Peak Project #15

mischievous · Post #41 » by **mischievous** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 10:02 pm

E-Balla wrote:Trex mind me submitting a vote this go around?

I finally complied a way to sort players by separating and comparing like positions and roles. So here's my field right now:

PGs:
1. 63 Oscar Robertson
2. 08 Chris Paul
3. 66 Jerry West
4/5/6. 05 Nash/15 Curry/96 Penny (in order of who I'm leaning towards)

Wings:
1/2. 03 T-Mac/09 Wade
3. 06 Kobe Bryant
4. 14 Kevin Durant
5. 61 Elgin Baylor

Bigs:
1/2/3. 11 Dirk/90 Pat/83 Moses (in order of who I'm leaning towards)
4. 90 Charles Barkley
5. 11 Dwight/98 Karl/00 Zo (again, in order)

My nominations will be:
1. 63 Oscar Robertson
2. 03 Tracy McGrady
3. 09 Dwyane Wade

Reasoning coming later.

Id like to hear your take on Wade vs tmac.

E-Balla · Post #42 » by **E-Balla** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 10:49 pm

Reasoning time:

63 Oscar - He's first here mainly because he's offensively at the GOAT level with Nash and Magic but unlike both Nash and Magic (at least as Magic got older) he isn't a net negative defensively and I have actually read quite often that his defense was underrated (personally I've seen a lot more games from his Buck years but he didn't stand out on either end of the floor to me). In 63 Oscar led a team with Wayne Embry (all star player with a great basketball IQ but mediocre physically and skillwise), Jack Twyman (very good player that fell off quickly and was on his last legs this season and a bad defender), Bucky Bockhorn (out of the league by 65 - terrible on both ends but started somehow and played a lot), Bob Boozer (nowhere near the all star player he grew into but decent), Tom Hawkins (meh player that went from shooting 41% with Jerry West in LA to shooting 47% in Cinci), and a bunch of scrubs. The year prior to 63 when Oscar averaged a triple double, and Embry/Twyman were playing at higher levels the Royals had one of the best offenses ever (by standard deviation to adjust for how few teams their were). The 62 Royals were +3 over the next best offense which is something we've only seen a few times in league history. So now think of a team focusing more on defense (because they didn't care about defense in 62 and it got them nowhere)... He led that team to a +4 offense (best in the league), 42 wins, and 7 games vs the 58-22 Celtics. Now 62 or 64 would be my season for Oscar if not for his numbers against the Celtics and their amazing defense and his will to take them to 7.

http://michaelhamel.net/boxtop/russell/Celtics1963.htm#Game81

So you have Oscar averaging 33.4/12.4/8.5 (only in the games in Boston as Cincy didn't have their stadium for a circus and I guess no one took that stat) on 58.1 TS% against the Celtics in their best defensive season of that era (by standard deviations that 63 Celtics team is actually only worse than the 84 Bucks and 93 Knicks defensively when including the playoffs). The reason this is spectacular is not that Oscar individually dominated (although that is special) but because his team performed amazingly offensively. In that series I calculated there were 878.9 possessions. Boston scored 867 giving them a 98.6 ORTG - which is +0.2 and +5.2 over their expected ORTG and Cincy scored 828 giving them a 94.2 ORTG - which is +6.8 and +0.8 over their expected ORTG. For comparison's sake the 63 Lakers (with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor averaging a combined 63.3 PPG) only managed a 93.8 (+6.4) ORTG against Boston.

mischievous wrote:
E-Balla wrote:Trex mind me submitting a vote this go around?

I finally complied a way to sort players by separating and comparing like positions and roles. So here's my field right now:

PGs:
1. 63 Oscar Robertson
2. 08 Chris Paul
3. 66 Jerry West
4/5/6. 05 Nash/15 Curry/96 Penny (in order of who I'm leaning towards)

Wings:
1/2. 03 T-Mac/09 Wade
3. 06 Kobe Bryant
4. 14 Kevin Durant
5. 61 Elgin Baylor

Bigs:
1/2/3. 11 Dirk/90 Pat/83 Moses (in order of who I'm leaning towards)
4. 90 Charles Barkley
5. 11 Dwight/98 Karl/00 Zo (again, in order)

My nominations will be:
1. 63 Oscar Robertson
2. 03 Tracy McGrady
3. 09 Dwyane Wade

Reasoning coming later.

Id like to hear your take on Wade vs tmac.

This will also serve as my reasoning. First off I'm a major Wade fan and this was almost too close to call it. Both of these guys were on terrible teams and they both carried their squads. The on/off numbers (hilariously both had a +3.2 on court point differential per 100) and raw numbers for these two are damn near identical with Tracy being considerably more efficient than Wade and Wade having more volume and probably being the better defender. It's both of their 6th seasons and they both lost 7 game series where they played sub-par (bad seems too strong for some of these games) in 3 of their 4 losses.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&y1=2003&p1=mcgratr01&y2=2009&p2=wadedw01&p3=&p4=&p5=&p6=

Just look at that and it's hard to separate the two. Here's where Tracy takes the edge though IMO - his ability play/guard multiple positions. Yes Wade could play anything from 1-3 easily and be one of the best in the league at it but T-Mac could also play and guard the 4. In Toronto Tracy averaged 8 rebounds and 2 blocks per 36 (with career highs of 9 rebounds and 2.2 blocks as a first and second year player). In Houston he once guarded (read: locked down - Dirk averaged 21.3 ppg on 47.6 TS% and 35% shooting from the field) Dirk Nowitzki in a playoff series and it allowed Houston to go small (of the 10 most common lineups in that series the 9 with Tracy all have only one other big on the floor), exploit Dallas' perimeter defense (Houston shot 40% from deep and the Mavs had the number one 3 point defense in the league by FG%), and force Dampier, who was the only player that could check Yao on the Dallas roster, off the floor. The only reason Dallas still won was that Houston's defense was giving out freethrows and outside of Dirk Dallas shot 45% from deep. The most impressive part of all of this is that Tracy still managed to dominate offensively while locking down Dirk.

Overall I don't think there's much difference between the two so I really looked for anything. Someone might take Wade because he's a proven thing in the playoffs and he played 4 more games.

JordansBulls · Post #43 » by **JordansBulls** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 10:54 pm

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: Charles Barkley 1993 - Dominant season and playoffs, led team to the best record his best overall season and a true mvp player in a league with 3 players with super mvp qualities.

Senior · Post #44 » by **Senior** » Tue Sep 29, 2015 10:57 pm

urnoggin wrote:Why I think ’08 Kobe > ’08 Paul:

I'd also like to add that the difference in supporting casts between the two was basically a wash. Sometimes people make it look like Paul carried garbage while Kobe had yet another stacked team.

Kobe had the better coach, and probably the best player in Pau on his side. However, Pau only played 26 games (really 27 but he played 2 minutes in 1 game after getting injured). Bynum only played 35 games, and all 35 before Pau arrived. Odom and Fisher were healthy the entire season.

Compare that to Paul - where the other four Hornets starters (Chandler/West/Peja/Mo Pete) all played 75+ games each. They had much more stability than the Lakers, who started Vlad Rad/Ariza/Luke Walton at SF and Kwame/Bynum/Pau at center. West averaged 21/9, Chandler had 12/12, Peja threw in 16 ppg on 44% from 3. That's not too shabby from your top three supporting cast members and definitely on par with what Pau and Odom brought.

For what it's worth, even though LA finished at 57-25 and NO at 56-26, LA looked to be the better team at 7.34 SRS and NO at 5.46. After the Pau trade the Lakers went 27-9, but Pau missed some games. With Pau, the Lakers were 22-4 (not counting the game Pau played 2 minutes in) which is a 69 win pace. They were pushing 9-10 SRS and 120 ORTG which is pretty ridiculous. This continued throughout the Western playoffs where the Lakers went 12-3, but then they ran into that all-time defense. The 09 Lakers dominated the league and won a title at 65-17, so it's not like this level of performance with Pau was a fluke.

You hit the nail on the head with how I felt about both guys' defense - Paul probably gave more consistent effort play to play, but Kobe had better capability of being an elite defender (experience/technique, height/length, etc). Both guys were part of defenses that were essentially the same caliber.

Narigo · Post #45 » by **Narigo** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 1:41 am

1. 1964 Oscar Robertson
Best offensive player availiable so far. He can score in multiple different ways. He can score off-ball, post up, drive to the basket, mid range, and in transition. He can also play the pick and roll effectively.

2. 2014 Kevin Durant
Great volume scorer who great at driving to basket and shoot from anywhere on the floor. He improved his ballhanding and playmaking skills in 2013. With Westbrook missing some time in 2014, Durant can be effective playing the point forward role.

3. 2009 Wade
One of the best slashers ever and also was a good perimeter defender.

Post #46 » by **Quotatious** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 1:56 am

E-Balla wrote:
Quotatious wrote:
RebelWithACause wrote:Yeah, hardly productive because the DrJ crew wasn't really able to counter anything that he was critiqued of.

It's funny because I could say the same thing about the anti-Dr J crew - all you guys did was talk about his NBA career, and draw conclusions based on that, when things could be different in his '76 season. I understand that we don't have the same data for his '76 ABA season, but for this exact reason, I don't see why anyone would speak with the kind of conviction you did, that he was supposedly the same player in '77 as he was in '76, but his competition was just stronger in '77 so he looked worse impact and stats wise. I'm still not buying that argument. Well, none of us should speak with conviction (no matter which side each person is on) about his '76 season as none of us saw a lot of footage of his game from that season.

RebelWithACause wrote:We even had scouting reports like yours, calling him the defensive anchor with great help D and initimidation factor, when Spaceman and I both said we hardly ever saw someone with such a bad off-ball focus, not in the right place, with bad man to man defense.

I got the same impression when I watched the '77 finals (I mean bad man to man defense), but his help D was somewhere between very good to great in that series, so he was still at least average defensively, overall, but again - this is based on something that happened a year after the season we all considered his peak ('76), and considering that defensive effort from superstars tends to vary far more than their offensive output, from one season to another (look at Shaq or Kobe, for example), and you really can't judge it if you didn't watch a player on a consistent basis (we can rely on stats to evaluate offense to a FAR greater degree than we can rely on them to evaluate defense, I think we'll agree about that).

I don't agree here at all the Dr. J was a good defender in 76. Average is more like it. He wasn't even seen as a good defender back then...

That's not true. He made the All-Defensive 1st team in '76, for the only time in his career...That's a reason to believe that he was a major impact defender that year (especially combined with the fact that his team had the best defense in the league, without a defensive specialist bigman - the Nets' best defenders were Erving and Brian Taylor, who was a 6'2'' guard).

eminence · Post #47 » by **eminence** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:59 am

Whoo, discussion kind of just died right there.

Don't have any huge two-way impact players left on the board to me (Moses/Ewing are close), so I'm focusing mainly on the offensive side of the ball and guys I feel could carry great offense. Leaning towards individual scoring, but need at least some degree of play making as well.

1st Ballot: Stephen Curry 14-15 We've been over it before, but one more time, his numbers are great - high scoring, high assisting, elite efficiency, and add on to that he may have more offball impact than any perimeter player in the history of the game?

2nd Ballot: Dwyane Wade 08-09 Won the shooting guard debate for me (with Kobe/Tmac) due to a bit superior playmaking, also think he was the best defender of the lot.

3rd Ballot: Chris Paul 07-08 Waver back and forth on this one, Nash/Dirk/Kobe/Tmac/West/Durant/Oscar/Moses/Ewing all seem pretty close.

Wade4life3 · Post #48 » by **Wade4life3** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 1:54 pm

1st Ballot: Wade in 2009, Came back from a very serious injury and people thought he was over. Showed exceptional ability to dominate on both ends of the floor , First 6'4 or under player to ever record 2000 pts 500 assists 100 blks and 200 steals in a season. 30.4 PER. Unbelievable 13 game stretch which is among the best in NBA history on both ends of the floor and incredibly efficiency.

2nd Ballot: Wade in 2006, Showed the ability to dominate opponents in offence and defense. Absolutely destroyed the best defensive and offensive teams that year( Detroit and Dallas) almost single handedly. Highest PER in NBA finals history. Amazing ability to take over the games when required.

3rd Ballot: CP3 2008, Brilliant turn around for the team from a year ago and he was an offensive machine for a team which was not as talented as he made it seem.

MyUniBroDavis · Post #49 » by **MyUniBroDavis** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:53 pm

Quotatious wrote:My votes are pretty much wide-open again. It's not a given that I'll vote for Wade and CP3 here, as I did earlier. Concerns about CP3's defense in '08 are pretty legitimate, but his offense was still good enough that it may warrant a vote here.

Oscar is a pretty good pick here. I'll strongly consider voting for him. For West, as much as I like him, I think it's too early. Wade was able to get basically identical stats as West did on far slower pace, and playing against much better perimeter defenders. Same is true for T-Mac. I have West around the same level as Kobe, and Bryant is definitely below Wade and McGrady in terms of peak, to me.

Moses and Ewing are two guys I'll strongly consider here, too.

How about Barkley and Karl Malone, guys? I haven't seen anyone mentioning them yet, but they may be worth looking at, at this point in the project.

Oh, and getting back to CP3 for a moment - how about '15 as his peak? I think a case can definitely be made, and it's definitely his best season as a Clipper.

I recall that in a 100 game sample, according to dipper, Barkley shot 81% at the rim on a sizable percentage, 71/236 outside of the rim but in the paint, and above 40% from mid range,
And this was a season where his fg% was 7% lower than at his "peak"
I remember that in this study, his points per possession on post ups dwarfed even Hakeem's, and this was a 100 game sample.
As an 2 point scorer, he really was in his own class. His fg% at the rim might have been better than even shaq at their peaks.

Everyone knows about his rebounding. His offensive rebounding at times compared to even rodman, and not only that, but from a quick glance, in the playoffs, he seemed to blow rodman away in rebounding.

Using the 89-90 season, in the playoffs, he averaged 6.6 offensive rebounds, the only time rodman beat that, in the playoffs, was when he played only 3 games. Overall, his numbers far surpass Rodmans in terms of rebounding in the playoffs.

The team was 6-10 without him in 91. 39-28 with him.

He was just an offensive monster in everyway. Offensively, for his position definitely, up there with those mentioned so far, defensive is the only question, but I believe he was passable in that area, despite his obvious height limitations.

I'm not sure if he should get a ballot now, but definitely coming soon.
In offensive box plus, it looks like his numbers stack favorably to anyone. Defense is a question though, but they were still positive.

In a few ramp studies I saw, Barkley was on another level on offense, better than shaq even, despite it being in 1998.

If his defensive impact even approached positive. I shudder to think what peak Barkely's rapm numbers would look like. Imo, it seems like while big men have the advantage over little ,en on terms of overall impact, they seem to have less impact than the pinnacle of the perimeter guys on offense.

That does not seem to be the case at all with Barkley, though, I guess he isn't exactly a big man lol

Owly · Post #50 » by **Owly** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 5:03 pm

Quotatious wrote:
E-Balla wrote:
Quotatious wrote:It's funny because I could say the same thing about the anti-Dr J crew - all you guys did was talk about his NBA career, and draw conclusions based on that, when things could be different in his '76 season. I understand that we don't have the same data for his '76 ABA season, but for this exact reason, I don't see why anyone would speak with the kind of conviction you did, that he was supposedly the same player in '77 as he was in '76, but his competition was just stronger in '77 so he looked worse impact and stats wise. I'm still not buying that argument. Well, none of us should speak with conviction (no matter which side each person is on) about his '76 season as none of us saw a lot of footage of his game from that season.

I got the same impression when I watched the '77 finals (I mean bad man to man defense), but his help D was somewhere between very good to great in that series, so he was still at least average defensively, overall, but again - this is based on something that happened a year after the season we all considered his peak ('76), and considering that defensive effort from superstars tends to vary far more than their offensive output, from one season to another (look at Shaq or Kobe, for example), and you really can't judge it if you didn't watch a player on a consistent basis (we can rely on stats to evaluate offense to a FAR greater degree than we can rely on them to evaluate defense, I think we'll agree about that).

I don't agree here at all the Dr. J was a good defender in 76. Average is more like it. He wasn't even seen as a good defender back then...

That's not true. He made the All-Defensive 1st team in '76, for the only time in his career...That's a reason to believe that he was a major impact defender that year (especially combined with the fact that his team had the best defense in the league, without a defensive specialist bigman - the Nets' best defenders were Erving and Brian Taylor, who was a 6'2'' guard).

To be fair Taylor was a 6'2 guard who was ABA all-D in '75, ABA all-D is '76 and NBA all-D second team in '77 (and Kim Hughes was stuffing the defensive boxscore, per-minute, at a similar rate to Erving etc), so whilst not a big and they have more impact, Taylor isn't nothing (not that you were necessarily saying he was, just that "without a specialist big", along with Taylor's height could be read as "so Erving deserve's the lion's share of the credit"). I don't know where to stand on Erving's D (and how to reconcile enormous boxscore productivity and the All-D ABA and good team defense with a less than stellar, to put it generously, reputation on D in his first few NBA years -- though for a peaks project you have to lean towards the evidence of that year), so it's not about that, but Taylor's accolades aren't nothing (wandering off topic I thought he might have been picked in our non-All star draft with his shooting, D and solid or better metrics for his first NBA year).

Dr Positivity · Post #51 » by **Dr Positivity** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:45 pm

Same top 3 as last thread

Ballot 1: Stephen Curry 2015

Ballot 2: Patrick Ewing 1990

Ballot 3: Oscar Robertson 1964

Dr Positivity · Post #52 » by **Dr Positivity** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:50 pm

From last thread

bastillon wrote:
Dr Positivity wrote:Ballot 1 - Stephen Curry 2015

Ballot 2 - Patrick Ewing 1990

Ballot 3 - Oscar Robertson 1964

Voted Curry and Ewing last thread. With Oscar it was between, Paul and Dirk for me. Although I know slightly less what I'm getting with Oscar vs modern competition his stats and impact is too dominant

Curry over Nash? I'd say Curry had some really rough stretches in the playoffs, didn't he? I've never seen Nash being contained in a playoff series. I understand that Curry's a better defender, but this is of marginal significance when one of them lacks consistency in the playoffs.

His playoff stats are still pretty great (28/6/5 on .61 TS%/114 ORTG)

I prefer Curry on both ends. He's an entirely different level as a scorer and I value his floor spacing more, both because he's even crazier as a shooter and he plays off ball more than Nash.

Nash run of top ranked ORTGs is impressive but he had very offensive friendly group of rosters and coaches. I am as impressed by Golden State 2nd ORTG last year as any of Nash's team results on that end. Outside of Klay I do not see GSW supporting cast as that great offensively. With that said they did have an offensive style of play which may have depressed their DRTG and masked how ridiculous their talent on the defensive end is

Post #53 » by **Clyde Frazier** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:50 pm

Ballot #1 - 64 Oscar
Ballot #2 - 66 West
Ballot #3 - 09 Dirk

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Ballot #1 - 64 Oscar

Oscar's 64 season was very impressive on a number of levels:

RS: 31.4 PPG, 9.9 RPG, 11 APG, 48.3% FG, 85.3% FT (league leading on 11.9 FTAs per game), 57.6% TS (+9.1% vs. league avg), .278 WS/48

PS: 29.3 PPG, 8.9 RPG, 8.4 APG, 45.5% FG, 85.8% FT (12.7 FTAs per game), 56.8% TS, .245 WS/48

The royals ranked 2nd in SRS that season, losing in the playoffs to the #1 ranked SRS and eventual champion celtics. While his raw averages can certainly be attributed to the fast paced play during that era, his overall efficiency and ability to get to the line at will is pretty staggering.

Oscar's playoff #s do drop slightly across the board, but there's nothing there to suggest that he struggled. His best teammate Jerry Lucas had a serious drop off in scoring and efficiency come playoff time (17.7 PPG on 57.8% TS in RS vs. 12.2 PPG on 43.8% TS in PS). That very well could've been the difference in the series.

63-64 was his 4th season, so the below footage should be able to capture his style of play at the time:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0-Iz6fQRAE[/youtube]

[Yeah... I could do without the music]

What stands out to me is his precision when he makes his moves as well as his strength when he gets inside. Reminds me of west, too, although he wasn't quite as powerful.

Oscar would win also win MVP that season in dominating fashion. Via NY Times:

Oscar Robertson, the Cincinnati Royals' talented back‐court man, yesterday was voted the President's Trophy, the National Basketball Association's most valuable player award, by the biggest margin on record.

The voting is by N.B.A. players, with the restriction that they cannot vote for members of their own teams. Robertson received 60 of a possible 85 first‐place votes. In the point scoring on a 5, 3, 1 basis, Robertson received a total of 362 points, a record.

Wilt Chamberlain of San Francisco, who won the trophy as a rookie in 1960, placed second in the voting with 19 firstplace votes and 215 points. Bill Russell of Boston, the winner for the last three years, was third with 11 firsts and 167 points.

Ballot #2 - 66 West

Going with West here sort of in the same vein as magic / bird putting him after oscar. West was a master volume scorer on great efficiency (especially for his era), not to mention an excellent playmaker, falling somewhere between a PG and SG throughout his career.

RS: 31.3 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 6.1 APG, 47.3% FG, 86% FT (12.4 FTAs per game), 57.3% TS (+8.6% vs. league avg), .256 WS/48

PS: 34.2 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 5.6 APG, 51.8% TS, 87.2% FT, 58.1% TS, .237 WS/48

He had the poor luck of coming up during the russell celtics era, losing to them several times in the finals. He would lead the lakers to the finals in 66, again losing in game 7 by 2 to the celtics in heart breaking fashion. This would come after putting up 33.9 PPG, 6.4 RPG and 5.1 APG on 51.5% from the field and 87.1% from the line in the series.

Oscar and West may be the 2 most complete players left on the board. And purely as a fan, I think they'd really thrive in today's game, and it would be a pleasure to watch.

1966 Finals Highlights

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf0F9QupxFY[/youtube]

Ballot #3 - 09 Dirk

May re-evaluate this selection in the next thread, but for now, I feel good about Dirk here. A quick summary of why I consider 09 his peak as opposed to 06, 07 or 2011:

While Dirk took way too much heat for the 07 first round exit against the warriors (the average fan refused to acknowledge that former mavs coach don nelson knew avery’s game plan to a T), he nonetheless struggled in the series. Smaller defenders like stephen jackson and al harrington were able to irritate him and force him into taking bad shots. This included taking 3s as an out as opposed to a strength.

Over the next few seasons, Dirk further improved his footwork and high post play, and got to a point as if the defender was invisible. He was much more patient, took his time and went into a series of moves that left smaller defenders helpless. Dirk was also still quick enough to blow by bigger defenders as he brought them out of the paint. This is on top of his already elite pick and roll / pop game.

You can see this in full force in game 4 against the nuggets in 09:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnAgZzaKE2o[/youtube]

He put up 44 pts on 25 shots (67.7% TS) in that game.

I like 09 dirk over 2011 because he was a better rebounder and defender, and just as good offensively. The main reason he didn’t advance further in the playoffs from 08-10 was a lack of teammate support. They had some abysmal shooting series, yet dirk was stellar. In the 09 playoffs, he put up 26.8 PPG, 10.1 RPG, 3.1 APG, .9 SPG, .8 BPG on 63.4% TS along with a 126 ORTG and .238 WS/48. Smaller sample, but even better production than 2011.

If it does come down to one of those other years, it’s easily 2011 to me. He was a more refined player, even being less athletic than earlier years. He was pretty much unstoppable offensively, and still adequate defensively.

Oh, and I know the below game winner is from 2012, but it kinda epitomizes the whole patience thing, combined with the fact that he might be the only player in the league able to get that shot off. Just unreal.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNMQ9-1ZBJ0[/youtube]

thizznation · Post #54 » by **thizznation** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 7:36 pm

1. 1964 Oscar Robertson
2. 2006 Dwayne Wade
3. 2015 Steph Curry

I went with 2006 over 2009 Wade because of his style of play. Wade's scoring was up a little in the regular season of 2009 compared to 2006, but he picked that up by mostly by attempting 3x the amount of 3 pointers while shooting it at 32%. I don't like this style change very much, I would rather have a younger Wade that is slashing more rather than an older Wade shooting more 3 pointers on poor percentages.

If you add the stats of the regular season and the post season of 2006 they stack right up with 2009 and have even more weight because he accumulated a large portion while going deep into the playoffs.

Djoker · Post #55 » by **Djoker** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:09 pm

I really think 1983 Moses Malone should be getting major love here. All-time great team that was on 70+ win pace through two thirds of the season, 26/16 on >50% in the playoffs + great defense. He had tremendous impact. I think he gets underrated because people see him as one-dimensional.

Dr Spaceman · Post #56 » by **Dr Spaceman** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:23 pm

Clyde Frazier wrote:
Spoiler:
Ballot #3 - 09 Dirk

May re-evaluate this selection in the next thread, but for now, I feel good about Dirk here. A quick summary of why I consider 09 his peak as opposed to 06, 07 or 2011:

While Dirk took way too much heat for the 07 first round exit against the warriors (the average fan refused to acknowledge that former mavs coach don nelson knew avery’s game plan to a T), he nonetheless struggled in the series. Smaller defenders like stephen jackson and al harrington were able to irritate him and force him into taking bad shots. This included taking 3s as an out as opposed to a strength.

Over the next few seasons, Dirk further improved his footwork and high post play, and got to a point as if the defender was invisible. He was much more patient, took his time and went into a series of moves that left smaller defenders helpless. Dirk was also still quick enough to blow by bigger defenders as he brought them out of the paint. This is on top of his already elite pick and roll / pop game.

You can see this in full force in game 4 against the nuggets in 09:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnAgZzaKE2o[/youtube]

He put up 44 pts on 25 shots (67.7% TS) in that game.

I like 09 dirk over 2011 because he was a better rebounder and defender, and just as good offensively. The main reason he didn’t advance further in the playoffs from 08-10 was a lack of teammate support. They had some abysmal shooting series, yet dirk was stellar. In the 09 playoffs, he put up 26.8 PPG, 10.1 RPG, 3.1 APG, .9 SPG, .8 BPG on 63.4% TS along with a 126 ORTG and .238 WS/48. Smaller sample, but even better production than 2011.

If it does come down to one of those other years, it’s easily 2011 to me. He was a more refined player, even being less athletic than earlier years. He was pretty much unstoppable offensively, and still adequate defensively.

Oh, and I know the below game winner is from 2012, but it kinda epitomizes the whole patience thing, combined with the fact that he might be the only player in the league able to get that shot off. Just unreal.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNMQ9-1ZBJ0[/youtube]

Did you see the post-up numbers fpliii posted in the #14 thread? Would it sway your opinion at all if he were a far more effective post scorer in 2011?

Also thanks for the Oscar video.

eminence · Post #57 » by **eminence** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:30 pm

Dr Positivity wrote:Same top 3 as last thread

Ballot 1: Stephen Curry 2015

Ballot 2: Patrick Ewing 1990

Ballot 3: Oscar Robertson 1964

Would you mind expanding a bit on your Ewing pick? I want to compare him a bit to Moses, but wasn't planning on doing it for a round or two more of voting (throw in Howard/Gilmore or any other bigs as you see fit as well).

Dr Positivity · Post #58 » by **Dr Positivity** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 11:40 pm

eminence wrote:
Dr Positivity wrote:Same top 3 as last thread

Ballot 1: Stephen Curry 2015

Ballot 2: Patrick Ewing 1990

Ballot 3: Oscar Robertson 1964

Would you mind expanding a bit on your Ewing pick? I want to compare him a bit to Moses, but wasn't planning on doing it for a round or two more of voting (throw in Howard/Gilmore or any other bigs as you see fit as well).

To me the argument for Ewing is similar to why Duncan/Hakeem/Robinson got in over offensive mega powers like Oscar and Curry just slightly worse. Fair to say Ewing is a true defensive anchor at 4 blocks per game and although the Knicks DRTG was ok (12th) Ewing was anchoring the Riley era defense 2 years later, and was known as a potentially generational defender going back to his college days, so I'm fairly confident that 1990 Ewing's difference from them in team results is probably the context around him. Ewing was in his 5th season after 4 college years which is deep enough to make the "2015 Anthony Davis effect" who is blocking lots of shots, but for experience reasons, appears to not have it as impactful yet, less likely. Ewing is at same stage of his career as Tim Duncan in 2002 who also played 4 years in college.

As for his offense first off it's hard to ignore the scoring numbers at 28.9pts (26.7 per 36) on .599 TS%. Although he's not at Hakeem and KG's level in terms of passing the skill eye test, he can do things in the post and he has a long midrange jumper. I feel Ewing from a "space creating" perspective is likely to have been spacing the floor well with his midrange jumper while also doing enough in the post to draw double teams. When added to the raw scoring numbers that's a pretty awesome offensive player. Here is a clip showing a fairly well rounded game

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpGhKRKlPHs[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwCjvAQyHjM[/youtube]

I am more impressed by Ewing's polish level in the post and shooting range than I am Robinson. He is not close to DRob's level of physical domination though.

A weakness of Ewing's stats is passing. He averages 2.1 assists per 36 minutes. However notably it's harder to get assists on a team with as little offensive talent as Ewing had in his tenure in NY. I am not saying he's Duncan or Shaq but if you surrounded him with outside shooters and ran an inside out game he may have upped those passing numbers. In both of the clips above there are some surprisingly adept passes.

Overall I just find Ewing to be underrated because of the value of a top 10 all time defensive anchor who had a very, very good offensive career. I've thought of for while Ewing should be above players like Moses and Barkley on the ATL because if you asked me who's career I'd rather draft to start a team around, I am taking the defensive center and good offensive player in Ewing, than the defensive concerns I've had with Moses and Barkley, to say nothing of Barkley's personality vs Ewing's. I'd rather have Ewing to start a team over Barkley all day. Ewing did not get handed the best card in the deck in terms of his supporting cast in NY (an imbalanced team) and still got them to within 1 game of a title that would've been just as impressive if not moreso as 1994 Rockets, 2003 Spurs or 2011 Mavericks in terms of the gap between a star and his supporting cast's talent. To me Ewing is possibly the player who's all time rank improves the most if you change the result of a single game

Post #59 » by **trex_8063** » Thu Oct 1, 2015 1:35 am

I apologize for being mostly inactive in this one guys. Been a busy couple days, and today was a godawful nightmare causing me to want to drown memory of it with rye & diet coke, rather than formulate some thoughts and arguments. I'm interested in breaking down Barkley vs. Malone (vs. Dirk); maybe will do it in the next thread, as they'll all start becoming increasingly more relevant.

And although I'm not ready to cast any ballots Ewing's way, I'm not exactly against it either. I don't have the impression that he's TOO far behind guys like Hakeem and Robinson at his peak, so.....

Anyway, thru post #58:

Oscar Robertson - 24
Stephen Curry - 19
Dwyane Wade - 16
Jerry West - 7
Chris Paul - 5
Dirk Nowitzki - 5
Kevin Durant - 4
Tracy McGrady - 3
Patrick Ewing - 2
Moses Malone - 2
Kobe Bryant - 1
Charles Barkley - 1

Dr Spaceman wrote:.

fwiw Spaceman, I cast your 3rd ballot vote for Jerry West in the above totals, as that's who you cast it for last thread and you stated you were leaning toward him again. If you want to change that, reply to this and update your original ballot post.

PaulieWal wrote:.

You did not cast a 3rd ballot (which makes me a touch nervous when officiating such close results); reply to this with your pick and update your original ballot post or I'll leave your 3rd ballot blank.

I'm going to leave this thread up for about another hour, and then I'll call a winner and we'll move on.

SideshowBob · Post #60 » by **SideshowBob** » Thu Oct 1, 2015 1:56 am

Ballot

15. Wade 09 +6.25 (+5.00 O/+1.25 D)

16. Curry 15 +6.25 (+6.25 O/+0.00 D)

17. West 68 +6.75 (+5.75 O/+1.00 D)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Curry

Spoiler:

Curry vs. Wade

Spoiler:

Not going to get into West too much yet, because I'm on the fence with Dirk/Barkley/Oscar at that spot as well.

Apologies for lack of discussion in the last few threads, been caught up with CFA studying, but I'll try to break down my thoughts on the next few guys as the weekend approaches.