Peaks Project #33

[Dr Positivity]

Ballot 1 - Bob McAdoo 1975
Ballot 2 - Scottie Pippen 1994
Ballot 3 - James Harden 2015

I have concerns about James Harden lack of portability, even just playing him with Lawson or Lin appears to make his game fit less, let alone another superstar, but I rectify it by saying I treat him like he's a PG. Building around him is like building a PG like Paul or Westbrook

McAdoo, well I can't say he blows me away on the eye test but at a certain point dominant numbers are hard to ignore. He led the league in scoring (and pts/36, so not just because of minutes) while being 5th in TS%. As a modern comparison Durant in 2014 was leading scorer and 3rd in TS% while 2014 Kevin Love (probably one of the most similar to his style of play) was 4th in ppg and 20th in TS%. He is a floor spacing big man making his offensive game even more valuable than the scoring numbers. He was 4th in rebounds per game. McAdoo's team was pretty good at 49 Ws and taking the best record in the NBA (Bullets) to 7 in Round 1 without much else in recognizable talent in his supporting cast. He cruised to 1st place in both Win Shares and MVP voting. I understand some reasons people aren't the most excited about him but at #33 I think he is a good choice. This is a dominant offensive year statistically and a case can be made it should be more considered a peer of Barkley, Karl and Moses peaks than we tend to give it

[Quotatious]

Ballot #1 - Artis Gilmore '75
Ballot #2 - James Harden '15
Ballot #3 - Connie Hawkins '68

Already explained my Gilmore and Harden picks earlier. My third vote came down to Baylor, Hawkins and McAdoo, and it was close, but Connie's numbers are just amazing, and his scoring efficiency was basically second to none in that era. Yes, he played in a relatively weak league, but he easily rivaled Wilt, Oscar and West as the most efficient scorer in basketball that year - honestly, I think Hawkins was the best scorer in pro basketball that year. He averaged 30 ppg on over 59% from the field, and 65% TS in the playoffs, going to the line over 12 times per game - that's historically great performance. Also had 30 PER and 31 WS/48. Weak league or not, things like that happen maybe once or twice a decade. That's utter dominance, especially coupled with the fact that he led his team to the title.

Connie's advantage over Baylor in terms of scoring efficiency is just huge. That's what made me pick Hawkins.
Hawkins over McAdoo is a really difficult decision, as well, but Connie played better in the postseason (Bob was excellent, averaged over 37 ppg on decent efficiency against the Unseld/Hayes Bullets, but Connie was all-time great).

[Dr Positivity]

My problem with Connie Hawkins is as I understand it while by the mid 70s the ABA had caught up to the NBA, late 60s ABA is a lot less comparable as valid competition. I can't take those numbers at face value as if they happened in the NBA at the time. For example Rick Barry was 1st in the ABA in TS% in 69 which was a far cry from the Kobe-esque efficiency at best of the rest of his career (67 was one of his best efficiency years in the NBA, but still +.038 TS% compared to +.113 in 69). Another example just looking at it, Cliff Hagan had a much better statistical year in 68 ABA than 66 NBA, despite the age factor (he was 35 when he left the NBA). Looking at Hawkins stats vs eg. Blake Griffin's peak who seems like a similar player, the difference is Hawkins efficiency for his league, but when considering cases like Barry's TS% shooting up in late 60s ABA, I don't trust ABA efficiency

[Quotatious]

My problem with Connie Hawkins is as I understand it while by the mid 70s the ABA had caught up to the NBA, late 60s ABA is a lot less comparable as valid competition. I can't take those numbers at face value as if they happened in the NBA at the time. For example Rick Barry was 1st in the ABA in TS% in 69 which was a far cry from the Kobe-esque efficiency at best of the rest of his career (67 was one of his best efficiency years in the NBA, but still +.038 TS% compared to +.113 in 69). Another example just looking at it, Cliff Hagan had a much better statistical year in 68 ABA than 66 NBA, despite the age factor (he was 35 when he left the NBA)

I already acknowledge that the early ABA was a relatively weak league, but that's the only reason why I don't have Hawkins in my top 25 in terms of peak. I mean - it's not just about him being the best player in that league in '68. It's about him just DOMINATING that league. He was about as unanimous of a #1 player in a league as you can imagine. Led the league in scoring, second in rebounds per game, third in assists per game, led the league in PER, led the league in WS by a just a HUGE margin (he had 17.9 win shares, second best player had 11.8 - in terms of WS/48, Hawkins had 27.3, second best player had 20.8), was named league MVP and All-ABA 1st team member, led his team to the best record in the league, and even improved his game in the playoffs, on his way to the title (had 30 PER, averaged 30 ppg on 65% TS and also had 31 WS/48 in the postseason, in 14 games - that's amazing dominance in any league).
He was like 1991 Michael Jordan or 2000 Shaquille O'Neal of that league (the fact that league was weak is the reason why we're not comparing him to Jordan, or even to '76 Erving). Really a man among boys. I think we really can't discount his accomplishments just because the league he played in was weak. It's not like he was playing against high school teenagers, he was still playing against pros, even if those were the lesser pros, compared to the NBA at that time. Actually, I'm wondering if the grain of salt that I'm taking him with, isn't already too big...He really has all the stats, accomplishments and reputation (when you listen to his contemporaries talk about him, they all have enormous respect for his game, and mention him as one of the great forwards ever) to be considered one of the great peaks of all-time.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #24
Artis Gilmore - 8
James Harden - 8
Bob McAdoo - 6
Elgin Baylor - 5
Russell Westbrook - 5
Bob Lanier - 3
Kevin McHale - 2
Bob Pettit - 2
Willis Reed - 2
Nate Thurmond - 2
Scottie Pippen - 2
Connie Hawkins - 1
Rick Barry - 1


WE ARE OFFICIALLY ENTERING A 24-HOUR RUN-OFF BETWEEN ARTIS GILMORE AND JAMES HARDEN.
I will change title to reflect this. If you did NOT cast a ballot for one or both of them, please state who you think peaked higher and why.

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[theonlyclutch]

Ballot 1 - Bob Mcadoo 1975
Ballot 2 - James Harden 2015
Ballot 3 - Kevin Love 2014

Dominant offensive year from Mcadoo, and Harden had a awesome year offensively on par with anything we have seen with Wade & Kobe.

I would like to make a case for Kevin Love coming up:
- one of only 4 players to average >26PPG, >12 RPG & 4 APG in the same season in the 3-point era
- +7.2 OBPM on par with Larry Bird at his peak, and better than any season of Karl Malone and Moses Malone
- The Wolves were +5.6 on-court with him, -5.3 without him, they were a 3.1 SRS team through the year, and were only out of the playoffs because of the absolute horrible performance of the guards, and awful clutch defense (not Kevin's fault)

The culprit here is Rubio. He has been an outright disaster. Using stats.NBA.com's tool and only for players with at least 10 of these games with three minutes per game, Rubio is ranked 151st in the league out of 155 by the NBA's all-in-one "PIE" metric. (Their equivalent of PER.) He has an effective field-goal percentage of 16.7 percent in these situations and a 31.9 TS% (the TS% is boosted by Rubio going to the line for intentional fouls.) Needless to say, 16.7 percent is awful. And their backup point guard, Barea, has been even worse with a 14.3 TS% and fewer assists than Rubio.

The offense, however, with Love shouldering a large burden with the wings Martin and Brewer shooting well, isn't the worst part. Their offensive rating with five minutes to go and within five points is only 99.1, according to stats.NBA.com, compared to their overall average of 104.7, but their defensive rating is 134.9, a ridiculous number, to put it simply. Of course, people love to blame the star for a team's defense, and not anyone else, but there's more at work here. Opponents shoot 45% from behind the arc compared to the season average of 36% -- it's hard to say that's all Kevin's fault here. If you want to blame Kevin's lack of rim protection, opponents are scoring 32 points in the paint per 48 minutes in the clutch; the season average for Minnesota opponents is 45. Ergo, the defense doesn't collapse from his inability to stop players inside. Another factor is that the opposing team is pulling down an obscenely high rate of offensive rebounds: 37.5% of all available boards. But, again, it's not Kevin at fault here: he pulls in an elite 26.6% of defensive rebounds. Pekovic (and Rubio) are the ones whose defensive rebound rates fall by almost half, and Dante Cunningham, who replaces Love when he's out sometimes, rebounds like a point guard when the game is close.

[trex_8063]

My problem with Connie Hawkins is as I understand it while by the mid 70s the ABA had caught up to the NBA, late 60s ABA is a lot less comparable as valid competition. I can't take those numbers at face value as if they happened in the NBA at the time. For example Rick Barry was 1st in the ABA in TS% in 69 which was a far cry from the Kobe-esque efficiency at best of the rest of his career (67 was one of his best efficiency years in the NBA, but still +.038 TS% compared to +.113 in 69). Another example just looking at it, Cliff Hagan had a much better statistical year in 68 ABA than 66 NBA, despite the age factor (he was 35 when he left the NBA). Looking at Hawkins stats vs eg. Blake Griffin's peak who seems like a similar player, the difference is Hawkins efficiency for his league, but when considering cases like Barry's TS% shooting up in late 60s ABA, I don't trust ABA efficiency

Although fwiw, Barry himself is becoming a valid candidate for many at this point (mostly going with '75, but some feel '67 is right there, too; late-60's version of Barry is definitely no joke). That in mind, I'm going to quote some passages of my prior post regarding Hawkins:

......I want everyone cognizant of the very real possibility (if not the likelihood) that he was even better before his knee injury.
If you don’t think the knee injury affected him, consider his scoring averages (it’s all that’s available on game log data of the time) in ‘69 before the injury: he was averaging 33.4 ppg pre-injury. In the 11 rs games AFTER coming back from injury: 19.9 ppg, followed by a significantly sub-standard (poor, actually) playoffs.....

.....In the ‘69 ABA season (marginally stronger than the ‘68 ABA, imo) there was also a presumably near-peak Rick Barry around for 35 games to compare to…..
‘69 Barry per 100 poss estimates: 36.0 pts, 9.95 reb, 4.1 ast @ +11.35% rTS
PER 29.6, .301 WS/48 in 38.9 mpg

**‘69 Hawkins per 100 poss estimates: 33.6 pts, 12.6 reb, 4.35 ast @ +8.25% rTS.
PER 29.7, .293 WS/48 in 39.4 mpg.
**this includes the aforementioned 11 games (11 of 47 total) AFTER coming back from the injury, btw. Given the scoring drop I already outlined, it’s safe to assume his pre-injury numbers were significantly better than what a near-peak Barry was doing. Frankly, he was probably a better player (before the injury) in '69 than he was in '68.

But '68 ends up being his peak year by default (because it's the only pre-injury season where he was healthy throughout).


And wrt '68, I'm going to quote another passage from my prior post:

Yes, the ABA of the late 60’s was not overly loaded with talent, as Clyde Frazier pointed out. It wasn’t total bush-league, either. Mel Daniels was there, and there were several other legitimately “good” (if not truly “All-Star level”) players around: Donnie Freeman, Louie Dampier, Larry Jones, Roger Brown, Doug Moe, John Beasley, etc.
And at any rate, Hawkins didn’t just distinguish himself in this crowd…….he utterly crushed them. He led the league handily in PER and WS/48, for instance, despite playing a league-leading 44.9 mpg. He had nearly twice as many OWS as the 2nd-place guy. He dominated that league to a degree that we haven’t often seen.
Seriously: do a search for seasons with >28 PER (his was 28.8), >.270 WS/48 (his was .273), and >40 mpg (his was a whopping 44.9) in NBA and ABA history…...you come up with just 10 NBA seasons (3 of Kareem, 3 of Wilt, 2 of Jordan, 1 of Robinson, 1 of Shaq), and only 1 in ABA history (Connie Hawkins). If we change the requirement to 42 mpg, five of those NBA seasons disappear, btw.

Per 100 possession estimates for ‘68: 26.6 pts, 13.4 reb, 4.55 ast, just 2.8 tov @ +11.45% rTS.
His 59.7% TS would be elite even by today’s standards.

And then he got even better in the playoffs. PER 30.0 and .310 WS/48 in 44.0 mpg in the playoffs, as he led the Pipers to the title. His numbers in the playoffs are gross even with considerations of pace: 29.9 ppg, 12.3 rpg, 4.6 apg, 3.4 topg @ 65.1% TS (which is like +16.8 rTS!!).

How much (if any) better than that do you realistically expect the other candidates on the table at this point to be capable of in that league? Do you expect, for instance, that Bob McAdoo would have had an NBA/ABA all-time record PER of 32.0 and maybe ~.325 WS/48 while playing 43 mpg or some such (and doing the same in the playoffs) in the '68 ABA? I personally don't feel that's realistic to assume; and that's basically what's necessary to set him so definitively [far] ahead of Hawkins.

[trex_8063]

WOULD ANYONE OBJECT IF I JUST GAVE THIS SPOT TO HARDEN?

theonlyclutch just put in his ballot mere minutes after I put it into run-off (I suspect he was probably typing while I made the switch). His ballots would put Harden out in front (and would also make it so that Gilmore is actually not even 2nd anymore).

Thru post #27
James Harden - 10
Bob McAdoo - 9
Artis Gilmore - 8
Elgin Baylor - 5
Russell Westbrook - 5
Bob Lanier - 3
Kevin McHale - 2
Bob Pettit - 2
Willis Reed - 2
Nate Thurmond - 2
Scottie Pippen - 2
Connie Hawkins - 1
Rick Barry - 1
Kevin Love - 1



I'm tentatively going to call this one done (Harden takes it), unless we have multiple objections.

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[SideshowBob]

I'd vote for Harden.

[Jaivl]

The Wolves were +5.6 on-court with him, -5.3 without him, they were a 3.1 SRS team through the year, and were only out of the playoffs because of the absolute horrible performance of the guards, and awful clutch defense (not Kevin's fault).

Of course, the fault is on a player who has Love beat in all on/off metrics and was the only above avg defender on the #12 defense in the league *shrugs*

[theonlyclutch]

The Wolves were +5.6 on-court with him, -5.3 without him, they were a 3.1 SRS team through the year, and were only out of the playoffs because of the absolute horrible performance of the guards, and awful clutch defense (not Kevin's fault).

Of course, the fault is on a player who has Love beat in all on/off metrics and was the only above avg defender on the #12 defense in the league *shrugs*

Given that Rubio's awful clutch scoring , and that their perimeter defense in the clutch was letting opponents shooting like Curry beyond the arc on average, both big reasons why MIN sucked in the clutch, I don't see how Rubio is without blame here..

[Dr Positivity]

My problem with Connie Hawkins is as I understand it while by the mid 70s the ABA had caught up to the NBA, late 60s ABA is a lot less comparable as valid competition. I can't take those numbers at face value as if they happened in the NBA at the time. For example Rick Barry was 1st in the ABA in TS% in 69 which was a far cry from the Kobe-esque efficiency at best of the rest of his career (67 was one of his best efficiency years in the NBA, but still +.038 TS% compared to +.113 in 69). Another example just looking at it, Cliff Hagan had a much better statistical year in 68 ABA than 66 NBA, despite the age factor (he was 35 when he left the NBA)

I already acknowledge that the early ABA was a relatively weak league, but that's the only reason why I don't have Hawkins in my top 25 in terms of peak. I mean - it's not just about him being the best player in that league in '68. It's about him just DOMINATING that league. He was about as unanimous of a #1 player in a league as you can imagine. Led the league in scoring, second in rebounds per game, third in assists per game, led the league in PER, led the league in WS by a just a HUGE margin (he had 17.9 win shares, second best player had 11.8 - in terms of WS/48, Hawkins had 27.3, second best player had 20.8), was named league MVP and All-ABA 1st team member, led his team to the best record in the league, and even improved his game in the playoffs, on his way to the title (had 30 PER, averaged 30 ppg on 65% TS and also had 31 WS/48 in the postseason, in 14 games - that's amazing dominance in any league).
He was like 1991 Michael Jordan or 2000 Shaquille O'Neal of that league (the fact that league was weak is the reason why we're not comparing him to Jordan, or even to '76 Erving). Really a man among boys. I think we really can't discount his accomplishments just because the league he played in was weak. It's not like he was playing against high school teenagers, he was still playing against pros, even if those were the lesser pros, compared to the NBA at that time. Actually, I'm wondering if the grain of salt that I'm taking him with, isn't already too big...He really has all the stats, accomplishments and reputation (when you listen to his contemporaries talk about him, they all have enormous respect for his game, and mention him as one of the great forwards ever) to be considered one of the great peaks of all-time.

Hawkins crushed a lot of categories but at 45mpg. Per 36 averages of 21.5 pts, 10.8 reb, 3.7 ast are less ridiculous, and he was also at a faster pace than any of today's teams (107.4 pace, GSW last year was 98.3). At league leading efficiency, that is still excellent, but not out of this world. I can't find anything praising Hawkins for his defense. I know Charley Rosen called him an awful defender when putting him on his overrated list, but hard to trust one white guy when ABA was denigrated as a flash and no substance league and someone with Hawkins scandal history probably got that reputation as much as anyone.

Hawkins put up the best stats of the season arguably at a Jordan/Shaq level of dominance, but it has as much to do with nobody else having a spectacular season. 2nd-5th in Win Shares were Larry Jones, Goose Ligon, Arthur Becker and Willie Somerset. 2nd-5th in WS/48 were Red Robbins, Cliff Hagan (after being an across the board league average player in 66 NBA), Willie Somerset, Larry Jones. Doug Moe and an inefficient rookie Mel Daniels finished 2nd and 3rd in MVP voting. I just don't think it matters that much. If Hawkins had gone against 69 Rick Barry and 69 Jimmy Jones (effectively 2015 Harden statistically) he wouldn't have had that big lead on them

[Jaivl]

The Wolves were +5.6 on-court with him, -5.3 without him, they were a 3.1 SRS team through the year, and were only out of the playoffs because of the absolute horrible performance of the guards, and awful clutch defense (not Kevin's fault).

Of course, the fault is on a player who has Love beat in all on/off metrics and was the only above avg defender on the #12 defense in the league *shrugs*

Given that Rubio's awful clutch scoring , and that their perimeter defense in the clutch was letting opponents shooting like Curry beyond the arc on average, both big reasons why MIN sucked in the clutch, I don't see how Rubio is without blame here..

Point is clutch doesn't matter if you receive 110 points per game.

[theonlyclutch]

Of course, the fault is on a player who has Love beat in all on/off metrics and was the only above avg defender on the #12 defense in the league *shrugs*

Given that Rubio's awful clutch scoring , and that their perimeter defense in the clutch was letting opponents shooting like Curry beyond the arc on average, both big reasons why MIN sucked in the clutch, I don't see how Rubio is without blame here..

Point is clutch doesn't matter if you receive 110 points per game.

It does help to explain why a 3.1 SRS team (higher than the Mavs + Grizzlies) ended up with a 40-42 W-L, 8 wins below projected, given that's the big narrative behind Love "not able to lead his team to the playoffs", this is a pretty big deal

[Quotatious]

It does help to explain why a 3.1 SRS team (higher than the Mavs + Grizzlies) ended up with a 40-42 W-L, 8 wins below projected, given that's the big narrative behind Love "not able to lead his team to the playoffs", this is a pretty big deal

I'm glad you're already mentioning '14 Love, or even voting for him. People say he's overrated because he couldn't lead the Wolves to the playoffs, and also that he's a bad defender, but I think he was awesome, and the third best player in the league after LeBron and Durant in '14. He was actually making a HUGE impact. Even if the Wolves didn't make the playoffs, they were a pretty decent team, had a strongly positive SRS (+ 3.10), which translates to 48 wins based on Expected W-L - they just struggled to close out games in the Western conference - if they played in the East, they likely would've approached 50 wins.

Love's boxscore production (both in terms of raw and advanced stats) was amazing, he was elite in a lot of ways - elite scorer, great shooter for a bigman, one of the best rebounders in the league, one of the best bigman passers. Very high basketball IQ. He also looks pretty good based on on/off court net rating, and he seems to be a neutral defender, not a horrible one. It'd be impossible for the Wolves to have an above average defense (12th of 30 teams) if Love was a horrible defender, because he played most of his minutes alongside Pekovic, who certainly wasn't a good defensive player, either.
Wolves went 1-4 in the 5 games Love missed, and the one game they won, against the Rockets, was possible only because Corey Brewer was playing out of his mind and scored 51 points. It became clear how big of an impact Love was making - when he left, they went from 40 wins to 16.

He's absolutely a good candidate at this point. Personally, I have Elton Brand ahead of Love as far as modern power forwards, but it's okay to vote for Love already, I think.

By the way - how do you feel about '73 Tiny Archibald? He seems to be in the same boat as Love - awesome statistical RS, great offensive impact, very efficient, but played on a weak team and didn't make the playoffs (which wasn't his fault, just like it wasn't Love's fault, obviously). I'm thinking that '73 Tiny might be the best point guard left.

[Jaivl]

It does help to explain why a 3.1 SRS team (higher than the Mavs + Grizzlies) ended up with a 40-42 W-L, 8 wins below projected, given that's the big narrative behind Love "not able to lead his team to the playoffs", this is a pretty big deal

Yes I get you and I don't blame Love at all (Minny having a #9 offense -awesome-), but neither is fair putting the blame on the clear #2 best player on the team.

[Owly]

My problem with Connie Hawkins is as I understand it while by the mid 70s the ABA had caught up to the NBA, late 60s ABA is a lot less comparable as valid competition. I can't take those numbers at face value as if they happened in the NBA at the time. For example Rick Barry was 1st in the ABA in TS% in 69 which was a far cry from the Kobe-esque efficiency at best of the rest of his career (67 was one of his best efficiency years in the NBA, but still +.038 TS% compared to +.113 in 69). Another example just looking at it, Cliff Hagan had a much better statistical year in 68 ABA than 66 NBA, despite the age factor (he was 35 when he left the NBA). Looking at Hawkins stats vs eg. Blake Griffin's peak who seems like a similar player, the difference is Hawkins efficiency for his league, but when considering cases like Barry's TS% shooting up in late 60s ABA, I don't trust ABA efficiency

Although fwiw, Barry himself is becoming a valid candidate for many at this point (mostly going with '75, but some feel '67 is right there, too; late-60's version of Barry is definitely no joke). That in mind, I'm going to quote some passages of my prior post regarding Hawkins:

......I want everyone cognizant of the very real possibility (if not the likelihood) that he was even better before his knee injury.
If you don’t think the knee injury affected him, consider his scoring averages (it’s all that’s available on game log data of the time) in ‘69 before the injury: he was averaging 33.4 ppg pre-injury. In the 11 rs games AFTER coming back from injury: 19.9 ppg, followed by a significantly sub-standard (poor, actually) playoffs.....

.....In the ‘69 ABA season (marginally stronger than the ‘68 ABA, imo) there was also a presumably near-peak Rick Barry around for 35 games to compare to…..
‘69 Barry per 100 poss estimates: 36.0 pts, 9.95 reb, 4.1 ast @ +11.35% rTS
PER 29.6, .301 WS/48 in 38.9 mpg

**‘69 Hawkins per 100 poss estimates: 33.6 pts, 12.6 reb, 4.35 ast @ +8.25% rTS.
PER 29.7, .293 WS/48 in 39.4 mpg.
**this includes the aforementioned 11 games (11 of 47 total) AFTER coming back from the injury, btw. Given the scoring drop I already outlined, it’s safe to assume his pre-injury numbers were significantly better than what a near-peak Barry was doing. Frankly, he was probably a better player (before the injury) in '69 than he was in '68.

But '68 ends up being his peak year by default (because it's the only pre-injury season where he was healthy throughout).


And wrt '68, I'm going to quote another passage from my prior post:

Yes, the ABA of the late 60’s was not overly loaded with talent, as Clyde Frazier pointed out. It wasn’t total bush-league, either. Mel Daniels was there, and there were several other legitimately “good” (if not truly “All-Star level”) players around: Donnie Freeman, Louie Dampier, Larry Jones, Roger Brown, Doug Moe, John Beasley, etc.
And at any rate, Hawkins didn’t just distinguish himself in this crowd…….he utterly crushed them. He led the league handily in PER and WS/48, for instance, despite playing a league-leading 44.9 mpg. He had nearly twice as many OWS as the 2nd-place guy. He dominated that league to a degree that we haven’t often seen.
Seriously: do a search for seasons with >28 PER (his was 28.8), >.270 WS/48 (his was .273), and >40 mpg (his was a whopping 44.9) in NBA and ABA history…...you come up with just 10 NBA seasons (3 of Kareem, 3 of Wilt, 2 of Jordan, 1 of Robinson, 1 of Shaq), and only 1 in ABA history (Connie Hawkins). If we change the requirement to 42 mpg, five of those NBA seasons disappear, btw.

Per 100 possession estimates for ‘68: 26.6 pts, 13.4 reb, 4.55 ast, just 2.8 tov @ +11.45% rTS.
His 59.7% TS would be elite even by today’s standards.

And then he got even better in the playoffs. PER 30.0 and .310 WS/48 in 44.0 mpg in the playoffs, as he led the Pipers to the title. His numbers in the playoffs are gross even with considerations of pace: 29.9 ppg, 12.3 rpg, 4.6 apg, 3.4 topg @ 65.1% TS (which is like +16.8 rTS!!).

How much (if any) better than that do you realistically expect the other candidates on the table at this point to be capable of in that league? Do you expect, for instance, that Bob McAdoo would have had an NBA/ABA all-time record PER of 32.0 and maybe ~.325 WS/48 while playing 43 mpg or some such (and doing the same in the playoffs) in the '68 ABA? I personally don't feel that's realistic to assume; and that's basically what's necessary to set him so definitively [far] ahead of Hawkins.

I think the anchor to Barry is the stronger case here (though for me it's a weaker claim, I'm not so high on Barry).

McAdoo hung up 34.5ppg, on .569 TS% (30.6 on .594 in '74) got 14.1 rebounds, 2.1 blocks (3.3 in '74) and 1.1 steals playing 9 RS games against the Celtics (Cowens presumably the matchup there), 4 against Milwaukee (all with Jabbar), 4 versus the Bullets (presumably matched up versus Hayes), 4 versus Detroit (Lanier). Even if you don't like the likes of somewhat aging Thurmond + Boerwinkle (x4); George Johnson and Clifford Ray (x4); Sam Lacey (x4); Elmore Smith (x4) how do they compare to the ABA's best bigs after Mel Daniels (Red Robbins, Byron Beck, Bob Netolicky, Cincinattus Powell - including F-Cs here so some dubious "bigs"). Only Daniels is ABA by choice. In '69 Bill McGill arrived and he had been NBA quality (but injury wracked).

I'd guess that McAdoo just maintaining his NBA stats would give him higher advanced stats than in the NBA (because of the lower productivity/efficiency of the "average" early ABA player - and because versus a lower standard he'd have a larger impact and benefit from higher team performance postivively impacting WS) but it's not hard to imagine they'd be much better. See for instance the difference between Spencer Haywood's ABA and NBA numbers (NBA to ABA and vice-versa conversions vary but this one works I think in terms of the degree of difference of difficulty - showing what could be done versus early ABA bigs). I figure McAdoo would destroy the early ABA.