Moved this discussion back here, as I think it pertains directly to candidates being argued for.....
dhsilv2 wrote:The hardest part of these lists is always when/where you start doing cutoffs. Some people use the stats, some awards, some rings, some eye test, and then there's always some kind of adjustment.
Thus my view that neither of these guys were true franchise cornerstone players who bring teams titles.....
The results of his study (and apparently those of others) is that it's not only "true franchise cornerstone players" who increase a team's odd of winning a title. Yes, a "true franchise player" increases it more than a "2nd tier" star; and a "2nd-tier" star needs a "1st-tier" star by his side (and some additional decent players besides) to win a title in any competitive era, or else maybe 2-3 other 2nd-tier types, etc.......but a top tier star needs a 2nd tier star (or two) or some similar assemblage of talent.
His study was looking at the chances of various tiers/calibers of players to win a title in a vacuum (that is: across a random spectrum circumstances). It's sort of averaging out the whole broad spectrum of team possibilities/circumstances:
having a top tier---Jordan, Lebron, etc---type star by your side, having another 2nd tier star (or maybe two), having an average supporting cast, having a putrid supporting cast, and every other potential occurring along the usual lines of probability........across that entire distribution of possibilities, what is the average likelihood that Player X wins a title? That's what his study attempted to answer, based on what average lift Player X provides (in light of portability).
e.g. Suppose it's determined that a 2nd tier star like Pierce during his prime has a 10% chance (in any given year) of winning a title......that's not saying that throw him on any team and it's automatically a 10% chance that team wins it all: in some circumstances his chances would be well above 50%; in other circumstances it would be virtually 0%. But his average across all potential team circumstances is 10%.
Now if comparing Paul Pierce to Willis Reed, let's say Reed's prime is 4 years, Pierce's is 10 years (we don't have to agree exactly on those numbers; this is just for argument's sake, though those numbers are probably fairly accurate descriptors of their relative prime lengths). Let us also say that Pierce has a 10% chance of a title in any given year (I'm just pulling that number out of the air, btw, though it's probably pretty close to what Elgee found), and let's say Reed's chance in any given year is 20% (because he's a higher caliber player).
In that instance, Reed's chance of aiding his team toward a title
at least once in those four years is 59.0%. The chance of Pierce aiding his team to a title
at least once in those 10 years is 65.1%.
If I've done my math correct, the odds of
multiple titles is even more firmly in Pierce's favor, due to all the extra years.
Suppose Reed's chances in a given prime year is 25% (more than double what we've allotted for Pierce in this example, and probably stretching things a bit, based on the caliber of player that Reed was, but I'm doing so for the sake of argument): there Reed's chance of aiding his team to at least one title is 68.4%, although I believe his chance of
multiple titles in those four years is still marginally less than Pierce's in this example (if my math is correct).
Anyway, food for thought wrt how to consider good longevity.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
