RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #48 (Pau Gasol)

[Dr Positivity]

Vote Willis Reed

His MVP convention seems like it could be legitimate. He has elite boxscore (top 2 WS seasons) while defending and spacing outside of the boxscore. While longevity is weak he plays at a more elite level for his league than Pau or Mutombo.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Iverson 26.7pts 3.7reb 6.2ast 24368pts 3394reb 5624ast 11x All Star 7x All NBA (3/3/1), 4x Scoring Champ, MVP
Westbr 22.7pts 6.2reb 7.9ast 15156pts 4149reb 5293ast 6x All Star 6x All NBA (2/4/0), 2x Scoring Champ, MVP
Billups 15.2pts 2.9reb 5.4ast 15802pts 2992reb 5636ast 5x All Star 3x All NBA (0/1/2), 2x All Defense (0/2) <-- let's take this one!!!

[trex_8063]

Anyone have RAPM data that has been referenced before on mutombo? This one is rather difficult as neither were on my radar for this high a spot and they're just so different as player so I need help

NPI RAPM for '97

PI RAPM for '98
or if you prefer.....
NPI RAPM for '98
(I feel PI is more reliable, at least for players in the middle of their primes)

PI and NPI RAPM for '99

PI and NPI for '00

'01 NPI, with links to other years

Can also use this site (somewhat different results in some years).


Here is what I believe is just an APM model on rs-data only for '94, with no offensive/defensive splits.

'95 APM (rs only)

'96 APM (rs only)

Candidly, I wasn't planning on supporting Mutombo here - he's not really on my radar yet as one of the next crop of centers I'm going to support but I wanted to see if any of the advanced metrics should dissuade me from my position- it really only re-inforced it - I think we're too early on Mutombo by a fair bit. McAdoo, Cowens, Mourning, Lanier all definitely come first and as you know, I'm presently supporting Unseld and have been stuck on him for a while.

Going through this exercise, I calculated a non-weighted 4 year average for '97-'00 for what I consider to be his last 4 prime years on the RAPM data on shut up and jam; full disclosure - that's using the NPI data.

It came out to be 2.03 which in a typical year puts him in the low 40's. Another place has Pau at 17th from '08-'11 which are his best years outside of his '06 season. https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/rapm-by-player-o-z

I'm going for Pau here, but just for clarity, you've used two somewhat different methodologies (because the site you've used for Pau's numbers are PI). fwiw, if you use the PI RAPM numbers for three of the four years ('98-'00, plus the NPI figure for '97) for Mutombo, he averages out to +4.38 in those four years (which would typically put him ~15-20 in the league in any given year).

[Outside]

Is anyone else feelin' Chauncey Billups at this stage? There was someone (eminence??) who voted for him a couple threads ago, but nothing recently. Chauncey's coming up very soon for me.

I like Billups but don't have him coming up for a while. I'd be interested in arguments in his favor.

There's just so many guys that belong here. It's tough to separate them for the most part. Billups is so solid in practically every area, but not exceptional at anything in particular.

Players still to come with miscellaneous notes...

Dave Cowens -- considering his efficiency and longevity, I'll probably drop him a bit
James Worthy -- an underrated guy, was only 75th in the 2014 project, which I don't understand
Elvin Hayes -- great production, poor efficiency, questions about him as a teammate
Dominique Wilkins -- great scorer, good rebounder, not a great defender but not as bad as his rep, lack of PS success is a negative
Sam Jones -- another underrated guy, great scorer who could've had better production on a different team, clutch in the PS
Allen Iverson -- already in the discussion
Lenny Wilkins -- I need to look at him with fresh eyes, but I'm surprised he hasn't been mentioned yet
Paul Arizin -- before my time, but the only other 50s guy I'm aware of that deserves consideration, great scorer who led his team to a title
Willis Reed, Wes Unseld, Robert Parish, Dikembe Mutombo -- already in consideration
Sidney Moncrief -- longevity issue, but a great defender with surprisingly good offense and all-around game
Bernard King -- longevity issues, but man, what a peak; if you saw him play, he was an unstoppable force when healthy
Grant Hill -- Swiss army knife who lost so much to injury but still accomplished a lot
Earl Monroe -- tough guy to peg, need to reassess him and get others opinions
Jerry Lucas -- excellent scorer and rebounder, not very good at much else
Bob Lanier -- very good peak, diminished by injury his last five seasons
Tracy McGrady -- excellent RS stats, well-rounded game, PS resume knocks him down significantly for me

Plus a bunch of guys I'll just list...

Bobby Jones
Bob McAdoo
Billy Cunningham
Walt Bellamy
Joe Dumars
Ben Wallace
Dennis Rodman
Bill Sharman
Chris Webber
Gail Goodrich
Hal Greer
Manu Ginobli
Nate Archibald
Alonzo Mourning
Kevin Johnson
Alex English
Pete Maravich
Gus Williams
Dave DeBusschere
Chris Mullin
Gus Williams

That gets me well into the 80s on the list, and there are others I could mention.

Where does a guy like Chauncey fit on that list? Above a lot of them, but probably somewhere in the top-middle for me.

This project is much harder than I expected, ...

Some questions ...

On Worthy, what don’t you understand? Have you read the threads that got him in (and the preceding ones)? Does such a note connote that he would be someone clearly ahead of Billups? And if, as I think, the point of the list is to suggest that there are strong guys ahead of Billups, why not post a short list of guys you think are very strong, such as Worthy (positing that 75th is somehow unfathomable and then placing him among a list that by my count – including Billups – takes us up to 89th, does quite sound right). Or is it really a close group as later posited and 75th more reasonable on reflection (even if you don’t agree with such a placement)?

On McGrady’s playoffs as which “knock him down significantly”, especially versus Dominique’s being merely “a negative", on what basis? What problem do you percieve with McGrady's play.

Speaking of which, spelling Lenny Wilkens’ name correctly will ensure no confusion between the two (he and Dominique).

Pau - good scorer and passer, decent defender for a relatively short window, lousy defender who was smart enough to still use his length to block shots the rest of the time. Was he really "soft," or was that a false narrative? Kobe had to work hard to toughen him up so they could win those two titles, that's for sure.

Is this "for sure"? That Kobe "toughened him up" and/or that any such "toughening" was necessary for the titles? How do/can we know?

To be clear none of this is intended to be hostile. I'm just interested in a clarification of your opinions.

I'm glad you inserted that last comment because, frankly, I read what you wrote before that as having a hostile undertone.

Thank you for mentioning the spelling of Lenny Wilkens' last name. I try to get such things correct and don't mind others pointing out when I get stuff like that wrong. Others may react differently to that type of thing.

Your comments regarding specific players (Worthy, McGrady) in my post from last night make me think you misunderstood the nature of my post. The "list" portion was intended to give a look into my thinking about a whole bunch of players who are part of this large group of players I consider tightly grouped as a lead-in to my point. What I was getting at was that recent threads where we have a bunch of players getting one or perhaps two votes has underscored a key aspect of this project, that each of us rank these players varies so widely based on our criteria and biases, meaning that consensus will be extremely hard to come by from here on out, and I think Billups is a great example of that.

I don't expect others to agree with my take on Worthy, McGrady, or anyone else, but we can discuss those specifics when we get to those players. Focusing on comments in my list is missing the point I was trying to make, but that's a hazard of including a list like that as a lead-in to my point, I suppose.

Regarding my comments about Pau from my post earlier today, I don't think my take is that controversial. Pau himself said as much after losing to Boston in the 2008 finals, and he hit the weights in response. That strength and toughness was key to the Lakers winning the next two titles.

Pau was one of the most skilled offensive big men for quite a while, but he was always a finesse player, not a power player. "Soft" is a pejorative way to characterize "finesse," but I see a distinction, because I don't consider all finesse players "soft," and I don't think you have to be a power player to be tough. Iverson wasn't a power player, but he was tough as nails. Pau, however, has spent a good amount of time in the soft finesse end of the scale. It's more difficult for a post player to get away with, because being in the post inherently requires an additional level of toughness. For much of his career, Pau shied away from that, flailing and yelling when he got contact rather than playing through it.

He turned that around when the Lakers won those two titles. Good on him. I was glad to see it. But in recent years, he's gone back to that old mode where he shies away from contact and can be neutralized by it. It's just his nature.

You may disagree. That's fine.

[Outside]

I like Billups but don't have him coming up for a while. I'd be interested in arguments in his favor.

There's just so many guys that belong here. It's tough to separate them for the most part. Billups is so solid in practically every area, but not exceptional at anything in particular.

Players still to come with miscellaneous notes...

Dave Cowens -- considering his efficiency and longevity, I'll probably drop him a bit
James Worthy -- an underrated guy, was only 75th in the 2014 project, which I don't understand
Elvin Hayes -- great production, poor efficiency, questions about him as a teammate
Dominique Wilkins -- great scorer, good rebounder, not a great defender but not as bad as his rep, lack of PS success is a negative
Sam Jones -- another underrated guy, great scorer who could've had better production on a different team, clutch in the PS
Allen Iverson -- already in the discussion
Lenny Wilkins -- I need to look at him with fresh eyes, but I'm surprised he hasn't been mentioned yet
Paul Arizin -- before my time, but the only other 50s guy I'm aware of that deserves consideration, great scorer who led his team to a title
Willis Reed, Wes Unseld, Robert Parish, Dikembe Mutombo -- already in consideration
Sidney Moncrief -- longevity issue, but a great defender with surprisingly good offense and all-around game
Bernard King -- longevity issues, but man, what a peak; if you saw him play, he was an unstoppable force when healthy
Grant Hill -- Swiss army knife who lost so much to injury but still accomplished a lot
Earl Monroe -- tough guy to peg, need to reassess him and get others opinions
Jerry Lucas -- excellent scorer and rebounder, not very good at much else
Bob Lanier -- very good peak, diminished by injury his last five seasons
Tracy McGrady -- excellent RS stats, well-rounded game, PS resume knocks him down significantly for me

Plus a bunch of guys I'll just list...

Bobby Jones
Bob McAdoo
Billy Cunningham
Walt Bellamy
Joe Dumars
Ben Wallace
Dennis Rodman
Bill Sharman
Chris Webber
Gail Goodrich
Hal Greer
Manu Ginobli
Nate Archibald
Alonzo Mourning
Kevin Johnson
Alex English
Pete Maravich
Gus Williams
Dave DeBusschere
Chris Mullin
Gus Williams

That gets me well into the 80s on the list, and there are others I could mention.

Where does a guy like Chauncey fit on that list? Above a lot of them, but probably somewhere in the top-middle for me.

This project is much harder than I expected, ...

Some questions ...

On Worthy, what don’t you understand? Have you read the threads that got him in (and the preceding ones)? Does such a note connote that he would be someone clearly ahead of Billups? And if, as I think, the point of the list is to suggest that there are strong guys ahead of Billups, why not post a short list of guys you think are very strong, such as Worthy (positing that 75th is somehow unfathomable and then placing him among a list that by my count – including Billups – takes us up to 89th, does quite sound right). Or is it really a close group as later posited and 75th more reasonable on reflection (even if you don’t agree with such a placement)?

On McGrady’s playoffs as which “knock him down significantly”, especially versus Dominique’s being merely “a negative", on what basis? What problem do you percieve with McGrady's play.

Speaking of which, spelling Lenny Wilkens’ name correctly will ensure no confusion between the two (he and Dominique).

Pau - good scorer and passer, decent defender for a relatively short window, lousy defender who was smart enough to still use his length to block shots the rest of the time. Was he really "soft," or was that a false narrative? Kobe had to work hard to toughen him up so they could win those two titles, that's for sure.

Is this "for sure"? That Kobe "toughened him up" and/or that any such "toughening" was necessary for the titles? How do/can we know?

To be clear none of this is intended to be hostile. I'm just interested in a clarification of your opinions.

I'm glad you inserted that last comment because, frankly, I read what you wrote before that as having a hostile undertone.

Thank you for mentioning the spelling of Lenny Wilkens' last name. I try to get such things correct and don't mind others pointing out when I get stuff like that wrong. Others may react differently to that type of thing.

Your comments regarding specific players (Worthy, McGrady) in my post from last night make me think you misunderstood the nature of my post. The "list" portion was intended to give a look into my thinking about a large group of players I consider tightly grouped as a lead-in to my point. What I was getting at was that recent threads where we have a bunch of players getting one or perhaps two votes has underscored a key aspect of this project, that each of us rank these players varies so widely based on our criteria and biases, meaning that consensus will be extremely hard to come by from here on out, and I think Billups is a great example of that.

I don't expect others to agree with my take on Worthy, McGrady, or anyone else, but we can discuss those specifics when we get to those players. Focusing on comments in my list is missing the point I was trying to make, but that's a hazard of including a list like that as a lead-in to my point, I suppose.

Regarding my comments about Pau from my post earlier today, I don't think my take is that controversial. Pau himself said as much after losing to Boston in the 2008 finals, and he hit the weights in response. That strength and toughness was key to the Lakers winning the next two titles.

Pau was one of the most skilled offensive big men for quite a while, but he was always a finesse player, not a power player. "Soft" is a pejorative way to characterize "finesse," but I see a distinction, because I don't consider all finesse players "soft," and I don't think you have to be a power player to be tough. Iverson wasn't a power player, but he was tough as nails. Pau, however, has spent a good amount of time in the soft finesse end of the scale. It's more difficult for a post player to get away with, because being in the post inherently requires an additional level of toughness. For much of his career, Pau shied away from that, flailing and yelling when he got contact rather than playing through it.

He turned that around when the Lakers won those two titles. Good on him. I was glad to see it. But in recent years, he's gone back to that old mode where he shies away from contact and can be neutralized by it. It's just his nature.

You may disagree. That's fine.

[pandrade83]

NPI RAPM for '97

PI RAPM for '98
or if you prefer.....
NPI RAPM for '98
(I feel PI is more reliable, at least for players in the middle of their primes)

PI and NPI RAPM for '99

PI and NPI for '00

'01 NPI, with links to other years

Can also use this site (somewhat different results in some years).


Here is what I believe is just an APM model on rs-data only for '94, with no offensive/defensive splits.

'95 APM (rs only)

'96 APM (rs only)

Candidly, I wasn't planning on supporting Mutombo here - he's not really on my radar yet as one of the next crop of centers I'm going to support but I wanted to see if any of the advanced metrics should dissuade me from my position- it really only re-inforced it - I think we're too early on Mutombo by a fair bit. McAdoo, Cowens, Mourning, Lanier all definitely come first and as you know, I'm presently supporting Unseld and have been stuck on him for a while.

Going through this exercise, I calculated a non-weighted 4 year average for '97-'00 for what I consider to be his last 4 prime years on the RAPM data on shut up and jam; full disclosure - that's using the NPI data.

It came out to be 2.03 which in a typical year puts him in the low 40's. Another place has Pau at 17th from '08-'11 which are his best years outside of his '06 season. https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/rapm-by-player-o-z

I'm going for Pau here, but just for clarity, you've used two somewhat different methodologies (because the site you've used for Pau's numbers are PI). fwiw, if you use the PI RAPM numbers for three of the four years ('98-'00, plus the NPI figure for '97) for Mutombo, he averages out to +4.38 in those four years (which would typically put him ~15-20 in the league in any given year).

Definitely. I had tried to make my post in a way that noted the differences between what I was writing. Until you made your post, I wasn't aware that there was PI data pre-'01; I thought NPI was all we had. When I was writing this I was like eh, I'm short on time, I'll go with what I have and tack on a disclosure so that hopefully no one thinks I intentionally was misleading anyone especially since the BPM, VORP & WS data were all aligned that Gasol was superior. I didn't think there would be that level of discrepancy off the NPI vs. the PI - obviously there was. Good to know & thanks for sharing the links that you did!

[SactoKingsFan]

None of these guys would be my top pick (probably Unseld) but Pau Gasol's on my radar with Deke and a few others. Actually thought he was already voted in. Prefer Gasol over Deke for his offensive versatility and even more impressive longevity. With Gasol you get a well-rounded big with a very portable skill-set and great longevity. Gifted offensive big with solid/underrated defense, excellent passer for PF/C and good rebounder. Could be the best player on a playoff team or co-star/2nd best player on a title contender/ historically great team. Pau also had some impressive prime playoff runs.

Run-off vote: Pau Gasol



Sent from my ONEPLUS 3T using Tapatalk

[penbeast0]

Iverson 26.7pts 3.7reb 6.2ast 24368pts 3394reb 5624ast 11x All Star 7x All NBA (3/3/1), 4x Scoring Champ, MVP
Westbr 22.7pts 6.2reb 7.9ast 15156pts 4149reb 5293ast 6x All Star 6x All NBA (2/4/0), 2x Scoring Champ, MVP
Billups 15.2pts 2.9reb 5.4ast 15802pts 2992reb 5636ast 5x All Star 3x All NBA (0/1/2), 2x All Defense (0/2) <-- let's take this one!!!

Allen Iverson .518ts% (,489 ts% in playoffs!) poor defense
Russell Westbrook .533ts% (.518ts% in playoffs) mediocre defense
Chauncey Billups .580ts% (.589ts% in playoffs) good defense, Finals MVP on title team

You left out some key details.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Iverson 26.7pts 3.7reb 6.2ast 24368pts 3394reb 5624ast 11x All Star 7x All NBA (3/3/1), 4x Scoring Champ, MVP
Westbr 22.7pts 6.2reb 7.9ast 15156pts 4149reb 5293ast 6x All Star 6x All NBA (2/4/0), 2x Scoring Champ, MVP
Billups 15.2pts 2.9reb 5.4ast 15802pts 2992reb 5636ast 5x All Star 3x All NBA (0/1/2), 2x All Defense (0/2) <-- let's take this one!!!

Allen Iverson .518ts% (,489 ts% in playoffs!) poor defense
Russell Westbrook .533ts% (.518ts% in playoffs) mediocre defense
Chauncey Billups .580ts% (.589ts% in playoffs) good defense, Finals MVP on title team

You left out some key details.

That's very nice. It also cannot remotely make up for that sort of production gap. Later in his career, Chauncey was some kind of star, although barely better than other guys on his own team, if he even was vs. Ben at his peak. For half of it he was barely even a starter.

People, well I'm not going to insult the whole board anymore, and I'll just restrict it to the little group that focuses on this project, have a distorted view of "efficiency". TS% is shooting efficiency. But that's one little area of the game. PER is an "efficiency" rater too. Except it rates the "efficiency" of the entire, largely offensive, game. How efficiently do you produce across the board? Not just who spams threes or shoots FTs well (because that is what we are talking about here -- Career FG% was Billups .415, Iverson .425, Westbrook .433 -- Billups didn't "shoot" better, he picked up little extra points along the way). Overall "efficiency", i.e. PERs: Billups 18.8, Iverson 20.9, Westbrook 23.8.

The PER gap between Billups and Westbrook is the same gap in PER there is between Pau Gasol and Shaquille O'Neal. The career scoring gap between Billups and Iverson is roughly the same size as the career scoring gap between LeBron or Shaq and Pau, Joe Johnson or Antawn Jamison.

[penbeast0]

Iverson 26.7pts 3.7reb 6.2ast 24368pts 3394reb 5624ast 11x All Star 7x All NBA (3/3/1), 4x Scoring Champ, MVP
Westbr 22.7pts 6.2reb 7.9ast 15156pts 4149reb 5293ast 6x All Star 6x All NBA (2/4/0), 2x Scoring Champ, MVP
Billups 15.2pts 2.9reb 5.4ast 15802pts 2992reb 5636ast 5x All Star 3x All NBA (0/1/2), 2x All Defense (0/2) <-- let's take this one!!!

Allen Iverson .518ts% (,489 ts% in playoffs!) poor defense
Russell Westbrook .533ts% (.518ts% in playoffs) mediocre defense
Chauncey Billups .580ts% (.589ts% in playoffs) good defense, Finals MVP on title team

You left out some key details.

That's very nice. It also cannot remotely make up for that sort of production gap. Later in his career, Chauncey was some kind of star, although barely better than other guys on his own team, if he even was vs. Ben at his peak. For half of it he was barely even a starter....

Not saying I support Billups over either, if you read my opening posts, am considering Westbrook first of the 3 at the moment. What I am saying is that you weren't telling the whole story. I will say that I'd rather have prime/peak Billups over prime/peak Iverson for almost any team that has a shot at a title. He can't carry a bad or mediocre team like Iverson can, but he will add more to a team that already has talent than Iverson will, either as offensive primary (which is what he was, if not by a lot, on those Piston championship teams) or as a secondary or even tertiary offensive player which is a role Iverson doesn't excel in.

Oh, and PER isn't efficiency. Efficiency is just what ts% attemps to measure (since we don't keep the hard numbers to get the FT rate), the amount of points generated per time you take a shot. It's not the end all and be all, you have to look at volume, spacing, whether the player gets his shots in the context of an efficient offense or spams isos that might lower teammate effectiveness, but that's what the word generally means as used in a basketball discussion.

[dhsilv2]

Iverson 26.7pts 3.7reb 6.2ast 24368pts 3394reb 5624ast 11x All Star 7x All NBA (3/3/1), 4x Scoring Champ, MVP
Westbr 22.7pts 6.2reb 7.9ast 15156pts 4149reb 5293ast 6x All Star 6x All NBA (2/4/0), 2x Scoring Champ, MVP
Billups 15.2pts 2.9reb 5.4ast 15802pts 2992reb 5636ast 5x All Star 3x All NBA (0/1/2), 2x All Defense (0/2) <-- let's take this one!!!

Allen Iverson .518ts% (,489 ts% in playoffs!) poor defense
Russell Westbrook .533ts% (.518ts% in playoffs) mediocre defense
Chauncey Billups .580ts% (.589ts% in playoffs) good defense, Finals MVP on title team

You left out some key details.

That's very nice. It also cannot remotely make up for that sort of production gap. Later in his career, Chauncey was some kind of star, although barely better than other guys on his own team, if he even was vs. Ben at his peak. For half of it he was barely even a starter.

People, well I'm not going to insult the whole board anymore, and I'll just restrict it to the little group that focuses on this project, have a distorted view of "efficiency". TS% is shooting efficiency. But that's one little area of the game. PER is an "efficiency" rater too. Except it rates the "efficiency" of the entire, largely offensive, game. How efficiently do you produce across the board? Not just who spams threes or shoots FTs well (because that is what we are talking about here -- Career FG% was Billups .415, Iverson .425, Westbrook .433 -- Billups didn't "shoot" better, he picked up little extra points along the way). Overall "efficiency", i.e. PERs: Billups 18.8, Iverson 20.9, Westbrook 23.8.

The PER gap between Billups and Westbrook is the same gap in PER there is between Pau Gasol and Shaquille O'Neal. The career scoring gap between Billups and Iverson is roughly the same size as the career scoring gap between LeBron or Shaq and Pau, Joe Johnson or Antawn Jamison.

I feel like you're being a big hard on Billups here. His peak WS is better than either Iverson or Westbrook. If you go best to worst BIllups is higher in WS for each year (first vs first, second vs second, etc).

RAPM hates Iverson and thinks about the same of Westbrook and Billups from what I'm looking at. I am admittedly just looking at roughly where they rank relative as I'm not sure I'm comparing apples to apples with RAPM.

The counter to BIllups is that he was basically a replacement or below replacement at the start and finish of his career. You can knock off 276 of his career games from the "strong longevity" case.

I'm not saying it's time for BIllups and I am saying it is for Iverson, but I don't think Billups is outlandish at this point by any means. 1000+ games and one of the highest WS peaks left on the board. Be interesting to see him vs Mcadoo who's got a very nice 2 year peak, and is still on the board as well.

[pandrade83]

Allen Iverson .518ts% (,489 ts% in playoffs!) poor defense
Russell Westbrook .533ts% (.518ts% in playoffs) mediocre defense
Chauncey Billups .580ts% (.589ts% in playoffs) good defense, Finals MVP on title team

You left out some key details.

That's very nice. It also cannot remotely make up for that sort of production gap. Later in his career, Chauncey was some kind of star, although barely better than other guys on his own team, if he even was vs. Ben at his peak. For half of it he was barely even a starter.

People, well I'm not going to insult the whole board anymore, and I'll just restrict it to the little group that focuses on this project, have a distorted view of "efficiency". TS% is shooting efficiency. But that's one little area of the game. PER is an "efficiency" rater too. Except it rates the "efficiency" of the entire, largely offensive, game. How efficiently do you produce across the board? Not just who spams threes or shoots FTs well (because that is what we are talking about here -- Career FG% was Billups .415, Iverson .425, Westbrook .433 -- Billups didn't "shoot" better, he picked up little extra points along the way). Overall "efficiency", i.e. PERs: Billups 18.8, Iverson 20.9, Westbrook 23.8.

The PER gap between Billups and Westbrook is the same gap in PER there is between Pau Gasol and Shaquille O'Neal. The career scoring gap between Billups and Iverson is roughly the same size as the career scoring gap between LeBron or Shaq and Pau, Joe Johnson or Antawn Jamison.

I feel like you're being a big hard on Billups here. His peak WS is better than either Iverson or Westbrook. If you go best to worst BIllups is higher in WS for each year (first vs first, second vs second, etc).

RAPM hates Iverson and thinks about the same of Westbrook and Billups from what I'm looking at. I am admittedly just looking at roughly where they rank relative as I'm not sure I'm comparing apples to apples with RAPM.

The counter to BIllups is that he was basically a replacement or below replacement at the start and finish of his career. You can knock off 276 of his career games from the "strong longevity" case.

I'm not saying it's time for BIllups and I am saying it is for Iverson, but I don't think Billups is outlandish at this point by any means. 1000+ games and one of the highest WS peaks left on the board. Be interesting to see him vs Mcadoo who's got a very nice 2 year peak, and is still on the board as well.

How do you figure? Billups doesn't have any Top 10 finishes; Westbrook has 3. The best Billups does is #12 twice.

Or maybe, we're just seeing the difference, well, differently.

[dhsilv2]

That's very nice. It also cannot remotely make up for that sort of production gap. Later in his career, Chauncey was some kind of star, although barely better than other guys on his own team, if he even was vs. Ben at his peak. For half of it he was barely even a starter.

People, well I'm not going to insult the whole board anymore, and I'll just restrict it to the little group that focuses on this project, have a distorted view of "efficiency". TS% is shooting efficiency. But that's one little area of the game. PER is an "efficiency" rater too. Except it rates the "efficiency" of the entire, largely offensive, game. How efficiently do you produce across the board? Not just who spams threes or shoots FTs well (because that is what we are talking about here -- Career FG% was Billups .415, Iverson .425, Westbrook .433 -- Billups didn't "shoot" better, he picked up little extra points along the way). Overall "efficiency", i.e. PERs: Billups 18.8, Iverson 20.9, Westbrook 23.8.

The PER gap between Billups and Westbrook is the same gap in PER there is between Pau Gasol and Shaquille O'Neal. The career scoring gap between Billups and Iverson is roughly the same size as the career scoring gap between LeBron or Shaq and Pau, Joe Johnson or Antawn Jamison.

I feel like you're being a big hard on Billups here. His peak WS is better than either Iverson or Westbrook. If you go best to worst BIllups is higher in WS for each year (first vs first, second vs second, etc).

RAPM hates Iverson and thinks about the same of Westbrook and Billups from what I'm looking at. I am admittedly just looking at roughly where they rank relative as I'm not sure I'm comparing apples to apples with RAPM.

The counter to BIllups is that he was basically a replacement or below replacement at the start and finish of his career. You can knock off 276 of his career games from the "strong longevity" case.

I'm not saying it's time for BIllups and I am saying it is for Iverson, but I don't think Billups is outlandish at this point by any means. 1000+ games and one of the highest WS peaks left on the board. Be interesting to see him vs Mcadoo who's got a very nice 2 year peak, and is still on the board as well.

How do you figure? Billups doesn't have any Top 10 finishes; Westbrook has 3. The best Billups does is #12 twice.

Or maybe, we're just seeing the difference, well, differently.

Wasn't westbrook like 9th last year or am I grabbing the wrong random excel file someone uploaded and we now use for all this ?

9th and 12th seem pretty close to little old me.

[pandrade83]

He was 9th - you're right on. I was referencing the fact he has 3 Top 10 finishes (9th, 6th, 6th) to Billups' none. Having 3 better than Billups' best seems material.

[dhsilv2]

He was 9th - you're right on. I was referencing the fact he has 3 Top 10 finishes (9th, 6th, 6th) to Billups' none. Having 3 better than Billups' best seems material.

Didn't realize he had the 3 6's. Yeah, I'd agree material there. Not massive but certainly meaningful. Doesn't change the general view that Billups is getting a bit under valued. Anyway thanks for the fact check.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #55 (12 votes, requiring 7 for a majority):

Willis Reed - 5 (Dr Positivity, Outside, Winsome Gerbil, dhsilv2, Clyde Frazier)
Pau Gasol - 4 (SactoKingsFan, trex_8063, Doctor MJ, pandrade83)
Dikembe Mutombo - 3 (penbeast0, LABird, micahclay)

Eliminating Dikembe from the runoff. Those of you who voted for Dikembe (or anyone else yet to participate itt) please state your pick between Gasol and Reed.

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[penbeast0]

I think I go Gasol. Reed peaks higher but not that much higher; longevity and era differential favor Pau.

[iggymcfrack]

Seems like some weird runoff candidates for me. If you're looking for a modern offense-first player, surely Westbrook just coming off one of the greatest offensive seasons of all-time finishing Top 4 in the MVP vote the last 3 years is better than Pau Gasol who never made first-team all-NBA or had any MVP shares whatsoever. If you're looking for a defensive anchor from the early 2000s, surely Ben Wallace who had a season leading the league in RAPM and was the best player on a team that won a championship is better than Mutombo who only really seemed to be a major impact player a couple years in Philly.

[iggymcfrack]

Also seems like the longevity thing is used unfairly against modern guys further down the list while it's much less of a factor toward the top and for retired players. For instance, Shaq is placed below Magic despite having similar (arguably better) per-game production in 1200 games to Magic's 900 whereas someone like Pau Gasol who almost no one would argue is on Westbrook's level at peak is given more than twice as much credit for playing 1200 games to Westbrook's 700. I think if Westbrook were to retire tomorrow and voters came back to this list in 10 years, he would be ranked much higher.

[Dr Positivity]

Also seems like the longevity thing is used unfairly against modern guys further down the list while it's much less of a factor toward the top and for retired players. For instance, Shaq is placed below Magic despite having similar (arguably better) per-game production in 1200 games to Magic's 900 whereas someone like Pau Gasol who almost no one would argue is on Westbrook's level at peak is given more than twice as much credit for playing 1200 games to Westbrook's 700. I think if Westbrook were to retire tomorrow and voters came back to this list in 10 years, he would be ranked much higher.

With Magic and Shaq a lot of Shaq's extra games come post prime, I think a lot of us mainly care about prime. Magic plays 12 seasons before HIV retirement while Shaq's 12th season is 04 which by some argument is already past his prime. He adds value after that but I see the difference in Pau and Westbrook longevity to be much more dramatic where he basically doubles him in prime seasons. Pau was the more polished rookie and had better stats off the bat, but even If we say neither player was likely impacting the game a ton the first two years since most rookies/sophomores don't, Pau makes the 2016 all-star game 13 seasons after that. Westbrook has had 7 seasons since his sophomore year. Plus the first four of those, he wasn't even for sure better than prime Pau, they were both championship level 2nd options. It's really only been 3 years since he became an MVP level player above and beyond Pau. Now I say all that as someone who would vote for Westbrook over Pau since I think those 3 seasons make a huge difference, but I can see the argument that Pau's longevity would be valued by someone more than Westbrook surpassing him for 3 seasons