week and during the week I was way too busy to keep up with the thread) and how is there no mention of Sheed or Carmelo at all in these last few threads?

Hell I think Melo should definitely be in before King. Between them King might have peaked higher (84 and the half of 85 he was healthy) but outside of that Melo has the next few best seasons (09, 10, 13, 14). Another thing is King only has 4 seasons (at best) where he was top 30 level. Melo has a decade of top 30 play and 3 possible top 10 seasons. Carmelo also has a load more of postseason performances.

The case of Sheed was already brought up and talked about but I think Sheed over Moncrief is a major possibility.

Hell Nique over Carmelo is a damn shame at this point (and hilariously Nique fell at 61 - I have Melo at 60) and he still got in before Melo somehow as horrible as he was when it mattered (the postseason).

I do think Moncrief should be picked here but I'll leave the voting to people who've been actively following the threads (for all I know I missed a monster post about him in thread 59).

Not sure about Sheed (I don't know if he's better than guys like Marion or Nance), but definitely agree about Melo. I'd prefer him over Dominique and King, as well. There's very little difference between those guys, especially Wilkins and Anthony, but I'd rather have Melo because he's a better off-ball offensive player and shooter than Nique.

To me it comes down to how do you feel about peaks.

King, Melo and Wilkins all occasionally have some mind bogglinly great offensive games.

What King did at his peak offensively as a player who could play in any era was a top ten player quality peak particularly during the playoffs. If we are just talking short sustained offensive peaks I really don't believe there were ten players better than King. I put Bird's and Kobe's offensive peaks below King's short 1 1/2 year peak despite Bird being a great passer.

Defensively I would rather have Larry Nance than King, Wilkins or Melo.

Nance was very good in Pheonix. Rasheed's best play was in Portland even if he was not as good of a team player at that age and was immature and was getting ejected from games for bad behavior.

[Owly]

Nobody in the History of the NBA other than Bernard King has scored more than 33 points a game at a better than 55 FG% for a playoff season lasting more than 5 games.

Bernard King scored 34.8 points per game at a 57.4 FG% during his 12 game 1984 playoff run before the Knicks were knocked off in seven games by the 1984 champion Celtics.

King had a longer career than Moncrief. King in and Moncrief were such different players but when you look at their per 36 minute career numbers they look very similar except that King shot more and scored more. For instance both players shot 6.7 free throws per 36 minutes. Bernard has the better fg percentage and Sidney has the better ft percentage with the result being TS 56 percentage for Bernard and TS 59 for Sidney. Bernard King's career PER, 19.2 and Sidney Moncrief's career PER is 18.7. King averaged 3.5 assists per 36 minutes and Moncrief 4.3 assists per 36 minutes.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... gbe01.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... rsi01.html

King played from age 21 to age 36. Moncrief played from age 22 to 36.
9 of King's 14 years were off peak and drag down King's career numbers.
King's five peak years had PERs at or above 20. King's best PER was 25

5 of Moncrief's 10 years were off peak years.
Moncreif's 5 peak Years had PERs at or above 20 with his best PER at 23

King's career playoffs had a PER 22.6 and a TS % at 60%
Moncrief's career playoffs had a PER at 15.5 and a TS % at 57%
King's great 1984 playoffs had a PER of 27.6 and TS 62% WS/48 234 and 34.8 points per game with 10.3 fta
Moncrief's great 1985 playoffs had a PER 20 and a TS 69% WS/48 .217 and 23 points per game with 9.4 fta

Moncreif's years on the Bucks match up with the years when the Bucks were the 4 th best team in the NBA
Terry Cummings was the Bucks best player in Moncreif's later years
King's teams never had the success that the Bucks did.

Bernard had a good season and playoffs for 1982-83 Knicks but after defeating the Nets they were swept 4-0 by the 76ers. But those 76ers also swept the Lakers and beat the Bucks 4 games to 1.

Kings's 1981-82 Warriors won 45 games but did not make the playoffs. Can a team with World B Free, Purvis Short and Joe Bararry Carroll, have the character needed to reach a higher level. Larry Smith was a high character guy. Bernard King would have had to have taken over the leadership of that team but World B Free was the older more established player. Maybe Moncrief the committed defender had better intangibles than King.

The team that Moncrief Joined had been in the playoffs 2 years earlier and had a high character guy / ddidicated defender at point guard in Quinn Buckner. They also had 9 year veteran Bob Laneir join the team that year. They had the young star Marquess Johnson and defensive minded Harvey Catchings who had been a member of the 76ers team that lost in the finals to the Blazers.

I don't doubt that Moncrief helped create the winning defensive culture of the Bucks. But despite Moncrief's years being the Bucks great 1980s years I think Moncrief had a lot of help. There is nothing wrong with picking Moncrief here. Moncrief was definitely a great player and a great defender. Bernard King's ability to efficiently carry the scoring load for the Knicks in the playoffs was one of the greatest feats in NBA playoff history.

We'll all have differing criteria (for clarity and to contextualize the following, I'll put it out there (as I have previously) that I'm a relatively low playoff weighter because of the smaller sample and vastly differing circumstances).

To the extend this is a case for King (rather than just an exploration of the two careers) I'll explain why personally I don't find it persuasive.

The 33, 55%, 5 games is a very specific thing with the qualification lines drawn up specifically to exclude others ('78 Gervin shot .549, Wade '10 meets the other criteria but played "only" 5 games - at 42mpg) and uses cruder tools than we need. Once upon a time they were the best we had but now I'd tend to look at per 100 possessions to neutralise pace, look at ts% to factor in foul draw, ft% and threes, and then also try too look at the context of shooting percentages within their era. Now as it transpires King still looks very good within that context, you could do a similar thing with ts% and points per 100 but it would be more obvious that it was a matter of framing - LeBron's '09 TS is only .002 worse, he's scoring 5.1 extra points per 100 possessions and did so over more games.

Obviously he had a couple of very good (albeit short) playoff runs, I'm just saying they don't require framing and the general caveats about small samples (and minimum requirement qualifications- for a while Marbury was the only guy other than Oscar Robertson to average 20-8 for their career or something, and also, for the playoffs, that they can end up punishing a guy for advancing and putting up slightly lesser numbers against probably tougher competition).

On the numbers being similar apart from scoring volume that's rather glossing over Moncrief's efficiency edge (significant in TS, also marginally less turnover prone, even after factoring in King's larger usage burden, see turnover%).

Johnson and Lanier are legit points in saying a good supporting cast. Catchings ... not so much. He peaked at 23.1mpg (and that in Philly) and had a career ts% of .475 despite a miniscule offensive burden and fwiw his role in the 76ers '77 playoff journey was 54 minutes (over 8 games played) 4 points and 9 fouls.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

The only reason that I mention Catchings is I am trying to think about team culture. Catchings was there when Moncrief was a rookie. Catchings had been on playoff teams as a bit player. Catchings was a defensive specialist.

I could give Moncrief credit for the team's winning defensive culture since Moncrief is the only person who was with the Bucks for their good years but not with the Bucks for their less good years.

People look at Bernard King and ask, "what did his team's accomplish?". With Malone and Stocton, Barkley, Kevin Johsnon, and Moncrief the lack of championships may be held against them but at least they played on elite teams. Bernard King never played on an elite team. If we give Moncrief the credit for the Bucks being winners and we give King blame for his teams being mediocre at best then Moncrief vs King is no contest.

I usually think of great players in terms of greatest peaks. King's peak was very special. The level of competition in the regular season is not always high enough. I want to see great offense vs great defense. It is hard for me to measure a player's greatness without seeing them against great competition.

The Bucks played very good defense. After the years as a Warrior coach we no longer think of Don Nelson and good defense as going together. I remember Nelson putting 2 Immobile big men ( Bruer and Mokeski ) on the floor at the same time for the Bucks vs my big home town Celtics. Then when the Warriors became my hometown team Nelson would rather concede the defensive rebounds and try to out quick an opponent with small ball. I can't imagine the later version of Don Nelson putting two immobile big men on the floor together.

[Moonbeam]

I'm really not big on Melo at all. Taken from this post:

Dantley, English and King deserve to be in the HOF over Carmelo, I'd say. All were far better playoff performers and I'd say better regular season performers, too.

Yeah, nah.

Their respective individual playoff and regular season records are pretty much equal. Melo has averaged 25ppg in both the regular season and the playoffs across his career, and has made the playoffs more often than any of those players, too.

Making the playoffs is a team accomplishment, and Dantley and King had some absolutely awful teams during many of their best years - much worse than Carmelo. All four of these guys are known first and foremost as lethal scorers with a deadly array of moves. None are noteworthy in other areas - Carmelo is the best rebounder, English is the best playmaker, but their forte is definitely their scoring. And what distinguishes them is their efficiency and playoff performance. I've come up with some simple metrics called Score+, PosScore+ and TeamScore+ which compare scoring to the output expected replacing their shot attempts with league average efficiency, league average efficiency at their position, and team average efficiency. Here's how they fare for their career so far:

Code: Select all

Player   Score+  PosScore+  TeamScore+
Dantley   4.283    4.139      4.056
King      1.530    1.469      2.225
English   0.744    0.647      0.735
Anthony   0.704    0.575      0.039


Dantley and King have a clear edge here (Dantley is actually the GOAT in all 3 metrics for players with at least 5000 MP), and English was the lynchpin behind offenses that routinely led the league.

I've got a playoff version of this metric (as well as a metric O+ based on ORating) which takes into account the average TS and DRating allowed by defense, and it's updated from the 1985 season onward (I'm thinking of the best way to impute data when it is incomplete for stuff like minutes, field goal attempts, etc.), and here is where they stand from 1985 on:

Code: Select all

Player   Score+    O+
Dantley   3.565   9.76
King      1.258  -4.75
English   0.735   7.50
Anthony  -0.478   1.90


Again, this cuts off the early years from Dantley, King, and English.

Dantley is missing 22 games in which he put up 32.9 points per 100 possessions on .610 TS and an ORating of 119, all of which are higher than his career averages, so he's likely to be better than what is listed. King suffers the most as his last 2 postseasons (the only ones included) were pretty poor and only comprise 8 games. It's missing his first 20 games, in which he posted 39.6 points per 100 possessions on .609 TS and an ORating of 122, so he'd skyrocket in these metrics. English is missing 24 games in which he put up 28.2 points per 100 possessions on .577 TS and an ORating of 119 (the TS and ORating are well above his career averages), so he'd also likely see a boost.

Simply put, I think all three were better offensive players than Carmelo (with Dantley and King being clearly more impactful scorers), and all three were far better playoff performers than Carmelo has been thus far. He's still got a lot of time to build up a better case, but I struggle to see any argument for him over any of them.

[Owly]

Runoff vote: Moncrief

By the Wins Above Good measures, for PER/EWA: King is ahead but by a fairly narrow margin (24.73716 to 18.29985) only Bailey Howell finishes between them; whereas for the WS/48 version Moncrief is right near the top of the list 23.0294 whereas King is near the bottom with 6.473833). Now WS is a bit mean on King because of crummy teammates, but PER is probably a touch overgenerous because he's a volume scorer. So by the boxscores I'd be inclined to go Moncrief and then not by the boxscore, Moncrief was a way better defender and a better teammate and fwiw team ambassador. When it seemed like Pen was calling for runoff decider votes I was looking at switching to Moncrief (or Sam Jones).

[RSCD3_]

vote Bernard King Explosive Scorer during short peak and his years after the injury were still decent, his longevity slightly edges out Sidney moncrief, his defense while not at moncrief's level wasn't so bad as to ignore his larger offensive gap.

[Clyde Frazier]

I try not to play the "what if?" game too much in this project, either. I'd at least acknowledge that moncrief was fortunate to play with much more talent in his prime (pressey, cummings, ricky pierce, marques johnson, and a past his prime but still effective lanier) compared to king, though. King had super john williamson in NJ, notorious ball hog world b free in GSW, bill cartwright in NY, and... not much else. He did play with moses and jeff malone, but it was post ACL tear in 88. They took the #2 SRS ranked pistons to 5 games in the first round that year. With the talent he had around him, I don't think king really underachieved in the playoffs, or getting there as much as he did, for that matter.

You are really understating the talent in Golden State:
1981
C Joe Barry Carroll (talented but unmotivated -- still capable of 20/10 most years of prime)
PF Larry Smith -- Mean Mr. Smith, one of the best offensive rebounders in the game, Rick Mahorn type enforcer/thug
SF King
SG Purvis Short -- Mr. Rainbow, outside scoring to complement Carroll and King
PG John Lucas -- like Carroll, a #1 choice in the NBA draft, outstanding passer, decent defender, destroyed by cocaine

6th man World B. Free -- absolutely a gunner but despite his outside game, great foul draw for efficiency
7th man Sonny Parker -- good defense, decent offense, solid reserve
8th man Clifford Ray -- Aging center that was good enough in prime to get the Warriors their only championship

That's a deep talented team, albeit overloaded with wing scorers (sort of like Milwaukee); just the talent didn't play as a team

In 82, they did start Free over Short and replaced Lucas with a PG by committee and Ray with Ricky Brown (replacement level player) so a dropoff in talent but Carroll and Smith were more valuable (at least at the time) than Free whose style was considered too playground.

Yes, I could've mentioned carroll as he gave you some decent production, but even you just said he was unmotivated, which is what I remember as well. Short was young and hadn't hit his prime yet, and lucas had a really down year. I'd consider him a marginal contributor at best. The other players just don't really compare to the talent I mentioned moncrief playing with. The warriors did go 45-37 in 82, just missing the playoffs by 1 game, and ranked 11th (of 23) in SRS that season. So we missed out on seeing what they could do in the playoffs.

[By the way, not holding this against moncrief by any means. Seems like he's gonna take this run off, but if king got in, I would've strongly considered voting for him next.]

[penbeast0]

Okay, calling it for Sidney Moncrief . . .

PS . . . I am not willing to conceed Rasheed Wallace had a significant defensive cushion on Shawn Marion, not peak and not career. If anything, I'd say Marion's defensive impact was significantly greater, if not his potential.