Cool to see this thread revived. Some general takes:
• Wing Defense - We have a tendency to overrate the defense of star offensive wings. Very few guys have the motor to play at a high level on both ends, and that's a big part of what made Jordan in his day and younger LeBron special. All-Defensive teams should almost exclusively be comprised of role players at the wing positions.
• Variance - The impact of variance is understated in our analysis, all of us are far too results-oriented. I think a study to identify which strategies (styles of play/team defense schemes) and tactics (individual play types/individual coverage) are of particularly low/high variance would be instructive. This could tie into more rigorously defining what we mean by floor- and ceiling-raisers, and perhaps the concept of resiliency.
• Rules - I think other than the introduction of the shot clock and the three point line, the 2001 changes that eliminated illegal defense were the biggest change in rules in league history. It took some number of years (07-08 Celtics at the earliest, though there have been certain refinements since they played), but now a lot of the potential of all of the defensive tools has been realized. This has resulted in more of a skill based game not only on the defensive end (guys playing D with their feet instead of hands, and the marginalization of the immobile 7ft defensive center), but a more advanced game on the offensive end (for which D'Antoni and Nash deserve a good deal of the credit).
• Max Contracts - Market forces (in some cases, including the desirability of a particular market) determine contracts, but when handing out maxes, I think both of the following are prescient:
Mike Francesa (a few years ago) wrote:You should never sign somebody to a max contract unless you plan for him to be on your next championship contending team.
Zach Lowe wrote:If you’re a max player, you should not be able to be played out of a matchup in the playoffs.
It is tricky though, because there aren't a ton of mobile seven-footers, and there aren't many teams who can survive playing a wing-sized small-ball center heavy minutes. Even if you don't, other teams will overpay though. That said, maybe the reason certain players can be forced out is because of a lack of creativity, or because of a nearly insurmountable talent disparity.
Some player-specific takes on which I've changed in the last year:
• Charles Barkley - He might be the GOAT offensive big man, but I probably don't want him on my team. From the +/- data we have (his entire career, sand 92-93), it seems as he went from a slightly negative impact defender, to a major liability, as his prime progressed. There are other guys (particularly Dirk, undeservingly so), at the 4 spot who are chastised for their play on that end, but who don't place a ton of strain on your team defense. You can afford one bad perimeter defender, or one average big man defender, but you can't afford two bad perimeter defenders, or one atrocious defensive big.
• Larry Bird - I wrote the following early in this thread's life:
Other than the historically stacked teams thing, I think Bird's shooting is something I don't quite understand well enough. He was nearly an outlier shooter in the 80s, when the shot was first introduced, and with his first coach (Fitch) discouraging it.
If one is to rate Bird super highly, since he's mostly an off-ball guy, then from what we know about him, I'd guess it needs to be on the basis of one of two factors:
(1) having all-time playmaking ability, to the point that even playing off-ball, it was more of a boon for the team offense than that of a lot of all-time ball-dominant playmakers
(2) having a "gravity"/"distraction" effect on opposing defenses that we haven't seen from many players (like is/was the case with a Dirk, Curry, Shaq, etc.), due to his shooting ability (or maybe scoring ability in general)
Maybe both of these are only partially true, and maybe that could still justify an incredible stature for Bird. But I think at that point, we'd have to saying both that we're comfortable projecting him as a near-GOAT shooter today if he grew up with the shot and had the green light in the NBA, or that he had near-GOAT scoring ability (EDIT: had originally said GOAT offensive ability, but that's redundant given that it's what we're discussing) in the half-court when he actually had the ball (I guess it's possible for someone to hold his defense in very, very, very high regard as well).
I'm actually very much open to (1) at this point, and a bit opposed to (2). Maybe Bird had some degree of gravity, but I don't think we're talking about the same level as a Curry or Shaq. I also think he is a guy who would benefit from today's team defensive concepts, and the elimination of illegal defense. Bird actually played a couple seasons in the pre-illegal defense era in the early 80s and was a terrific defender given his physical limitations, as well as several after, before teams began to exploit the rules to put players on islands. I think today, especially with his two-way motor, he would be fine at the 4 defensively.
• Michael Jordan - I've always been high on portability, though recently I've begun to care about defensive consistency more than year-end and postseason form. We really didn't have much of a statistical footprint for Jordan in terms of impact numbers for quite some time: even as things gradually came in, they all had caveats (RAPM - late in his career; Sixers guides - full +/- during his retirement and 96, and only numbers vs PHI before; WOWY - not incredibly useful because he didn't miss many games).
Until ElGee released WOWYR, as silly as it sounds, we didn't have any hard evidence that his impact was among the all-time elite players. Now, with that in hand, I think we have license to scrutinize players of similar impact. Given Jordan's advantages (portability and defensive consistency), and because in the modern post-illegal defense era,
he might (and IMO, likely would), have a gravity off-ball exceeding Wade's, I think one would be justified saying in his prime, among perimeter players, he stands alone
Now that's the difference between first and last place.
