RealGM 2017 Top 100 #80 (Dan Issel)

[dhsilv2]

Vote - Webber. The more I look over the choices nobody is more complete as a player. He imo had more than enough success with those kings team despite some missed opportunities (lets not get into the refs). He has a reptuation for soft defense, but every metric we have implies he was a value add defender who seemed to be above average as a help defender and at rim protection from the 4 spot. Though i have no objection if people want to claim he was a bit poor against some players in the post. Must like I have no objection to people questioning him as a first option volume scorer.

All that said when I compare Webber to a Nance I'm stuck with a situation where I think Webber can carry a team and Nance can't. Meanwhile, I'd rather add Nance to a contender than Webber. For me to be consistent with how I generally evaluate players, all else equal I would take Webber here. If we're talking Webber vs Issel is interesting. But for me Webber was the clearly better defender. As a scorer Issel looks great, but he dropped off a lot from ABA to NBA days and really he dropped off from 74 to 75, 25-26 age years. As a passer again this is a no question Webber advantage.

So I'm left with longevity, consistency, and intangibles. I don't see Webber as bad in terms of intangables as others here. I would have been pushing webber earlier if he'd been a leader and a better teammate. The talent and the results are good enough imo to have talked about him 5-10 slots ago.

And just an aside, but Webber was surprisingly not an awful role player for the pistons after was was just an awful awful stint in philly.

Alt - I've been mulling this over and I know this is a throw away vote here but I'm really leaning towards Tiny. His 73 season really the more I look impresses me. Lead the league in points and assists, but that team had the number 1 offense to go with those results. Yes it was a one year anomaly it seems, but I'm really big on guys who peaked especially high, and I'm really impressed with the overall box score metrics.

3 top 10's in WS
4 top 10's in PER (3 were top 5)
BPM for what we have is rather strong as well. Though boy it hates his defense, though I'm of the opinion even the worst guard's defense can't be that detrimental.

All star from 80-82 which somewhat says "WTF", but it gives me hope that he was at least as good as the box score metrics which show him as a nice average starter.

I'll be open to changing this one, won't take much as I'm not super confident in Tiny here as if I'm over valuing his peak being MVP worthy, then his longevity likely should move him down a few more spots. But 5 times he was in the top 10 for MVP vote.

Vote Webber
Alt Tiny

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Carmelo Anthony

Vote 2 - Dan Issel

- 14 seasons
- 6x all NBA (two 2nd, four 3rd)
- 1 top 3 and 1 top 10 MVP finish
- 1x scoring champ

Peak carmelo developed into one of the best offensive players in the league. The “iso melo” stigma really became an outdated narrative as you saw all he really needed was a decent PG rotation to keep the ball moving (a little different, but billups certainly got the best out of him in denver). He became one of the better off the ball players in 12-13, actually shooting more efficiently and on higher volume than durant in catch and shoot situations. His transition to a great 3 pt shooter also opened up his game, and he stepped into transition 3s about as well as anyone in the league.

He’s obviously known for his great post up and face up game, but not acknowledged as much for being a great offensive rebounder for his position. He had a deceptively quick second jump and soft touch around the rim for put backs. He also possessed a unique rolling spin move to the hoop i’m not sure anyone else in the league has. The one thing he was really average at is finishing at the rim, and i’d say that partially has to do with him not being able to take advantage of the way the game is called these days. He isn’t a freak show athlete like lebron, and he doesn’t have those long strides like durant / harden where they know the angles and draw fouls as easily as they do.

Carmelo had the full repertoire going with his career high 62 pts against charlotte last season (they ranked 5th in DRTG):

Watch on YouTube

I then look at someone like dominique, who was voted in at #62, and I think an 18 spot gap between the two is pushing it. Take a look at how they compare over their first 11 seasons (dominique actually comes off as worse if you look at his whole career):

http://bkref.com/tiny/KSWoH

They’re very comparable in most areas, and carmelo actually comes out as the better postseason performer, something wilkins was well criticized for, but still managed to get voted in much earlier. I noted trex's argument in past threads about nique consistently carrying offenses with not much support. It's a valid point, although again it's 18 spots later.

There always seemed to be this all or nothing evaluation of carmelo where he’d be expected to be as good as lebron / durant (which he obviously isn’t), or he’s barely a top 20 player in the league. You may want to fault him for forcing his way to NY, but let’s not pretend like many players voted in already haven’t done the same.

ronnymac brings up a good point about low turnovers being a plus for high usage players. Below are are 20+ PPG scorers in the playoffs (excluding centers) sorted by TO% (best to worst):

http://bkref.com/tiny/HO11E

Of course there are guys at the “bottom” who were very successful, but the lower TO% can help offset some of the decrease in efficiency we see with carmelo in the playoffs.

Then we get to the clutch play. 82games.com looked at shot data from 04-09 in the reg season + 04-08 in the post season. Carmelo was 6th in the league in game winners, but #1 in the league by far in FG% on game winners at 48.1%:

http://82games.com/gamewinningshots.htm

By 2011, he already had enough game winners to choose from to create a top 10 for his career:

Watch on YouTube

For clutch data from 2000-2012, carmelo was 7th in the league in FG%, and 50% of his FGs were assisted, which is interesting to note for being criticized for holding the ball too long.

http://bit.ly/1wnySdJ

[I’d obviously prefer eFG% or TS% for these figures, but they weren’t available here]

I’m aware that he hasn’t been quite as clutch over the last few seasons, but i attribute some of that to fatigue (he led the league in MPG last season) and the makeup of his teams. He’s still had his fair share of clutch moments since coming to NY, and hit multiple game winners during his first season here. He did give us this gem in 2012, as well:

Watch on YouTube

Carmelo gets a decent amount of flack for his playoff resume, and I think it’s a little overstated, so I’d like to provide some context for each season. It also seems to get pushed aside that making the playoffs 10 seasons in a row is no big deal or something, especially when the majority of them came out west. Below is carmelo’s team SRS rank and the opponent’s SRS rank that he lost to in the playoffs.

CARMELO SRS RANK / OPPONENT SRS RANK

04 - 11th / 2nd
05 - 10th / 1st (eventual NBA champion spurs)
06 - 15th / 9th
07 - 9th / 1st (eventual NBA champion spurs)
08 - 11th / 2nd
09 - 8th / 3rd (eventual NBA champion lakers)
10 - 8th / 3rd
11 - 15th / 6th
12 - 11th / 4th (eventual NBA champion heat)
13 - 7th / 9th

Aside from 2013, the team he lost to has always been favored in SRS, with 4 of the 10 series losses coming to the eventual NBA champs. To me, this doesn’t reflect a player who’s come up short when he’s been expected to go farther in the playoffs. You can make the argument that if he was a better player, he may have been favored in more series, but that only goes so far.

It’s clear that he hasn’t been as fortunate as some other players as far as who he’s played with. Some more details on his recent playoff loses:

09 - This run to the WCF almost gets glossed over at times. Nuggets were 2 wins away from the finals, losing to the eventual NBA champion lakers, who were just flat out the better team.

He had some great performances during that run.

11 - Billups gets hurt in game 1 against boston (out for rest of series), then amare gets hurt in game 2 only playing 17 min. First 2 games are decided by 2 and 3 points respectively.

Tony douglas forced to play PG for the rest of the series, basically putting it out of reach.

12 - Disastrous # of injuries. Tyson chandler finishes off a DPOY season, and of course gets the flu as soon as the playoffs start. Lin doesn’t come back for the playoffs, shumpert and

douglas only play 1 game a piece, baron davis eventually goes down, and the knicks are only left with 33 yr old mike bibby to run the point, who already had 1 foot in retirement.

13 - First time since carmelo came to the knicks that they really looked like a team who could make a run to the finals. PG play was always an issue prior to this season, and felton came up big in the 1st round against boston. Ball movement flowing with kidd and prigioni as well. Then in the 2nd round against indiana, chandler again doesn’t look himself, which would later be revealed that he had an “undisclosed illness” during the series. I think there’s a good chance they beat the pacers with a healthy chandler, and who knows what happens from there.

Here are the best players carmelo’s played with over the course of his career: andre miller (first few seasons of carmelo's career), kenyon martin (often injured), post 30s iverson, camby (often injured), JR smith, nene (often injured), billups, afflalo, amare (often injured), tyson chandler (often injured), kidd in his last season, in shape felton and porzingis' rookie/soph year.

Outside of iverson, that’s a collection of good players, but nothing that screams "consistent second option", or even "consistent first option" if you want to push carmelo down a notch. Porzingis and carmelo actually had great chemistry until rose came along, but their timelines unfortunately didn't match up. Fit is clearly important, too, and while iverson and carmelo never had "problems" with each other, it wasn't working. It’s not an accident that carmelo’s best seasons came with billups running the show in 09 and a knicks team in 2013 which focused heavily on keeping the ball moving and quick decision making.

With regard to how carmelo’s career is perceived, I always go back to pierce before garnett and allen came along. Even if we agree that pierce is the better player, he had only been to the conf finals once before that trade, and i’m not sure how his career progresses without those trades being made. Does he stick with it in boston and not make anymore playoff runs? Does he eventually go to another team? I just wonder how carmelo would be looked at had he been fortunate enough to play with teammates of that caliber.

[SactoKingsFan]

VOTE: CHRIS WEBBER

Alt: LARRY NANCE


94 ROY
5x All-Star
5x All-NBA (1x 1st, 3x 2nd, 1x 3rd)
5x Top 10 in MVP voting


Webber started off with a great rookie campaign in 94 with the Warriors, and was already the best player on a playoff team (50-32) that included Sprewell, Billy Owens, Chris Gatling, Avery Johnson and a limited post prime Mullin.


94 ROY:
26.5 PTS, 13.8 REB, 5.4 AST, 5.1 BLK+STL Per 100; 21.7 PER, 55.9 TS%, 7.8 WS, .154 WS/48, 110 ORtg, 104 DRtg


Extended peak (00-02) C-Webb did a bit of everything and was the centerpiece of some great/very good Kings teams.


Extended Peak (00-02):
32.3 PTS, 13.5 REB, 5.7 AST, 4.0 BLK+STL, 3.6 TOV Per 100;
24.1 PER, 52.7 TS%, 14.1 REB%, 21.1 AST%, 10.6 TOV%, 30.4 WS, ,187 WS48, 107 ORtg, 98 DRtg


10 Year Prime (94-03):
29.2 PTS, 13.5 REB, 5.8 AST, 4.4 BLK+STL, 3.9 TOV Per 100


22.1 PER, .526 TS%, 14.7 TRB%, 20.4 AST%, 12.4 TOV%, 72.3 WS, .152 WS/48, 106 ORtg, 100 DRtg

GOAT level passer for PF/C
His 20.2 career AST% is exceptional for a big. One of only 2 bigs (Webber, Alvin Adams, with 20k + mins and career AST% >= 20. Blake Griffin will be #3.

Webber's great extended peak, prime, versatile offensive game with all-time great passing, underrated defense and decent longevity are enough to make him one of the top 75ish candidates. His issues don't look so damning since we're at a point in the project where all the remaining candidates have significant weaknesses.

Sent from my ONEPLUS 3T using Tapatalk

[trex_8063]

Thru post #23:

Dan Issel - 2 (scabbarista, trex_8063)
Chris Webber - 2 (SactoKingsFan, dhsilv2)
Larry Nance - 1 (pandrade83)
Carmelo Anthony - 1 (Clyde Frazier)
Mel Daniels - 1 (penbeast0)

I felt for sure Nance would get this spot, but that's the way it goes in these late stages (low turnout): even one supporter failing to show up can be the difference between making the runoff and not making it. We'll now enter a runoff between Dan Issel and Chris Webber; eliminating the others add one additional vote for Issel:

Dan Issel - 3 (Clyde Frazier, scabbarista, trex_8063)
Chris Webber - 2 (SactoKingsFan, dhsilv2)


If your name isn't shown here^^^, please state your pick between Issel and Webber with brief reasons why. Runoff will conclude in ~24 hours.

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[penbeast0]

Wow, two guys who to me defined empty stats. I never had the feeling either moved the needle much, both scored a lot. Issel lasted longer and was a class act; Webber has the playmaking, superior defense, and was a whiny jerk and choke artist. I hate to vote for him, one of my least favorite NBA players, but if I want to win a ring, I think I go with Chris Webber here.

[pandrade83]

Webber has good (not great) RAPM scores from '97-'03; they go negative after that which is consistent with my own views. Aside from the intangibles called out by Pen, Webber shot too much for his own good. '99 was the last time he shot over 50% and his ability to get to the line was pretty weak. He does bring superior defense to Issel, has strong playmaking capabilities & is a marginally better rebounder than Issel. I suspect the over-shooting is what drags down how RAPM feels about him.

Issel is a one dimensional player - he scores efficiently and with strong TO economy to boot. He has adequate assist numbers - below par for the position at both rebounding & defense. Issel has a meaningful longevity edge over Webber - I view Webber's prime as more impactful.

I'd much rather have the forward I nominated (Nance) but I'll take Webber as I think he brings enough years where he adds more value than Issel ('94, '97-'03) that he probably gives you a greater likelihood of a ring.

[Doctor MJ]

Runoff Vote: Dan Issel

I tend to think of myself as low on Issel because I tend to value defense highly in bigs, but Issel was very good for very long moving seamlessly across leagues and eras. That's not a small thing.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #27:

Chris Webber - 4 (penbeast0, pandrade83, SactoKingsFan, dhsilv2)
Dan Issel - 4 (Doctor MJ, Clyde Frazier, scabbarista, trex_8063)


Would like to conclude this one in 3 hours [or less]. Tick tock....

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[trex_8063]

Just quoting this to here, as it pertains to a runoff candidate and his defense (which, while he could be good, was fairly inconsistent if memory serves):

Back to Webber's defense, I know he got some criticisms over time, but as I pointed out in the prior thread, it seemed when he missed significant games or left teams, the team's defensive rating consistently went down. While on the kings they were among the best defenses in the league despite imo a poor defender at point guard and Peja imo at least wasn't that good. Now they had some good defensive pieces so it wasn't all time.

Divac was a widely underrated defensive center, imo, and was present in Sacramento all thru their elite seasons.
Doug Christie was probably one of the best perimeter defenders of his generation, present in Sacramento '01 thru part of '05 season. Bobby Jackson was a good perimeter defender, too (present in Sacramento '01-'05).
Scot Pollard was largely a defensive role player (present in Sacramento '99-'03).
Keon Clark was another defensive role player (on the Kings during '03).

Not suggesting Webber might not have been a contributor to their good defenses, but obviously there were quite a few pieces contributing to why they were good on defense; and Webber likely wasn't the most important piece. Also worth noting that arguably the defensive factor he can influence the most from the PF position is DREB%; and that was something the Kings were generally NOT good at: 22nd/29 in '01, 11th/29 in '02, 21st/29 in '03.


Regarding team DRtg's consistently getting worse when he left or missed games.......that's not exactly true:

'99 Bullets rDRTG gets worse by +2.0 upon Webber's departure, and he is indeed the only major roster change. So that's certainly a point in his favor.
The '99 Kings rDRTG gets better by -1.0 upon his arrival. However, he wasn't the only roster change; in fact, there was a lot of shake-up: they got rid of Mitch Richmond, Billy Owens, Olden Polynice, Anthony Johnson, and aging Otis Thorpe. And in addition to Webber, they also added Peja, Divac, Jason Williams, and aging Vernon Maxwell, also new coach Rick Adelman. So really, there's probably too much noise to award much credit to individuals there; certainly can't be taken as a point against his defensive presence, though.

In '00 he missed 7 games. Tiny sample size, but fwiw they were a 103.5 DRtg without him, 102.0 DRtg with him (-1.5 improvement associated with him). Their ORtg was marginally better (+0.9) with him, too.

In '01 he missed 12 games, and their defense was quite a bit better with him: 99.1 DRtg with him, 102.8 (+3.7) DRtg without him. Worth noting that their ORtg was worse (-2.8) with him than without him, though.

In '02 we have a pretty good sample size, with Webber missing 28 games. Their DRtg was worse by +1.2 with Webber. Their ORtg was +3.6 with him, though. Not sure if these two seasons ('01 and '02)----where a substantial improvement on offense seems to come with a substantial decline on defense, and vice versa----reflects that he must preferentially focus his energies on one side of the ball at the expense of the other side???

In '03 he missed 15 games. Their DRtg was better by -2.4 without him. The ORtg was better with him, but only by +0.7.


More wrt his defense by way of scouting report......
I was watching a bit of this game:

Watch on YouTube

.....I'll grade some defensive possessions on a scale of "poor", "fair/adequate", "good", or "excellent" (may occasionally reserve a grade of "atrocious" for especially bad plays), ignoring most plays he's not much involved with (assume "adequate" defense on those):

0:36 - Not sure how to grade his pnp defense here. His "help" on Nash is pretty weak/meaningless; however, one does obviously have to respect Dirk on the perimeter, and he keeps him shaded.
Grade: I suppose "Fair/Adequate" is appropriate here.

1:55 - Shades Nash to the sideline off the high screen; wouldn't have been able to recover to Dirk in time, but luckily Christie's got his back, rotating over. Webber doesn't recover Christie's man (Finley) on the weak side, rather just wanders to the paint/middle as the shot goes up. Does get the defensive rebound, though was frankly lucky it didn't bounce toward the weakside (where Finley was all alone).
Grade: "Fair/Adequate" overall (could argue it's somewhere between "Poor" and "Fair").

2:25 - After the offensive rebound and kick-out to Dirk (Webber's man), he's utterly lazy moving his feet (makes a very lame/lackadaisical gamble for a steal) allowing Dirk to literally blow right by him; Divac is forced to help, leaving LaFrenz wide open for a dunk on the nice dish from Nowitzki.
Grade: very obviously "Poor".
***NOTE: note the commentators talking about how the Kings don't want Webber on Nowitzki, and stating how they're going to miss Peja [injured] on defense (they even joke about how often you'll hear that statement), because Peja does a better job guarding Dirk.

2:58 - Very next possession, Webber again somewhat lazy moving his feet and gets beat off the dribble in isolation by Nowitzki (he could have contested more physically on the shot, too). Nice help D at the rim by Divac saves him from getting scored on, and Divac secures the board.
Grade: Poor.

3:15 - Next possession, off the Dallas steal, he's a bit lazy hustling back in the transition D, allowing a brief "3-on-2" break (luckily Dirk misses the wide open 13' jumper).
Grade: Poor.

(4:25 - Webber's not really involved on this possession and doesn't do anything wrong, but I wanted to just point out how well Divac hedges off the pnr ball-handler, despite not having good lateral quickness)

5:34 - Cagey help defense on Dirk's baseline shot (might have even got a piece of it).
Grade: Good (though it's worth noting that at this stage of the game the Kings are "hiding" Webber defensively on Greg Buckner, and having Hedo Turkoglu guard Dirk--->it's consistent over the next few possessions, not just a switch or something).

6:40 - Nothing bad comes of it (luckily), but Webber utterly loses track of Finley in the corner and just sort of wanders into the paint area (I'm not sure if some of his bigger rebounding rates didn't come in this manner: at the expense of defense). If Van Exel had better vision, he could have found Finley for a wide open corner trey.
Grade: Poor.

7:20 - Again, note Webber is being "hidden" on Greg Buckner (Hedo guarding Dirk). Ball goes to Dirk on the baseline/elbow, and Webber completely loses track of Buckner, who cuts back-door, gets the easy bucket on the assist from Dirk. What is Webber doing here? He doesn't actually double-team Dirk, and he gets completely burned by Greg Buckner of all people. Literally the only thing possibly accomplished by what he was doing was discouraging Dirk from driving to the middle. He otherwise basically left his team defending 4 against 5.
Grade: obviously Poor (possibly even deserving of the aforementioned "Atrocious" grade).

11:55 - Note once again Webber is being hidden defensively, this time guarding Eduardo Najera. He doesn't do anything overtly poor here, but I did want to point out kinda weak box-outs. It's possibly illuminating (in light of all the criticisms that he "doesn't like to bang down low") that even someone of Najera's size appears able to push him around a little bit down low.
Grade: Fair/Adequate (to maybe slightly Poor).

14:08 - Webber is now being hidden on Adrian Griffin (at this point the Kings are quite blatantly hiding him on whomever happens to be the weakest offensive threat that the Mavs have on the court). He plays this possession adequately, though: doesn't contest Nash, but at least shades the play well enough to force a 20-foot pull-up, and then gets a nice box-out on Griffin.
Grade: Fair/Adequate (maybe even edging slightly toward "Good").
*****NOTE: Again perhaps telling of this criticism of not liking to bang down low--->we see on the following offensive possession Webber essentially fails to get an adequate post-up on Michael Finley (an obvious mis-match), who is also able on the box-out to push him out to ~15' from the hoop.

14:50 - Doug Christie comes over and picks off the attempted pass to a cutting LaFrenz, but Webber did see the play coming and had already rotated to help should the pass have been completed.
Grade: Good.

15:10 - Does a decent job cutting off the penetration by Adrian Griffin (though again: it's Adrian Griffin). Later in the play, though Griffin makes the shot, Webber did an OK job closing out on the shooter.
Grade: Fair/Adequate.

15:45 - Webber, doesn't move his feet whatsoever, and again gets smoked by Dirk on the drive. And from a mental error standpoint [aside from the lazy effort on moving his feet], he also appears to overplay the middle (and allowing the baseline), which is a mental error because Turkoglu is standing right there in the way of any drive toward the middle.
Grade: Poor (obviously).

16:40 - Kinda lazy coming back on defense, for a second effectively allows a 5-on-4 in the halfcourt; at any rate allows LaFrenz to slip underneath into rebounding position (it's actually Dirk who gets the offensive rebound, though). He finds himself on Dirk after the OReb, and then on the subsequent shot allows Dirk to get inside position for the rebound (didn't matter, as the shot was made anyway, but still).
Grade: Poor.

19:00 - NOTE: Again note Divac's ability to hedge the pnr ball-handler, despite his poor lateral quickness. Guy was a really savvy player (on both ends). Webber's not much involved in this play, though he has rotated over to the rolling Shawn Bradley until Divac can recover (after hedging Nash), and he's still there to play the passing lane and/or contest the shot had the ball been kicked to LaFrenz in the corner.
Grade: Fair-to-Good.

20:10 - It's his man who gets the open 15-footer here, but I don't consider this a bad possession. He'd sort of semi-rotated momentarily to help on a cutting Greg Buckner near the baseline, and then got an OK box-out on Shawn Bradley (whom Divac had left, also to help on the Buckner); Divac was in the better position to rotate out and contest LaFrenz.
Grade: Fair/Adequate.

21:35 - Webber double-teams on Greg Buckner......which might seem like a bit of a wtf move, but probably is reasonable in this instance, since Buckner had the ball in the post against the much smaller Mike Bibby. Webber's double-team is sort of weaksauce, however, and as often appears the case [in this game, at least] his movement toward recovering his man [or someone's man] is sort of slow/lackadaisical. He actually recovers Shawn Bradley (Divac's man) because Bradley was closer, leaving Divac to recover LaFrenz (and without much communication, as far as I can tell, though obv I could be wrong; can't hear everything they say or don't say on the court); Divac is smart enough to quickly recognize and respond, though. Generally speaking, fwiw, Divac is MUCH more active defensively than Webber.
Grade: Fair/Adequate.

22:50 - You can see Webber once again completely loses track of his man (LaFrenz) who slips back-door on him. Nothing comes of it (other than LaFrenz would have had inside position had the shot been missed), but obviously this is a bad play.
Grade: Poor.

24:15 - Reasonable hustle back on defense, and contests the buzzer-beater play.
Grade: Good (or at least Fair-to-Good).



And that just covers part of a single half of basketball (this is not the FULL game), but already no fewer than 8 "Poor" defensive possessions for Webber (including one that might even be the dreaded "Atrocious"); only 3-4 "Good" plays to counter-balance that, with the rest being merely "adequate".
Now I'm not trying to draw far-reaching conclusions about Webber's defense [that it's bad] throughout his prime, based on what happened in a single half of a single game. However, this is perhaps illustrative of a criticism penbeast0 had made: that his defense was, at best, inconsistent.
He's certainly capable of good defense, and occasionally shows it. But as is seen in this game, there are more than a handful of defensive possessions where he clearly just does not give a crap; he's just biding his time until they're back on offense.

I'll save further discussion about Webber for future threads.

[trex_8063]

Going to bed, but next incoming vote will decide it.

[Outside]

Runoff vote: Issel

He was really good offensively for some really good offensive teams. His stats went down once he moved from the ABA to the NBA, but he was still very productive. I don't have his info in front of me right now, but I've been looking at him for several threads now. I'd pick Nance over him, but he didn't make the runoff.

Sent from my SM-G900V using RealGM mobile app

[LA Bird]

Run-off vote: Dan Issel
Issel is somebody I would be voting for soon while Webber likely doesn't make my top 100. Webber's main argument is usually his ability to 'carry' teams due to his impressive offensive box score stats but he ranks fairly mediocre in plus minus stats consistently throughout his career. Even just looking at box scores, Webber's peak WS is not too spectacular and neither is his career WS. Issel's stats are somewhat overrated by playing on some very fast paced Nuggets teams but he still ranks pretty highly after any pace adjustments due to his great longevity. Neither were much more than All-Star level players at their peak but Issel stuck around for much longer so he has the edge in total career value.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #32:

Dan Issel - 6 (Outside, LABird, Doctor MJ, Clyde Frazier, scabbarista, trex_8063)
Chris Webber - 4 (penbeast0, pandrade83, SactoKingsFan, dhsilv2)


Calling it. Will have the next up in a moment.

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[pandrade83]

Primary Vote: Larry Nance
Alternate: Tim Hardaway

I think Nance gets lost in the shuffle a bit historically.

Nance has a legit to clear claim for being the best player on 4 successful teams post merger - 2 Conference Finals teams ('84 Suns, '92 Cavs) the #1 team in SRS ('89 Cavs) & the #4 SRS team in '83 (Suns). Very few players left have that sort of capability. While it's true that the surrounding talent on those teams was all quite high - it takes a top level player to be of that caliber over teams spread that far apart. He leads all the aforementioned teams in WS & VORP & he has outstanding box score ORTG/DRTG differentials that lead those squads (+13, +12, +18, +20 respectively).

A typical year is 19-8-3-1 steal, 2.5 blocks on really strong shooting metrics with good turnover economy especially for a big and strong defense (3 X All-Defense) and he delivers 11 such years.

Amongst post merger remaining players, he is 6th in career WS & 2nd in VORP and 3rd in PER with career minutes exceeding 30 K.

In years where he suffers injuries in prime, the impact on team performance is clear.

'85 - 29-32 with, 7-14 without (+12)
'86 - 29-44 with, 3-6 without (+6)
'87 - 32-37 with, 4-9 without (+13)
'89 - 51-22 with, 6-3 without (+2)
'90 - 35-27 with, 7-13 without (+17)

Qualitatively there's a lot to love. I'll wrap up on a video against a playoff elimination game against one of the GOAT Teams - '92 Chicago when Nance is at age 32.

Watch on YouTube

Note that he takes the opening tip at age 32 over taller Brad Daugherty.

Nance shows good range, intelligent movement without the ball, quality passer, strong help defender, solid post moves.

I'd rather have 11 years of that than anything anyone else has to offer at this stage.

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I'll post more once it's truly his turn but some of the talking points for Hardaway:

Awards/Accolades
5 X All-NBA - running out of guys who achieved that post merger
3 Top 10 MVP finishes - running out of guys who achieved that post merger

Metrics
-Everyone else who is a multi-year member of the 20-9-54% TS Club is in
-Strong TO economy for how much he had the ball with most prime seasons < 14% TO rate
-3 years of +20 PER & 10+WS* ('91 was 9.9) & BPM of 4 or higher
-Registers 2nd in NPI RAPM in '97, 11th in '01, unweighted chained 5 year NPI RAPM from '97-'01 places him inside the Top 20 in a typical year - this is when he's in the back half of his prime.

Impact on winning
-Led a repeat Division winner that won 61 games & made the ECF in WS
-Averaged 25-11-3 steals in the '91 playoffs that included an upset of the Spurs
-Averaged 26-7 in '98 Playoffs