Peaks Project #13

[theonlyclutch]

Any takers for Durant? Given that T-Mac is getting mentions, and that Durant arguably had better seasons in the RS in both '13 and '14, with very comparable individual metrics on a much better team, while having to share the ball with Westbrook + others (WB was actually over Durant in USG% in '13) and was comparable in the PS in '13 as well...

Considering the usual cadre of 00's superstar wings on mediocre teams is coming up in general on people's lists (Wade/T-Mac/Kobe), I believe a question of portability of role should be brought up, as has been mentioned before countless times, it's much easier to turn a bad team into mediocrity than turn a good team into contenders, and while what the wings did in those seasons was pretty impressive, it's questionable whether their impact can be brought (relatively intact) to a team with better surrounding talent and make them contenders, especially since a significant part of their games is on-ball scoring/playmaking, which is more easily made redundant.

[thizznation]

[quote="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.

[/quote]

For Walton over Erving, how do you figure in the fact that Erving played 1,200 more regular season minutes than Walton did in their respective primes? Even if Walton was better than Erving, is he better enough that he can play 25 less games and still have more impact?

For Robinson to get in there was heavy focus on the 82 games of the regular season. Now we have Walton come in next while playing 65 games on lower minutes next. It seems to be players that are getting freebies are getting in over players who actually did it. (Robinson didn't deliver in the playoffs, Walton wasn't healthy over 82 games). Erving not only was healthy for 84 games on huge minutes but he stepped it up another level for the post season and again in the Finals.

I think we should start rewarding what players actually have done more than what they actually could have done.

[eminence]

1st Ballot: Stephen Curry 14-15 Not sure quite how high(want to let it sit for a while yet), but if I was doing an offense only season ranking this season would be a virtual lock for top 5 and could have a shot at #1.

2nd Ballot: Dwyane Wade 08-09 I've been convinced on this one. Giving it to Wade over Paul for a his individual scoring edge and a bit better defense vs better playmaking from Paul.

3rd Ballot: Chris Paul 07-08 Cooled a bit on his defense. Doesn't make a large part of ranking him this high, but when everyone is this close a tiny change in perception can knock a guy up or down a few spots.

HM: West, DrJ, and then a whole bunch more. One guy I'm looking at for the next group that I haven't heard brought up yet is Grant Hill, thought he had a pretty good mini Lebron type season in 96-97.

[mischievous]

Any takers for Durant? Given that T-Mac is getting mentions, and that Durant arguably had better seasons in the RS in both '13 and '14, with very comparable individual metrics on a much better team, while having to share the ball with Westbrook + others (WB was actually over Durant in USG% in '13) and was comparable in the PS in '13 as well...

I prefer 03 Tmac over KD because of his superior handles and playmaking. Also, we must bear in mind the the early-mid 2000s pre-hand check were some of the toughest defensive years ever, would a peak KD average a 63-65 ts% in 03 or 04? I doubt it severely. I'm thinking more like 58-60 %. KD's efficiency basically plummeted in the playoffs in 13 & 14, now sure he was still good but Tmac maintained his numbers and efficiency against a tough Pistons defense in the playoffs. So yeah the ball handling/playmaking along with maintained production against a very strong defense is what tips it in Tmac's favor for me.

I believe a question of portability of role should be brought up,

I don't agree with the whole idea of portability. It's all assumption and oftentimes isn't proven. I think we should go with what happened in the given year of that player. I don't care much to think how they would fit in certain circumstances or situations.

[mischievous]

Ballot 1: 76 DR J. Quick raw numbers: 29.3/11/5 56.9 ts% 27.7 PER. Upped his game absurdly in the playoffs en route to a title, 34.7/12.6/4.9 61 ts% 32 PER!!. The footage on the Doctor is a little limited, but his scoring was very elite as the numbers indicate. Very good rebounder for a small forward, i can't really get a good feel for his ball handing and passing skills by the footage there is, but i would guess it is probably roughly around the level of someone like a KD or Prime Pierce which isn't on the level of say a Lebron or something like that but still pretty good. Clearly the best choice left for me.

Ballot 2: 2009 Dwayne Wade. Regular season stats: 30.2/5/7.5/ 2.2 spg/1.3 blk 57.4 ts%, 30.4 PER. The only players with a higher PER in nba history are MJ, Lebron, Shaq, Wilt, AD, and David Robinson. Still respectable in his playoff series, although back spasms limited him to some degree, still did roughly 29/5/5 on 56.5 ts% 26.3 PER. Wade was a great defender in 09, made 2nd team defense, 3rd in DPOY, elite help defender, very good man defender, excellent shot blocking for a guard. Team success often hurts Wade when it comes to this season but i think sometimes people fail to realize how bad his team was. Wade's best teammate was a Rookie Beasley who averaged 13.9 ppg, after that he had 27 games from a washed up Jermaine Oneal, then half a season from a banged up past prime Shawn Marion.

Wade had a ridiculous 13 game stretch that year where he averaged 37.2 ppg 5.9 rpg 10.4 apg 2.9 spg 1.4 bpg 55.3 fg%. This is certainly one of the greatest stretches of basketball played by anyone.

Ballot 3: 64 Oscar. Tmac is a very honorable mention here, but i just can't go against the Big O. I like his playmaking abilities better, and the fact that he can do basically everything from the point guard position. Control the flow, score at high volume, rebound, get assists etc.

I'm fairly confident with Tmac after these 3 guys are in. But after that we get into Dirk, West, Kobe, Cp3, Barkley, Walton, Malone, KD etc and it will get very hazy.

[Dr Positivity]

Ballot 1 Bill Walton 1977

Ballot 2 Stephen Curry 2015

Ballot 3 Patrick Ewing 1990

The only thing I have against Ewing's season is he doesn't pass as well as guys like Hakeem and Duncan. But they've been in for a long time. He still has a very good offensive season with 28.6pts on .599 TS% and 115 ORTG and judging his simple but effective skillset as having a good outside jumper at that point in addition to ability to draw doubles inside. Ewing is not the perfect offensive player but neither are David Robinson or Bill Walton and it didn't matter because they are able to beat out alternatives like Curry or Dirk for defensive reasons. As for defense although the Knicks DRTG is not as good as it would be later he averages 4 blocks per game and is a 27 year old in his 5th NBA year after 4 years at Georgetown, making him more like 2002 Tim Duncan than 2015 Anthony Davis in terms of physical and mental experience. For me the strongest case I can make for him is asking how many players you'd rather build a team around than Ewing's skillset as a defensive anchor while still putting up big offensive numbers on the board

[lorak]

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.)

in 1976 ABA was 7 team league, so "anchoring the best defense" doesn't mean so much. We have ~decade of +/- data for Dr J and nothing supports notion that he was more than average defender. So it's very unlikely year earlier he was suddenly some anchor on D. Nets drt had more to do with VERY small league and probably less bigger players (for example only two 7 footers and one of them didn't even play whole season) than with Erving's defensive impact. Overall Dr J seems really overrated, for sure he doesn't deserve to be ranked higher than Wade, Dirk, Oscar, Walton, Nash or even players like Ewing.

[Dr Spaceman]

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.)

in 1976 ABA was 7 team league, so "anchoring the best defense" doesn't mean so much. We have ~decade of +/- data for Dr J and nothing supports notion that he was more than average defender. So it's very unlikely year earlier he was suddenly some anchor on D. Nets drt had more to do with VERY small league and probably less bigger players (for example only two 7 footers and one of them didn't even play whole season) than with Erving's defensive impact. Overall Dr J seems really overrated, for sure he doesn't deserve to be ranked higher than Wade, Dirk, Oscar, Walton, Nash or even players like Ewing.

I feel the same way about Erving TBH. I really don't know how he got a reputation as such a great defender; from everything I've seen his focus off-ball was not just bad, but like some of the worst I've seen from any player ever. Particularly in the 77 Finals, he got burned so badly so often one could almost guess Portland was targeting him on purpose (hard to know without contextual knowledge). The on/off data we now have pretty much confirms this for me, and I agree we should be ranking the guys you mentioned above him (especially Walton, as it seems any argument for Russell and Robinson should apply to him as well)

[Dr Spaceman]

The-Power made an excellent post on Curry in the last thread, so I just want to echo some of what he's saying. I made an argument for Shaq earlier that revolved around him being so damn unstoppable from certain areas of the floor that he forced teams to trash their whole game plans and focus on stopping him as an individual.

I think Curry has those same qualities.

First we can visually confirm what people have been saying here; it's patently obvious that GSW's bread and butter is the Curry/Green high screen and roll. When you have a guy who's probably more dangerous shooting the 3 out of that action than he is driving, you have to understand that coaches don't have an answer for that. Curry is a scheme buster in the most obvious way, as literally the schemes are designed to give up the shots he's best at hitting. 5 years ago the notion that you would double a player at the arc to stop him from getting his shot off would've been considered a joke, now it's your only line of defense against Curry. And when this happens, GSW gets an easy dump off to Draymond. Who can straight line drive to the hoop and wreak havoc, That's the basis for their offense. That's how it works.

Curry provided a ridiculous amount of offensive lift for a team that good (better on/off on offense than Wade ever touched in his career). He is Nash-esque in his overwhelming offensive impact, while being more portable than anything I've ever seen from a star player. Go ahead and think about any superstar whose ever played, and try to think of a better pairing for them than Curry. You can't.

One of the big developments from the POY project this year was the term "resiliency". As myself, Doc, SSB and others watched the Finals and saw what was going on schematically, we started having conversations to the effect of "no perimeter player has ever been defended like this". And it's true. Cleveland was selling out so hard on Curry all the time, the fact he was able to put up the scoring performance he did is a borderline miracle. If traps and triple teams at the arc can't freaking stop the dude, it's a good bet nothing ever will. And IMO this lends a lot of credence to Curry's case, because when people claim recency bias they're usually saying "we don't know if this is repeatable, or if there's something that can be developed to counter this guy's style". But what we saw in the Finals was the boldest attempt yet, and so I'm comfortable kind of throwing that out the window with Curry.

[Quotatious]

I just wanted to add that I'm really not a fan of the "skill-set" approach to player analysis. Doc may seem to be less impressive than guys like Kobe, Wade, Durant, T-Mac, in terms of skill-set, but I think it doesn't tell the whole story. Just like Shaq's skill-set is far less complete than Hakeem's, but O'Neal is still considered the better player by majority of people. Or, KG is better than Shaq in every area except for scoring and rim protection, but Shaq is still a clearly better player overall.

[RebelWithACause]

I just wanted to add that I'm really not a fan of the "skill-set" approach to player analysis. Doc may seem to be less impressive than guys like Kobe, Wade, Durant, T-Mac, in terms of skill-set, but I think it doesn't tell the whole story. Just like Shaq's skill-set is far less complete than Hakeem's, but O'Neal is still considered the better player by majority of people. Or, KG is better than Shaq in every area except for scoring and rim protection, but Shaq is still a clearly better player overall.

Lesser skillset can lessen resiliency amongst the top guys.

The thing is DrJ and these guys are actually comparable. They occupy the same spots on the floor.
Playing style is alike.

That's not the case with KG and Shaq. They're not even close to similar as players.
That's almost like comparing CP3 to Moses Malone.

Also Shaq has several skillset advantages over KG as well.
Post game, touch around the rim, greater array of moves near the basket, taller, way stronger, able to establish deep position, better finisher, better offensive rebounder etc. I could go on...

The main difference between Shaq and Hakeem is that Shaq couldn't be contained because of his immense strength and length, which makes up for the skillset deficiencies.

What exactly does DrJ have to make up for his skillset deficiencies comparing him to those other guys?
Of the bunch he is the worst passer, ball handler and shooter.
That's a lot.

I don't see anything that is standing out.

[thizznation]

This is starting to boil down to total dismissal of the ABA.

People are taking advanced metrics from the year not even in question over the concrete results of what actually happened.

Someone said "that's nice that Dr J's team had the best defensive rating in the league that year but I don't think they were playing defense that year in the ABA"... The Denver Nuggets were the number two defense in the ABA and then in the very next year in the merger they had the best defense. So Dr J was the best defender on the best defense in the league, even better than the team that would go along and dominate the post merger league defensively. If we are using logic here the complete dismissal of the ABA isn't jiving.

I'm not going to sit here and defend ABA all day but Dr J dominated his smaller leagues just as Bill Russell and Wilt dominated their smaller leagues. I haven't seen nearly as much blanket dissmissal for what actually happened besides Erving.

I'm not sure why people are obsessing over non quantifiable measures that don't really matter. Who cares if Dr J's ball handling was a 5 or a 7 or a 10. It was good enough that he got results, there is no denying that.

[Dr Spaceman]

Ballot:

1. Stephen Curry 2015
2. Bill Walton 1977
3. Dirk Nowitzki 2011

Nowitzki should be getting traction at this point, especially if the 80s bros are off the board and Kobe and Wade are being brought up. I have Nowitzki's offense up there with anyone, and at this point I think superior to MJ/Bron. There's something to be said for a guy that can consistently get the look he wants basically 100% of the time, and Nowitzki has the curious effect of dominating from the mid-range (at this point, nobody should doubt he's GOAT from there) which has the effect of drawing defensive pressure AWAY from the most efficient areas of the floor. HINT HINT- this is how Dallas was able to routinely tout top 5 offenses with basically 4 defensive role players surrounding Nowitzki. Dallas was always near top of the league ITO shooting from the corners, and when they had a finisher, especially Chandler, their offense was so clearly outperforming their talent level it's obscene.

Let's not forget, 34 year old Nowitzki was leading the charge on the literal GOAT offense pre-Rondo: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-art-of-the-wildly-efficient-dallas-mavericks/

And frankly I'd take Dirk over the volume stars (esp. Kobe) just due to the sheer consistency of his game. His game to game scoring output is obscenely consistent. This is not to say there aren't surprises, I mean just look at his OKC series in 2011. But what is does mean is the floor of his play is substantially above what most perimeter volume scorers are giving you. There really are no nights where Nowitzki's shot is off.

Like clockwork, every season Nowitzki's playoff output increases. This is really, really rare, and indicates how context-independent Dirk's offense is. Remember ElGee's top performers against top defenses? Nowitzki was clearly the best looking guy on that list, like by a substantial margin. He's had years where he literally killed the Spurs- look at that 2006 series again. Look at game 6. The man was a stone cold murderer in his prime.

Dirk is also the most dangerous screener in NBA history, and at his peak he was a triple threat off that screen in a way no other big has ever been. No big man ever brought the combination of elite 3 point shooting, off the dribble agility, and high-post wizardry that Dirk did. This is the definition of an unstoppable player, and it works on the play most teams run about 70% of possessions. He feasts on smaller guys from the nail, where his post efficiency is obscene- read: actually disgusting, some guys can barely beat Dirk's percentages when they are shooting at the rim. He was a killer off the dribble attacker, just way too damn quick for any PF or center not named Garnett. And finally his shooting is always brought up in GOAT context, and mostly because that severely gigantic frame enables him to shoot over anyone at any time.

[Dr Spaceman]

Just in case you need a reminder of how dominant Dirk truly was:

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/tktg1wtY4pU[/YouTube]

[lorak]

This is starting to boil down to total dismissal of the ABA.

People are taking advanced metrics from the year not even in question over the concrete results of what actually happened.

Someone said "that's nice that Dr J's team had the best defensive rating in the league that year but I don't think they were playing defense that year in the ABA"... The Denver Nuggets were the number two defense in the ABA and then in the very next year in the merger they had the best defense. So Dr J was the best defender on the best defense in the league, even better than the team that would go along and dominate the post merger league defensively.

1. Nuggets in 1977 were different team than in 1976. Basically only Skywalker, Jones and Issel played ~the same amount of minutes in 1977 as in 1976. Other key rotation players from 1976 (Beck, Gerald, Williams - each +1k minutes in 1976) played less than 500 minutes in 1977 or were gone (Simpson, Terry). Webster (good defender) from bench warmer in 1976 (398 minutes) became important role player (1276 minutes) in 1977 and Nuggets also added 5 NEW players (some very good defensively, especially Silas), who each played more than 1k minutes in 1977. So what you are doing here is logical fallacy.

2. ABA in 1976 had only 7 teams, so the question is how much valuable are results from such small league? (and also small because of players' size as only two 7 footers played in the ABA that year.*) BTW, Nets in 1976 were just -2,4 drtg below LA - that's very bad for "no 1 defense" and shows that there wasn't much separation defensively between those 7 teams. Just some squads matchuped better against others and that created these small differences, but it's not justified to talk about defensive anchors in such context, at least not in the same meaning as we are using when talk about defensive anchors from NBA.

*
So it's quite possible Erving's defensive impact in the ABA was bigger than in the NBA, but not because he was better, but because his defensive competition was weaker. And in such environment his athleticism was enough to make a difference on D, but in the NBA, with more bigger players, his defensive flaws were badly exposed. And that's the thing we can't ignore when we talk about 1976.

[thizznation]

This is starting to boil down to total dismissal of the ABA.

People are taking advanced metrics from the year not even in question over the concrete results of what actually happened.

Someone said "that's nice that Dr J's team had the best defensive rating in the league that year but I don't think they were playing defense that year in the ABA"... The Denver Nuggets were the number two defense in the ABA and then in the very next year in the merger they had the best defense. So Dr J was the best defender on the best defense in the league, even better than the team that would go along and dominate the post merger league defensively.

1. Nuggets in 1977 were different team than in 1976. Basically only Skywalker, Jones and Issel played ~the same amount of minutes in 1977 as in 1976. Other key rotation players from 1976 (Beck, Gerald, Williams - each +1k minutes in 1976) played less than 500 minutes in 1977 or were gone (Simpson, Terry). Webster (good defender) from bench warmer in 1976 (398 minutes) became important role player (1276 minutes) in 1976 and Nuggets also added 5 NEW players (some very good defensively, especially Silas), who each played more than 1k minutes in 1977. So what you are doing here is logical fallacy.

2. ABA in 1976 had only 7 teams, so the question is how much valuable are results from such small league? (and also small because of players' size as only two 7 footers played in the ABA that year.*) BTW, Nets in 1976 were just -2,4 drtg below LA - that's very bad for "no 1 defense" and shows that there wasn't much separation defensively between those 7 teams. Just some squads matchuped better against others and that created these small differences, but it's not justified to talk about defensive anchors in such context, at least not in the same meaning as we are using when talk about defensive anchors from NBA.

*
So it's quite possible Erving's defensive impact in the ABA was bigger than in the NBA, but not because he was better, but because his defensive competition was weaker. And in such environment his athleticism was enough to make a difference on D, but in the NBA, with more bigger players, his defensive flaws were badly exposed. And that's the thing we can't ignore when we talk about 1976.

ABA won more head to head games against the NBA

Less teams with lesser total players creates a talent equalization. When you have a smaller league the most talented players are still going to make the league. The players that won't be in the league are the boarderline pros, aka the scrubs. Again if we have no problem with Wilt and Russell's accomplishments in a smaller and more condensed league then we should be accepting Erving's as well.

[mischievous]

Just in case you need a reminder of how dominant Dirk truly was:

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/tktg1wtY4pU[/YouTube]

Definitely an amazing performance I'll grant you that. But if you want to pull up one game,

Just in case you need a reminder of how dominant Wade was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VInX0JKUPtI

This is despite dealing with back issues. And this kills any myth of "Wade can't shoot" that gets spread around like wildfire.

[thizznation]

So it's quite possible Erving's defensive impact in the ABA was bigger than in the NBA, but not because he was better, but because his defensive competition was weaker. And in such environment his athleticism was enough to make a difference on D, but in the NBA, with more bigger players, his defensive flaws were badly exposed. And that's the thing we can't ignore when we talk about 1976.

Is it also quite possible that Erving experienced a physical decline that drastically reduced his defensive impact from 1976 to 1977, just as what happened to LeBron James from 09 to 10?

[thizznation]

If we only had defensive impact data from 2010 and not 2009, I wonder how people would rate LeBron's defensive impact in 09. If we apply the same logic could it be argued that LeBron was just playing passing lanes and stumbling upon blocks and rebounds with no real defensive impact?

[theonlyclutch]

So it's quite possible Erving's defensive impact in the ABA was bigger than in the NBA, but not because he was better, but because his defensive competition was weaker. And in such environment his athleticism was enough to make a difference on D, but in the NBA, with more bigger players, his defensive flaws were badly exposed. And that's the thing we can't ignore when we talk about 1976.

Is it also quite possible that Erving experienced a physical decline that drastically reduced his defensive impact from 1976 to 1977, just as what happened to LeBron James from 09 to 10?

That's not what actually appeared to happen, only on-off DRTG supports this theory, RAPM has Lebron on a similar level of Defensive impact in both 09 and 10
DRAPM
2009: +2.8, +2.16
2010: +2.6, +2.39

It's more likely that lineup changes are what caused the decline in on-off DRTG impact, given that in 2010, a very old Shaq (not a great defender) and JJ Hickson (also a bad defender) was starting the majority of games, while Varejao (a very good defender) and big Z (an ok defender), came on the bench, this contrasts with 09, when Varejao started more, Ben Wallace and Z started the majority of games