RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #5

[trex_8063]

Feel like we need a little more of a plug for Timmy....


How many defensive bigs in history were as good or better than Tim Duncan over, say, a 12-14 year period of time?
We can debate this, but that short answer is: not very many (and one of the very few that were has already been voted in).


Offense
I'm going to again present some comparison of his data (mostly just the offensive figures) vs Hakeem, who is almost universally considered a better offensive big (some would have us believe by a large margin, too)....

Peak Olajuwon '93-’94
Per 100 poss (rs): 33.6 pts, 4.5 ast, 4.1 tov @ 57.10% ts (+3.89% to league)
PER 26.3, .222 WS/48, 111 ORtg/96 DRtg (+15), BPM +7.0 in 40.2 mpg
Per 100 poss (playoffs): 34.3 pts, 5.5 ast, 4.5 tov @ 56.8% ts (+3.6% to league)
PER 27.3, .213 WS/48, 110 ORtg/97 DRtg (+13) in 43.1 mpg

Peak Duncan '02-’03
Per 100 poss (rs): 32.5 pts, 5.1 ast, 4.2 tov @ 57.03% ts (+5.04% to league)
PER 27.0, .253 WS/48,113 ORtg/95 DRtg (+18), BPM +6.9 in 39.9 mpg
Per 100 poss (playoffs): 32.2 pts, 6.6 ast, 4.3 tov @ 56.9% ts (+4.9% to league)
PER 29.3, .270 WS/48, 114 ORtg/93 DRtg (+21) in 42.5 mpg


Career Olajuwon
Per 100 possessions (rs): 30.3 pts, 3.4 ast, 4.1 tov @ 55.3% TS (+2.13% rTS)
PER 23.6, .177 WS/48, 108 ORtg/98 DRtg (+10), +4.9 BPM in 35.7 mpg
Per 100 possessions (playoffs): 33.7 pts, 4.1 ast, 3.8 tov @ 56.9% TS
PER 25.7, .189 WS/48, 112 ORtg/101 DRtg (+11), +7.1 BPM in 39.6 mpg

Career Duncan
Per 100 possessions (rs): 29.7 pts, 4.7 ast, 3.8 tov @ 55.1% TS (+1.98% rTS)
PER 24.2, .209 WS/48, 110 ORtg/96 DRtg (+14), +5.5 BPM in 34.0 mpg
Per 100 possessions (playoffs): 29.7 pts, 4.4 ast, 3.6 tov @ 54.8% TS
PER 24.3, .194 WS/48, 110 ORtg/99 DRtg (+11), +5.9 BPM in 37.3 mpg

In short, Duncan is much better offensive player than he's often given credit for.
Rebounding is a small edge to Duncan as well, fwiw.


Leadership
For this I'm going to present some previous material:

Terance Wolfe, a professor of clinical management and organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, sees the parallel with how the Spurs achieved sustained success and how businesses thrive

So the Spurs were the first NBA team to operate like a corporation, and Brent Barry said that Tim Duncan would be the CEO of that corporation. Spurs general manager R.C. Buford said that “The truth is we all work for Timmy.” “We all see it R.C.’s way,” said Sean Elliott, who played 11 of his 12 seasons in the NBA with the Spurs (1989-90 to 1992-93, 1994-95 to 2000-01), the last four of those with Duncan. “We’re not dumb. We all know we wouldn’t have any rings without Timmy. Everybody understands that. We all feel like we’re working for Timmy.”

So the Spurs were the first NBA team team to operate like a corporation, Brent Barry said Duncan was the CEO of that corporation, and R.C. Buford and Sean Elliot both said that they all worked for Duncan.

From Pop's own lips:

Before you start handing out applause and credit to anyone else in this organization for anything that's been accomplished, remember it all starts with and goes through Timmy

Gregg Popovich himself appears to be [quite clearly, I would say] stating that anyone who wants to give him the lion's share of credit for the winning culture in San Antonio is flat wrong. Now maybe he's just putting forth some false modesty, but that's still a really strong statement......a statement which [as noted above] is being seconded by various teammates and the Spurs general manager.


Longevity
Those career numbers I posted above are over 19 seasons, 1392 rs games, 47,368 rs minutes (of the other guys getting serious traction at this point, only Wilt played more rs minutes [barely]). He's also #1 all-time in career playoff minutes played, and has thus played more combined minutes than any player left on the table except for Karl Malone and Kobe Bryant [barely].


Is there player another currently on the table who provides a better/greater combination of offensive output, defensive dominance, two-way impact, leadership, and longevity than Tim Duncan?
I personally don't think so.

[ElGee]

If I take a step back and follow the Wilt argument it still looks something like this:

Point: Wilt's box score numbers are undeniable.
Counter-Point: Actually, box score numbers don't auto-translate to impact (Scoring Blindness)
Point: I know that, but look at the stats he put up!

I really don't like negatively harping on one player. But I find him foundational to understanding basketball (so much so that I literally wrote a chapter in a book on this). First, Wilt's positives:

-all-time level defender
-very high peak season
-provided value in at least 3 different styles/roles
-Good longevity, especially within era

But hand-waving away the box score thing is just denying that basketball is a team game, which is where the beauty in the whole sport resides to me. It's why I'm writing this post, despite not wanting to write this post. I'm going to write quickly so apologizes for more typos than normal:

In 1959, without Jack George the Warriors were about a -1 SRS team. When healthy the next year they were +2.5. They went from the worst offense in the league (-3.5) to second-worst (-2.4), but it's unclear how much better the 59 team was on offense when healthy without George (basically the same lineup Wilt would be added to in 60...and Paul Arizin was coming off a career-best scoring year and 2nd-team all-nab season). So right away, the data is screaming

1. 38 per game on elite efficiency doesn't automatically equate to great team offense
2. 38 per game on elite efficiency doesn't automatically improve an offense very much

In 62 they take a Wilt-scoring strategy to the extreme. Wilt's happy, the owners are happy and the fans are happy. No, he's not surrounded by scrubs, but the results are better and when those non-scrubs are healthy they are actually a very good team (closer to +5). So scoring 50 points a game helped...and by all accounts Wilt showed up on defense again, big time.

In 63, Arizin retiring matters. As does losing Gola for most of the season. But if you buy that it matters, then you buy the non-scrubness of the pervious seasons and risk mitigating Wilt's impact, especially in his first two years. NB: Tom Gola was the game's first "Mr. Everything" for his all-around play, made 5 all-star games and the HOF. I think it's fair to have the perspective that Wilt's big scoring schtick still helped in 63, but just like in 60, it doesn't de-facto produce something good and probably has a fairly low ceiling.

64 is a lot of apparent all-roundness from accounts and the results are excellent, back in the ballpark of 62 but now Nate Thurmond is playing 26 mpg, which, as I've said before, is the original twin towers defense. Leaving this out is like pretending 99 Tim Duncan didn't play next to David Robinson. So it's the Warriors defense that jumps here mainly -- again, big box numbers but not much in the way of winning with offensive efficiency.

65 is a team disaster, and if it was because of injuries, hearts, baseball or whatever it still counts (for most, anyway). Perhaps most interesting is that he's traded to a much more talented team on paper for about 20 cents on the dollar (a 26 mpg and 16 mpg player). Yet Philly is "only" about 3 points better for adding Wilt. Again, there's impact (Wilt was clearly one of the best players in the league every season), it's just not some de-facto GOAT-level season because he block shots and gets buckets.

The 66 76ers were slightly better, although Billy Cunningham and a full year together helped quite a bit. 67 is where the shift takes place, so I won't belabor that here. 68, something is well-documented as happening, which is Wilt passes too much because he wants assists to take the assist title. This might be subtle, but it probably devalues his offense slightly.

69 is another huge footprint. In 1968, Van Breda Koff was running Princeton-inspired offense and the guards were killing it. With West in the lineup this was like a +8 team (!) and the best offense the league had seen to that point. Then Wilt came in 69, and just like we've seen in modern-day team building, you don't just add up ppg and get better. And -- portability alert -- they got worse with Wilt. This was a +6 team when healthy.

In 70, more of the same. It's a different coach and system this time, and Wilt misses most of the season. The Lakers are around a 4 SRS team without Wilt when healthy, and when he comes back...are around a 4 SRS team. 30 games still contains variance, but this is (again!) a sign that this guy isn't some plug-and-play GOAT-level impacter. You can explain it away once as fit, or a sample, or whatever, but when it happens over and over it's hard to do so.

In 71, the Lakers don't have Jerry West for 18 games, and are -1 in those 18 games (in a time of rapid expansion). Smallish sample, but (again) a ho-hum result. In 72 LA brings in an all-time level coach and Wilt shifts (again) to Tyson Chandler mode and really seems to kill it here. He's now down to about 12 scoring attempts a game, and maybe a better comparison is Darymond Green. He'd shoot when needed (he still had post moves!), he'd make good passes and he'd finish like a boss. Obviously, this is super-portable stuff.

But in 73, we go back to the same old story of taking things too far for vanity (not armchair psych, but Wilt's own admissions). He starts passing up easy shots to keep his record field goal percentage in tact. Is this a huge issue? Probably not -- he's still a monster presence playing this type of role. Is it a huge issue that LA again fell apart in 12 games with West? Probably not. But it's the same story.

And by the end of his great career, two all-time level coaches have both reduced Wilt's scoring role for some mysterious reason, and in both cases the results were wildly improved team results. So much so, that by the end of his career, Wilt (probably rightfully) finished in the top-4 in MVP voting while barely scoring. It's an all-time level, career, no doubt -- regressed data says he's having impact, so don't take these to mean he was average or bad -- but realize that his numbers don't auto-translate to GOAT-level, and that if you thought he was the 4th-best player of the 60's you wouldn't be crazy.

[trex_8063]

I'm waffling a little on who to put in as my secondary pick; so I'm just gonna throw in some Shaq vs Wilt stuff to help me think about it.....

Peak Shaq ('00)
Per 100 possessions (rs): 38.1 pts, 17.5 reb, 4.9 ast, 0.6 stl, 3.9 blk, 3.6 tov @ 57.8% TS (+5.52% rTS).
PER 30.6, .283 WS/48, +9.7 BPM, 115 ORtg/95 DRtg (+20) in 40.0 mpg.
**was actually an excellent defensive anchor this year, too.

Peak Wilt ('67? '64?)
'67 Per 100 possessions (rs): 20.7 pts, 20.8 reb, 6.7 ast @ 63.7% TS (+14.38% rTS).
PER 26.5, .285 WS/48 in 45.5 mpg.
'64 Per 100 possessions (rs): 33.3 pts, 20.2 reb, 4.6 ast @ 53.7% TS (+5.22% rTS).
PER 31.6, .325 WS/48 in 46.1 mpg.
**appears an excellent defensive anchor both of these years, too.

I know per 100 and relative shooting efficiency doesn't thoroughly level the field, but it least gives us a ballpark idea. Some era considerations apply, but we've outlined two ridiculous peaks here.
Visually, Shaq at his peak impressed me a touch more; always liked the way he relentlessly attacked using his God-given strengths. And for all of Wilt's gaudy scoring numbers, he doesn't appear to have the same outrageous offensive impact during those seasons that Shaq did; not even close. Generally speaking, he's a better defensive center though.

Longevity feels fairly even; not a clear edge in either direction.

Neither is an ideal leader (far from it), but Doctor MJ paraphrased a lot of my reservations regarding Wilt on post #7 itt. Suffice to say he leaves a lot to be desired wrt motivation and where he's at in his head-space. To be fair, I definitely feel there's some period factors at play here which Shaq did not have to deal with, and I wouldn't, for example see these things as being as big a deal if Wilt played in the modern era.

And one other thing I'll give Wilt: I am impressed by the number of different type roles he played during his career.

So where does that leave me? idk; I somewhat lean Wilt recently, but definitely not feeling unmovable in that. Thoughts?

[oldschooled]

As others have stated over and over again...Wilt was the unluckiest superstar in the history of the league. And its not like Wilt didn't give an effort or a hindrance to the team. Wilt played center, the most portable/low usage position (imo) w/c still impacts the game on both ends. I re-watched some of Wilt's playoff games and reviewed his stats. Heck, Wilt woulda gotten 2+ titles if Guy Rodgers didn't play on his team or just kept passing it to Wilt and let Wilt ran the offense. Arguably the best 5-year prime,arguably the best peak, those accolades and countless records, I'm gonna go with Wilt.

1st Vote: Wilt
2nd Vote: Shaq

[trex_8063]

1st Vote: Tim Duncan (reasons have been covered in prior threads, though arguments itt were provided in post #61).
2nd vote: either Wilt or Shaq (am undecided; some of my ponderings shown in post #63 itt) EDIT: Am going with Shaq for now; drza's subsequent arguments (post #68) have tipped me in that direction.

[Tesla]

1st Vote: Tim Duncan
2nd Vote: Shaquille Oneal

Tim Duncan, hard to argue against him. As I said previously, I feel like he is the last player here not to have any kinks in his armor so to speak. He has amazing longevity and was a high impact player from the day he entered to 20 years later when he played his last game. Always a positive influence, a franchise leader and very high impact in terms of winning. He also was very reliable in the playoffs; his post peak playoff numbers and performance is staggering. His peak is underrated as well, I do think there are a handful of players or more that actually had more impact in their peaks when their head was right... but Duncan was such a constant, his team was a contender from day 1 to the last day and only three players can say that (one already voted; Russell) and two with clearly less longevity (Magic, Bird). Its really amazing to think about how a rookie all the way to a 40 year old was able to perform like that. I think many numbers have already been illustrated well for him in this thread and prior. He gets my vote and will undoubtedly get the #5 spot here.

The 2nd nomination here is really where I am for the first time unsure. There are six deserving candiates for the #6 spot, the ones I see are: Wilt, Shaq, Magic, Bird, Kobe, Hakeem. They all have something better and worse than the other, really will have a tough time sorting that out. I am undecided for now, but will edit within the next 24 hours for my 2nd nomination.

[andrewww]

Feel like we need a little more of a plug for Timmy....


How many defensive bigs in history were as good or better than Tim Duncan over, say, a 12-14 year period of time?
We can debate this, but that short answer is: not very many (and one of the very few that were has already been voted in).


Offense
I'm going to again present some comparison of his data (mostly just the offensive figures) vs Hakeem, who is almost universally considered a better offensive big (some would have us believe by a large margin, too)....

Peak Olajuwon '93-’94
Per 100 poss (rs): 33.6 pts, 4.5 ast, 4.1 tov @ 57.10% ts (+3.89% to league)
PER 26.3, .222 WS/48, 111 ORtg/96 DRtg (+15), BPM +7.0 in 40.2 mpg
Per 100 poss (playoffs): 34.3 pts, 5.5 ast, 4.5 tov @ 56.8% ts (+3.6% to league)
PER 27.3, .213 WS/48, 110 ORtg/97 DRtg (+13) in 43.1 mpg

Peak Duncan '02-’03
Per 100 poss (rs): 32.5 pts, 5.1 ast, 4.2 tov @ 57.03% ts (+5.04% to league)
PER 27.0, .253 WS/48,113 ORtg/95 DRtg (+18), BPM +6.9 in 39.9 mpg
Per 100 poss (playoffs): 32.2 pts, 6.6 ast, 4.3 tov @ 56.9% ts (+4.9% to league)
PER 29.3, .270 WS/48, 114 ORtg/93 DRtg (+21) in 42.5 mpg


Career Olajuwon
Per 100 possessions (rs): 30.3 pts, 3.4 ast, 4.1 tov @ 55.3% TS (+2.13% rTS)
PER 23.6, .177 WS/48, 108 ORtg/98 DRtg (+10), +4.9 BPM in 35.7 mpg
Per 100 possessions (playoffs): 33.7 pts, 4.1 ast, 3.8 tov @ 56.9% TS
PER 25.7, .189 WS/48, 112 ORtg/101 DRtg (+11), +7.1 BPM in 39.6 mpg

Career Duncan
Per 100 possessions (rs): 29.7 pts, 4.7 ast, 3.8 tov @ 55.1% TS (+1.98% rTS)
PER 24.2, .209 WS/48, 110 ORtg/96 DRtg (+14), +5.5 BPM in 34.0 mpg
Per 100 possessions (playoffs): 29.7 pts, 4.4 ast, 3.6 tov @ 54.8% TS
PER 24.3, .194 WS/48, 110 ORtg/99 DRtg (+11), +5.9 BPM in 37.3 mpg

In short, Duncan is much better offensive player than he's often given credit for.
Rebounding is a small edge to Duncan as well, fwiw.


Leadership
For this I'm going to present some previous material:

Terance Wolfe, a professor of clinical management and organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, sees the parallel with how the Spurs achieved sustained success and how businesses thrive

So the Spurs were the first NBA team to operate like a corporation, and Brent Barry said that Tim Duncan would be the CEO of that corporation. Spurs general manager R.C. Buford said that “The truth is we all work for Timmy.” “We all see it R.C.’s way,” said Sean Elliott, who played 11 of his 12 seasons in the NBA with the Spurs (1989-90 to 1992-93, 1994-95 to 2000-01), the last four of those with Duncan. “We’re not dumb. We all know we wouldn’t have any rings without Timmy. Everybody understands that. We all feel like we’re working for Timmy.”

So the Spurs were the first NBA team team to operate like a corporation, Brent Barry said Duncan was the CEO of that corporation, and R.C. Buford and Sean Elliot both said that they all worked for Duncan.

From Pop's own lips:

Before you start handing out applause and credit to anyone else in this organization for anything that's been accomplished, remember it all starts with and goes through Timmy

Gregg Popovich himself appears to be [quite clearly, I would say] stating that anyone who wants to give him the lion's share of credit for the winning culture in San Antonio is flat wrong. Now maybe he's just putting forth some false modesty, but that's still a really strong statement......a statement which [as noted above] is being seconded by various teammates and the Spurs general manager.


Longevity
Those career numbers I posted above are over 19 seasons, 1392 rs games, 47,368 rs minutes (of the other guys getting serious traction at this point, only Wilt played more rs minutes [barely]). He's also #1 all-time in career playoff minutes played, and has thus played more combined minutes than any player left on the table except for Karl Malone.


Is there player another currently on the table who provides a better/greater combination of offensive output, defensive dominance, two-way impact, leadership, and longevity than Tim Duncan?
I personally don't think so.

I'm sure you would consider Hakeem the better offensive player (especially when called upon to score in volume), which the stats support (not to mention his numbers actually going up a bit more than Duncan in the playoffs), and the better defender. Duncan wasn't also necessarily the (outright) biggest winner among star players in his era either (Kobe's teams had a winning record against Duncan in the playoffs, and this was with two different casts). He was never asked to be the main defender for Shaq either. It can be reasonably argued that he wasn't even one of the two best players of his era.

The pro-Duncan points that I see are intangibles/portability, team success, and longevity..and even then with the maintenance program that Pop had him on start as early as 2006/2007 put less wear and tear on him offensively while enabling him to focus more on the defensive end with the transition from an inside-out offense to one that fit with the rule changes and that of a motion offense. Duncan was almost never forced to carry the load offensively and when he was, the Spurs came up short. There's enough evidence to suggest that had he been relied to do more, the Spurs wouldn't nearly have been successful. I think that can be defined as the ceiling of said player.

Hakeem has 12 All-NBA level seasons, and you factor in him being listed as a center its almost as impressive as Duncan's 15 All-NBA level seasons being listed primarily as a forward where there are 2 spots to go around per team. Is that enough to vault Duncan over Hakeem? I don't argue against Duncan being the consumate professional, but I think there is some voter bias with what we perceive as the "ultimate teammate" vs a "potentially more volatile but explosive player".

IMO this project gives certain players almost "too much" credit for team success (Russell/Duncan), and others not enough (Kobe). I happen to consider the 95 Magic a much better team than the 03 Nets as well if we are looking at individual dominance in a Finals series between Hakeem and Duncan. There's definitely winning bias to support the narrative that Duncan's intangibles enabled Pop to be Pop, but then I don't see that type of impact being applied across the board. If winning and longevity values were at such a premium then you would think Kobe would have at least garnered some discussion at this point in the project.

The Russell vs Wilt comparison is hard to side with the more dominant two-way player in Wilt because he usually lost to Russ, but then in a similar comparison between Lebron and Duncan should have lead to more support for Duncan as he had the head to head advantage. Just food for thought.

[drza]

Wilt vs Shaq

I'm one that likes comps as a tool to evaluate players, but I don't remember ever doing a Shaq vs Wilt comp. If I did, I have no idea where it is so I may as well start again. At this moment I don't have a set path for the comp, so forgive me if I meander my way through this. Hopefully something good comes of it.

Stylistically, Wilt and Shaq are the two giants of their time. Both had the reputations as Goliaths, but there were differences. Wilt seemed to be the more skilled of the two, able to develop more finesse moves and to focus (when he chose to) on different aspects of the game. Shaq was much more athletic and explosive than he's often given credit for, especially as a younger player, and he had excellent footwork and even ball-handling ability. But, unlike Wilt, he never tried to maximize his talents that weren't in his wheelhouse. Shaq worked the paint on offense and defense, he would use moves as needed, but his goal was to dunk if he could on every possession. If he couldn't, then he would work the jump hooks or drop steps to get as easy of a shot as possible. But there were no finger rolls or other finesse displays for Shaq. Of course, one could argue that Wilt had more upside because he could do more things than Shaq (in addition to his own awesome physical size), but the flip side that's often argued around here is that Shaq made more effective use of his power than Wilt did. Is that true? Well, let's look a bit further.

It's hard to compare boxscore volume numbers across this many eras, because the pace was DRAMATICALLY different and the way that the game was played was way different, as well. Wilt playing every minute of the game and racking up huge numbers in categories that he chose is worthy of attention, certainly. But it's not a 1-to-1 comp, because the environment, coaching and style of play around the 2000s era simply does not allow the same opportunity to get those numbers. And more...I'm one that believes that accumulating boxscore stats for the sake of them (as Trex alluded to) is not the goal anyway. The boxscores tell us a bit about how a player might be having his particular impact, but a) the boxscores only cover part of the game and b) it's clearly possible to load up on boxscore statistics without those boxscore stats helping the team. A decade or so ago, this phenomenon was called "empty stats", and dealt a lot with players on bad teams that wanted to put up big numbers to attract a contract. With the rise of analytics, +/- data and hyper-scouting, I don't hear the term "empty stats" nearly as often anymore. But, clearly, it can be done. One of the big arguments often used against WIlt, in fact, is that his boxscore stats footprint doesn't allign with his impact on his team's fortunes. Let's look at that a bit.

Impact footprint analysis, regular seasons

70s Fan made the argument, I think it was last thread, that Wilt was criticized for emptier stats in the regular season, but that he modified his play in the playoffs, resulting in lower boxscores but, in his opinion, better playoff results than expected. So, in light of that, I figured we should treat regular season and playoffs as separately.

Obviously there were no +/- stats in Wilt's day, and he hardly ever sat so they wouldn't have been easy to get stats anyway. However, due to trade and injury, WIlt did have a few extended absences on his given team to allow WOWY to have some data to work with. Shaq, on the other hand, missed significant numbers of games several times i his career, so he's got a WOWY footprint as well. Per ElGee's WOWY spreadsheet:

1965 Warriors: SRS w/ WIlt: -4.4; SRS improvement = +2.2 w/ Wilt (42 "missed" games)
1965 76ers: SRS w/ Wilt: 2.4; SRS improovement = +2.8 w/ Wilt (43 "missed" games)

(Note, ElGee's spreadsheet says, under sample controls, "Greer, Costello in (61)" before giving a WOWY score that was a pedestrian 2.0. I say that not to focus on the WOWY score, which I don't have the greatest handle on, but instead to point out that he did attempt to adjust for injured teammates).

1970 Lakers: SRS w/ Wilt: +3.9; SRS improvement = -0.3 w/ Wilt (he sat most of year)

1996 Magic: SRS w/ Shaq: +9.0; SRS improvement = +6.1 w/ Shaq (23 games missed)

1997 & 1998 Lakers: SRS w/ Shaq: +6.2, SRS improvement= +3.7 w/ Shaq (48 games missed)

2002 Lakers: SRS w/ Shaq: 8.9, SRS improvement +7.5 w/ Shaq (15 games missed)

Thoughts: Because of the 1965 trade in mid-season, we get to see how Wilt's presence/absence for half a season changed two different teams. This is the year that Wilt is said to have been having heart issues. However, he did play major minutes without much discernible difference in his boxscore stats. From this, Ive seen it concluded that regardless of tthe shape of his heart, the lack of apparent impact here suggests at the very least that his monster boxscore production didn't translate to much impact in that year. And that argument seems to have merit.

Ardee says that the 65 Sixers started 11 - 3 with Wilt, then injuries to other players derailed their momentum and thus may be the culprit for the only modest change in SRS that Philly experienced. So, no conclusion here, but just note it as a datapoint.

But in 1970, the Lakers also didn't experience much change in effectiveness with or without Wilt. This is now 3 different teams, three different sets of circumstances, 3 different calibers of team (weak, average and good) with Wilt having heavy extended absences for all three, without much correlation between his presence and very positive changes to his team's scoring margins.

Meanwhile, with Shaq it's the opposite. His absence made larger differences than Wilt in each case, and some of his measured impacts were significantly larger than anything we saw from Wilt. This matches well with the often-espoused argument that, for all of Wilt's boxscore dominance, Shaq just had a much bigger impact on the game.

Impact footprint analysis, playoffs

This is, clearly, a much more difficult thing to quantify for Wilt in the playoffs, because (again) there is no +/- data, and WOWY doesn't really apply for the playoffs. I thought I might start by looking at the results of Wilt's playoff teams, vs expectation. If his approach shifted to a bigger impact in the playoffs than in the regular season, I hoped I might find something there.

I can't say that I did. 1965 was actually a good year for Wilt, in this respect, because his 76ers in the playoffs did beat up on Oscar's Royals, despite those Royals having 8 more wins and an SRS more than 2 points higher. They then went on to lose a nailbiter to Russell's Celtics in 7 games, despite the Celtics having 22 more wins and an SRS almost 8 points higher. I could definitely see using this as a support of the notion that Wilt improved the 76ers more than the 2 or so SRS points suggested by ElGee's WOWY calculation.

But outside of 1965, I couldn't find much else in the way of overachieving in the postseason for Wilt's teams. He did win two titles, which is outstanding, but there wasn't a noticable uptick in the quality of those teams from the regular season that could be traced to Wilt, that I could tell. Outside of those three instances, probably the most impressive part of Wilt's postseason resume is that he often led teams that made the dynasty Celtics work in the playoffs...but the matchups weren't taking place because Wilt's teams overachieved in their match-ups with other opponents, and the Celtics matchups (though close) almost always ended in a loss. Plus, in three seasons, Wilt's team had better regular season records than the Celtics (in 1968 and 69, significantly so) and they still lost.

All told, I could be convinced that playoff Wilt was either better or worse than regular season Wilt, based on this level of analysis. Considering that regular season WIlt seemingly had clearly less impact than regular season Shaq, he needed a solid win here to change my view. Instead...

While Wilt's playoff impact is ambiguous, Shaq's is not. Especially in his LA peak, he was utterly devastating in the playoffs. Between 2000 and 2004, Shaq led his team in playoffs on/off +/- in 2000 (+32.4, 2nd on team +0.3), 2002 (+22.9, 2nd +8.4) and 2004 (+25.3, 2nd + 13.6). His playoffs on/off from 2000 - 2004 was over +20. These are HUGE numbers, the kind that have proven extremely rare in the years we have that data for (since 1997). Duncan, LeBron and Garnett are the only other players in the 2000s with multi-year playoff runs of extended length that I've seen with on/off +/- scores over 20. If you extend it to the last few years of last millenium, it's likely Jordan was close from 1997 and 1998, and I think David Robinson achieved that from 1999 - 2001. But it's very rare, and only the best-of-the-best of the last 20+ years have breathed that air.

Now, you might very fairly point out that we don't have that data for Wilt, making it hard to directly compare. And you'd be right. BUT. The data that we DO have for Wilt indicates that he wasn't having anywhere near Shaq's impact in the regular season, and there's nothing about his playoffs results that suggest that he suddenly jumped up to all-time impact levels there compared to what he was doing in the regular season.

Bottom line: Wilt accomplished some amazing things. His iron man status, both with health and minutes played, is a big advantage over Shaq, who was notorious for his weight and his attitude towards rehab and missed games. Wilt could also do a lot more things than Shaq could on the court, and neither were known as great leaders. And Wilt's boxscore achievements are noteworthy. But with that said, from what I can tell, it certainly looks like Shaq was having a SIGNIFICANTLY larger positive impact on his team's ability to win games than Wilt was. And that, to me, is the defining difference in this comp. I'm interested to see what rebuttals, if any, this post receives. But at the moment, I've got Shaq over Wilt and it's not a terribly tough decision.

[Outside]

If I take a step back and follow the Wilt argument it still looks something like this:

Point: Wilt's box score numbers are undeniable.
Counter-Point: Actually, box score numbers don't auto-translate to impact (Scoring Blindness)
Point: I know that, but look at the stats he put up!

I really don't like negatively harping on one player. But I find him foundational to understanding basketball (so much so that I literally wrote a chapter in a book on this). First, Wilt's positives:

-all-time level defender
-very high peak season
-provided value in at least 3 different styles/roles
-Good longevity, especially within era

But hand-waving away the box score thing is just denying that basketball is a team game, which is where the beauty in the whole sport resides to me. It's why I'm writing this post, despite not wanting to write this post. I'm going to write quickly so apologizes for more typos than normal:

I have the unsettling feeling that you've addressed this before, but not having been part of that discussion, I'll beg your forgiveness to ask anyway -- why do you consider Wilt's scoring more detrimental to team goals compared to other great scorers? For example:

-- On the page 3 of this thread, Colts18 quotes a post promoting David Robinson as equal or better than Wilt based on the combined total of points, rebounds, and assists adjusted for pace and minutes per game. So apparently getting lots of points, rebounds, and assists is a good thing?

-- Michael Jordan is number 1 in the rankings, and a big factor is that he was such a dominant scorer. Adjusted for minutes and pace, Jordan's highest scoring seasons could be considered even more extreme than Wilt's 50 PPG season. If you adjust for pace (131.1 for Philly in 1961-62 vs 95.8 for the Bulls in 1986-87), Jordan scored at a higher rate (46.4 per 100 possessions vs 38.4 for Wilt), and that's not even adjusting for Wilt's 8.5 additional minutes per game.

I understand the concept that guys with a supersized shooting or usage rate can hurt team goals, but It seems like Wilt gets the short end of these judgments far more often than other dominant scorers.

In 1959, without Jack George the Warriors were about a -1 SRS team. When healthy the next year they were +2.5. They went from the worst offense in the league (-3.5) to second-worst (-2.4), but it's unclear how much better the 59 team was on offense when healthy without George (basically the same lineup Wilt would be added to in 60...and Paul Arizin was coming off a career-best scoring year and 2nd-team all-nab season). So right away, the data is screaming

1. 38 per game on elite efficiency doesn't automatically equate to great team offense
2. 38 per game on elite efficiency doesn't automatically improve an offense very much

I'm confused here on a couple of fronts.

I'm not sure what Jack George has to do with anything. Was he such a cancer that getting rid of him turned Philly into a really good team? I understand that SRS can be an indicator of how well a team does, but so can wins and losses; in 1958-59, Philly was 20-26 (.435) in the 46 games with George on the roster and 12-14 (.461) in the 26 games without him. The first year with Wilt, Philly was 49-26 (.653) with, as you pointed out, largely the same roster as the year before.

64 is a lot of apparent all-roundness from accounts and the results are excellent, back in the ballpark of 62 but now Nate Thurmond is playing 26 mpg, which, as I've said before, is the original twin towers defense. Leaving this out is like pretending 99 Tim Duncan didn't play next to David Robinson. So it's the Warriors defense that jumps here mainly -- again, big box numbers but not much in the way of winning with offensive efficiency.

Nate Thurmond is my favorite player, and his jersey is my avatar. In my view, he is severely underappreciated, and I'll fight for him to be included far higher in the rankings than 67th, which is where he is in the 2014 top 100 list.

I've heard this argument before used against Wilt, that Wilt and Nate together should've been so much greater with two all-time greats playing side by side. The problem with this argument is that it was Nate's rookie season, and he wasn't yet an all-time great. He averaged 20 points and 22 rebounds in his fifth season, but that first season, he averaged only 7 and 10. Nate would develop a very good mid-range game, but during that time with Wilt, he was a low post scorer and not a good fit with Wilt. They actually did well to go 48-32 and win the West. They just weren't a match in the finals for the Celtics, who were at the height of their powers and won their sixth of eight straight titles that season.

Wilt is one of the most unusual figures in NBA history, on many levels, and some of the criticism directed his way is valid, but he's one of the most difficult players for fans of the game to assess. He was overly stat-driven at some points in his career, but he generally did what his coaches asked of him, whether it was Frank McGuire asking him to score 50 points a game or Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman asking him to score less, anchor the defense, and rebound. His clashes with coaches led to problems, but he never had the stability of a long-term great coach like Russell with Auerbach, Jordan with Jackson, or Duncan with Pop. Among the all-time greats, I think the assessment of Wilt too often goes overboard onto the criticism side of the ledger while ignoring his essential greatness.

[ardee]

I answer all these Wilt criticisms in my big post above, but I'll put them in here one by one as well.

1. Take a look at how little Wilt's presence seemed to actually help in '65. Yes he was hurt, but he was still putting up numbers that make it easy to think he was accomplishing a lot, and yet he had basically no impact at all with those huge numbers.

The Sixers went 11-3 as soon as Wilt arrived in '65. After that, Costello, Jackson and Greer all get injured. You think LeBron is getting the same results of Kyrie, Thompson and JR are all hurt?

I was actually referring to his time on the Warriors.

Take a look at how Wilt lost focus in '68. Obsessed further on obscure stats, daydreamed of LA and actually tried harder against LA to that end.

Lost focus? They won 62 games, statistically he put up a better season than the year before, and most crucially: they had a better defense than BOSTON. 1968 was arguably his best defensive year. Facts state that he was 98% as good as 1967, narratives aren't going to change that.

Dude, we have quotes from Wilt about how his move to LA went down. That's all there is to it.

After winning a single title in Philly, and with all indicators he was in deal shape to begin a dynasty, Wilt was instead thinking about getting to Los Angeles. It is what it is. We talk as if all players agree that they should be motivated primarily to climb up our GOAT list by leading teams to championships. That's just not how Wilt was wired.

Take a look at how Wilt arrived in LA, who already had the best offense in the league using the Princeton, and basically ended that coach's career.

You are really reaching now. They finished 3 wins better and improved 2.1 points on defense. The offense fell of a little bit because the fit was worse: Wilt and Baylor were a bit of a messy combination because Wilt liked posting up on the left block, which is where Baylor liked to drive from. That's the coaches' job to figure out, and he didn't. He was fired because in game 7, he kept the team's best player on the bench in the last few minutes because of ego.

You can't **** on Wilt for asking out due to his injury and not do the same to LeBron for his cramps in 2014. If I recall, anyone who says anything about LeBron's cramps in a negative way is branded as a non-serious poster. Keep things consistent with the Dipper too.

I'm not reaching, but let me just point out the key thing here:

You just tried to defend Wilt's honor by pointing out that the net effect of adding Wilt to the Lakers was not negative.

Can you imagine saying that about anyone else we've debating so far?

And that's why he doesn't deserve a spot yet imho. Because there are years when he was still considered in his prime where his impact fell off a cliff and his psychology contributed to this. When you're up against competition as tough as he is, it's tough.

As an example, everyone knows I'm higher than most on KG. One of the things about him that I can say in bitesized form is that from my analysis of his impact, he was having superstar level impact straight on through from his 3rd to his 17th season. (Forget for a minute that I'm talking about KG if that's possible, I'm not actually trying to convince anyone of KG right now.)

How am I supposed to rank a guy who would go haywire in some way every 3rd or 4th year and was prone to leaving teams entirely based on things that had nothing to do with basketball, over a guy who consistently had massive impact and a good attitude for well over a decade?

I mean you'd have to say the peaks of the mercurial player were so high they justify it, but consider it from a franchise perspective.
Who would you rather try to build around?

Take a look at all the finesse shots that were his trademark. He didn't want to be seen as a gorilla so he decided to showcase skill. He was never as good with finesse shots as he would have been had he focused on a power game, but that wasn't the point. The point was perception.

You do realize you're criticizing the shot selection of a guy who led the league in field goal percentage 9 out of 13 full seasons he played?

Great counterpoint.

And if he didn't want to be seen as a gorilla, it was the 60s. Read John Taylor's The Rivalry, fans weren't ready for black players yet. They faced a ton of racism. If he just overpowered people, he'd have been labeled the "big black brute injuring white players" or some nonsense like that. It's a very different thing for someone caring how they're perceived in 2017 for petty reasons vs. doing the same in the 60s to spare themselves racism. Holding that against him is cruel.

Context.

Whoa!

Let me apologize. I can't believe I typed that. That's offensive.

I don't know what to say. I meant to say Goliath.

Take a look at his free throw shooting. Line drive daggers that seemed to be saying "I'm not good at this and I don't like it, and it doesn't count toward FG% any way."

You're voting Shaq over him when he literally said he didn't care about free throws "me hitting 40% is God's way of saying no one's perfect" versus you just performing some kind of amateur psychoanalysis on Wilt's free throw form to make it seem like he didn't care?

I think I've been quite clear that Shaq's not getting any kind favor from me when it comes to intangibles.

The thing between the two of them boils down to the fact that Shaq was just more effective on the court.

1. 1965: It seems like you are blaming one guy for a team's poor results here. That is not what you guys do with Kevin Garnett. He gets the benefit of the doubt in 2006 and 2007 doesn't he? Wilt was obviously the biggest contributor on scoring, rebounding and defense. Just because we don't have RAPM or On/Off numbers for him, doesn't mean you can automatically assume his impact isn't there just to fit the narrative going on here. Just think, how is it possible for someone to be the best player on the team in every aspect and not be having a significant impact?

For what it's worth, the extremely dysfunctional Warriors were 11-27 with Wilt and 6-36 without him

2. 1968: I reiterate, even if he was thinking about LA, did it affect the results on the court? 62 wins, best defense of his career, just as good individually as '67. Maybe LeBron was thinking about Miami in 2010, did he get penalized for that?

3. 1969: Huh? I mean if narrative matters then sure I guess, but this is about context. Facts are facts, Wilt was unable to have the offensive impact he was capable of because of the way the team was set up (still had a great defensive impact though). Try putting 2004 Shaq on Run N Gun Suns and see how he fits. He would not be able to keep up with the fast break, and in the half court his post-up game would not be able to mesh with the Nash/Stoudemire pick and roll. He was never in a situation like that, but Wilt was. You guys give KG so much benefit of the doubt for his circumstances, why not do the same for Wilt?

4. Power vs finesse: No issue, but you cannot deny my point. Wilt had legitimate reasons not to take the Shaq/overpowering route. And it's not as if his finesse game led to poor results.

[Jaivl]

Will try to make my case for Duncan/KG over Wilt later today.

I understand the concept that guys with a supersized shooting or usage rate can hurt team goals, but It seems like Wilt gets the short end of these judgments far more often than other dominant scorers.

But those other players (examples: Jordan, Kobe, Kareem...) benefitted their team's offense with that play. Wilt didn't. Offenses got quite better with Wilt on a secondary role.

ElGee did a great job at adressing my main concern about Wilt:

Nate Thurmond is my favorite player, and his jersey is my avatar. In my view, he is severely underappreciated, and I'll fight for him to be included far higher in the rankings than 67th, which is where he is in the 2014 top 100 list.

How about top 35?

[eminence]

Will try to make my case for Duncan/KG over Wilt later today.

I understand the concept that guys with a supersized shooting or usage rate can hurt team goals, but It seems like Wilt gets the short end of these judgments far more often than other dominant scorers.

But those other players (examples: Jordan, Kobe, Kareem...) benefitted their team's offense with that play. Wilt didn't. Offenses got quite better with Wilt on a secondary role.

ElGee did a great job at adressing my main concern about Wilt:

Nate Thurmond is my favorite player, and his jersey is my avatar. In my view, he is severely underappreciated, and I'll fight for him to be included far higher in the rankings than 67th, which is where he is in the 2014 top 100 list.

How about top 35?

Obviously not time for it yet, but where do you have Thurmond defensively among the exclusively defense guys (Mutombo/Wallace/Eaton). I do think his offense puts him clearly above those guys (Mutombo closest), but that's a bit of a gut comparison and I haven't really dug into it.

[Jaivl]

Obviously not time for it yet, but where do you have Thurmond defensively among the exclusively defense guys (Mutombo/Wallace/Eaton). I do think his offense puts him clearly above those guys (Mutombo closest), but that's a bit of a gut comparison and I haven't really dug into it.

In my list, Mutombo > Thurmond (> Wallace > Eaton). About offense, over most eras I would prefer Mutombo's decent finishing over Thurmond's good-enough-to-be-used-but-inefficient midrange game.

In terms of impact, Thurmond is king. With the data we have, he consistently blows Kareem, Wilt, Cowens... and basically every center we have enough WOWY data for (so no Russell).

I think he has a great case over some people on the #35 range (Gervin, Thomas, Baylor, Howard...).

[rebirthoftheM]

5th. Tim Duncan

6th. Magic Johnson

This is the one I feel strongest about so far (Duncan outside the Top 5 would be a blight on the list, imo). Even though I'm really busy, I'll do my best to get a good argument for Duncan posted in time for some of you to actually read it.

IMO it's a bigger reach to have Duncan in the top 5 than out of it. Jordan, LBJ, Kareem, Russell and Wilt were all clearly more dominant players.

On a related note. I opened up a thread on Duncan's GOAT candidacy a little while ago, and while there was definitely some highly useful information presented which made me reconsider my own ranking of Duncan (I have him higher now- some of the scalability arguments were really strong), I came to the conclusion that the lack of scrutiny over Duncan's failures, as well as his particularly fortunate circumstances, is strongly informed by folks taking a strong liking for Duncan the man, and what he represented as a person. Everything positive surrounding Duncan is attributed mostly to him, whilst his failures are generally either ignored or contextualized to take away their damning effect. TD and Russell seem to be uniquely approached this way IMO, whilst dudes like Wilt are treated very differently.

In fact, after reading the gushing praises on his salary sacrificing as a +1 for him over dudes who refused to low-ball themselves to save their multi-millionaire/billionaire owners some money, as well as his on-court "sacrifices" (there was a long post about how he allowed himself to be embarrassed by Amare to keep the Suns shooters off the 3 point line in 05, leading to a win, although really he was just following Pop's instructions and still put up massive offensive numbers), there was a distinct feeling that folks were really gravitating to Duncan because they simply liked his unselfish, down- to earth persona.

Admittedly on a personal level, I find what we know of Duncan to be admirable, and he defs. seems like a dude you'd want to work with/under. But as far assessing his GOAT/ATG standing, a lot of these matters that a lot of people put forth to support Duncan's claim, simply doesn't cut it.

Duncan entered into a team culture and setting, which was successful during the 90s when healthy, and which had one of the best players and consummate professionals in the NBA, and a coach who had a wonderful basketball mind. He received excellent tutelage right from day one, particularly D-rob who undoubtedly helped refine TD's D and for several years helped anchor the D with him. He had an excellent FO, who was able to draft excellently over the years (just compare Kupchack/PJ’s record in the 00s v the Spurs FO- night and day), and nab some key free agent signings (like Bowen who was one of the premier defenders prior to joining TD). And unlike other superstars who were compelled to log heavy minutes for most of their primes because of the way their FO structured teams around them, TD by 05 was not cracking more than 34 MPG, a remarkable feat when you think about it, and tells you all you need to know about his fortunate circumstances. The same team then in the very next year after TD's retirement were still the best defensive team in the L, despite lacking a strong rim protector, and having players on their roster who were historically known as average/below average defenders.

Yet according to TD's supporters, TD uniquely (maybe alongside Russell) contributed to this culture in ways that other ATG/GOAT candidates who also had very similar team success did not contribute to their teams. TD is seemingly an exception to the rule that we shouldn't judge dudes by their team success, because supposedly with TD, there is no distinction between the two.

Of course this position is mostly hyperbole. TD, like many other players in history benefited from, and benefited his team. He did not enter into an abyss like KG in Minny, or MJ in Chicago, or Kareem in his post-Oscar days in MIL and Pre-magic days in LA, and therefore we don't see team failures from him as much as we do with other dudes. TD was very fortunate and IMO this is too easily dismissed in these conversations.

What is also dismissed is the 'anti' side- arguments that would normally be used against other dudes, but are seemingly ignored/contextualized/undermined with respect to TD. In the same breath, his achievements are magnified to divine levels. Some examples:

The 2001 WCF- His team had HCA and were healthy minus Derek Anderson, but got demolished in the WCF by the Lakers. TD was in his prime, and was simply awful in games 3 and 4, with his team losing by 39 in game 3 and 29 in game 4. His interior D was not all hot that series, which was meant to be his forte. This is rarely raised because “Kobe and Shaq”, but I wonder whether another candidate would get a pass given the circumstances and his individual play.

Or the 2002 WCSF when the Spurs kept on blowing leads in the 4th quarter/losing games in the 4th, as TD shot something like 35% in 4th quarters on high volume as his team’s offense completely collapsed. He was the MVP that year yet continuously came up short. Again, I wonder whether this would be readily dismissed if it was another dude who came up short like this.

Or 2004 WCSF series when he put up a 21 PPG, 53% TS series being primarily guarded by a 40 year old Karl Malone. In the series clincher, he was at 46.5%. Again, his team had HCA yet he came up short on offense once again.

Or the 2005 playoffs, when it was debatable whether he was the best player on his team- something that is usually used as a downer against other players (see Kareem earlier on). His D was excellent, but a 47.1% TS as the lead offensive generator in the finals is something that would haunt other players.

Or the fact that his team’s offense went to new heights when they abandoned a TD centric offense.

And there’s the undeserved magnification of his admittedly impressive successes. His 03 Run is treated as divine like (and yes it was great) in large part because of the path he took/the lack of help. Apparently beating the Lakers in 03 was a crowning achievement, while in reality, the Lakers were a broken team with zero depth (actually awful depth- terrible GM work post-Jerry West here), and with Bowen keeping Kobe somewhat in check, the Spurs undoubtedly were the better squad. Then again, the Spurs beat the Mavericks minus Dirk for the last 3 games, and then the New Jersey Nets. Again, TD was awesome... but why do we pretend that he took down great teams like Hakeem in 95?

Or the magnification of his role in increasing the productivity of his supporting cast. Here I believe is the most egregious example of where it appears people are uniquely crediting TD for things because they gravitate to his persona. TD did what any other reasonable leader did (and yes, many ATGs did this, and their supporting cast improved as a result)- get his guys to up their play via positive leadership. Nothing remotely special here that should be used as a distinction.

IMO there are a lot of parallels in how TD and Russell are approached. Folks like their unselfish, silent killer, substance of style approach to the game, which is fair enough. But for this to feed into beneficial interpretations of their careers, whilst not giving other dudes the same leeway, just seems biased.

Many decry folks relying on "narratives" to form conclusions, but IMO this equally applies to TD and indeed Russell.

[Senior]

Something that always bothered me when discussing supporting casts is how we almost always evaluate supporting cast quality on the base of box-score stats. "oh, his second option averaged X points on Y efficiency" "oh, his second guy only had Z PER".

With Duncan, his 03 playoff run is always seen as a carry job because his offensive cast was weak...ignoring that his defensive supporting cast was amazing and probably the best in the league. They had Bowen, the best perimeter defender in the league. Malik Rose, S-Jax, Manu who were all solid to good, and the best defensive coach in Pop. That's fantastic support.

I know Tim was the centerpiece of that team, but that team was dominating on defense (-6 RS, -9 DRTG playoffs) which gave them significant room for error that wasn't seen in any box-score. Tim's offensive play in those playoffs was great, but not all-time.

[penbeast0]

Obviously not time for it yet, but where do you have Thurmond defensively among the exclusively defense guys (Mutombo/Wallace/Eaton). I do think his offense puts him clearly above those guys (Mutombo closest), but that's a bit of a gut comparison and I haven't really dug into it.

I'm sorry but he was one of the most inefficient shooting greats ever and a below average passer to boot. They tried to make him Wilt but he would have been a lot more efficient accepting that his offensive skills are poor and shooting less than 10 times a game. Looking at his impact numbers that we have, his defensive numbers are excellent, as good as anyone post Russell, but his offensive impact is consistently and seriously negative. There's a reason that the Warriors 75 title run came after they dealt him for hard working, good passing, but low scoring and not physically great Cliff Ray.

[mtron929]

5th. Tim Duncan

6th. Magic Johnson

This is the one I feel strongest about so far (Duncan outside the Top 5 would be a blight on the list, imo). Even though I'm really busy, I'll do my best to get a good argument for Duncan posted in time for some of you to actually read it.

IMO it's a bigger reach to have Duncan in the top 5 than out of it. Jordan, LBJ, Kareem, Russell and Wilt were all clearly more dominant players.

On a related note. I opened up a thread on Duncan's GOAT candidacy a little while ago, and while there was definitely some highly useful information presented which made me reconsider my own ranking of Duncan (I have him higher now- some of the scalability arguments were really strong), I came to the conclusion that the lack of scrutiny over Duncan's failures, as well as his particularly fortunate circumstances, is strongly informed by folks taking a strong liking for Duncan the man, and what he represented as a person. Everything positive surrounding Duncan is attributed mostly to him, whilst his failures are generally either ignored or contextualized to take away their damning effect. TD and Russell seem to be uniquely approached this way IMO, whilst dudes like Wilt are treated very differently.

In fact, after reading the gushing praises on his salary sacrificing as a +1 for him over dudes who refused to low-ball themselves to save their multi-millionaire/billionaire owners some money, as well as his on-court "sacrifices" (there was a long post about how he allowed himself to be embarrassed by Amare to keep the Suns shooters off the 3 point line in 05, leading to a win, although really he was just following Pop's instructions and still put up massive offensive numbers), there was a distinct feeling that folks were really gravitating to Duncan because they simply liked his unselfish, down- to earth persona.

Admittedly on a personal level, I find what we know of Duncan to be admirable, and he defs. seems like a dude you'd want to work with/under. But as far assessing his GOAT/ATG standing, a lot of these matters that a lot of people put forth to support Duncan's claim, simply doesn't cut it.

Duncan entered into a team culture and setting, which was successful during the 90s when healthy, and which had one of the best players and consummate professionals in the NBA, and a coach who had a wonderful basketball mind. He received excellent tutelage right from day one, particularly D-rob who undoubtedly helped refine TD's D and for several years helped anchor the D with him. He had an excellent FO, who was able to draft excellently over the years (just compare Kupchack/PJ’s record in the 00s v the Spurs FO- night and day), and nab some key free agent signings (like Bowen who was one of the premier defenders prior to joining TD). And unlike other superstars who were compelled to log heavy minutes for most of their primes because of the way their FO structured teams around them, TD by 05 was not cracking more than 34 MPG, a remarkable feat when you think about it, and tells you all you need to know about his fortunate circumstances. The same team then in the very next year after TD's retirement were still the best defensive team in the L, despite lacking a strong rim protector, and having players on their roster who were historically known as average/below average defenders.

Yet according to TD's supporters, TD uniquely (maybe alongside Russell) contributed to this culture in ways that other ATG/GOAT candidates who also had very similar team success did not contribute to their teams. TD is seemingly an exception to the rule that we shouldn't judge dudes by their team success, because supposedly with TD, there is no distinction between the two.

Of course this position is mostly hyperbole. TD, like many other players in history benefited from, and benefited his team. He did not enter into an abyss like KG in Minny, or MJ in Chicago, or Kareem in his post-Oscar days in MIL and Pre-magic days in LA, and therefore we don't see team failures from him as much as we do with other dudes. TD was very fortunate and IMO this is too easily dismissed in these conversations.

What is also dismissed is the 'anti' side- arguments that would normally be used against other dudes, but are seemingly ignored/contextualized/undermined with respect to TD. In the same breath, his achievements are magnified to divine levels. Some examples:

The 2001 WCF- His team had HCA and were healthy minus Derek Anderson, but got demolished in the WCF by the Lakers. TD was in his prime, and was simply awful in games 3 and 4, with his team losing by 39 in game 3 and 29 in game 4. His interior D was not all hot that series, which was meant to be his forte. This is rarely raised because “Kobe and Shaq”, but I wonder whether another candidate would get a pass given the circumstances and his individual play.

Or the 2002 WCSF when the Spurs kept on blowing leads in the 4th quarter/losing games in the 4th, as TD shot something like 35% in 4th quarters on high volume as his team’s offense completely collapsed. He was the MVP that year yet continuously came up short. Again, I wonder whether this would be readily dismissed if it was another dude who came up short like this.

Or 2004 WCSF series when he put up a 21 PPG, 53% TS series being primarily guarded by a 40 year old Karl Malone. In the series clincher, he was at 46.5%. Again, his team had HCA yet he came up short on offense once again.

Or the 2005 playoffs, when it was debatable whether he was the best player on his team- something that is usually used as a downer against other players (see Kareem earlier on). His D was excellent, but a 47.1% TS as the lead offensive generator in the finals is something that would haunt other players.

Or the fact that his team’s offense went to new heights when they abandoned a TD centric offense.

And there’s the undeserved magnification of his admittedly impressive successes. His 03 Run is treated as divine like (and yes it was great) in large part because of the path he took/the lack of help. Apparently beating the Lakers in 03 was a crowning achievement, while in reality, the Lakers were a broken team with zero depth (actually awful depth- terrible GM work post-Jerry West here), and with Bowen keeping Kobe somewhat in check, the Spurs undoubtedly were the better squad. Then again, the Spurs beat the Mavericks minus Dirk for the last 3 games, and then the New Jersey Nets. Again, TD was awesome... but why do we pretend that he took down great teams like Hakeem in 95?

Or the magnification of his role in increasing the productivity of his supporting cast. Here I believe is the most egregious example of where it appears people are uniquely crediting TD for things because they gravitate to his persona. TD did what any other reasonable leader did (and yes, many ATGs did this, and their supporting cast improved as a result)- get his guys to up their play via positive leadership. Nothing remotely special here that should be used as a distinction.

IMO there are a lot of parallels in how TD and Russell are approached. Folks like their unselfish, silent killer, substance of style approach to the game, which is fair enough. But for this to feed into beneficial interpretations of their careers, whilst not giving other dudes the same leeway, just seems biased.

Many decry folks relying on "narratives" to form conclusions, but IMO this equally applies to TD and indeed Russell.

I agree. I feel like people in general are relatively more laxed when it comes to being hypercritical about Duncan as opposed to other players such as Kobe, KG, Lebron, Dirk, etc. It is not even a low expectation thing since Duncan is rated higher than guys like Kobe, KG, and Dirk. I do understand that since Duncan is such a great teammate, it becomes kind of difficult to be hypercritical of him, but in a serious analysis as these, you need to set aside personal feelings, and nitpick every possible things and see whether his "greatness" still holds. And I rarely see this done to Duncan the same way it is done with other all time top players.

[eminence]

Obviously not time for it yet, but where do you have Thurmond defensively among the exclusively defense guys (Mutombo/Wallace/Eaton). I do think his offense puts him clearly above those guys (Mutombo closest), but that's a bit of a gut comparison and I haven't really dug into it.

I'm sorry but he was one of the most inefficient shooting greats ever and a below average passer to boot. They tried to make him Wilt but he would have been a lot more efficient accepting that his offensive skills are poor and shooting less than 10 times a game. Looking at his impact numbers that we have, his defensive numbers are excellent, as good as anyone post Russell, but his offensive impact is consistently and seriously negative. There's a reason that the Warriors 75 title run came after they dealt him for hard working, good passing, but low scoring and not physically great Cliff Ray.

Well yes, but the comparison points here are Big Ben and Eaton. He was still whole tiers ahead of those guys on the offensive end.

[70sFan]

Well, Nate was definitely NOT below average passer. He was quite good passer from both high and low post. He contributed well as a Boerwinkle backup in Bulls when he got older.

[BasketballFan7]

So, my very imprecise, likely inconsistent (due to time constraints) formula leaves the bigs within arm's reach of one another.

Spoiler:

Duncan 145
Shaq 144
Wilt 142
Hakeem 142

The goal of the formula is to give me some form of consistency so that I can examine my thoughts more objectively than I otherwise may. Because I see that these players are so close to one another, and knowing that the formula has relatively large margin of error, I don't feel compelled to make my decision entirely based on the formula. It simply reassures me that, yes, these are the greatest players that have yet to be chosen. There is clear enough separation from next tier of players Erving , Kobe, Magic, Bird, Dirk, so the formula allows me to narrow my options.

Because I am looking at this from a GM's perspective, that of a team-builder, I cross off Shaq. He is the first to be eliminated from contention. He has a jovial personality but is also moody with an enormous, sensitive ego. He leaves teams and feuds with teammates, and he doesn't set a positive example for his teammates by constantly being out of shape and / or injured.

Chamberlain's personality doesn't concern me as much and he was exceptionally durable. Still, it would be difficult for me to select him above a rock like Duncan.

I am leaning towards Hakeem Olajuwon. He is among the most impressive playoff performers in league history, and that is a big deal to me. He has a tremendous ceiling. His earlier play likely gets underrated in favor of his dominance between 93-95. He provides a more favorable personality than Wilt it seems, and he gives me better volume scoring than Duncan. An excellent defender and, now a days, an underrated rebounder.

I will change my vote to Duncan if there are significant personality / leadership concerns with Hakeem.

For now:

1.) Hakeem Olajuwon
2.) Tim Duncan