1st ballot: Oscar Robertson '64Put simply he's the greatest offensive player of his generation, imo.
I've watched fair bit of game tape of him, and I've never been really blown away by any single plays; he's not flashy, and doesn't tend to amaze on a play-by-play basis the same way that some other greats 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. 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 who was a decent slasher, too; very very fine FT-shooter as well. 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 or passing out of a double-team; good at putting it someplace easy for teammate to catch and finish smoothly.
Led I think 4 or 5 consecutive #1 offenses, including the year I'm going with as his peak (admittedly none of them were on an all-time level, but still....).
Rebounding: 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 obv 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.
Here's HCA-adjusted WOWY data over his career (which is awfully darn impressive):
Code: Select all
Season G With G Without SRS With SRS Without SRS Diff
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1961 71 8 -2.44 -14.59 12.16
1962 83 1 1.16 -11.24 12.40
1964 89 1 3.72 0.38 3.35
1965 79 5 1.94 -1.33 3.27
1966 81 4 0.76 -5.11 5.86
1967 83 2 -0.10 -16.22 16.12
1968 65 17 1.98 -10.69 12.67
1969 79 3 -0.57 -7.42 6.85
1970 69 13 -1.28 -7.64 6.36
1971 95 1 12.80 -6.64 19.44
1972 75 18 12.07 7.07 5.10
1973 79 9 7.98 7.42 0.57
1974 86 12 7.84 7.83 0.01
I freely acknowledge the Durant is a completely average defender overall. But: 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?
3rd ballot: Julius Erving '76I've already backed him out a couple places, and I'm just not comfortable backing him out any further.
As much as we've been putting Erving's defense under the microscope and subjecting it to a lot of criticism and skepticism, I don't think the defensive impact of peak Erving is significantly below that of one of my other top candidates for this spot ('06 or '09 Wade), and is likely ABOVE that of '08 Paul (my other top candidate).
Meanwhile I think he's a marginally better pure scorer than Wade. I shudder to think what Erving might have been capable of with no hand-checking. The guy was just a monster finisher, and better mid-range shooter (at least short-mid range, like 10-18 feet) than he's getting credit for by some here. When comparing to Wade in particular, this isn't too much of a dividing line anyway; Wade's not exactly dynamite from the mid-range (especially in '06, he's actually still kinda poor from there at that stage of his career). Doctor's a marginally better FT-shooter, too.
Not quite the playmaker Wade is (even relative to positional expectations), but is a better rebounder (again: even with positional considerations).
Peak Erving scaled up in the playoffs, too.
Paul's a little more difficult to compare to (given positional/role differences). Ultimately, it's the fact that Paul's defense wasn't yet quite what it would become, and also some questions regarding lower than expected (based on box/advanced numbers) impact data, that compel me to leave Erving ahead for now.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
. 
just something I was pondering to myself while skimming the last couple of pages.)
