Peaks Project #13

[trex_8063]

RealGM Greatest Player Peaks of All-Time List
1. Michael Jordan ('91--unanimous)
2. Shaquille O'Neal ('00--unanimous)
3. Lebron James ('13--non-unanimous ('09, '12))
4. Wilt Chamberlain ('67--non-unanimous ('64))
5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ('77--non-unanimous ('71, '72))
6. Hakeem Olajuwon ('94--non-unanimous ('93))
7. Tim Duncan ('03--non-unanimous ('02))
8. Kevin Garnett ('04--unanimous)
9. Bill Russell ('65--non-unanimous ('62, '64))
10. Magic Johnson ('87---unanimous)
11. Larry Bird ('86---non-unanimous ('87, '88))
12. David Robinson (year to be determined)
13. ??????????


I don't have time to post thoughts right now, nor even time to find a new movie meme (been my thing recently). I'll mostly likely be looking at Walton as my top ballot, followed by Oscar and Erving, most likely. But go ahead and start up. Proposed end-time for this thread will be late Saturday night.

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[thizznation]

I know you have probably explained this in the past threads but I didn't have time to follow them. Can you elaborate on the argument for Erving over Walton? Literally I have no idea what criteria make Dr J better. I don't think anybody should have doubts as to Walton's superiority after 77 finals. Dr J was really good but Walton was on another level. Like 86 Hakeem was great in the finals, but Bird was really a different animal... That sort of difference.

Well when you unfairly apply criteria to one side then there will be trouble finding criteria for Erving. How does Prime Walton play on one fantastic team and then never play for another again and get gifted this amazing portability? You critique Dr J for his play with a new team when Walton never even contributed to another team anywhere near what he did with the Blazers.

The next criteria that Walton voters have been neglecting is health. Walton was only able to play 2,264 minutes in 77, Erving played 3,244 minutes in 1976. Even if Walton was more impactful than Erving, if Walton is not playing he is giving you zero impact. Can we really say that Walton was giving his team 30% more impact than Dr J was when they were both on the floor? Walton hobbled along that year while Erving was a horse. If you have them even close in impact this should be a tipping point.

As for Wade over Dr J. I think Wade's performance was great but if we do a reverse time machine comparison could he really replicate what Dr J did in 76? Wade is going to have to deal with different carry rules, hand checking, and while he has a great wingspan Dr J has a much better standing reach and is still longer. Dr J would be more portable across eras than Wade and if we are judging true basketball ability between the two I think a trading places comparison is fair.

As for the other thread I had 63 Oscar but I'm switching to 64. I liked the increase playoff production of 63, but as quotatious pointed out 64 Oscar translated into greater team success and he was a better all around player that season.


1976 Erving
1964 Robertson

[trex_8063]

1st ballot: Bill Walton '77
Majority of my evaluation of him can be seen in post #4 of the #11 thread. My eye-test and scrutiny of various aspects of his play put him as basically a wash with Robinson while on the court. The biggest dividing line between him and Robinson is durability and minutes. And his impact on this team cannot be denied, and as per my evaluation on the aforementioned post.

He's a player who can provide very good moderate volume scoring (unsure if he'd be able to handle massive volume too well, though), who had good (but not great) back-to-the-basket game, good (but not great) range, good to excellent finisher, fair to decent FT-shooter for a big man. He combined this with elite-level passing/playmaking for a big-man (in the convo for GOAT in this regard). I'd also have to put him in the pantheon alongside Wes Unseld for the non-boxscore skill of screen-setting; and as far as technique and timing, I don't think anyone ran the pnr better than Walton. No big ever ran the two-man game better either.

He's an elite-level rebounder, and defensively has to be among the top 8-10 bigs of all-time AT LEAST (arguably top 5). Watching video of '77 Walton......he's all over the place defensively: he pops out on penetrators, cutting them off before they can get to the rim; he was blocking around 4 shots/100 possessions and changing God knows how many others, while simultaneously maintaining a hyper-elite DREB rate; he's talking/pointing/communicating; he's got those long arms out horizontal when in the paint off ball (taking up as much horizontal space as possible).....just so fundamentally sound in these ways. And he was an elite low-post defender, too.

Consummate teammate, as well.
Minutes/durability concerns sustained, he just feels like the biggest impact two-way player left on the table to me.


2nd ballot: Oscar Robertson '64
After much deliberation, I'd moved Oscar ahead of Erving. Kinda occurred to me when I was replying to drza on a quick&dirty comp of Oscar and Erving to Robinson. I questioned the parity of the offense of either Oscar or Erving to the defense of Robinson. At that time I realized I considered Oscar's offense probably is at the same level.......but couldn't say the same thing for Dr. J. I have two separate formulas for quantifying peaks, and both rate '64 Oscar at least marginally ahead of '76 Erving, fwiw. And I don't consider the '64 NBA appreciably weaker as an era than the late ABA either. So I'd made the change, and I'm sticking with it.

Anyway, Oscar's an interesting one. I've watched fair bit of game tape of him, and I've never been really blown away by any single plays; he never amazes in the same way that some other greats can do. Yet you get to the end of the game and he's got like 29/9/11 or some such.
Big big body for a PG (he'd be strong even for a modern SG), could just back guys down to where he wanted to be. Then had that short-mid range turnaround (odd one-hander form) that was so effective (could turn over either shoulder, too); and he turned his shoulders so late that it was really hard for defenders to swipe at. And the slow-mo highlight reels don't do justice to how quick the release often was. I wish we had the shooting data to say exactly, but Oscar must have been lights out in that 10-17 ft range. Good athlete, very very fine FT-shooter. All in all, he scored an awful lot of points at MUCH higher efficiency than the vast majority of his peers.

I don't consider him in the class of Magic, Nash, Paul, or Kidd (or Bird or Lebron) as a passer/playmaker, but obv he was quite adept. Kareem has little but praise for his passing. Again, nothing too flashy, but some precision entry passes and hitting cutters; good at putting it someplace easy for teammate to catch and finish smoothly.
Led I think 4 or 5 consecutive #1 offenses (admittedly none of them were on an all-time level, but still..).

Rebounding.....well pace (and minutes) inflate his prowess as a rebounding guard to near-legendary proportions. I do NOT consider him the best rebounding PG of all-time; but I do consider him 3rd-best (behind Magic and Kidd), which is still awfully good.
Defensively.....I always thought he looked decent (again, not jumping off the screen at me; but solid). I've read a few peer reviews praising his defense as a seriously under-appreciated aspect of his game. So it's perhaps even a pinch better than I've given him credit for.


3rd ballot: Kevin Durant '14
OK, I've gone ahead and made the switch. I'm less and less certain of Erving the more I think on it.
I freely acknowledge the Durant is a completely average defender overall. But again: very good to elite as both a rebounder and playmaker for a SF. And then GOAT-level pure scorer: 41.8 pts/100 possessions @ 63.5% TS . fwiw, I'd also constructed formula founded on Moonbeam's Score+ rating (I called mine "Modified Score+").......'14 Durant is the 2nd-highest MS+ rating on record (just barely behind '88 Barkley, and just barely ahead of '83 Dantley).
He couldn't quite maintain that in the playoffs, but still......35.9 pts/100 poss @ 57.0% TS while playing 42.9 mpg; that's still very elite level scoring. And bear in mind the defense he was facing while he did that:
1st round: -2.1 rDRTG (ranked 7th of 30; being guarded primarily by Tony Allen)
2nd round: -1.9 rDRTG (9th of 30)
3rd round: -4.3 rDRTG (3rd of 30; being guarded by Kawhi Leonard)

How does the playoff scoring look now?

[RebelWithACause]

This post will focus on why in my opinion DrJ shouldn't be included this early yet.

Wish I had more time to go in depth here, but life isn't making it possible.
In an analysis I usually consider the boxscore too, but I feel others have done that already.
I have not seen an analysis including the impact stats for DrJ we have, coupled with a quick and dash scoruing report and portability,
so here it is:


Offense

A lot has been said on the 1977 campaign. Dysfunctionality, reduced minutes, knee problems.
Erving came to a new team with several guys that were used to have and shoot the ball, McGinnis, Collins and B. Free.
Now for the season they rated only as the 6th best offense in the league. Is this what we expect from a offensive Top10 player All-Time, one year removed from his peak, with capable teammates?
Dysfunctionality, ego, chuckerism etc. caused most of that.
But how much is Dr J to blame here?
People are saying that the 76ers would have been better off, if they let Erving score the ball, but were they really?

We have some impact stats to measure this, granted it is raw on/off, but could be very useful here. Limited minutes should parse out his impact even better.

Offensive on/off:

77: 6th on offense

Dr. J 77 +4.1
McGinnis 77 +3.5
Free 77 +0.6
Collins 77 -0.7

78: 1st on offense

McGinnis 78 +5.8
Free 78 +2.4
Erving 78 +1.1
Collins 78 -2.4


Erving without McGinnis, Free :

Erving 79 +0.6
Erving 80 +0.9
Erving 81 -0.5


What can we see here? Collins seems to be the weak link. However, there is no clear separation between Erving and McGinnis. Actually McGinnis outclasses Erving by a bit in offensive impact during those 2 years. Very surprising.
When Free and McGinnis left, Erving actually does not have any offensive impact worth mentioning anymore the following 3 years.
His impact that he helped the 76ers with, is actually very mediocre for an offensive superstar.


Let us try and compare him with another wing facing some similar problems.
In 2011 and 2012 we saw LeBron coming into a rather similar situation. Came off a 1-man team to a team with redundancy on offense, 3 guys wanting primacy,trying to fit in to maximize the offense. Huge offensive talent in both situations. So let us have a look at Lebrons on/off offense those 2 years:

LeBron 11 +4.6
LeBron 12 +12.4
Dr. J 77 +4.1
Dr. J 78 +1.1

Now LeBron struggled a bit to adjust, but was still having more impact on a better offense than DrJ in 1977. 2011 is considered the worst year of Lebrons prime (09-15) for reference.
LeBron adjusted and lifted the Heat much more in his second year, whereas Dr. J actually regressed with his offensive splits.
This further hurts Dr. Js portability.

Moses vs Erving 83-85:

Now what stuns me as well, but isn't as relevant, because DrJ wasn't near his peak form anymore, is that Moses, who was a very good offensive player, but not a transcendent one, comes in and leaves DrJ in the dust by a huge margin, impact wise.
Not only during one year, but all of 83,84 and 85.

Conclusion: Very good offensive player for sure, but not transcendent, which would be a given to outclass the likes of Walton or Robinson.


Defense

Often DrJ is heralded for his great raw steal and block numbers. However his defense left a lot to be desired. Not too much effort, not there to make the right play. DrJ seems to be the Kobe Bryant of the 80s concerning his defensive reputation.
A lot of tools, but not impacting the game on defense. Take a look here:

Defensive on/off:

DrJ 77: -0.2
DrJ 78: +0.5

But he played less minutes and had less primacy?! Shouldnt he have more energy to focus on defense and be a better than
neutral/average on defense then? Does that mean that at his peak in 1976 when he played a ton more minutes and was more of a one-man-band he was a below average defender ?
History tells us that the greater the offensive responsibility, the worse the defense gets.

Conclusion: DrJ a minus defender at his peak?! very possible


Skill-Set

Not having too much time here, so making this short. Everyone knows his strengths, so weaknesses are:

- average ball handler
- average passer
- limitations off ball
- no range outside of 16-18 ft
- bad or at leat very inconsistent jump shooter


Portability


DrJ doesn't seems to be that portable. Doesn't possess the playmaking skills to make others better and catalyze an offense, as clearly evidenced with the 76ers. Not that good off ball, needs the ball, but is not the most adapt with it.
Cannot maximize his impact playing with other good offensive players. No range to spread the floor. Wing clogging the paint isn't all that.

Conclusion: Should get some points substracted because of his limited portability



Overall conclusion:

A year or 2 removed from his peak, I don't see any reason to believe that his game got that much worse.
I am having a hard time accepting that Dr. J was as great as he is made out to be. There are several doubts about his game and impact.
I feel that his popularity and legend is catapulting him to heights he doesn't really deserve. We have some impact stats about his NBA
time, which are really wonky by the way, but they are suggesting he would not fare well if RAPM existed for the time.
With analytical thinking there should be concerns about having him that high, because of his boxscore filling and exciting play.

That is not even touching in on the fact that the ABA (as well as the NBA), before the merger, were leagues that did not have
huge the quality, especially the ABA.

Now I am all for including him in the Top20, but as of now, I feel it is too early.

Defensive On/Off:

LeBron 09: -8.2
LeBron 15: -4.3
LeBron 11: -4.3
LeBron 13: -3.4
LeBron 12: -1.6
LeBron 10: -1.5
LeBron 14: +2.1

Erving 83: -3.1
Erving 80: -2.0
Erving 82: -0.8
Erving 77: -0.2
Erving 78: +0.5
Erving 79: +0.7
Erving 85: +1.9
Erving 84: +2.6
Erving 81: +6.2

Kobe 10: -3.4
Kobe 01: -3.3
Kobe 03: -1.0
Kobe 07: -1.0
Kobe 08: -0.8
Kobe 04: +0.7
Kobe 09: +1.5
Kobe 05: +2.3
Kobe 06: +6.4
Kobe 02: +8.9


I don't know how some of you can say with a straight face that Dr J was a great defender.
Sorry, but he was a tad above average at best, same as Kobe.
LeBron is a consistent game changer amongst superstars on defense, the other 2 not so much.

Now I could also support the notion that I watched every tape on Dr. J I could get and I didn't walk away impressed on defense,
but the eye test is subjective anyway....

Leaving this here again.

Hope to see some Erving supporters to pick my post apart and convince me more of
Dr. J.

For his supporters, how do you rank his offense and defense among other perimeter superstars?
Wade, Kobe, McGrady, Durant, Curry, Paul, Nash etc.

For example like SSB does with his SRS-style rankings:

DrJ +5.5

Offense +5.0 , Defense +0.5

[RebelWithACause]

Do people rank Erving's offense above Dirk, Kobe, Curry, Nash or Paul?
If so, why?

Really curious.

[thizznation]

Defensive On/Off:

LeBron 09: -8.2
LeBron 15: -4.3
LeBron 11: -4.3
LeBron 13: -3.4
LeBron 12: -1.6
LeBron 10: -1.5
LeBron 14: +2.1

Erving 83: -3.1
Erving 80: -2.0
Erving 82: -0.8
Erving 77: -0.2
Erving 78: +0.5
Erving 79: +0.7
Erving 85: +1.9
Erving 84: +2.6
Erving 81: +6.2

Kobe 10: -3.4
Kobe 01: -3.3
Kobe 03: -1.0
Kobe 07: -1.0
Kobe 08: -0.8
Kobe 04: +0.7
Kobe 09: +1.5
Kobe 05: +2.3
Kobe 06: +6.4
Kobe 02: +8.9


I don't know how some of you can say with a straight face that Dr J was a great defender.
Sorry, but he was a tad above average at best, same as Kobe.
LeBron is a consistent game changer amongst superstars on defense, the other 2 not so much.

Now I could also support the notion that I watched every tape on Dr. J I could get and I didn't walk away impressed on defense,
but the eye test is subjective anyway....

Well for one you don't have the metric for the very year in question for Dr J so I don't see how you can stay with a straight face that Dr J was not a great defender.

1976 Nets had the best defense in the league.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYA/1976.html

Now let's look at the 1976 Nets roster. Who is the best defensive player on the team?

Is it Kim Hughes, Al Skinner, or how about Brian Taylor?

The answer is Julius Erving was the best defender on the team and he lead the team to the best defense in the league. Even better than the Denver Nuggets; whom were lead defensively by one of the most famous defender's ever, Bobby Jones, whom next year took Denver to lead the merged league in defense.

This is way more concrete of evidence than speculation based off metrics of years that are not even of the year in question.

(Note: The information on Dr J's team's defense and his anchoring of the team was first brought to my notice from Quotatious.)

[eminence]

Do people rank Erving's offense above Dirk, Kobe, Curry, Nash or Paul?
If so, why?

Really curious.

I'd rate him below the PG trio on offense, but pretty even with the other pair. If I had to rank them I'd go:

1. Curry
2. Nash
3. Paul
4. DrJ
5. Kobe
6. Dirk

I think he's as good an iso scorer as anybody left to vote on (I'd put him 2nd behind Wade myself), and a fair playmaker for others (Kobe tier). Some things suggest that in '76 he was also a pretty big impact on the defensive end for a wing.

[thizznation]

Do people rank Erving's offense above Dirk, Kobe, Curry, Nash or Paul?
If so, why?

Really curious.

Erving is a better defender than all the names you have listed so he doesn't necessarily need to be better on offense. Do the players you have listed have dominating Finals performances vs elite defenses?

[RSCD3_]

Do people rank Erving's offense above Dirk, Kobe, Curry, Nash or Paul?
If so, why?

Really curious.

Yeah I am especially curious about Erving over Wade?

I mean from what I can recall Wade was a comparable scorer, a better passer, a better defender and equal to erving in position wise rebounding. I dont see this consensus edge that puts Erving over Wade.

Yeah Erving has the better playoffs but I think Wade Clearly has the better regular season in 09 and this is with far worse support.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=wadedw01&y1=2009&p2=ervinju01&y2=1976&p3=&p4=&p5=&p6=

[RebelWithACause]

Do people rank Erving's offense above Dirk, Kobe, Curry, Nash or Paul?
If so, why?

Really curious.

Erving is a better defender than all the names you have listed so he doesn't necessarily need to be better on offense. Do the players you have listed have dominating Finals performances vs elite defenses?

Saw the other post, good one.

The thing is though, I don't believe it.
Dr. J was never a defensive anchor.

I am not going to dismiss 9 years of average defensive impact for 1 year we don't even have splits for.

It could very well be the case that others were impacting the defense in 1976, since Dr. J didn't even manage to impact the defense when he had less primacy and minutes to conserve his energy for D after that.

Best defense is also relative, because of only 9 teams.

Nothing is indicating for him to be a difference maker on defense, neither the eye test nor the stats.

[RebelWithACause]

I think there could be some great discussion developing here regarding Erving vs other superstar wings

I would love to see some of these comparisons in depth, both offensively and defensively.

DrJ vs Paul
DrJ vs Wade
DrJ vs Curry
DrJ vs Bryant
DrJ vs Dirk
DrJ vs Durant
DrJ vs T-Mac
DrJ vs Nash
DrJ vs West
DrJ vs Oscar

[thizznation]

Do people rank Erving's offense above Dirk, Kobe, Curry, Nash or Paul?
If so, why?

Really curious.

Erving is a better defender than all the names you have listed so he doesn't necessarily need to be better on offense. Do the players you have listed have dominating Finals performances vs elite defenses?

Saw the other post, good one.

The thing is though, I don't believe it.
Dr. J was never a defensive anchor.

I am not going to dismiss 9 years of average defensive impact for 1 year we don't even have splits for.

It could very well be the case that others were impacting the defense in 1976, since Dr. J didn't even manage to impact the defense when he had less primacy and minutes to conserve his energy for D after that.

Nothing is indicating for him to be a difference maker on defense, neither the eye test nor the stats.

LeBron 09: -8.2 - 24
LeBron 10: -1.5 - 25
LeBron 11: -4.3 - 26
LeBron 12: -1.4 - 27
LeBron 13: -3.4 - 28
LeBron 14: +2.1 -29
LeBron 15: -4.3 -30

Erving 77: -0.2 - 26
Erving 78: +0.5 - 27
Erving 79: +0.7 - 28
Erving 80: -2.0 -29
Erving 81: +6.2 - 30
Erving 82: -0.8 - 31
Erving 83: -3.1 - 32
Erving 84: +2.6 - 33
Erving 85: +1.9 - 34

So a trend we have to see here with these hyper athletic wings and their defense is is that they peak at an early age. LeBron's legendary 09 run occurred when he was 24 years old. Then we see an extremely dramatic drop from age 24 to 25. Is it that far stretch of an assumption to say that something similar could of happened to Erving in the year he went from 25 to 26?

A sign to Erving's decline in his athleticism is found by examining his rebound rates. At age 21 he is posting an extremely high 16.4%. Over the next three years we see it dip to 13.5%, a noticeable drop but still good for a small forward. Over the next three years we see the TRB% drop to 10%. I think we can use this linear drop in rebounding to represent a trend in the decline of Erving's athleticism. Having defensive metrics from only when Erving was past his physical prime can be misleading.

LeBron has an overall better maitenece of his defense during advanced of age although we see some slightly similar peaks and valleys. Modern medicine is a big contribution to this. If Erving had access to the medicine that LeBron has his entire career I'm pretty sure his body would of been in better condition leading to more impactful defense.

We saw a huge drop off in production with LeBron's defense at an early age from 09 to 10. I believe similar happened to Erving in 76 to 77. (Let it be noted that LeBron's drop happened while he was on the same team. He did not even have to adjust to a new team like Erving had to from 76 to 77.)

[Dr Spaceman]

Do people rank Erving's offense above Dirk, Kobe, Curry, Nash or Paul?
If so, why?

Really curious.

Erving is a better defender than all the names you have listed so he doesn't necessarily need to be better on offense. Do the players you have listed have dominating Finals performances vs elite defenses?

Well Curry and Dirk both do, for sure. I guess this is going to depend on your definition of "dominant", but both Curry and Dirk have shown insane resiliency against top defenses and done it deep in the playoffs.

[JordansBulls]

1st ballot selection: Wade 2006 - Put on a show in the playoffs especially the ECF and the NBA Finals pretty much singlehandedly dominating the finals with the highest PER ever for a finals.

2nd ballot selection: Moses Malone 1983 - Dominant Season and playoffs and went 12-1 in the postseason. Won league and finals mvp.

3rd ballot selection: Julius Erving 1976 - Dominant Season and playoffs With PER of 28.7, WS/PER 48 minutes in the season 0.262-----and PER of 32.0, and Win Shares/PER 48 minutes in the playoffs 0.321 (13 playoff games, title)

[Clyde Frazier]

Not having too much time here, so making this short. Everyone knows his strengths, so weaknesses are:

- average ball handler
- average passer
- limitations off ball
- no range outside of 16-18 ft
- bad or at least very inconsistent jump shooter

I think you’re exaggerating his weaknesses, and underrating what he did well. Just because he wasn’t an extremely versatile scorer doesn’t mean he wasn’t a very effective one. He scored at high efficiency throughout most of his career, and since this is about peak, his efficiency was well above average. I’ve also mention in my ballots that his production and efficiency per 100 possessions was nearly identical in 80 vs. 76, so the idea that he was taking advantage of a weak ABA in 76 isn’t all that warranted.

I’ve also mentioned that skills such as ball handling (and in this case shooting) are perceived as average or below average due to aesthetics. His ball handling didn’t look great, but that didn’t stop him from getting to the hoop at will and navigating the paint once he went up for a shot. As for shooting, where are you getting “bad or very inconsistent” from? He didn’t have much range, but he could hit a pull up jumper just fine.

Limitations off ball even though he fit in seamlessly with moses en route to the championship in 83? Even feel like average passer is pushing it. His AST% hovered around 20% at his best. Look at someone like pippen, considered one of the best passing SFs of all time, and he’s at 23-25%.

[mischievous]

I feel tmac deserves some traction at this point. I would put him above all of Dirk KD Curry Kobe etc. Dr J and Wade will be my 1st and 2nd ballots again, but for 3rd i need to think between Oscar and Tmac.

[trex_8063]

I feel tmac deserves some traction at this point. I would put him above all of Dirk KD Curry Kobe etc. Dr J and Wade will be my 1st and 2nd ballots again, but for 3rd i need to think between Oscar and Tmac.

Yeah, TMac is someone I could consider for my 3rd ballot, too.

It's too damn crowded now! There's like a half-dozen guys with basically nothing between them at this point.

[mischievous]

I feel tmac deserves some traction at this point. I would put him above all of Dirk KD Curry Kobe etc. Dr J and Wade will be my 1st and 2nd ballots again, but for 3rd i need to think between Oscar and Tmac.

Yeah, TMac is someone I could consider for my 3rd ballot, too.

It's too damn crowded now! There's like a half-dozen guys with basically nothing between them at this point.

I think Tmac's peak is clearly better than CP3's. That probably won't be a popular opinion in this project but yeah.

[Quotatious]

#1 - Julius Erving '76
#2 - Dwyane Wade '09
#3 - Chris Paul '08


Still the same votes as I had in #12 thread. I've already explained my picks, so I won't repeat the same things again, but I'll say this - I feel really confused right now. I have a lot of candidates, and like Trex just said, it's extremely hard to separate the guys in top 15-25 range (Kobe, Dirk, Karl Malone, Barkley, Moses, Ewing, T-Mac, CP3, Curry, Durant, maybe Nash, too).

I appreciate Rebel's posts on Doc, and I'm a little less confident about having him as my top vote here, but all of that is still based on Erving's NBA career, and even though a lot of people find it hard to believe, I think there's certainly a possibility that Doc was really better in '76 than any other year of his career, particularly in the playoffs. We've seen other players who had one season that was clearly better than the rest of their career - mischievous just mentioned T-Mac, and I think there's no better example of a guy who was far better at his peak than he was for the rest of his prime. McGrady really was on a whole different level in '03, compared to '01, '02, '04 or '05.

I think you’re exaggerating his weaknesses, and underrating what he did well. Just because he wasn’t an extremely versatile scorer doesn’t mean he wasn’t a very effective one. He scored at high efficiency throughout most of his career, and since this is about peak, his efficiency was well above average. I’ve also mention in my ballots that his production and efficiency per 100 possessions was nearly identical in 80 vs. 76, so the idea that he was taking advantage of a weak ABA in 76 isn’t all that warranted.

I’ve also mentioned that skills such as ball handling (and in this case shooting) are perceived as average or below average due to aesthetics. His ball handling didn’t look great, but that didn’t stop him from getting to the hoop at will and navigating the paint once he went up for a shot. As for shooting, where are you getting “bad or very inconsistent” from? He didn’t have much range, but he could hit a pull up jumper just fine.

Limitations off ball even though he fit in seamlessly with moses en route to the championship in 83? Even feel like average passer is pushing it. His AST% hovered around 20% at his best. Look at someone like pippen, considered one of the best passing SFs of all time, and he’s at 23-25%.

Totally agree.

I have no idea why Rebel continues to call Erving an "average" ball-handler. I would say ball-handling was one of his biggest strengths - ask yourself this question - how the hell was Doc able to average 25+ ppg on well above-average efficiency (even in the playoffs), if he was an average ball-handler, had no range outside of 16-18 feet, and was supposedly a bad jumpshooter? It doesn't make sense. You don't become a top 15-20 player of all-time if you don't have great skills. Erving is IMO a top 5 athlete of all-time, just as good as Jordan, in terms just athleticism, but to be an all-time great, you have to be very skilled, and possess great bball IQ. Otherwise, he would just become someone like Stacey Augmon, Travis Outlaw or Gerald Green.

Also, Dr J not having range outside 16-18 feet is bull. He averaged 33% on 1.2 attempts from beyond the arc in '76. Sure, his jumpshot wasn't great, but I see no reason to believe that he was worse than someone like Dwyane Wade in this regard. He was a solid shooter. Not great, but above average.

Not only that, but Erving also had tremendous longevity, his game aged very well. He still averaged 20/5/3 on almost 55% TS in '85, at age 35, and 17/4/3 on 53% TS in '87, at age 37. His longevity was similar to Kareem's (worse, but still GOAT among wings, along with Kobe). Athletic freak with relatively average skills shouldn't be able to age that well, which tells me that his skills are underrated.

[drza]

Sneaking this vote in while wife is on phone...

1) Bill Walton 77

2) Oscar Robertson 63

3) Dr. J 76

Same votes as last time. I've been voting for Walton and Oscar for several threads now, so there's some verbiage in the previous couple of threads. There's been some interesting questions raised about Doc, as well as some solid answers. As I mentioned when I voted for Doc last thread, I'm currently projecting the 76 version of him as a rawer LeBron. Since he led his team in both points and assists, on great efficiency, with a lot of drives to the rim and kicks, I could see this analogy fitting. And the defensive question is a great one, but as pointed out they had the top defense in the league and no obvious teammates to attribute the lion share to. The quesitons about the Philly +/- are worth discussion, but I don't think it should disqualify what he did before-hand.

Though I am looking forward to reading some of the comparisons that hopefully come out of the Doc vs other great perimeter players challenge.