RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #56 (Willis Reed)

[trex_8063]

Thru post #20:

Willis Reed - 3 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2, fundamentals21)
James Harden - 2 (pandrade83, iggymcfrack)
Bob Lanier - 1 (trex_8063)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)


Disappointing turnout of just 7 votes in the prelim vote. But we have our runoff: Willis Reed vs. James Harden. Eliminating the two with one vote each does not transfer any additional votes to either of them. If your name is not shown above next to Reed or Harden, please state your pick and reasons why. Runoff will conclude in ~24 hours.

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[trex_8063]

Well, here we have a runoff opponent who does NOT have a notable longevity edge on Reed.
And while Harden's box-based metrics look a bit better, I find it necessary to recognize his impact metrics often don't measure up. I meanwhile suspect Reed's would (and then some). Reed's defensive and intangible impact is poorly captured by the box of the time (his scaled box-based rate metrics are more impressive, fwiw).
Clyde Frazier (our poster, not the player ) noted toward the end of his vote post a bit of the info regarding the team defensive performance before/after Reed (particularly Reed's prime); could also note the dip it takes in '72 (when Reed was injured). Superior playoff performer in respective primes, and has the accolade/accomplishment edge overall.

Simply a more iconic a player in NBA history, too. Undisputed captain of those contender/title teams; also somewhat functioned as their "enforcer" where necessary, fwiw.....

Watch on YouTube

Nobody messing with his teammates after that incident.

Runoff vote: Willis Reed

[oldschooled]

Beard has more superstar seasons than Reed (with better MVP shares also) with only 9 seasons under his belt. Greater peak (imo), portability, longevity (a bit) and Harden a more valuable anchor for his team offensively. Harden takes the cake here.

Vote: James Harden

[Dr Positivity]

I think Harden did it in a stronger era, but Reed has a more proven playoff record while Harden's game may be slightly gimmicky. Reed also has more non boxscore impact. I'll side with Reed since I am concerned about Harden's playoff translation

Vote Willis Reed

[JordansBulls]

Willis Reed

Won league and Finals mvp the same year outplaying an alltime great in the finals as well.

[trex_8063]

Beard has more superstar seasons than Reed (with better MVP shares also) with only 9 seasons under his belt. Greater peak (imo), portability, longevity (a bit) and Harden a more valuable anchor for his team offensively. Harden takes the cake here.

Vote: James Harden

Portability edge for Harden is HIGHLY debatable (even dubious, I would say). On different rosters within his own era, there's the consideration that Harden requires the ball [a lot] to maximize his offensive impact, which could potentially make working well alongside other superstars difficult (I'm still waiting to see how this experiment with CP3 pans out). Whereas Reed......well, we saw it in the early 70's, didn't we?
As far as era portability, I'm not sure any perimeter player takes BETTER advantage of the current hand-check rules and officiating (to say nothing of the benefits of a 3pt line and the spacing seen in this era, as well as the freedom in how one's allowed to handle the ball)......EDIT: as Dr Positivity commented above-->"gimmicky". Take those things away, and I think it's fair to question whether Harden would be a superstar at all, or rather just a better passing (but worse defensively) version of Sam Jones.
Reed, otoh, was a big man (roughly Dwight Howard size: <1" shorter, same long arms, short neck/high shoulders, even thicker build) who had range out to 18-19' in an era before the 3pt line. Seeing what guys like M.Gasol, B.Griffin, C.Bosh managed with just a couple years focus, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that Reed would have 3pt range in the modern era. And he was one of the better/best pnr defenders of his time. Screen-setting, defensive energy, leadership intangibles.....these things as portable as ever, too.

idk, I see Reed as the clearly more portable player, personally.


I don't really see the longevity edge, either. Harden has five prime seasons ('13-'17), Reed had five. Both were at least fair/decent players every year of their careers; you can argue Harden has some [slightly] higher quality non-prime years, but otoh Reed has 35 more rs games and >2,000 more rs minutes played. I really just don't see the edge.

I agree Harden's the more valuable offensive anchor.......he's also been damn near a sieve defensively some [most] years of his career. Reed, meanwhile, well......wasn't.

[penbeast0]

WILLIS REED -- Defense matters.

[janmagn]

Vote: Willis Reed

Comparable RS peak (both MVP level players) but playoffs get this to Reed. He led his team to a championship, winning FMVP in the process. No longevity edge to either one here

Lähetetty minun LG-M250 laitteesta Tapatalkilla

[Owly]

Beard has more superstar seasons than Reed (with better MVP shares also) with only 9 seasons under his belt. Greater peak (imo), portability, longevity (a bit) and Harden a more valuable anchor for his team offensively. Harden takes the cake here.

Vote: James Harden

Portability edge for Harden is HIGHLY debatable (even dubious, I would say). On different rosters within his own era, there's the consideration that Harden requires the ball [a lot] to maximize his offensive impact, which could potentially make working well alongside other superstars difficult (I'm still waiting to see how this experiment with CP3 pans out). Whereas Reed......well, we saw it in the early 70's, didn't we?
As far as era portability, I'm not sure any perimeter player takes BETTER advantage of the current hand-check rules and officiating (to say nothing of the benefits of a 3pt line and the spacing seen in this era, as well as the freedom in how one's allowed to handle the ball)......EDIT: as Dr Positivity commented above-->"gimmicky". Take those things away, and I think it's fair to question whether Harden would be a superstar at all, or rather just a better passing (but worse defensively) version of Sam Jones.
Reed, otoh, was a big man (roughly Dwight Howard size: <1" shorter, same long arms, short neck/high shoulders, even thicker build) who had range out to 18-19' in an era before the 3pt line. Seeing what guys like M.Gasol, B.Griffin, C.Bosh managed with just a couple years focus, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that Reed would have 3pt range in the modern era. And he was one of the better/best pnr defenders of his time. Screen-setting, defensive energy, leadership intangibles.....these things as portable as ever, too.

idk, I see Reed as the clearly more portable player, personally.


I don't really see the longevity edge, either. Harden has five prime seasons ('13-'17), Reed had five. Both were at least fair/decent players every year of their careers; you can argue Harden has some [slightly] higher quality non-prime years, but otoh Reed has 35 more rs games and >2,000 more rs minutes played. I really just don't see the edge.

I agree Harden's the more valuable offensive anchor.......he's also been damn near a sieve defensively some [most] years of his career. Reed, meanwhile, well......wasn't.

Hmm. I would be inclined to disagree on portability.

I feel Harden's OKC stint (or the quality thereof, specifically 2012) must have slipped your mind (wrt 5 prime years and especially working alongside other stars). In Harden's final year (aged 22) he posts a PER above 21, despite a usage rate below 22, a non-trivial feat (cf: http://bkref.com/tiny/Tl4Ep). I don't think he (or Paul for that matter, but I digress) should be somehow on trial with an onus on him to show portability. Not that this (or any decent season) doesn't matter, I just don't think it should be overemphasised or that this should be expected to be an optimal fit.

That Reed's portability was shown in the early 70's (seemingly with regard to a reduced role/playing with stars) is that the only pertinent information. Per my post in the last thread...

...
Even if you are giving Reed "only" 5 star years, instead of 7, I don't think that the first year, '67, shows any sign of great, beyond the boxscore impact (not that one could prove it elsewhere, but you could credit him for D and maybe argue for his spacing helping the passing game and leadership and sacrifice etc and point to team achievement). The '67 the Knicks look like a team underachieving their "talent" level (Reed, Bellamy, Barnett, Cazzie Russell, Dick Van Arsdale); they performed poorly (-2.74 SRS) and were the team with the worst defense ...

[and perhaps to a lesser extent]

And I don't know that any of this disqualifies Reed now or soon. My take on the above though would be that his production didn't seem to be stifled at PF but that wasn't a huge impact, one man culture setter or defensive anchor (or close to either) and only a bit of that can be put down to misuse. Numerically his passing doesn't stand out (though his spacing helps, probably pick setting too). He is perhaps a player who is better on a good team (perhaps like many of those set to fill the back half of the top 100) and that's not a bad thing. I am probably more cautious (in general and in this instance) of giving one individual "intangiables" credit, though I understand that he was lauded in this area.

Where Harden appears to have managed a high impact (https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2013-rapm-non-prior-informed-updated-march-30/2012-rapm) in a role that may have diminished some composite stats (though still roughly matching Reed's peaks - PER: JH 21.1, WR 21.4; WS/48: JH .230, WR .227), Reed ... well I can't say he absolutely didn't have a significant positive impact (whilst still posting solid box-score numbers), I would say it's far from clear that he always did so (or did so in this instance). I would thus be inclined to believe that Harden could play more positions and perhaps hold his impact across different roles better.


Personally I tend to avoid era-portability/time-machine games as any kind of criteria (parlour game/bar talk ... blah blah ... guesswork ... blah blah) so I won't opine here. On defense, whilst I am wary of judging an individual by the team's performance I would note the above as a blemish, or at least something to be aware of, on Reed's resume.

[pandrade83]

My vote has already been counted - but - your ceiling is a bit higher if Harden is your clear #1 vs. if Reed is - and that's before era strength is accounted for. Keep in mind that the only such years for Reed are '65 (31-49), '68 (43-39) & '69 (54-28).

And even in the '69 season, he has Frazier & DeBusschere. I don't think Harden has had horrible teammates, but he's never had a #2 & #3 like that in Houston and he's achieved better results as THE guy. In terms of ability to lead a team, despite iffy intangibles, I think Harden's ceiling is a bit higher.

[trex_8063]

Spoiler:

Beard has more superstar seasons than Reed (with better MVP shares also) with only 9 seasons under his belt. Greater peak (imo), portability, longevity (a bit) and Harden a more valuable anchor for his team offensively. Harden takes the cake here.

Vote: James Harden

Portability edge for Harden is HIGHLY debatable (even dubious, I would say). On different rosters within his own era, there's the consideration that Harden requires the ball [a lot] to maximize his offensive impact, which could potentially make working well alongside other superstars difficult (I'm still waiting to see how this experiment with CP3 pans out). Whereas Reed......well, we saw it in the early 70's, didn't we?
As far as era portability, I'm not sure any perimeter player takes BETTER advantage of the current hand-check rules and officiating (to say nothing of the benefits of a 3pt line and the spacing seen in this era, as well as the freedom in how one's allowed to handle the ball)......EDIT: as Dr Positivity commented above-->"gimmicky". Take those things away, and I think it's fair to question whether Harden would be a superstar at all, or rather just a better passing (but worse defensively) version of Sam Jones.
Reed, otoh, was a big man (roughly Dwight Howard size: <1" shorter, same long arms, short neck/high shoulders, even thicker build) who had range out to 18-19' in an era before the 3pt line. Seeing what guys like M.Gasol, B.Griffin, C.Bosh managed with just a couple years focus, I think it's almost a foregone conclusion that Reed would have 3pt range in the modern era. And he was one of the better/best pnr defenders of his time. Screen-setting, defensive energy, leadership intangibles.....these things as portable as ever, too.

idk, I see Reed as the clearly more portable player, personally.


I don't really see the longevity edge, either. Harden has five prime seasons ('13-'17), Reed had five. Both were at least fair/decent players every year of their careers; you can argue Harden has some [slightly] higher quality non-prime years, but otoh Reed has 35 more rs games and >2,000 more rs minutes played. I really just don't see the edge.

I agree Harden's the more valuable offensive anchor.......he's also been damn near a sieve defensively some [most] years of his career. Reed, meanwhile, well......wasn't.

Hmm. I would be inclined to disagree on portability.

I feel Harden's OKC stint (or the quality thereof, specifically 2012) must have slipped your mind (wrt 5 prime years and especially working alongside other stars). In Harden's final year (aged 22) he posts a PER above 21, despite a usage rate below 22, a non-trivial feat (cf: http://bkref.com/tiny/Tl4Ep&#41;. I don't think he (or Paul for that matter, but I digress) should be somehow on trial with an onus on him to show portability. Not that this (or any decent season) doesn't matter, I just don't think it should be overemphasised or that this should be expected to be an optimal fit.

That Reed's portability was shown in the early 70's (seemingly with regard to a reduced role/playing with stars) is that the only pertinent information. Per my post in the last thread...

...
Even if you are giving Reed "only" 5 star years, instead of 7, I don't think that the first year, '67, shows any sign of great, beyond the boxscore impact (not that one could prove it elsewhere, but you could credit him for D and maybe argue for his spacing helping the passing game and leadership and sacrifice etc and point to team achievement). The '67 the Knicks look like a team underachieving their "talent" level (Reed, Bellamy, Barnett, Cazzie Russell, Dick Van Arsdale); they performed poorly (-2.74 SRS) and were the team with the worst defense ...

[and perhaps to a lesser extent]

And I don't know that any of this disqualifies Reed now or soon. My take on the above though would be that his production didn't seem to be stifled at PF but that wasn't a huge impact, one man culture setter or defensive anchor (or close to either) and only a bit of that can be put down to misuse. Numerically his passing doesn't stand out (though his spacing helps, probably pick setting too). He is perhaps a player who is better on a good team (perhaps like many of those set to fill the back half of the top 100) and that's not a bad thing. I am probably more cautious (in general and in this instance) of giving one individual "intangiables" credit, though I understand that he was lauded in this area.

Where Harden appears to have managed a high impact (https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2013-rapm-non-prior-informed-updated-march-30/2012-rapm) in a role that may have diminished some composite stats (though still roughly matching Reed's peaks - PER: JH 21.1, WR 21.4; WS/48: JH .230, WR .227), Reed ... well I can't say he absolutely didn't have a significant positive impact (whilst still posting solid box-score numbers), I would say it's far from clear that he always did so (or did so in this instance). I would thus be inclined to believe that Harden could play more positions and perhaps hold his impact across different roles better.


Personally I tend to avoid era-portability/time-machine games as any kind of criteria (parlour game/bar talk ... blah blah ... guesswork ... blah blah) so I won't opine here. On defense, whilst I am wary of judging an individual by the team's performance I would note the above as a blemish, or at least something to be aware of, on Reed's resume.

Fair points.
I hadn't forgotten about Harden in OKC, though I'd recalled him generally playing <30 mpg (decidedly not star-level minutes). He did play 31.4 mpg in '12, though for a guy who's played >36 mpg every year since, that's still a reduced minute role; and his rate metrics (while excellent) are largely below what he's been doing every year since, too. Therein lies my reluctance to call '12 part of his "prime"; I realize that's semantics, but there it is (I did acknowledge one could argue better non-prime years for Harden).

wrt his portability, I guess I should have been more specific in that I worry of his ability to mesh on court with other ball-dominant superstars. In the aforementioned '12 season I note that about 45% of his minutes came when Westbrook was on the bench (i.e. he was on the court every minute possible when Westbrook sat, indicating a recognized redundancy in two ball-dominant players).
And while it's true his NPI RAPM looks fairly elite in '12, his PI was even better in '13 (when he's running the show). And I can't seem to get the link to work, but I believe it was same-ish [to '12] or better in '15, too.

This doesn't diminish a stance that he did well alongside other superstars; however, it is perhaps consistent with what I suggested wrt his impact maximized by being the ball-dominant focal point.
A blemish to this theory is noting some other years having less impressive impact metrics (e.g. '16, '17); although this is part of my reservations about Harden in general: impact frequently doesn't seem to measure up to his box-based production/efficiency.


wrt the poor defensive years the Knicks had during Reed's tenure......
Some of this may be speculating on excuses for Reed, but I'll just point out one year was as a rookie (and probably shouldering more offensive load than was ideal), and the other two were when shifted to PF (and a notoriously weak defensive center "anchoring" things), and also before Red Holzman, too.
It could be said these things nonetheless reflect somewhat poorly on Reed's portability within his own era, so I'll certainly back off the use of "clearly" in my prior statements. I don't feel anything has been proven in the other direction, though.


At any rate, while these arguments poke some tiny holes in my previous assertion, I don't see that it proves anything in the other direction.

[Dr Positivity]

Harden had to come off the bench and was traded from OKC cause his game didn't fit with Westbrook (Not that Westbrook is easy to fit with), so I don't think it's a huge feather in his cap in terms of portability. If he had great portability OKC might be in the middle of a dynasty right now. I would see Reed certainly has more considering he is a defender, spacer and off ball offensive player

[Owly]

Harden had to come off the bench and was traded from OKC cause his game didn't fit with Westbrook (Not that Westbrook is easy to fit with), so I don't think it's a huge feather in his cap in terms of portability. If he had great portability OKC might be in the middle of a dynasty right now. I would see Reed certainly has more considering he is a defender, spacer and off ball offensive player

See the above post that this seems to implicitly be in response to. Harden posted productivity numbers that match Willis' career best in OKC.

He wasn't traded because "his game didn't fit with Westbrook" he was traded because ...

Well there aren't good reasons. The final cause was Oklahoma's inexplicable decision to play hardball (over what iirc, was reported to be a fairly trivial amount in the end). The cause of that is, as stated, unknowable. My best guess would OKC isn't a major league market and ownership didn't want to pay.

Harden posted the best NPI RAPM on that team. His on court ortg-drtg is the best of their three stars, his off is the worst. He was having a large impact on that team and did so however he was used. The notion that OKC's bizzare decision to trade him is somehow a negative for him is frankly laughable.

Portability is used in different ways and the skillset you describe for Willis is useful, but the Knicks weakness through (and particularly in) '67 seem to give some indication (inasmuch as we can extrapolate from team level data) that his impact was less than one might expect from a player who was portable (and good/generally impactful).


The thing I don't get is if Harden showed weak portabilty in that season, how good do you think he was (in terms of impact or productivity) when Westbrook wasn't on the floor? For there to be a significant gap he must have been incredible.

[trex_8063]

Harden had to come off the bench and was traded from OKC cause his game didn't fit with Westbrook (Not that Westbrook is easy to fit with), so I don't think it's a huge feather in his cap in terms of portability. If he had great portability OKC might be in the middle of a dynasty right now. I would see Reed certainly has more considering he is a defender, spacer and off ball offensive player

See the above post that this seems to implicitly be in response to. Harden posted productivity numbers that match Willis' career best in OKC....

....in a reduced minute role. Not saying he necessarily could not have maintained the same rate metrics while playing larger minutes; but we don't know do we? Playing larger minutes would have meant increased time on the floor alongside Russ Westbrook (which would, imo, most likely eat into his rate metrics marginally; to say nothing of fatigue becoming a larger factor).
And fwiw, in scaled terms his scaled PER and scaled WS/48 did not match that of Reed's career best.

[Dr Positivity]

It was a combination of things but I believe Harden not being a perfect fit in the starting lineup was some of it. The underrated part of Harden trade debacle for me was that they just extended Ibaka. If they traded Ibaka instead they would have been able to afford Harden. So basically they chose Ibaka over Harden, which was a move a lot of other people agreed at the time as well saying they needed a defensive anchor in the frontcourt more than another offensive creator. You can't really blame that all on Harden as any SG playing beside a star PG and SF would be seen as imbalanced compared to having a frontcourt player, but if his strengths were more off ball play and defense it may have been easier for OKC to imagine him as the long term fit, and he would have been starting and likely playing more minutes to give them a better idea of the caliber of player they had.

I can't find the data now, but if I remember correctly I believe Harden's numbers without Westbrook were indeed through the roof that year

[trex_8063]

Thru post #35:

Willis Reed - 8 (janmagn, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, JordansBulls, trex_8063, Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2, fundamentals21)
James Harden - 3 (oldschooled, pandrade83, iggymcfrack)


There's some good discussion happening, please feel free to continue that. But otherwise if there are no major objections, I think I'm gonna conclude this thread early. We're about 7-8 hours early here, but Reed currently holds an 8-3 edge in the runoff.......to turn the result, we'd need to get six more votes bringing the total to 17 (we've not had 17 votes in the preliminary vote or runoff in quite some time), ALL SIX of them would have to be for Harden, and that would all have to transpire in the next 7.5 hours (we've only received ONE new vote in the last 14+ hours).

So I'm thinking we should just move on, perhaps allow an extra couple hours to the next thread. But again, I'll reverse the decision to move on if someone objects strenuously. Otherwise, calling it for Reed.

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[Owly]

Harden had to come off the bench and was traded from OKC cause his game didn't fit with Westbrook (Not that Westbrook is easy to fit with), so I don't think it's a huge feather in his cap in terms of portability. If he had great portability OKC might be in the middle of a dynasty right now. I would see Reed certainly has more considering he is a defender, spacer and off ball offensive player

See the above post that this seems to implicitly be in response to. Harden posted productivity numbers that match Willis' career best in OKC....

....in a reduced minute role. And fwiw, in scaled terms his scaled PER and scaled WS/48 did not match that of Reed's career best.

1) He's 56th in total minutes, 71st in mpg. He's playing above median starter minutes. A bit less than you'd like from a star. But is that "a reduced minute role".

2) How does "a reduced minute role" mean that he wasn't fitting well with Westbrook (and per my later point, if you believe that to be the case, how amazing must he have been when Westbrook was off court).

3) But why would you scale it? How would you scale it in a manner that remains fair (not an attack here, what's the methodology)? The best seasons in one year won't be the equal of those in another, any more than the best team records will be (not that this a perfect analogy, and I wouldn't want to extended it). I kinda sorta get the "why", but whilst 1 PER doesn't have the same/level type of meaning as one win, that comparing across seasons isn't ideal, I think it's better than the alternative. Even moreso with Win Shares even after roundings is supposed to match the wins available in a season and will be close to (thrown off a little by rounding to only 1dp in WS totals), does the scaling still yeild an appropriate total win shares (not that doing so would make it definitely okay - I would think the methodology was built so that relative production in each area is worth specific amounts of wins - but if it doesn't then the credibility of them would be ... well, non-existant).

[Owly]

It was a combination of things but I believe Harden not being a perfect fit in the starting lineup was some of it. The underrated part of Harden trade debacle for me was that they just extended Ibaka. If they traded Ibaka instead they would have been able to afford Harden. So basically they chose Ibaka over Harden, which was a move a lot of other people agreed at the time as well saying they needed a defensive anchor in the frontcourt more than another offensive creator. You can't really blame that all on Harden as any SG playing beside a star PG and SF would be seen as imbalanced compared to having a frontcourt player, but if his strengths were more off ball play and defense it may have been easier for OKC to imagine him as the long term fit, and he would have been starting and likely playing more minutes to give them a better idea of the caliber of player they had.

I can't find the data now, but if I remember correctly I believe Harden's numbers without Westbrook were indeed through the roof that year

See this is more reasonable.

The thing is though, you posited the Harden trade as an anti-portability thing. Whereas the reality of the data for the season (assuming you are correct on the specifics of the data) is closer to something like moderate portability when with two other wing scorers, plus huge upside when optimised. And I don't see that as a negative versus Reed who, as has been noted thrived far less in his one year that he spent in his numerical prime with some talent and a poor fit (which isn't to say that those Knicks were as talented as OKC, or that Bellamy might not shoulder the larger burden in terms of portability/fit issues and boxscore not translating to wins).

Whatever people thought (and people thought it a dreadful move at the time), Ibaka or Harden was a false dichotomy (and yes, I'm probably less sympathetic because they had just moved OKC to a small market), there was no reason not to have both. Except cheapness.

[trex_8063]

See the above post that this seems to implicitly be in response to. Harden posted productivity numbers that match Willis' career best in OKC....

....in a reduced minute role. And fwiw, in scaled terms his scaled PER and scaled WS/48 did not match that of Reed's career best.

1) He's 56th in total minutes, 71st in mpg. He's playing above median starter minutes. A bit less than you'd like from a star. But is that "a reduced minute role".

Is it a "reduced minute role" may be debatable from a semantic standpoint, but for me you hit on the gist of it with the underlined portion. That it's significantly reduced vs every other year of his prime is the other consideration that makes me label it as such.

2) How does "a reduced minute role" mean that he wasn't fitting well with Westbrook (and per my later point, if you believe that to be the case, how amazing must he have been when Westbrook was off court).

He may well have been remarkable (and up to the standards of the rest of his prime) during those times Westy was off the court; but if that's the case, within the context of talking specifically about portability, that wouldn't really help him.

3) But why would you scale it? How would you scale it in a manner that remains fair (not an attack here, what's the methodology)?

Same basic methodology as Doc used for his Scaled RAPM sheets: it's based on standard deviations from the mean, and noting that the standard deviation [in PER and WS/48] isn't the same year-to-year; and that in some years/eras there appears to be a lot more parity (smaller standard deviation)---->that being my motive to scale it.

Here is the thread for the rs numbers. Here is the thread for playoff numbers. Neither has been updated to include the '17 season, btw.

[Owly]

....in a reduced minute role. And fwiw, in scaled terms his scaled PER and scaled WS/48 did not match that of Reed's career best.

1) He's 56th in total minutes, 71st in mpg. He's playing above median starter minutes. A bit less than you'd like from a star. But is that "a reduced minute role".

Is it a "reduced minute role" may be debatable from a semantic standpoint, but for me you hit on the gist of it with the underlined portion. That it's significantly reduced vs every other year of his prime is the other consideration that makes me label it as such.

2) How does "a reduced minute role" mean that he wasn't fitting well with Westbrook (and per my later point, if you believe that to be the case, how amazing must he have been when Westbrook was off court).

He may well have been remarkable (and up to the standards of the rest of his prime) during those times Westy was off the court; but if that's the case, within the context of talking specifically about portability, that wouldn't really help him.

3) But why would you scale it? How would you scale it in a manner that remains fair (not an attack here, what's the methodology)?

Same basic methodology as Doc used for his Scaled RAPM sheets: it's based on standard deviations from the mean, and noting that the standard deviation [in PER and WS/48] isn't the same year-to-year; and that in some years/eras there appears to be a lot more parity (smaller standard deviation)---->that being my motive to scale it.

Here is the thread for the rs numbers. Here is the thread for playoff numbers. Neither has been updated to include the '17 season, btw.

My questions would be as follows then:
Was your interjection (post 34) in defense or labelling '12 non-prime, in support of Dr P's arguments or both?
Have you looked at converting scaled WS/48 back to wins? Do they total to the correct number of available wins. If so was the correlation with team performance (mainly points dif) better or worse than conventional Win Shares?

Fwiw, I (personally) would want the answers to be yes, yes and "it was better" before I'd use "Scaled Win Shares" over Win Shares. Ditto for scaled versions of PER/EWA, though that would be messier (EWA is wins over replacement - with replacement at circa 10 teams wins OTOH, but would have to look up - and Hollinger used different replacement levels at different positions, though if one doesn't mind the marginal redistrubution of credit, using an average of them wouldn't affect it's use when done at the team level, as each team notionally plays 48 minutes of each position in each game).

Fwiw, as I said I kind of get PER and WS comparisons across seasons not feeling perfect. I think we've discussed the disparity in the range of outcomes before. But as stated before (in this thread) I think the formulas were done as they were for reasons, and so, per the immediately above, I'd want to see that the scaled numbers were "better" to justify the tinkering.

In terms of response on the Westbrook on/off portability issue (and at this point I really wish whatever happened to photobucket hadn't happened and LA Bird's NBAWOWY Venn Diagrams were still up, so I/we could just look at it) I'm not wedded to the idea Harden is massively portable, so much as the idea as I've put it above, i.e. if he can have the RAPM, the On/Off type numbers he did, for him to be below average to poor portability that just means blowing the roof off the positive impact when put in optimal circumstances. And where optimal circumstances probably means playing with "only" one in-prime* player (all wing-scorers) who by themselves (or not in Durant's case) will go on to be able to put up MVP numbers/seasons, rather than two, I think that it's harsh to penalize Harden for, given how rare that circumstance is. To be honest, fwiw, in the broader discussion of player goodness, and player goodness is the ultimate point here, I'd probably rather have the higher upside guy than the one more able to blend into such an unlikely (and difficult) scenario.

* fwiw, prime used here is maybe contentious for Westbrook. I'm using it here to indicate an absolute standard of performance, Westbrook is north of (roughly) 20 PER and .150 WS/48, point being, this isn't "Magic's getting to play with McAdoo". No it's not peak Westbrook, but it is a very good (and quite ball-dominant) player. I can see not putting this as prime - perhaps especially for you where higher peaks mean a higher cut-off for what's included in prime - but you get my point.