RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #47 (Ray Allen)

trex_8063 wrote:Pau Gasol......

This was the other guy I really want to drum up some support for.

Some may use his relatively smaller sum of awards and honors against him. But here again is where it's important to look at circumstance, imo.

For instance, where All-Star selections are concerned, it's important to note not only positional competition in his era, but also the conference he played in.
Pau until very recently was a PF/C in the Western Conference. They are only going to take perhaps 5 (occasionally only 4) PF/C's for the All-Star team. Pau's prime overlaps almost exactly with that of Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kevin Garnett. Timmy and Dirk were exclusively in the WC, Garnett was to thru '07........so that's three of the All-Star spots full for sure every year thru '07. From '02-'04, you damn well know prime Shaq is getting one too. In some years, that might be just about all the spots they'll hand out to big men. At best there's only one more spot available.

Pau's is competing for that last one (occasionally two available spots AFTER '04) spot, and his competition for that spot would include: prime Elton Brand (from '02-'07), prime Amar'e Stoudemire ('05, '07-'10), Yao Ming ('03-'09), Rasheed Wallace ('02-'04), Zach Randolph ('02-'07, then again '10 and after), healthy prime Carlos Boozer and/or LaMarcus Aldridge every year from '07 on, Shawn Marion in '06........

Frankly, getting an All-Star selection at all in the WC in the 2000's as a big man is a hell of an accomplishment. That Pau managed even ONE prior to '09 is a credit to his record, imo.

All-NBA honors are further stymied by the presence of superstar SF's (All-NBA teams just want two forwards; neither has to be a PF). So the presence of guys like Lebron and Durant, as well as all the Bosh's, Pierce's, Melo's, etc of the world make those difficult as well.
That's what he's been up against most of his career. In light of that, his 6 All-Star selections and 4 All-NBA honors shine all the brighter (and frankly I think it was purely a mistake that he got passed over for Pierce and Melo, respectively, in '09 and '10).

Pau's got a career spanning SIXTEEN seasons (and counting), and still has a career PER for 21.5, career WS/48 of .169, and a +3.5 BPM in a career avg of 34.7 mpg. Was averaging 18.2 ppg, 9.5 rpg, 3.3 apg, and 1.7 bpg after FIFTEEN seasons.

He's one of the most offensively talented big men we've seen in the last 20 years: a guy who can score from the block, stretch the floor and hit from the midrange/outside, makes his FT's, elite passing big, etc.
He's proven a solid rebounding anchor, and for his defensive short-comings has still managed 1.7 bpg.

He was the clear 2nd-best player on two title teams, more like a 1b on another contender, and once led a team to 49 wins (+3.74 SRS) as the clear (and by a good margin) best player, and has been above average all sixteen of his seasons.

trex_8063 wrote:Robert Parish......

That was my ambiguous yet dramatic marquee for a post about a player I'm higher on than most, and want to drum up a little support for. So here goes.....

Let's start with some broad strokes indicating just how productive he was (and for how long):
*Parish is 32nd all-time (in NBA/ABA combined) in career rs pts scored, 9th in rebounds, 11th in blocks. He's 26th all-time in rs WS.
**Playoffs is nearly identical: he's 32nd all-time in career playoff pts, 9th in rebounds, 6th in blocks, and 35th all-time in playoff WS.

If you look at his career in terms of PER, WS/48, BPM, remind yourself that you're looking at numbers that span an ayfkm 21 seasons. If we look at some of the other candidates gaining traction, such as Unseld, Cousy, and Iverson, note their careers were all 13 [or a little over] seasons.
Parish, by the end of his 13th season, had a PER of 20.0, .163 WS/48, +2.4 BPM in 31.0 mpg (which doesn't compare too unfavorably vs them, except maybe a little bit vs Iverson). Parish would have two more All-Star seasons AFTER that, as well as a handful of years of usefulness besides.

And he was there for his team night after night, on average missing LESS THAN 4 game games per year for two solid decades.

Parish was a two-way player. Offensively, he was one of the best transition running centers in the game (watch some early 80's Celtics games if you doubt this statement), could clean up easy hoops inside, but also had a deadly accurate spot-up from <14 ft or turn-around jumper from <12 ft (and made FT's at 72% for his career). His turn-around was not a fade-away, fwiw, but rather would turn squared up and fire this unique high-arcing shot that was somewhat difficult to block.

At the end of his 15th season he still had a career average of 16.5 ppg @ 57.7% TS while having been a consistent rebounding anchor (career 10.1 rpg at that point), as well as a reasonable rim protector (career 1.7 bpg at that point). He had anchored a top-5 defense in '79 while averaging 2.9 bpg (3.2 blk/36 min) and still maintaining the league's best DREB%......he led the league in individual DRtg that year, fwiw.

He was the clear 2nd-best player for a title team ('81 Celtics), probably about a 2b for another title team ('84 Celtics), and the fairly clear 3rd-best player for another title team; was either 2nd or 3rd best for multiple other contenders, too.

"But he was never the top dog for a good team" or "He was only any good on offense due to Bird's passing".....
These are critical statements I've heard in the past. Fortunately, we need look no further than the '89 Celtics to dispel them as false. In '89 Bird was injured and missed basically the entire year. It was a 35-yr-old Robert Parish who filled much of the void. I bold the age to emphasize this isn't even Parish in his physical prime.
Parish nonetheless led the team in ORebs, DRebs and TRebs (by handy margins on all accounts): he was actually 3rd in the whole league in rpg that year (behind only Hakeem and Barkley, and he actually had a higher reb/36 min than Barkley), and also led the entire league in TREB%. He also led the team in bpg, and averaged 18.6 ppg (2nd on the team, and +4.3 from '88), and still on a very elite 60.7% TS [again: without Bird].

He had the team's best PER at 21.6 (2nd was McHale's 20.3), the team's best WS/48 at .177 (2nd was McHale's .168, not counting Ed Pinckney's .176 which came on <700 total minutes), and the team's best BPM at +4.2 (2nd was McHale's +2.1, not counting Pinckney's +3.0). And there's not enough difference between McHale and Parish in mpg to account for Parish's edge in everything (36.9 mpg for McHale, 35.5 mpg for Parish, who missed two fewer games as well).

In short, he was the top dog on this team that managed a 42-40 record in a tough Eastern Conference (+1.26 SRS); and this was after turning 35 years old before the season even started.

He was a 9-time All-Star, 1-time All-NBA 2nd Team, 1-time All-NBA 3rd Team, and has four total NBA titles to his credit--->playing during one of the toughest eras in the history of the league, too.
He figured into the MVP vote FIVE seasons, twice in the top 10, once as high as 4th.

To me, this is a fairly stellar career easily deserving of top 50 recognition.

1st vote: Pau Gasol
2nd vote: Robert Parish

dhsilv2 · Post #3 » by **dhsilv2** » Wed Sep 27, 2017 2:59 pm

How sure are you that Cedrick Maxwell wasn't the second best player on the 81 Celtics? He has better advanced numbers in the playoffs as well as minutes played.

84 Parish in the playoffs was a sub 15 PER which is pretty poor. His WS/48 and BPM also look like that of a role player level guy.

If I'm to be sold Parish should be this high, I'd need to be sold his defense was really elite. I'm not sure I'm sold on that.

BTW gotta give the man credit for his 2 points during the bulls run

Post #4 » by **penbeast0** » Wed Sep 27, 2017 3:23 pm

Guys who truly made a difference . . . Arizin is the next 50s guy for me, then Cousy, by the stats is might be Neil Johnston but they were teammates and when Arizin went into the military the team fell apart. Combine that with Johnston's great offense/lacksadaisical defense rep and you get an Amare Stoudamire type player, only in a weaker era.

60s guys, I am looking at Sam Jones, Hal Greer, Dave Debusschere, maybe Chet Walker. Thurmond is hurt by his offense and his team winning a title just after trading him for Cliff Ray. 70s there are a bunch of guys who are impressive Daniels, Cowens, Unseld, Hayes, McAdoo just among big men. Of these, I'd rather have Dave Cowens though the stats don't always back me up but having watched them a lot, he was Alonzo Mourning's attitude with stretch the floor midrange shooting.

80s, Sidney Moncrief had a short career but every time I saw him he was brutally effective, particularly defensively. Bobby Jones is another great two way player with limited time (not length of career for him but minutes per game). On the other end, Adrian Dantley is probably the next great scorer over Nique (and King/Aguirre/Marques/etc.). To paraphrase LA Bird, the only real argument for Nique over English is style over substance. No one left is as offensively impressive to me as English and Dantley except for the shorter modern careers like Westbrook and Harden.

90s have been picked through pretty well except for the oddity that is Dennis Rodman; GOAT rebounder in regular season, but big dropoffs in the postseason or I'd probably be looking at him here. 00s we have Mutombo's defense (okay, 90s and 00s), Ray Allen's scoring, and Manu Ginobili, the Bobby Jones of the modern era. Current stars like Westbrook, Harden, etc. could get into the conversation as well.

Vote: Alex English
Alternate: Adrian Dantley

pandrade83 · Post #5 » by **pandrade83** » Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:35 pm

pandrade83 wrote:1st choice: Wes Unseld
Honorable Mention: Russell Westbrook

If you're not giving Unseld a look, you're missing a gem. You're getting a guy who was a high performer by advanced metrics (VORP, BPM), was selected to be an MVP, was a strong playoff performer & enjoyed strong team success.

Advanced Metrics

Unseld hit 5+ scores for both BPM 3 times & VORP twice - that we know of - one of which didn't come in a double digit WS year. If we make the reasonably safe assumption that he hit those scores in ALL of his double digit WS year, that gives him 6 years of a BPM Score of 5+ and 5 years of a VORP Score of 5+ and It's highly likely that if we had RAPM, the metric would've loved him as well.

What's so impressive about that? Of our run-off candidates from last run, Gasol got there 3 times & Cousy (probably) never got there - given that he never even achieved 9 WS.
MVP Season

In the '68-'69 season, Unseld was selected MVP over guys who are already in like Wilt, Russell, West, Baylor, Frazier & Hondo. He is clearly well respected by his peers. People have said that Unseld's MVP was a little weak - and I get that - but remember you're voting for slot #45! It's noteworthy that Unseld's arrival coincided with a 21 win improvement without a change in the team's core, or a change in the coach. Washington went from 36 to 57 wins and finished with the best record in the league - that's why he won MVP - he had a major impact on winning. A team with Unseld & Monroe as it's two best players beat out Wilt/West, Russell/Hondo, Frazier/Reed, which is pretty impressive.

Strong playoff performer

In the playoffs, he maintains his strong performance - averaging 10/15/4/with 1.8 TOs (on fairly limited data) which is right on par with his career averages.

The most infamous defeat one of his teams suffer isn't really on him (the '75 Finals). He does his thing - 12-17-4 on 54% TS. That's who he was. Hayes crippled the team offensively - yes, he scored 20 PPG but he shot a miserable TS% of just 46%.

Strong Team Success

Unseld was the team playoff leader in WS and then VORP/BPM for 4 Finals Teams* as he was vital to his teams' playoff success as mentioned by his strong playoff numbers above. Unseld only misses the playoffs once in a strong 13 year career that sees him pace his team in every year but 2# in VORP & BPM - and before that in WS.

* - Hayes outpaced Unseld in Playoff VORP; Unseld outpaced Hayes in Playoff BPM as well as regular season VORP and BPM during their title year of '78.
# - ('74 - injuries & '81 - injuries + final year)

Unseld would make a fantastic addition to our List. You're getting an MVP who is recognized as a high impact performer by advanced metrics, who had decent longevity, was a strong playoff performer and was the driver of a consistent winner.

You just don't see guys who achieved that much this late; there's guys left who achieved higher peaks, but had much worse longevity - Unseld brings very high impact years over a sustained run as a winner; the really high peak players remaining (Westbrook, Tmac, McAdoo, Walton) can't say that. Of our remaining MVP's who didn't play in a segregated era, Unseld has the most quality years.

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

I loved watching Allen Iverson play. His style, his determination & his explosiveness were all captivating. The man had a relentless motor. He's on my all-time "favorite guys to watch" team - but he's not in my Top 50.

Watching him play, you can kind of tell, deep down in a place you don't totally want to admit that your ceiling is capped with him because of efficiency issues.

But what if, you could capture the competitive fire, never say die attitude, motor at max 100% of the time, reckless abandonment & "I can't wait to see this guy play" factor in a sabermetric friendly version? I present to you Russell Westbrook (full disclosure: my favorite player to watch in the league).

The advanced metrics actually love him

One of the biggest knocks on Westbrook is going to be around efficiency - his detractors are going to say that he wasn't an efficient player and that they have stylistic concerns about him. Some (but not all) of these metrics I'm going to present will somewhat over-state his impact. The point isn't to say he had the best season ever (like VORP will) - rather this is to illustrate that all the sabermetrics actually recognize his impact - and should dispel some efficiency concerns.

RAPM - he finished 4th in ESPN's RPM Wins each of the last 2 years, 7th in '15, and 13th in RPM in '14 and a strong "pre-prime" of being 21st in the chained RAPM from '08-'11.
VORP - Last year Russell Westbrook posted the highest single season VORP Score EVER.
BPM - Westbrook has finished 1st in this metric twice ('15 & '17) and holds 2 of the Top 10 scores EVER.
WS - FWIW, he already has more career Win Shares than Willis Reed - who has been in the last several run-offs. He's hit 13 WS + twice - of our remaining candidates from last round, only Reed got to that level twice.
PER - last time he broke the 30 barrier. That's relevant because here is your list of guys who also have:

Steph Curry
Anthony Davis
Lebron James
Dwayne Wade
Tracy McGrady
Shaq
David Robinson
MJ
Chamberlain

That's an impressive group. Everyone else is in but Tmac & AD.

An ability to perform well against other elite guards when it matters

In his lone encounter against Paul in the playoffs
Westbrook - 28/9/6 - 61% TS
Paul - 23/12/4 - 61% TS

vs. Steph in the playoffs:

Westbrook - 27/11/7 - 51.2% TS
Steph - 28/6/6 - 61.3% TS

vs. Wade in the '12 Finals:

Westbrook - 27/7/6 - 51% TS
Wade - 23/6/5 - 51% TS

vs. Harden in LY Playoffs:

Westbrook - 34/10/10 * not technically a triple double - rounding here - 51% TS
Harden - 32/7/6 - 57% TS - so much flopping - worse FG & 3PT%'s than Westbrook

Westbrook doesn't necessarily win all these matchups (2 are wins; 1's a draw & 1's a loss; but in EVERY matchup he competes and acquits himself well) - say what you will about Westbrook but you'll never see anything like this shameful performance:

Watch on YouTube

Elephant in the room: Stylistics & KD

I'll tackle the KD thing - why did he leave? I'll put it in KD's own words:

"he didn't like the organization or playing for Billy Donovan. His roster wasn't that good, it was just him and russ."

"imagine taking russ off that team, see how bad they were. Kd can't win a championship with those cats."

This wasn't a Westbrook issue - this is an org & Billy Donovan issue.

As for stylistics - I know Westbrook took a lot of flack for the style he played last year. But look at the mess Westbrook still got 10 apg with:

Watch on YouTube

Then you have Oladipo - who is basically a homeless man's Westbrook - who somehow managed to shoot a worse TS% than Westbrook last year - as did Sabonis. You're only real offensive weapon - Enes Kanter - can't stay on the floor in the playoffs because of things like this:

Watch on YouTube

I know Adams was there - but I feel like Adams usage rate was probably optimized last year. I want him scoring in the 12-15 PPG range on a high TS%. And that's sort of the point - in that situation, Westbrook probably optimized OKC's chances of winning.

This is a guy who is a strong playoff performer and is a very high efficiency guy who has had an incredibly high peak and already turned in 6 very high quality seasons & he hasn't had a BAD season yet. It's time for him to get some support.

Full Disclosure: The only thing changed is the comment about Unseld's VORP/BPM Scores compared to run-off candidates. This is in quote form because I didn't want to go back & have to re-format everything.

I was disappointed to see Cousy get in here.

Post #6 » by **trex_8063** » Wed Sep 27, 2017 7:12 pm

dhsilv2 wrote:How sure are you that Cedrick Maxwell wasn't the second best player on the 81 Celtics? He has better advanced numbers in the playoffs as well as minutes played.

A fair question to ask. I tend to make my decision primarily based on the rs (sample size: 80+ games vs. just 17). In the rs, Cornbread played bigger minutes (33.7 mpg vs 28.0 for Parish): significant difference, but not massive, and generally speaking Maxwell's still are not the kind of minutes where we would be expecting nightly fatigue to be much of an issue.
And I don't feel that mpg edge sufficiently off-sets Parish's [occasionally sizable] advantage in basically all the rate metrics: 25.2 to 17.6 edge in PER, .228 to .193 edge in WS/48, +5.0 to +4.8 edge in BPM.
I'll also note, fwiw, that Parish finished 7th in MVP shares (Cedric did not receive votes), and that [iirc] Maxwell was a bit of a lackluster defender.

But sure, when you figure in playoff performance, I can certainly see where you could make a case that Maxwell was 2nd and maybe more of a "2b" role for Parish.

I won't deny that Parish had some playoff inconsistency issues (not exactly an outlier in this regard, but not good either). imo, if Parish's playoff performance was consistently every bit as good as he was in the rs, I think he'd deserve some consideration for the 35-40 range.

dhsilv2 wrote:If I'm to be sold Parish should be this high, I'd need to be sold his defense was really elite. I'm not sure I'm sold on that.

Well, I made special note of his run with the Warriors in '79:
*avg 3.2 blocks/36 min while simultaneously having the league's best DREB% (that is nothing to sneeze at for a big man, imo).
**team was the 5th-rated defense, nicely balanced in the four factors, though DREB% was where they were best.
***Had the league's best individual DRtg that year.

I'd further note that when he left the Warriors in '81 (replaced by rookie Joe Barry Carroll), their rDRTG worsened by +3.2 (that's a sizeable dip!).
Meanwhile, in joining the Celtics he was replacing the now retired Dave Cowens (who had had like 32 mpg and was All-D 2nd Team in '80), and the Celtics defense didn't skip a beat: they'd been -3.4 rDRTG in '80, were -2.9 rDRTG in '81, -3.4 in '82, -2.9 in '83. Parish was averaging 3.4 blocks/36 in '81, while still maintaining a high DREB% (once again fairly elite in these regards), and the things the Celtics D were best at were opp eFG% and DREB% (the things a center can have the largest imprint on).

Now it's true they also got a rookie McHale in '81 (~20 mpg that year), though also noteworthy where defense is concerned is that Chris Ford (who in his younger years was a wizard at creating turnovers) was really beginning to slow down by '81.

idk, I look at these things collectively, and I don't have a hard time believing Parish was a very effective defender, at least during the front half of his career (probably even All-D 2nd team level a couple of years).

Owly · Post #7 » by **Owly** » Wed Sep 27, 2017 8:59 pm

trex_8063 wrote:I won't deny that Parish had some playoff inconsistency issues (not exactly an outlier in this regard, but not good either). imo, if Parish's playoff performance was consistently every bit as good as he was in the rs, I think he'd deserve some consideration for the 35-40 range.

Context: I much prefer RS as a much larger sample, against a greater breadth of opponents (in which all players typically being compared, at very least within that year, played a similarly difficult schedule) ... luck ... injuries ... matchups etc

I very much doubt the value of a players PS performance minus RS performance as a gauge of any kind of goodness (see the above), but even of playoff goodness (punishing a player for quality regular season play). Then too there are further methodological questions (this to be discussed later).

That said ...
On Parish as "not exactly an outlier", presumably in terms of playoff drop-off (correct me if I'm wrong if that isn't the topic), I guess one could get into semantics about outlier but ...

Parish probably rates out very poorly here. I'm not an expert here because, as stated above I think this stuff is largely irrelevent, but out of a combination of curiosity and perhaps some desire to create a system which includes a more mainstream style playoff weighting, with a manner consistent with my thinking, I was looking at playoff risers and fallers recently.

Now I don't know what is an "average" fall for playoff production (It should typically fall due a higher quality of opponent and a better "average" minute played i.e. shorter rotations and best teams mean that to achieve 15 PER, .100 WS/48 requires a higher absolute standard of play). I'm not sure how best to find this without massive amounts of time.

But as I say I was looking at some players, especially those who look like outliers. Parish seemed outlier bad me, by my previous casual research (i.e. discussions, BKB-Ref searching). Now at first glance career PS vs RS metrics drops don't look too bad
PER fall: -2.65
WS/48 fall: -0.0334
PS PER: 16.57
RS PER: 19.22
PS WS/48: 0.121
RS WS/48: 0.1544

Of 99 ("random" - i.e. unusual - not randomly chosen, not necessarily great players, not necessarily large sample minutes) 31 had a larger win share drop-off and 21 had a larger PER dropoff. So not an absolute outlier.

But this is amongst a group of guys I looked for as outliers.

And back to my prior thoughts, there were areas I thought Parish's stats dropoff were softened by

1) Minutes distribution. One of my methodological issues with this type of analysis to begin with. Parish was last really productive in '93. After that point in time he plays 1.44% of playoff career (89 of 6177 minutes). But of his RS minutes 10.57% are after that point. Now it’s very harsh to me to see this as a negative, but Parish’s career RS production is during the time he was spending minutes in the playoffs is undersold by his career PER, and as such the real dropoff is greater.

2) Minutes distribution part 2. Ditto the above but with regard to early career. The goodness you could expect of Parish in the postseason is the goodness of his Boston years. Golden State numbers disproportionately drag down his RS numbers (17.25% of his RS minutes) versus his playoff minutes (3.87% of his playoff minutes).

3) Low (playoff) peak. If one acknowledges limited amount of court minutes available to prove yourself better than best others team, there is a value to concentrated greatness. RS Parish, if not thought of as great, had a solid 3 year peak-prime (’81-’83) and was at least consistently largely above the line of very good for his Boston years. Boston playoff Parish, with the exception of ’82, largely wasn’t (albeit I don’t know what a fair “expected dropoff” should be for this standard in the playoffs) for 80s. He saves his best playoff work for 90-93. Where suddenly he’s matching his RS numbers. This means a lower playoff peak (than would be hoped for or achieved by an evenly distributed across the board dropoff based purely on those career numbers). Of course it also points to the randomness of these things and relatively small samples.

A fourth subjective factor would be that some playoff “fallers” (D Robinson, Chamberlain, K Malone) did so in a context of being the sole or near sole focus of game-planning (at least as scorers). Parish did so in a context of being not the primary focus of rival coaches (though ironically, as Bird’s influence waned, Parish became more playoff effective).

Parish played a greater proportion of his career (minutes) in the playoffs than most of the players I looked at in my rough study/exploration. So to the extent that any difference isn’t just noise, Parish’s results are the more confident ones. I think he falls, and for the reasons above the career numbers understate that fall.

A mitigating factor might be that he played a lot of his playoff minutes in the tough 80s East (one more reason I’m not that into playoffs vs RS (very uneven competition levels).

To reiterate, I’m lower than the vast majority on playoffs, and especially using a player’s own RS production as a yardstick (and negative). But for Parish, the career drops alone don’t look good and they seem, to me, to undersell the playoff dropoff that Parish happened to suffer.

dhsilv2 · Post #8 » by **dhsilv2** » Wed Sep 27, 2017 11:12 pm

Owly wrote:
trex_8063 wrote:I won't deny that Parish had some playoff inconsistency issues (not exactly an outlier in this regard, but not good either). imo, if Parish's playoff performance was consistently every bit as good as he was in the rs, I think he'd deserve some consideration for the 35-40 range.

Context: I much prefer RS as a much larger sample, against a greater breadth of opponents (in which all players typically being compared, at very least within that year, played a similarly difficult schedule) ... luck ... injuries ... matchups etc

I very much doubt the value of a players PS performance minus RS performance as a gauge of any kind of goodness (see the above), but even of playoff goodness (punishing a player for quality regular season play). Then too there are further methodological questions (this to be discussed later).

That said ...
On Parish as "not exactly an outlier", presumably in terms of playoff drop-off (correct me if I'm wrong if that isn't the topic), I guess one could get into semantics about outlier but ...

Parish probably rates out very poorly here. I'm not an expert here because, as stated above I think this stuff is largely irrelevent, but out of a combination of curiosity and perhaps some desire to create a system which includes a more mainstream style playoff weighting, with a manner consistent with my thinking, I was looking at playoff risers and fallers recently.

Now I don't know what is an "average" fall for playoff production (It should typically fall due a higher quality of opponent and a better "average" minute played i.e. shorter rotations and best teams mean that to achieve 15 PER, .100 WS/48 requires a higher absolute standard of play). I'm not sure how best to find this without massive amounts of time.

But as I say I was looking at some players, especially those who look like outliers. Parish seemed outlier bad me, by my previous casual research (i.e. discussions, BKB-Ref searching). Now at first glance career PS vs RS metrics drops don't look too bad
PER fall: -2.65
WS/48 fall: -0.0334
PS PER: 16.57
RS PER: 19.22
PS WS/48: 0.121
RS WS/48: 0.1544

Of 99 ("random" - i.e. unusual - not randomly chosen, not necessarily great players, not necessarily large sample minutes) 31 had a larger win share drop-off and 21 had a larger PER dropoff. So not an absolute outlier.

But this is amongst a group of guys I looked for as outliers.

And back to my prior thoughts, there were areas I thought Parish's stats dropoff were softened by

1) Minutes distribution. One of my methodological issues with this type of analysis to begin with. Parish was last really productive in '93. After that point in time he plays 1.44% of playoff career (89 of 6177 minutes). But of his RS minutes 10.57% are after that point. Now it’s very harsh to me to see this as a negative, but Parish’s career RS production is during the time he was spending minutes in the playoffs is undersold by his career PER, and as such the real dropoff is greater.

2) Minutes distribution part 2. Ditto the above but with regard to early career. The goodness you could expect of Parish in the postseason is the goodness of his Boston years. Golden State numbers disproportionately drag down his RS numbers (17.25% of his RS minutes) versus his playoff minutes (3.87% of his playoff minutes).

3) Low (playoff) peak. If one acknowledges limited amount of court minutes available to prove yourself better than best others team, there is a value to concentrated greatness. RS Parish, if not thought of as great, had a solid 3 year peak-prime (’81-’83) and was at least consistently largely above the line of very good for his Boston years. Boston playoff Parish, with the exception of ’82, largely wasn’t (albeit I don’t know what a fair “expected dropoff” should be for this standard in the playoffs) for 80s. He saves his best playoff work for 90-93. Where suddenly he’s matching his RS numbers. This means a lower playoff peak (than would be hoped for or achieved by an evenly distributed across the board dropoff based purely on those career numbers). Of course it also points to the randomness of these things and relatively small samples.

A fourth subjective factor would be that some playoff “fallers” (D Robinson, Chamberlain, K Malone) did so in a context of being the sole or near sole focus of game-planning (at least as scorers). Parish did so in a context of being not the primary focus of rival coaches (though ironically, as Bird’s influence waned, Parish became more playoff effective).

Parish played a greater proportion of his career (minutes) in the playoffs than most of the players I looked at in my rough study/exploration. So to the extent that any difference isn’t just noise, Parish’s results are the more confident ones. I think he falls, and for the reasons above the career numbers understate that fall.

A mitigating factor might be that he played a lot of his playoff minutes in the tough 80s East (one more reason I’m not that into playoffs vs RS (very uneven competition levels).

To reiterate, I’m lower than the vast majority on playoffs, and especially using a player’s own RS production as a yardstick (and negative). But for Parish, the career drops alone don’t look good and they seem, to me, to undersell the playoff dropoff that Parish happened to suffer.

WS/48 would be the metric I'd be interested if you have some comparison. Given he was on a team that made deep playoff runs, all else equal players should get a "biased" higher WS/48. After all winning should help all else equal. If there is still a peer drop off, it should matter.

The only reason of course I bring up the playoffs is the "second best player on a title team". I believe that generally RS is all that matters, PS is noisy as heck. But when you win titles, you get a decent number of games, we as fans rank those games as higher value, and winning generally happens under favorable conditions (winning is normally good for stats). So Parrish's stats did seem rather lack luster given that context. But I didn't dig deeper, I just looks at his title runs.

dhsilv2 · Post #9 » by **dhsilv2** » Wed Sep 27, 2017 11:42 pm

Same vote and reasoning from the last thread. I think there are still nearly a dozen players all pretty cluttered here. Thus my vote for Reed remains in large part I feel when in doubt titles and MVPs are the deciding factor. I am however going to go ahead and give my next next vote (double alt?) which goes against my normal voting.

Vote Reed - Reed remains the best career of an MVP here, slightly pushing out Cowen and Iverson. A big man who was an above average defender, had a solid jump shot, and was considered a high intangibles guy on two title teams. Sure you only get 6 maybe 7 stand out seasons from him, but his career carried with it some rather iconic moments.

Alt Iverson Of the volume scorers that are getting traction, the best season/playoff run imo is strongly in favor of Iverson. Iverson was given a rather odd career, it wasn't until he was older that he had his first legit "star" level co player in Melo, but Melo as we all know was hardly the right mix for Iverson. Iverson gave his body to the game, he was wearing what looked like battle armor by the end. I tend to think Iverson was also a better play maker than he's given credit for. If influence on the game matters to you, Iverson would have been in ages ago. For all the coach issue he had, I have to pause and point out Larry Brown was known as a tough coach to play for, and yet somehow they had a pretty good run together.

HM - Manu Ginobili. 992 games played, longevity is there without much debate despite joining the league well over the normal rookie age and being held back by pop. The burn here is that he's averaged 25.8 minutes a game for his career, by far the lowest here. His 349 starts however is fairly comparable to McHale who we already put in and Manu has him beat in titles and tied in all nba selections. And with this we begin the Manu playoff story.

Manu is one of the greatest playoff performers in NBA history.

Games played 213 (9th)
Minutes played 5968 (27th)
Field Goal 941 (35th)
Free Throws 809 (17th)
TRB 859 (66th)
AST 811 (24th)
STL 285 (11th)
PTS 3009 (25th)
PER 19.4 (62nd)
WS 20.6 (20th)
WS/48 .1657 (44th)
BPM 5.24 (25th)
VORP 10.87 (17th)

I get that the playoffs are longer and that a lot of this is a function of playing with Duncan and being in the Spurs system, we don't need to go there, but there are very few players who weren't with other great players and who didn't have strong coaches who we rank this highly. I want to however point out how darn good those playoff stats are, and in a 213 game sample. That's nearly 3 seasons for those who miss games and still 2.6 82 game seasons. Manu averaged 28 minutes a game in the playoffs and during the title era (03-13) he was just a hair under 30 a game.

For those who are fans of RAPM, well Manu he was the top guy in 05, 3rd in 06, 3rd in 07, and 2nd in 08. But he doesn't start? Well during that 4 year span he started 189 out of 288 regular season games and played 29 minutes a game in the regular season.

His 10 year RAPM from 02-11 (he didn't play in 02) ranks 4th.

He is a 7 time top 10 BPM guy, with 4 3rd place finishes. He was top 10 in VORP 4 times (peaking at 4th). 5 top 10 WS/48 seasons peaking at 2nd. 75th all time in WS and 35th all time in VORP.

For every reason that Manu is too high here (other MVP's on the board, bench player, minutes played, etc) there is a reason he should be here. Manu has flat out been one of the most impactful players in the NBA for over decade. There is zero negative baggage on him as a locker room guy. He has had injury issue, even in the playoffs, but has more than made up for that.

If you're skeptical of the 70's MVPs left, not a fan of the 80's and 90's volume scorers, or aren't ready for defensive only big men. I present you Manu. Manu truly needs to be somewhere in the 50's. I don't expect him to get traction for a bit, but he absolutely needs to be somewhere in the 50's. For me manu is perhaps the best player, I'm pretty sure couldn't have been the number 1 guy on a team, but as a number 2 he was just so special.

Post #10 » by **trex_8063** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 12:20 am

Owly wrote:
Parish played a greater proportion of his career (minutes) in the playoffs than most of the players I looked at in my rough study/exploration. So to the extent that any difference isn’t just noise, Parish’s results are the more confident ones. I think he falls, and for the reasons above the career numbers understate that fall.

A mitigating factor might be that he played a lot of his playoff minutes in the tough 80s East (one more reason I’m not that into playoffs vs RS (very uneven competition levels).

Another mitigating factor could be that part of the reason he has a higher playoff proportion is that his teams are making more DEEP playoff runs, and theoretically facing tougher and tougher teams/defenses the deeper they go into the playoffs. As such, the avg defense faced in the playoffs may also be tougher than that of the average player you looked at.

Also, I noted it appears you just used his career rs PER and his career ps PER to form the average drop. There could be some spurious results in that while the rs sample size is relatively consistent (~80 games per year), the playoff sample is all over the map (anywhere from 2 to 23).
If I have time later, I might just take the years one at a time and formulate an average that way (e.g. if his ps PER drop was -1 one year, and -3 another year, the average is -2), as I feel that better corrects for the irregularity in playoff sample size.

I would generally agree Parish's playoff drop is "somewhat more than average"; I just didn't feel like he's quite an outlier in this (though as you said, this kinda comes down to semantics). But his playoff drop-off is quite as precipitous as Karl Malone or Dominique Wilkins, for examples.

Lastly, it's awesome to have your voice in this! Haven't heard from you in awhile. If you feel like participating in the project (as a voter, I mean) at any point, please just jump right in (don't even have to ask, you'll be admitted to the panel immediately).

Post #11 » by **penbeast0** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 1:05 am

dhsilv2 wrote:...

Iverson's may be the deepest playoff run, but it's not necessarily the best. He was even more himself in that run, having some games where he carried the team against very weak competition (Indiana, Toronto Milwaukee) and some where he shot his team out of games they should have won. His TS% was an ugly .480 on 30 shots a game though he did get more assists than usual since he was playing hero ball much of the time. If you like Iverson's style, this was an excellent example of it on a team designed to maximize it. If you don't, it's an excellent example of why an Iverson led team will always have a limited ceiling.

Compare to Alex English's 1985 run to the WCF scoring almost as much (28.4ppg/34.3per 100 poss) on 10 less shots a game while showing off a .601 ts%. I know which one I'd rather have and it isn't Iverson.

scrabbarista · Post #12 » by **scrabbarista** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 1:17 am

47. Elvin Hayes
48. Dave Cowens

For combined (RS) points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals, Elvin Hayes is 9th in the history of the NBA and ABA combined. If you aren't giving him consideration around the 47th spot, then career totals should probably not enter into your thought at any point on this list. 9th and 47th! C'mon! Let's not go so far down the analytics rabbit hole that we forget that the simple numbers matter, too.

Hayes was the most productive player on the '78 Bullets title team, although Unseld was generally more heralded. By my count, there is only a handful of players remaining who were the best player on a title team, so Hayes at least needs to start receiving consideration.

Hayes' MVP finishes, in spite of the fact that apparently not a single person with a vote actually liked him:

1971-72 NBA 0.006 (17)
1972-73 NBA 0.021 (10)
1973-74 NBA 0.082 (5)
1974-75 NBA 0.299 (3)
1975-76 NBA 0.018 (8)
1976-77 NBA 0.020 (7)
1978-79 NBA 0.126 (3)

Hayes also led the league in scoring in '69, and was a 12x All-Star.

For me, his combination of longevity and production for a championship team make him too hard to ignore.

dhsilv2 · Post #13 » by **dhsilv2** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:07 am

penbeast0 wrote:
dhsilv2 wrote:...

Iverson's may be the deepest playoff run, but it's not necessarily the best. He was even more himself in that run, having some games where he carried the team against very weak competition (Indiana, Toronto Milwaukee) and some where he shot his team out of games they should have won. His TS% was an ugly .480 on 30 shots a game though he did get more assists than usual since he was playing hero ball much of the time. If you like Iverson's style, this was an excellent example of it on a team designed to maximize it. If you don't, it's an excellent example of why an Iverson led team will always have a limited ceiling.

Compare to Alex English's 1985 run to the WCF scoring almost as much (28.4ppg/34.3per 100 poss) on 10 less shots a game while showing off a .601 ts%. I know which one I'd rather have and it isn't Iverson.

This completely ignores who was on the team and the way the team was designed.

Iverson was the ONLY offensive player on the 76ers. He did not have a single other player on the floor who you wanted to create a shot. Aaron McKie was the best offensive guy on the team other than Iverson. Unless you're a massive Eric Snow fan. In that playoff run here are the top 6 76ers who weren't Iverons' OBPM

Mutombo -0.3
McKie 1.2
Hill -4.2 (not a typo)
Snow -1.8
Jumaine Jones -1.7
Lynch -2.0

Mutombo got credit for scoring efficiently off of dunks and layups. All of course created for him as he was hardly an iso post up center, especially at that point in his career. This team is easily one of the worst assemblies of offensive talent we've seen in a team that made a conference finals, let alone nba finals.

Meanwhile English:

So PER is a good and bad stat, but I LOVE it for who is a somewhat "average" box score guy relative to competition. It has issues for top end, but it's great in that the stat sets the average player at 15. A good team has a few guys over 15 normally or 2 guys way over it. English had Natt 19.6, Lever 16.8, Issel 15.2, and Cooper 16.6. These guys all got pretty decent minutes in their playoff run. This second guy in minutes played at an OBPM of 2.9, Lever was 0.4.

It's a HELL of a lot easier to shoot better and have better stats when you have competent other guys to score.

You can make a case against Iverson. Bad locker room guy. Attitude issues. But the efficiency argument is pretty weak given he simply didn't have anyone else who could score. I'd even be ok if you made the case he was left on a island to iso because he couldn't get along with other players (though I don't think that's true, I'd listen), but I'm sorry but don't compare English to Iverson without the context of how awful Iverson's offensive help was. I remember those 76ers teams VERY well, anytime Iverson didn't have the ball in his hands on offense, you were wondering what the hell was going on.

and for whatever it's worth the bucks were the best offense in the league in 01 (crappy defense) but either way I think that was a decent team that they beat. SRS of 3.13. Raptors had an SRS of 1.69.

As for English Spurs had and SRS of 0.63 and the Jazz and an SRS of -0.33

So if we just look at SRS Iverson beat two better teams than English beat. The pacers were -0.77 so they were worse.

Sorry but while I think English was a good player, if I were to judge them on 85 vs 01 playoffs, Iverson wins this one for me and by a considerable amount. Unless you can tell me there was a defensive gap, Iverson was just being asked to do SOO much on offense and he really just didn't have any help and he was doing it against better teams.

Pablo Novi · Post #14 » by **Pablo Novi** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:11 am

20170927 ALL-League Selections’ Merit
ALL-League Selections Are Closer To Valid Than They Are To Wildly-Off
It is true that there have been many and long back-and-forths involving me about "the importance of context" in weighting of All-NBA honors. I'm just weighing in here to say that "the importance of context" is a catch-word that very often is super-useful; but it can also, SOMETIMES, be a distraction.

The choice for us here is:
a) treat EVERY INDIVIDUAL REGULAR SEASON's ALL-NBA (/ABA / NBL) honors separately, "in context"; meaning this award is not very important because, by implication, what is represented is WILDLY UNEVEN performances; or
b) treat them all as RELATIVELY equal (with the proviso that, generally speaking, decade-by-decade, they become more valuable (read: in my system, they are worth more "Points")).

Imo, it comes down to this: either, relatively speaking one year's ALL-League selections are worth ABOUT as much as other year's OR they aren't. If they aren't, then the award isn't very useful for determining GOAT lists AND, necessarily, some other criteria must take precedence over it. BUT, there is nothing even remotely approaching UNIVERSAL agreement on WHICH criteria (singular or plural) should be used. Similarly, there is NOTHING close to UNIVERSAL agreement about which seasons were better generally (much less at specific positions) than others.

My belief is that the selections have been closer to equal than closer to super-unequal; IF that is the case, then the validity of using ALL-League selections comes into question. On that, I feel very strongly that using ALL-League selections as the FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT criteria is valid.

Imo, the SELECTORS are of the highest quality especially COLLECTIVELY speaking. It's been their very job to study what is going on on the court and report on it; and, at the end of each Reg. Season - vote on it. They have better access to the stats, the analysis of others, the eye-test, etc. Collectively, the process weeds out homerist votes.

Proof In The Pudding?
Tom Haberstoh has just used ALL-NBA selections (from the past 3 years for his particular analysis) to determine which 2017-18 teams are true super-teams (having 3 great players). He even assigns almost exactly the same number of "Points" per 1st-Team, 2nd-Team and 3rd-Team selections: 5, 3 and 1 (whereas I use: 5, 3 and 1.8). I consider him to be highly informed about what's going on in the NBA. (I'd argue for my "Points" values over his because, 2nd-Teamers are not nearly 3 times as good as 3rd-Teamers; and, instead, the gap between 2nd-Teamers and 3rd-Teamers should be relatively the same as between 1st-Teamers and 2nd-Teamers; with the lower-level guys meriting 60% in each instance).
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19795490/tom-haberstroh-nba-superteam-rankings-warriors-cavaliers-timberwolves-more

I make no claim to being any kind of expert, but, imo, my GOAT Top 5 (KAJ, Magic, MJ, LBJ & TD) would beat anybody else's GOAT Top 5 in a best-of-seven series most of the time. Same for my GOAT Top 10 (adding: Wilt, Kobe, Dr J, "O" & K.Malone) and GOAT Top 15 (adding: Shaq, Jerry West, Bird, Pettit & Cousy).

The Alternative(s):
I make ZERO claim that my system is anything approaching perfection. Instead, I merely claim that in a process so TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE (with as many GOAT lists as there are people opinionating on them); THE BEST system is the one that most closely approaches OBJECTIVE analysis - and, again, the ALL-League selectors are far more qualified than any of us, or all of us taken collectively.

I've been a heavy-duty peace-justice activist since 1965. To be effective such movements REQUIRE as much UNITY as possible. As an activist dedicated to building UNITY: First, Last & Always, I THINK (who knows if I'm right?) that formulating a plan to build such unity depends to some great extent on first, identifying what are the principal dis-unifying issues; and then, working towards overcoming them.

This was the exact process I used vis-a-vis the universally divisive issue of GOAT lists. I recognized disunifying issues as:
homerism (my favorite team, my favorite player(s)),
positional-ism,
decade-ism,
League-vs-League ism,
stas (and groups of them) vs other stats (and groups of them).

The one "metric" that best overcomes the mess of division-producing criteria is the ALL-League selections. While far from perfect, it both more-closely approximates the truth of what's happened AND less divisive than the 100s of sets other criteria AND quite simple and thus easy to understand and use.

N.B. My system is not solely composed on ALL-League selections - they are just my #1 criteria.

P.S. For what it's worth, I spent 40+ hours a week, 50+ weeks a year, 1965-1975 (20,000+ hours of volunteer effort) trying to help end US Gov slaughter of 2-3 million innocents in Vietnam. I ended up playing a leading role in the US Anti-War Movement; particularly in UNITING it. I've been a 9/11 Truther since the afternoon of 9/11. A year ago I presented: "The 9/11 Truth UNITY Manifesto" to a group of 40 9/11 Truth Movement leaders *; and for the first time in the history of that group, a proposal was given UNANIMOUS support ("subject to minor revisions for clarity" - which was accomplished about 2 weeks later in a subcommittee).

* In 50+ years of peace-justice activism, the 9/11 Truth Movement is easily the most-divided movement I've ever seen.

dhsilv2 · Post #15 » by **dhsilv2** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:11 am

scrabbarista wrote:47. Elvin Hayes
48. Dave Cowens

For combined (RS) points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals, Elvin Hayes is 9th in the history of the NBA and ABA combined. If you aren't giving him consideration around the 47th spot, then career totals should probably not enter into your thought at any point on this list. 9th and 47th! C'mon! Let's not go so far down the analytics rabbit hole that we forget that the simple numbers matter, too.

Hayes was the most productive player on the '78 Bullets title team, although Unseld was generally more heralded. By my count, there is only a handful of players remaining who were the best player on a title team, so Hayes at least needs to start receiving consideration.

Hayes' MVP finishes, in spite of the fact that apparently not a single person with a vote actually liked him:

1971-72 NBA 0.006 (17)
1972-73 NBA 0.021 (10)
1973-74 NBA 0.082 (5)
1974-75 NBA 0.299 (3)
1975-76 NBA 0.018 (8)
1976-77 NBA 0.020 (7)
1978-79 NBA 0.126 (3)

Hayes also led the league in scoring in '69, and was a 12x All-Star.

For me, his combination of longevity and production for a championship team make him too hard to ignore.

I haven't asked this I don't think, but wasn't unseld considered the better player when they won a title together? I feel like Heyes even was quoted at least someone agreeing (of course teammates always are nice to each other). I've been reading your rather nicely worded and explained reasoning but that "fact" is kinda making me thing Hayes was an empty stats guy. Sorry if I already asked this, but you've had him here for a LONG time so I might have forgotten. You actually had me when you first mentioned him reading up on Hayes because he doesn't rank this high normally. The stats looked great and then as I read he just didn't stand out so I'm trying to understand this one more.

Pablo Novi · Post #16 » by **Pablo Novi** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:22 am

dhsilv2 wrote:
scrabbarista wrote:47. Elvin Hayes
48. Dave Cowens

For combined (RS) points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals, Elvin Hayes is 9th in the history of the NBA and ABA combined. If you aren't giving him consideration around the 47th spot, then career totals should probably not enter into your thought at any point on this list. 9th and 47th! C'mon! Let's not go so far down the analytics rabbit hole that we forget that the simple numbers matter, too.

Hayes was the most productive player on the '78 Bullets title team, although Unseld was generally more heralded. By my count, there is only a handful of players remaining who were the best player on a title team, so Hayes at least needs to start receiving consideration.

Hayes' MVP finishes, in spite of the fact that apparently not a single person with a vote actually liked him:

1971-72 NBA 0.006 (17)
1972-73 NBA 0.021 (10)
1973-74 NBA 0.082 (5)
1974-75 NBA 0.299 (3)
1975-76 NBA 0.018 (8)
1976-77 NBA 0.020 (7)
1978-79 NBA 0.126 (3)

Hayes also led the league in scoring in '69, and was a 12x All-Star.

For me, his combination of longevity and production for a championship team make him too hard to ignore.

I haven't asked this I don't think, but wasn't unseld considered the better player when they won a title together? I feel like Heyes even was quoted at least someone agreeing (of course teammates always are nice to each other). I've been reading your rather nicely worded and explained reasoning but that "fact" is kinda making me thing Hayes was an empty stats guy. Sorry if I already asked this, but you've had him here for a LONG time so I might have forgotten. You actually had me when you first mentioned him reading up on Hayes because he doesn't rank this high normally. The stats looked great and then as I read he just didn't stand out so I'm trying to understand this one more.

Vis-a-vis "empty stats" guys, imo, Elvin Hayes, Big "E", career-wise is near the top of the list (along with 'Nique). You look at his stats, he's way up near the top of the All-Time Points List; but his play & influence on game-results always SEEMED to me (at that time, and since then) to be decidedly less than his stats. Similarly, in virtually every GOAT list discussion, Big "E" appears way down people's list.

I have Hayes as my GOAT #62.

Post #17 » by **penbeast0** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:34 am

dhsilv2 wrote:
penbeast0 wrote:
dhsilv2 wrote:...

Iverson's may be the deepest playoff run, but it's not necessarily the best. He was even more himself in that run, having some games where he carried the team against very weak competition (Indiana, Toronto Milwaukee) and some where he shot his team out of games they should have won. His TS% was an ugly .480 on 30 shots a game though he did get more assists than usual since he was playing hero ball much of the time. If you like Iverson's style, this was an excellent example of it on a team designed to maximize it. If you don't, it's an excellent example of why an Iverson led team will always have a limited ceiling.

Compare to Alex English's 1985 run to the WCF scoring almost as much (28.4ppg/34.3per 100 poss) on 10 less shots a game while showing off a .601 ts%. I know which one I'd rather have and it isn't Iverson.

This completely ignores who was on the team and the way the team was designed.

Iverson was the ONLY offensive player on the 76ers. He did not have a single other player on the floor who you wanted to create a shot. Aaron McKie was the best offensive guy on the team other than Iverson. Unless you're a massive Eric Snow fan. In that playoff run here are the top 6 76ers who weren't Iverons' OBPM

Mutombo -0.3
McKie 1.2
Hill -4.2 (not a typo)
Snow -1.8
Jumaine Jones -1.7
Lynch -2.0

Mutombo got credit for scoring efficiently off of dunks and layups. All of course created for him as he was hardly an iso post up center, especially at that point in his career. This team is easily one of the worst assemblies of offensive talent we've seen in a team that made a conference finals, let alone nba finals.

Meanwhile English:

So PER is a good and bad stat, but I LOVE it for who is a somewhat "average" box score guy relative to competition. It has issues for top end, but it's great in that the stat sets the average player at 15. A good team has a few guys over 15 normally or 2 guys way over it. English had Natt 19.6, Lever 16.8, Issel 15.2, and Cooper 16.6. These guys all got pretty decent minutes in their playoff run. This second guy in minutes played at an OBPM of 2.9, Lever was 0.4.

It's a HELL of a lot easier to shoot better and have better stats when you have competent other guys to score.

You can make a case against Iverson. Bad locker room guy. Attitude issues. But the efficiency argument is pretty weak given he simply didn't have anyone else who could score. I'd even be ok if you made the case he was left on a island to iso because he couldn't get along with other players (though I don't think that's true, I'd listen), but I'm sorry but don't compare English to Iverson without the context of how awful Iverson's offensive help was. I remember those 76ers teams VERY well, anytime Iverson didn't have the ball in his hands on offense, you were wondering what the hell was going on.

and for whatever it's worth the bucks were the best offense in the league in 01 (crappy defense) but either way I think that was a decent team that they beat. SRS of 3.13. Raptors had an SRS of 1.69.

As for English Spurs had and SRS of 0.63 and the Jazz and an SRS of -0.33

So if we just look at SRS Iverson beat two better teams than English beat. The pacers were -0.77 so they were worse.

Sorry but while I think English was a good player, if I were to judge them on 85 vs 01 playoffs, Iverson wins this one for me and by a considerable amount. Unless you can tell me there was a defensive gap, Iverson was just being asked to do SOO much on offense and he really just didn't have any help and he was doing it against better teams.

There is a defensive gap and it's easier to have guys with decent scoring numbers when you move the ball around quickly and hit the open man whoever it is. The Nuggets were excellent at this, the Sixers (in pretty much every Iverson year) were not. Part, not all, of that credit/blame has to go to the primary scorers on those teams. Iverson had issues with every scorer the Sixers got (Van Horn, Robinson, Stackhouse, etc.), that's WHY the Sixers created a team of defensive specialists around him. English got along with every player (and coach) he ever played with and made them better.

Pablo Novi · Post #18 » by **Pablo Novi** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:39 am

Vote: Sidney Moncrief I have him as my GOAT #6 SG. 18 "Points". In the 6 year period, 1981-1986, he had ONE ALL-NBA 1st-Team selection and FOUR 2nd-Teams (which comparatively speaking means he outranks all remaining SGs in terms of positional-dominance in their own era and he outranks most of the remaining players as compared to their positional-dominance in their own eras).

Alt: Hal Greer I have him as my GOAT # 7 SG 17.5 "Points". While he never made the ALL-NBA 1st-Team, he made the 2nd-Team SEVEN times (and in consecutive years: 1963-1969).

Remaining un-selected players from my GOAT Top 50:
My GOAT #30, #6 SG: Moncrief, S. . (18.0 "Points", .. ONE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, . FOUR 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #35, #7 SG: Greer, Hal ... (17.5 "Points", . ZERO 1st-Team ALL-League selections, SEVEN 2nd-Tms)

Honorable Mentions:
My GOAT #37, #8 PG: Iverson, A.... (25.6 "Points", THREE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, THREE 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #38, #8 SF: TMac ........ (22.1 "Points", . TWO 1st-Team ALL-League selections, THREE 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #39, #8 PF: JLucas, Jerry (17.5 "Points", THREE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, .. TWO 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #40, #8 SG: Westphal, P. . (17.5 "Points", THREE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, .. ONE 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #43, #9 SF: Wilkins, D. ... (19.3 "Points", .. ONE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, . FOUR 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #44, #9 PF: Stoudeire, A. (17.0 "Points", .. ONE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, . FOUR 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #45, #9 SG: Harden, J. .. (16.8 "Points", THREE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, . ZERO 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #49, #10 SF: Hill, Grant . (17.0 "Points", .. ONE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, . FOUR 2nd-Tms)
My GOAT #50, #10 PF: McGinnis ... (15.8 "Points", THREE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, .. TWO 2nd-Tms)

Getting Traction Here (but not with me):
My GOAT #103, #11 C: Reed, Willis . (07.5 "Points", . ONE 1st-Team ALL-League selections, . FOUR 2nd-Tms)

dhsilv2 · Post #19 » by **dhsilv2** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:50 am

penbeast0 wrote:
dhsilv2 wrote:
penbeast0 wrote:
Iverson's may be the deepest playoff run, but it's not necessarily the best. He was even more himself in that run, having some games where he carried the team against very weak competition (Indiana, Toronto Milwaukee) and some where he shot his team out of games they should have won. His TS% was an ugly .480 on 30 shots a game though he did get more assists than usual since he was playing hero ball much of the time. If you like Iverson's style, this was an excellent example of it on a team designed to maximize it. If you don't, it's an excellent example of why an Iverson led team will always have a limited ceiling.

Compare to Alex English's 1985 run to the WCF scoring almost as much (28.4ppg/34.3per 100 poss) on 10 less shots a game while showing off a .601 ts%. I know which one I'd rather have and it isn't Iverson.

This completely ignores who was on the team and the way the team was designed.

Iverson was the ONLY offensive player on the 76ers. He did not have a single other player on the floor who you wanted to create a shot. Aaron McKie was the best offensive guy on the team other than Iverson. Unless you're a massive Eric Snow fan. In that playoff run here are the top 6 76ers who weren't Iverons' OBPM

Mutombo -0.3
McKie 1.2
Hill -4.2 (not a typo)
Snow -1.8
Jumaine Jones -1.7
Lynch -2.0

Mutombo got credit for scoring efficiently off of dunks and layups. All of course created for him as he was hardly an iso post up center, especially at that point in his career. This team is easily one of the worst assemblies of offensive talent we've seen in a team that made a conference finals, let alone nba finals.

Meanwhile English:

So PER is a good and bad stat, but I LOVE it for who is a somewhat "average" box score guy relative to competition. It has issues for top end, but it's great in that the stat sets the average player at 15. A good team has a few guys over 15 normally or 2 guys way over it. English had Natt 19.6, Lever 16.8, Issel 15.2, and Cooper 16.6. These guys all got pretty decent minutes in their playoff run. This second guy in minutes played at an OBPM of 2.9, Lever was 0.4.

It's a HELL of a lot easier to shoot better and have better stats when you have competent other guys to score.

You can make a case against Iverson. Bad locker room guy. Attitude issues. But the efficiency argument is pretty weak given he simply didn't have anyone else who could score. I'd even be ok if you made the case he was left on a island to iso because he couldn't get along with other players (though I don't think that's true, I'd listen), but I'm sorry but don't compare English to Iverson without the context of how awful Iverson's offensive help was. I remember those 76ers teams VERY well, anytime Iverson didn't have the ball in his hands on offense, you were wondering what the hell was going on.

and for whatever it's worth the bucks were the best offense in the league in 01 (crappy defense) but either way I think that was a decent team that they beat. SRS of 3.13. Raptors had an SRS of 1.69.

As for English Spurs had and SRS of 0.63 and the Jazz and an SRS of -0.33

So if we just look at SRS Iverson beat two better teams than English beat. The pacers were -0.77 so they were worse.

Sorry but while I think English was a good player, if I were to judge them on 85 vs 01 playoffs, Iverson wins this one for me and by a considerable amount. Unless you can tell me there was a defensive gap, Iverson was just being asked to do SOO much on offense and he really just didn't have any help and he was doing it against better teams.

There is a defensive gap and it's easier to have guys with decent scoring numbers when you move the ball around quickly and hit the open man whoever it is. The Nuggets were excellent at this, the Sixers (in pretty much every Iverson year) were not. Part, not all, of that credit/blame has to go to the primary scorers on those teams. Iverson had issues with every scorer the Sixers got (Van Horn, Robinson, Stackhouse, etc.), that's WHY the Sixers created a team of defensive specialists around him. English got along with every player (and coach) he ever played with and made them better.

The scorers Iverson had with the 76ers outside of stack (and I'll be honest I"d be interested in why that blew up, I thought they played great together) were all bad fits and not that good.

Robinson was 31 when he went to philly, played one season after that. He played 42 games for the 76ers. Honestly thought Van Horn's defense annoyed Brown to be honest....it isn't like he seemed to fit anywhere else though. Nicks, bucks, mavs over his next 2 seasons. You left off Webber who went there after he was completely done and was nothing but a stretch 4 who couldn't shoot 3's.

I mean don't get me wrong, if your case is Iverson was a bad guy, that's cool. But his production give his team was stellar imo.

We've seen a bunch of guys get selected up this point based on longevity, but what about minutes played? 914 games at 41.1 minutes a game. I fully admit, as a kid I owned every rookie card of his but his chrome one (still mad I don't have one....but sports cards make me almost sick with all this graded stuff) and that was a lot of money for me...actually even now it's a lot of money lol. I am a biased fan to a degree, but for some times after PER became the thing I downgraded Iverson a lot. The more I look back at him though, the more I see what was much an amazing run. If you don't like his brand of ball because you can't just move him to another team, you don't like the intangibles, or anything like that I get it and I support you looking at other players. I'd rank Iverson higher if I didn't have some issues there, myself.

Post #20 » by **Outside** » Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:52 am

penbeast0 wrote:Thurmond is hurt by his offense and his team winning a title just after trading him for Cliff Ray.

Regarding this point, just want to counter against the implication that Thurmond was somehow holding the Warriors back and that getting rid of him was key to winning the title.

The Warriors had a huge roster makeover going into the 1974-75 season. Four players representing 50 points and 30 rebounds were gone -- Thurmond (trade), Cazzie Russell (free agent), Jim Barnett (expansion draft), and Clyde Lee (trade). Clifford Ray came in the Thurmond trade, Jamaal Wilkes was drafted (ROY). Jeff Mullins' minutes were cut in half (like Thurmond, a longtime Warrior great entering the downside of his career). There were lots of new faces on the bench.

There's no doubt that by 1974-75, Thurmond was diminished overall by wear and tear, though still had his moments as evidenced by his quadruple-double. After nine straight peak seasons, his averages dropped from 21.4 points and 16.1 rebounds to 17.1 / 17.1, then 13.0 /14.2. After the trade, he averaged only 7.9 / 11.3.

But the implication that Thurmond was a millstone keeping the Warriors winning the title isn't correct. The Warriors had a good but not great regular season in 1974-75 (48-34, four wins better than the previous season), then got by Seattle 4-2 in the first round and Chicago 4-3 in the second round before sweeping the Bullets in the finals. They caught lightening in a bottle and were an ideal matchup for Baltimore.

Everything just happened to fall the right way for the Warriors that year. The fact that Thurmond was no longer in his peak in his 12th season and missed out on the Warriors' title isn't a black mark on his resume.