RealGM 2017 Top 100 #81 (Larry Nance)

[Owly]

Not including the ABA:

career RS Offensive Rebounding % = 1st
career RS Defensive Rebounding % = 1st

career PS Rebounding % = 3rd (behind Dwight Howard and Wilt Chamberlain)

Take a drop? C'mon man...

The main think that gets the Worm into the top 100 is his amazing rebounding. It drops from GOAT to "merely" top 5 level in the playoffs, a significant drop statistically. I am wondering why. If it is because he was smart enough not to cheat off his defensive assignment to chase stats, that's actually a positive (I've heard it argued that Wilt's playoff scoring drop is a positive for the same reason!). If it's because he was signficantly less effective in the playoffs than the regular season, that's a big deal the other way. So, I'm asking if anyone has actually tried to look at this question because we have some amazing analysts here on the board.

It's a good question. That would obviously take some significant scouting. At some point, I'll try to get around to doing so. In the meantime, the extent to which his mentality (potential to be "team cancer") is the biggest concern for me, and the one consideration that could eventually motivate me to shift him back a place or two on my ATL.
It's somewhat speculative as to whether we declare he simply "win the lottery" in ending up in the circumstances he was in or not. Probably a little truth to that. idk, he's a tough nut to crack; he's one of those few modern-era players whose as difficult to "accurately" rank as many old-era stars.

vs my other top candidates (after Nance, who I'm now pretty set on as the best available candidate), they all have resume weak-spots, too......
Kawhi--->longevity (and durability) is weak.
Worthy---->did he also hit the player lottery for circumstance? Statistical resume not as impressive as some others.
Webber---->poorish longevity/durability, inconsistent impact, playoff struggles.
Melo---->mostly awful defender, questionable impact in some years, lack of playmaking.
Sheed--->Had his own "head-case" issues (did he luck out in Detroit?). One of the weaker statistical [box] resumes that could reasonably have traction here.

So everyone is very very far from perfect. Hard for me to say if Rodman belong behind any/all of these guys.

I know it's only a possible shortlist and you've mentioned the guy I'm about to mention on longer lists, and I could ask this of other candidates (went for Melo as he's probably a "numbers" candidate, and I suspect otoh my alternative has better numbers plus, defense, fit, intangiables etc advantages).

What puts Melo on your shortlist ahead of Elton Brand? Feel free to expand the scope in comparisons to peer and semi-peer at the position (Wallace, Webber) or indeed to ignore.

[pandrade83]

owly

That guy's probably too much of a risk to a would-be dynasty, not worth it on non-contender, perhaps only worthwhite on "puncher's chance" team, a fringe contender (or a contender with sub-replacement level options for the bulk of the minutes at the position, who wouldn't be able to add anyone else).

I think it's more about culture and how strong a personality the best player/coach is. The difference between Detroit/Chicago Rodman and San Antonio Rodman is striking. And it's not like the Spurs weren't good and didn't have needs (Robinson covered up for so many sins on those teams).

Your culture has to be rock-solid in order to successfully utilize Rodman. Anything less & he's not worth the effort.

[Owly]

That guy's probably too much of a risk to a would-be dynasty, not worth it on non-contender, perhaps only worthwhile on "puncher's chance" team, a fringe contender (or a contender with sub-replacement level options for the bulk of the minutes at the position, who wouldn't be able to add anyone else).

I think it's more about culture and how strong a personality the best player/coach is. The difference between Detroit/Chicago Rodman and San Antonio Rodman is striking. And it's not like the Spurs weren't good and didn't have needs (Robinson covered up for so many sins on those teams).

Your culture has to be rock-solid in order to successfully utilize Rodman. Anything less & he's not worth the effort.

I think I've covered where I am on all this. Still I'll try to reiterate, fill in any gaps and see where you are.

1) San Antonio leadership tried to enforce a culture on him in year 2. They had Pop. They couldn't. Maybe he was rebelling against small-er town conservatism (think he may have said stuff along these lines) and a Christian-oriented team leadership/group (Johnson, Robinson, Cummings being notably Christian and the vocal PG, superstar and former-superstar respectively). It might have been a bad fit, perhaps? Probably inconsistent, organizationally speaking, from year one to year two. I'm not sure how confident you could be in claiming it's about the best player. Or that one culture is "rock solid" and another not, because of how different versions of Dennis Rodman behaved with them.

2) Not sure where you're going with San Antonio. But you've touched on their quality so I'll discuss this. Fwiw, I think Robinson was great (really, really great), most of the rest of those teams were low end starters at best, and a predictable, uni-polar offense. This made the Spurs, fwiw, probably a better RS than playoffs team and otoh, an outside contender (okay looking at it now and ... if you buy their SRS's as legit indicators of playoff chances then with Rodman - and then also '96 - they're on periphery of legit contenders - nothing dynasty potential). That might be the right level of team to take a punt on him.

On a newer note, you seem perhaps to find Detroit and Chicago Rodman to be equivalent ("Detroit/Chicago Rodman") and, if so, I'm curious as to where you'd get this. I've got Rodman as relatively sane (if unusual combination of apparent introversion and bombastic enthusiasm and youthful exhuberence) through circa '92 and then very much turning self-promotional, party animal, rebound (records?)-centric from about a year on through to the end of his career (and beyond). So far as I can tell, in Detroit Rodman was part of the team and its identity; in Chicago MJ and Scottie didn't speak to him (presumably off-court and at least through year 1), so even how he was treated varies greatly.

And for what it's worth I don't see that team-culture being a factor and title-chances affecting the value proposition of Rodman being mutually exclusive (or zero-sum, would perhaps be fairer) in terms of it being more one thing and less another. I've outlined why I think his downside is a risk to a would-be dynasty and his costs too great for a non-contender, feel free to argue the points (it's just, as phrased, this appears to have been quoted and seemingly dismissed without discussion - obviously feel free to clarify, if I'm misreading).

[trex_8063]

Thru post #23:

Larry Nance - 3 (Outside, pandrade83, trex_8063)
Dennis Rodman - 1 (scabbarista)
Mel Daniels - 1 (penbeast0)

~20 hours left till runoff/conclusion of this one.

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[trex_8063]

fwiw, I've changed my secondary vote (edited in post #4) away from Rodman. As the discussion has gone on and I've thought about it more, I'm just less and less comfortable with him there. Going with Worthy for the time being.

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Carmelo Anthony

Vote 2 - Larry Nance

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

Adding some new info right off the bat…

Players already voted in in Melo’s VORP and Win Shares range:

VORP

George Gervin 32.2 *-1 season
Bobby Jones 32
Dan Issel 31.2 *-3 seasons
Steve Nash 31.2
Carmelo Anthony 29.4
Kevin Johnson 28
Chris Bosh 27.5
Tony Parker 27
Bob McAdoo 26.5 *-1 season
Dave Cowens 26.2 *-3 seasons
Alonzo Mourning 24

*Number of seasons played prior to 73-74 where stat could not be calculated

Win Shares

In this case the total # of win shares speaks to Carmelo’s solid longevity. As a reference point, his prime WS/48 from 06-14 is .149 and he peaked at .184.

Hal Greer 102.7
Alex English 100.7
Grant Hilll 99.9
Allen Iverson 99
McGrady 97.3
Carmelo Anthony 97
Bobby Jones 94.1
Ben Wallace 93.5
Kevin Johnson 92.8
Sam Jones 92.3
Bob Cousy 91.1
James Harden 91.3
Sidney Moncrief 90.3
Alonzo Mourning 89.7
Bob McAdoo 89.1
Dave Cowens 86.3

In the seasons post 2014 top 100 project, the PG situation in new york did not improve at all:

14-15: Shane Larkin, Langston Galloway, 37 yr old prigioni, 33 yr old calderon

15-16: Langston Galloway, rookie Jerian Grant, 34 yr old Caldeorn — this PG rotation was so poor that carmelo ended up leading the team in APG and just about equaled calderon in AST%

16-17: Rose, Jennings, rookie Ron Baker

Jennings was really the one penetrate and dish PG the knicks had in those 3 seasons. He even seemed to buy in to the fact that he can’t shoot and really got everyone involved. Of course, he had rose starting in front of him, so his time on the floor with melo was limited. He was used more in bench lineups that actually thrived, relatively speaking.

In an era where dynamic PG play is paramount, knicks management abhorrently ignored the position. I don’t think you can find such ineptitude in a front office with playoff aspirations outside of the cousins-era kings.

- - - - -

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 2009 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 in his prime.

[Owly]

Vote 1 - Carmelo Anthony

Vote 2 - Larry Nance

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

Adding some new info right off the bat…

Players already voted in in Melo’s VORP and Win Shares range:

VORP

George Gervin 32.2 *-1 season
Bobby Jones 32
Dan Issel 31.2 *-3 seasons
Steve Nash 31.2
Carmelo Anthony 29.4
Kevin Johnson 28
Chris Bosh 27.5
Tony Parker 27
Bob McAdoo 26.5 *-1 season
Dave Cowens 26.2 *-3 seasons
Alonzo Mourning 24

*Number of seasons played prior to 73-74 where stat could not be calculated

Win Shares

In this case the total # of win shares speaks to Carmelo’s solid longevity. As a reference point, his prime WS/48 from 06-14 is .149 and he peaked at .184.

Hal Greer 102.7
Alex English 100.7
Grant Hilll 99.9
Allen Iverson 99
McGrady 97.3
Carmelo Anthony 97
Bobby Jones 94.1
Ben Wallace 93.5
Kevin Johnson 92.8
Sam Jones 92.3
Bob Cousy 91.1
James Harden 91.3
Sidney Moncrief 90.3
Alonzo Mourning 89.7
Bob McAdoo 89.1
Dave Cowens 86.3

In the seasons post 2014 top 100 project, the PG situation in new york did not improve at all:

14-15: Shane Larkin, Langston Galloway, 37 yr old prigioni, 33 yr old calderon

15-16: Langston Galloway, rookie Jerian Grant, 34 yr old Caldeorn — this PG rotation was so poor that carmelo ended up leading the team in APG and just about equaled calderon in AST%

16-17: Rose, Jennings, rookie Ron Baker

Jennings was really the one penetrate and dish PG the knicks had in those 3 seasons. He even seemed to buy in to the fact that he can’t shoot and really got everyone involved. Of course, he had rose starting in front of him, so his time on the floor with melo was limited. He was used more in bench lineups that actually thrived, relatively speaking.

In an era where dynamic PG play is paramount, knicks management abhorrently ignored the position. I don’t think you can find such ineptitude in a front office with playoff aspirations outside of the cousins-era kings.

- - - - -

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 2009 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 in his prime.

Where I'm at on Carmelo

Accolades: Theres no doubting he's "star" (high pick, hyped in college and big tournament performance, volume scorer). The question is whether he's as good as those accolades might make you think. I think there's more accurate barrometers.

Metrics: There's a better, somewhat contemporary forward who's better beyond the boxscore (defense and intangiables).
http://bkref.com/tiny/638m5

fwiw (possibly not much, here at least, perhaps moreso in meta-discussions) the WS guys below him are generally either peak guys (Harden, McAdoo), big non-boxscore guys (Cowens, Bobby Jones) or guys penalized a combination of unfriendly era and position in terms of putting up career longevity and boxscore metrics, especially Win Shares.

Nique: Ditto the above (i.e. anchoring debates might be more a meta thing, unless you think perhaps specific Nique voters have been inconsistent in their reasoning and want to push them to realise that their Nique reasoning should stand for Carmelo). Same for Pierce. Nice that you acknowledged t-Rex on the team offense thing. I think others may have argued longevity/longevity of quality as well. Probably moot here though.

Playoffs: Not such a big deal to me (small sample, luck, injuries, matchups, uneven competition etc) in what I'm rating on. But as much as team performance is looked at here (and team context, which is why I'm not a big weighter here), his career stats just aren't great. They're clearly better if you give him the benefit of ignoring seasons 1-3, but even then, there's a high PER driven by very high usage - but the other composites are fairly pedestrian.

I'm not touching clutch stuff due to a combination of not knowing enough about it and not priveliging late-game offense. He may be great here, I don't know.

[scrabbarista]

In regards to San Antonio, if his whole career had gone as did his time with the Spurs, he'd drop 20-40 spots on my list (I have him 74th.) So, I pretty much agree with you there.

If his whole career had been as him on the Spurs was ... I'm not sure I'd have him on my team (depends on circumstances, tradability etc I guess). And I've gone in against positive intangiables being projected{?, perhaps too perjorative] onto title winners. But where it's negative and clearly known at the time ... I don't know. Deserving to win titles and building a dynasty is about having the best team and low variance. Rodman not feeling like closing out, making a show of not being part of the team ... you only need to lose one series, four games (less historically) and he could make that a lot more likely. He's also hard to replace if he gets himself suspended or whatever, because by this point he's a unique player who you have to build around (my PF won't shoot, limited range if he does, he'll get a crazy percentage of rebounds). That guy's probably too much of a risk to a would-be dynasty, not worth it on non-contender, perhaps only worthwhite on "puncher's chance" team, a fringe contender (or a contender with sub-replacement level options for the bulk of the minutes at the position, who wouldn't be able to add anyone else).

And if he's that guy out of college ... I'm not sure he gets minutes ... certainly if he lands on the wrong team. I don't know how you're interpreting a career of Spurs Rodman nor am I denying his abilities and possible positive impact, he's just ... risky.

Right, I agree that if I were the GM of the Spurs, clearly, it was the right move to let him go. And in that sense, he wouldn't even belong in the league if every situation he encountered played out just that way. But right now, for this list, I'm not thinking as a GM. I'm thinking as, for lack of a better term, a historian. Long story short, I just meant that, eyeballing it, if he could've maintained his exact SA production for nine or ten years, he'd still be very productive, but not Top 100 productive. And for me, as a historian - and probably not as a GM - championships are part of that "production." (I.e., I projected him as having won zero championships...)

If you could choose between having the best team and having the lowest variance, which would you take? It's a joke of a question. The answer should be absurdly obvious.

But the crux here is that you and I are having two different conversations - both valid, both, hopefully, interesting. I completely agree that Rodman was a risky player to bring into any organization. For me, though, that matters zero percent on my All-Time List. What matters is that, to the tune of five championships, ten All-NBA teams, and seven rebounding titles, the risk paid off.

[Clyde Frazier]

Where I'm at on Carmelo

Accolades: Theres no doubting he's "star" (high pick, hyped in college and big tournament performance, volume scorer). The question is whether he's as good as those accolades might make you think. I think there's more accurate barrometers.

Metrics: There's a better, somewhat contemporary forward who's better beyond the boxscore (defense and intangiables).
http://bkref.com/tiny/638m5

fwiw (possibly not much, here at least, perhaps moreso in meta-discussions) the WS guys below him are generally either peak guys (Harden, McAdoo), big non-boxscore guys (Cowens, Bobby Jones) or guys penalized a combination of unfriendly era and position in terms of putting up career longevity and boxscore metrics, especially Win Shares.

Nique: Ditto the above (i.e. anchoring debates might be more a meta thing, unless you think perhaps specific Nique voters have been inconsistent in their reasoning and want to push them to realise that their Nique reasoning should stand for Carmelo). Same for Pierce. Nice that you acknowledged t-Rex on the team offense thing. I think others may have argued longevity/longevity of quality as well. Probably moot here though.

Playoffs: Not such a big deal to me (small sample, luck, injuries, matchups, uneven competition etc) in what I'm rating on. But as much as team performance is looked at here (and team context, which is why I'm not a big weighter here), his career stats just aren't great. They're clearly better if you give him the benefit of ignoring seasons 1-3, but even then, there's a high PER driven by very high usage - but the other composites are fairly pedestrian.

I'm not touching clutch stuff due to a combination of not knowing enough about it and not priveliging late-game offense. He may be great here, I don't know.

Brand is definitely someone I can appreciate. Peaked highly, by all accounts a good teammate, pretty consistent production and didn't have the best luck with teams he was on. This is something I feel strongly about with players in general as basketball is ultimately a team game, even though it's more star driven than other sports. How one weighs that against other players who were more fortunate is certainly subjective.

I'd say the main knock on brand is shaky durability and at least the argument of a "bad team, good stats" guy, but i'm not necessarily subscribing to that. In the 2014 project he was voted in at 79. I do believe he's deserving of another inclusion this time around. I'd still side with carmelo over him due to a longer prime and somewhat more consistent production.

With regard to nique, it is more about the gap between votes at this point that stands out to me. He's obviously a better finisher around the rim, and i'm not downplaying that as his ability was elite. Beyond that, though his playmaking was at best equal to carmelo's and i'd argue as far as natural ability is concerned, carmelo was slightly better.

Nique may have been a more active defender due to sheer athleticism, but i'm not sure he was any more committed on that end. Carmelo's also a better playoff performer, but I realize you noted playoffs aren't as important to you given sample size. So when i look at 2 players whose careers arcs are fairly similar, I just don't see the gap being nearly this large.

[dhsilv2]

Right, I agree that if I were the GM of the Spurs, clearly, it was the right move to let him go. And in that sense, he wouldn't even belong in the league if every situation he encountered played out just that way. But right now, for this list, I'm not thinking as a GM. I'm thinking as, for lack of a better term, a historian. Long story short, I just meant that, eyeballing it, if he could've maintained his exact SA production for nine or ten years, he'd still be very productive, but not Top 100 productive. And for me, as a historian - and probably not as a GM - championships are part of that "production." (I.e., I projected him as having won zero championships...)

If you could choose between having the best team and having the lowest variance, which would you take? It's a joke of a question. The answer should be absurdly obvious.

But the crux here is that you and I are having two different conversations - both valid, both, hopefully, interesting. I completely agree that Rodman was a risky player to bring into any organization. For me, though, that matters zero percent on my All-Time List. What matters is that, to the tune of five championships, ten All-NBA teams, and seven rebounding titles, the risk paid off.

Funny you say this, but my votes are much more geared towards your line of thinking than most here. That said because so many players are getting knocked for these intangibles, and they're fair I wanted to get the thoughts of those pushing Rodman. That said Horry has 7 titles so rings alone don't do it for me. Was Rodman a leader for any of those title team? I don't think so.

89 -Rodman came off the bench here, he was 5th in playoff minutes, but at 24.1 minutes a game and the 9th man getting 18.6 so it was a deep team that rotated a lot of guys. He wasn't the guy who set the tone for the piston's defense, he was a big part of it though.

90 - Here I'd be more inclined to give Rodman some huge props as I recall him being a key defender on the bulls. I'm still not sure he's the reason for their defense, it was a deep defensive team.

96 - The epic magical 72 win bulls. Rodman however only played 57 games. The bulls were 57-7 with him. 15-3 without. 68 vs 72 win pace. Doesn't seem like he was a significant needle mover there to me at least. Now he was a darn good defender for the bulls that year and was great against Shaq in the playoffs.

97 - 55 games played, again missed a lot of time. And here his playoff impact seemed to my view to regress some. Still a good defender but I'm not sure the bulls were worse with Toni in the game. His rebounding rate in the playoffs was a pretty low 17.5%

98 - I feel like Rodman actually picked up his game in the regular season with Pippen's issues. But again I feel his impact again fell in the playoffs. Here again I think Toni has an even stronger case as the 3rd best bull in that playoff run and Harper's stability might be worthy of consideration for 4th. I'm likely being too critical on this point though.

But if we're discussing historical why not discuss all nbas, allstar appearances, or historical years? A guy like Webber has accolades. You can look at Tiny to see a guy who lead the league in ppg and assists per game while leading the number 1 offense (also there was a certain player on that team who went on to create this 5 seconds or less system...wonder if this experienced impacted the history of the game?). We still have Worthy on the board who while he didn't dominate 1 category, he was better in nearly every other category while winning at a similar rate.

Rodman is unquestionably in my top 100, but I feel the cases for him right now seems to be highlighting what we know was good but perhaps I'm looking for a bit more of a positive spin on how his antics weren't really that bad, why kicking a camera man in the crotch should get a pass (thought it was funny at the time...I'm that guy and I apologize to everyone for that).

FYI people always bring up Robert Horry and shove his rings in their face, but it should be pointed out, he was a seriously good basketball player who was well ahead of his time. Very good defender, underrated mid range and even post scorer, and he was one of the early stretch 4's. I won't be voting for him unless it's a ceremonial last alt in his honor but when compared with Rodman in this context, I don't think it's that out of line.

[pandrade83]

That guy's probably too much of a risk to a would-be dynasty, not worth it on non-contender, perhaps only worthwhile on "puncher's chance" team, a fringe contender (or a contender with sub-replacement level options for the bulk of the minutes at the position, who wouldn't be able to add anyone else).

I think it's more about culture and how strong a personality the best player/coach is. The difference between Detroit/Chicago Rodman and San Antonio Rodman is striking. And it's not like the Spurs weren't good and didn't have needs (Robinson covered up for so many sins on those teams).

Your culture has to be rock-solid in order to successfully utilize Rodman. Anything less & he's not worth the effort.

I think I've covered where I am on all this. Still I'll try to reiterate, fill in any gaps and see where you are.

1) San Antonio leadership tried to enforce a culture on him in year 2. They had Pop. They couldn't. Maybe he was rebelling against small-er town conservatism (think he may have said stuff along these lines) and a Christian-oriented team leadership/group (Johnson, Robinson, Cummings being notably Christian and the vocal PG, superstar and former-superstar respectively). It might have been a bad fit, perhaps? Probably inconsistent, organizationally speaking, from year one to year two. I'm not sure how confident you could be in claiming it's about the best player. Or that one culture is "rock solid" and another not, because of how different versions of Dennis Rodman behaved with them.

2) Not sure where you're going with San Antonio. But you've touched on their quality so I'll discuss this. Fwiw, I think Robinson was great (really, really great), most of the rest of those teams were low end starters at best, and a predictable, uni-polar offense. This made the Spurs, fwiw, probably a better RS than playoffs team and otoh, an outside contender (okay looking at it now and ... if you buy their SRS's as legit indicators of playoff chances then with Rodman - and then also '96 - they're on periphery of legit contenders - nothing dynasty potential). That might be the right level of team to take a punt on him.

On a newer note, you seem perhaps to find Detroit and Chicago Rodman to be equivalent ("Detroit/Chicago Rodman") and, if so, I'm curious as to where you'd get this. I've got Rodman as relatively sane (if unusual combination of apparent introversion and bombastic enthusiasm and youthful exhuberence) through circa '92 and then very much turning self-promotional, party animal, rebound (records?)-centric from about a year on through to the end of his career (and beyond). So far as I can tell, in Detroit Rodman was part of the team and its identity; in Chicago MJ and Scottie didn't speak to him (presumably off-court and at least through year 1), so even how he was treated varies greatly.

And for what it's worth I don't see that team-culture being a factor and title-chances affecting the value proposition of Rodman being mutually exclusive (or zero-sum, would perhaps be fairer) in terms of it being more one thing and less another. I've outlined why I think his downside is a risk to a would-be dynasty and his costs too great for a non-contender, feel free to argue the points (it's just, as phrased, this appears to have been quoted and seemingly dismissed without discussion - obviously feel free to clarify, if I'm misreading).

Sorry - wasn't trying to dismiss you at all. Sometimes I try and write too quickly while I eat lunch. It was just a different theory in trying to psychoanalyze Rodman

1 & 2) And here we go down a strange rabbit hole - trying to be concise - I don't think Rodman respected the leadership on the Spurs and to get his respect, I think your culture needs to be an A+. I don't think a team with Robinson would have a "bad culture" - but to command Rodman's respect, it probably needs to be an A+ wrt the focus on winning basketball games & incorporating strange personalities. I think he did respect Isiah & Daly - same with Jackson & Jordan. His "persona" was a bit different - as you pointed out but he "behaved" in a manner where the great team around him was able to function & thrive with him doing his thing - even though his "thing" was different.

I continue to maintain that you have to have an incredibly strong culture to get Rodman to work out well. I know that 2 years of the Spurs isn't a huge sample but we also see it in LA during that strange lockout season where he wasn't additive in a pre-Phil year.

There's a better chance than not that I'm wrong - I just think it's the most probabilistic version of the truth.

[scrabbarista]

Right, I agree that if I were the GM of the Spurs, clearly, it was the right move to let him go. And in that sense, he wouldn't even belong in the league if every situation he encountered played out just that way. But right now, for this list, I'm not thinking as a GM. I'm thinking as, for lack of a better term, a historian. Long story short, I just meant that, eyeballing it, if he could've maintained his exact SA production for nine or ten years, he'd still be very productive, but not Top 100 productive. And for me, as a historian - and probably not as a GM - championships are part of that "production." (I.e., I projected him as having won zero championships...)

If you could choose between having the best team and having the lowest variance, which would you take? It's a joke of a question. The answer should be absurdly obvious.

But the crux here is that you and I are having two different conversations - both valid, both, hopefully, interesting. I completely agree that Rodman was a risky player to bring into any organization. For me, though, that matters zero percent on my All-Time List. What matters is that, to the tune of five championships, ten All-NBA teams, and seven rebounding titles, the risk paid off.

Funny you say this, but my votes are much more geared towards your line of thinking than most here. That said because so many players are getting knocked for these intangibles, and they're fair I wanted to get the thoughts of those pushing Rodman. That said Horry has 7 titles so rings alone don't do it for me. Was Rodman a leader for any of those title team? I don't think so.

89 -Rodman came off the bench here, he was 5th in playoff minutes, but at 24.1 minutes a game and the 9th man getting 18.6 so it was a deep team that rotated a lot of guys. He wasn't the guy who set the tone for the piston's defense, he was a big part of it though.

90 - Here I'd be more inclined to give Rodman some huge props as I recall him being a key defender on the bulls. I'm still not sure he's the reason for their defense, it was a deep defensive team.

96 - The epic magical 72 win bulls. Rodman however only played 57 games. The bulls were 57-7 with him. 15-3 without. 68 vs 72 win pace. Doesn't seem like he was a significant needle mover there to me at least. Now he was a darn good defender for the bulls that year and was great against Shaq in the playoffs.

97 - 55 games played, again missed a lot of time. And here his playoff impact seemed to my view to regress some. Still a good defender but I'm not sure the bulls were worse with Toni in the game. His rebounding rate in the playoffs was a pretty low 17.5%

98 - I feel like Rodman actually picked up his game in the regular season with Pippen's issues. But again I feel his impact again fell in the playoffs. Here again I think Toni has an even stronger case as the 3rd best bull in that playoff run and Harper's stability might be worthy of consideration for 4th. I'm likely being too critical on this point though.

But if we're discussing historical why not discuss all nbas, allstar appearances, or historical years? A guy like Webber has accolades. You can look at Tiny to see a guy who lead the league in ppg and assists per game while leading the number 1 offense (also there was a certain player on that team who went on to create this 5 seconds or less system...wonder if this experienced impacted the history of the game?). We still have Worthy on the board who while he didn't dominate 1 category, he was better in nearly every other category while winning at a similar rate.

Rodman is unquestionably in my top 100, but I feel the cases for him right now seems to be highlighting what we know was good but perhaps I'm looking for a bit more of a positive spin on how his antics weren't really that bad, why kicking a camera man in the crotch should get a pass (thought it was funny at the time...I'm that guy and I apologize to everyone for that).

FYI people always bring up Robert Horry and shove his rings in their face, but it should be pointed out, he was a seriously good basketball player who was well ahead of his time. Very good defender, underrated mid range and even post scorer, and he was one of the early stretch 4's. I won't be voting for him unless it's a ceremonial last alt in his honor but when compared with Rodman in this context, I don't think it's that out of line.

Good post. In regard to the season-by-season breakdown of the title teams, I don't think any of those teams would have been better without Rodman - if you can even be better than a championship team, which is debatable. I'm a bit of a stickler for adhering to what actually happened over what might have happened, and the way I see it, he contributed to five title teams. At the very least, he didn't do enough to keep them from winning a title. (That might sound silly, but it's actually pretty important to me.) I have to give him credit for that over guys who didn't win titles, because titles are what define success in the NBA more than anything else. In my view, we don't know whether adding some version of Chris Webber, for example, in place of Rodman would have netted better teams or more/fewer titles. I strongly suspect that if we went year by year, lining up Rodman and Webber's careers, most would say that Rodman's teams were more successful with him than they would have been with Webber. And, of course, we know for certain that putting Rodman in place of Webber, on Webber's teams, would not have yielded fewer titles (you can't have fewer than zero). Fwiw, I do have Webber in my Top 100. Tiny, too, and Worthy.

I do include All-NBA's. I don't include All-Stars, because I find them much too arbitrary (popularity, conference imbalance, etc.). I don't include historical years - I assume you mean statistically anomalous seasons - mostly because I am philosophically (as a historian, not at all as a GM) opposed to it. What I mean is: you can't get more than one championship in any one year, so if a 90/100 gets you a title, then that's equal to a 100/100 when it comes to this kind of list. What I mean is, if you lead the league in a stat versus setting the all-time record in a stat, my next question is going to be: did you win the title? Because if you didn't, then I don't really care (much) that you set the record. It's just a cool footnote. It's meaningful, but pales in comparison to winning it all. If you don't win it all, then there is always the possibility that your approach was flawed, that you should've been doing less of the things that made you statistically dominant and more of something else. If you win it all, though, then you're golden (at least until next year). That's just how I see it. Of course, there is a line somewhere, i.e., 2009 Lebron is better than 1994 Robert Horry, but if I'm going to err, I'm always going to err on the side of a guy who wins. (I would call him a "winner," but that seems to be a loaded term.)

I agree that Horry was far from being some scrub. Not sure whether his post game was underrated, but I guess that depends on who's rating him. In my eyes, he wasn't much of a post player, but sure, he was capable of scoring in the post. I agree with everything else you wrote about him. I have him maybe in my Top 120, certainly in my Top 150. Far from a scrub.

As for Rodman's antics, I utterly despise what he did to that cameraman. I am a big fan of Rodman the player, antics and all - he's probably one of my ten favorite players - but a move like that is damn near as low as a player can go in an NBA game, imo. Otherwise, for the most part, I strongly believe that Rodman's antics were to the benefit of the teams he played on. If he was suspended for them, of course, that's another matter - but any suspensions he may have undergone are accounted for by just about any statistical model, so they don't need to be discussed, imo. I always felt, watching those Bulls teams, that once the game tipped off, Rodman was ten times more distracting to his opponents than to his teammates. He was able to get superstar after superstar, key big man after key big man, off of his game and outside of his comfort zone. I've never seen anything like it. He was phenomenal at toeing the line between being a nuisance and being unsportsmanlike. I watched him and marveled at how in control he was, almost never how out of control. Whatever his motivations (in our current context, who cares), I always felt that his actions were those of a maniacally competitive, tremendously inventive athlete. True, his antics were only helpful so long as he had the athleticism to benefit from them - so long as he was able to poke balls away in the post, draw offensive (and loose ball) fouls, jump into passing lanes, and crash the glass. Once he lost his athleticism, they were useless, but then that's true of just about any skill.

As I posted recently in another thread, I played with a guy in HS who would literally pull down the shorts of the players he guarded in the post any time he could get away with it - which, given the quality of the referees, was constantly, at least until the opposing player complained. Of course, when he was able to do it after the player had complained, and get away with it, you can imagine the frustration he engendered. I loved playing with that guy. It was great to know that, whatever his motivations, he was finding ways to give us an edge. He wasn't hurting anyone, and the benefits to our team far outweighed the costs of the once or twice all season that he was whistled for a foul. The key point here (as long as you don't think there's anything inherently immoral in the action), although I know I'm digressing, is that he was helping us win. I always viewed flopping - in the 90's, at least - in the same way (with the prevalence of replay and social media commentary, I think it's not nearly as beneficial as it once was, and can even backfire). I thought at the time that it was much to Stockton's credit that he was an effective flopper. I believed that not flopping, if you had the ability to do so, was to give your team less than you could give.

Back to Rodman, I always viewed his antics as a skill - a double-edged skill, sure, but a valuable one.

[dhsilv2]

Good post. In regard to the season-by-season breakdown of the title teams, I don't think any of those teams would have been better without Rodman - if you can even be better than a championship team, which is debatable. I'm a bit of a stickler for adhering to what actually happened over what might have happened, and the way I see it, he contributed to five title teams. At the very least, he didn't do enough to keep them from winning a title. (That might sound silly, but it's actually pretty important to me.) I have to give him credit for that over guys who didn't win titles, because titles are what define success in the NBA more than anything else. In my view, we don't know whether adding some version of Chris Webber, for example, in place of Rodman would have netted better teams or more/fewer titles. I strongly suspect that if we went year by year, lining up Rodman and Webber's careers, most would say that Rodman's teams were more successful with him than they would have been with Webber. And, of course, we know for certain that putting Rodman in place of Webber, on Webber's teams, would not have yielded fewer titles (you can't have fewer than zero). Fwiw, I do have Webber in my Top 100. Tiny, too, and Worthy.

I do include All-NBA's. I don't include All-Stars, because I find them much too arbitrary (popularity, conference imbalance, etc.). I don't include historical years - I assume you mean statistically anomalous seasons - mostly because I am philosophically (as a historian, not at all as a GM) opposed to it. What I mean is: you can't get more than one championship in any one year, so if a 90/100 gets you a title, then that's equal to a 100/100 when it comes to this kind of list. What I mean is, if you lead the league in a stat versus setting the all-time record in a stat, my next question is going to be: did you win the title? Because if you didn't, then I don't really care (much) that you set the record. It's just a cool footnote. It's meaningful, but pales in comparison to winning it all. If you don't win it all, then there is always the possibility that your approach was flawed, that you should've been doing less of the things that made you statistically dominant and more of something else. If you win it all, though, then you're golden (at least until next year). That's just how I see it. Of course, there is a line somewhere, i.e., 2009 Lebron is better than 1994 Robert Horry, but if I'm going to err, I'm always going to err on the side of a guy who wins. (I would call him a "winner," but that seems to be a loaded term.)

I agree that Horry was far from being some scrub. Not sure whether his post game was underrated, but I guess that depends on who's rating him. In my eyes, he wasn't much of a post player, but sure, he was capable of scoring in the post. I agree with everything else you wrote about him. I have him maybe in my Top 120, certainly in my Top 150. Far from a scrub.

As for Rodman's antics, I utterly despise what he did to that cameraman. I am a big fan of Rodman the player, antics and all - he's probably one of my ten favorite players - but a move like that is damn near as low as a player can go in an NBA game, imo. Otherwise, for the most part, I strongly believe that Rodman's antics were to the benefit of the teams he played on. If he was suspended for them, of course, that's another matter - but any suspensions he may have undergone are accounted for by just about any statistical model, so they don't need to be discussed, imo. I always felt, watching those Bulls teams, that once the game tipped off, Rodman was ten times more distracting to his opponents than to his teammates. He was able to get superstar after superstar, key big man after key big man, off of his game and outside of his comfort zone. I've never seen anything like it. He was phenomenal at toeing the line between being a nuisance and being unsportsmanlike. I watched him and marveled at how in control he was, almost never how out of control. Whatever his motivations (in our current context, who cares), I always felt that his actions were those of a maniacally competitive, tremendously inventive athlete. True, his antics were only helpful so long as he had the athleticism to benefit from them - so long as he was able to poke balls away in the post, draw offensive (and loose ball) fouls, jump into passing lanes, and crash the glass. Once he lost his athleticism, they were useless, but then that's true of just about any skill.

As I posted recently in another thread, I played with a guy in HS who would literally pull down the shorts of the players he guarded in the post any time he could get away with it - which, given the quality of the referees, was constantly, at least until the opposing player complained. Of course, when he was able to do it after the player had complained, and get away with it, you can imagine the frustration he engendered. I loved playing with that guy. It was great to know that, whatever his motivations, he was finding ways to give us an edge. He wasn't hurting anyone, and the benefits to our team far outweighed the costs of the once or twice all season that he was whistled for a foul. The key point here (as long as you don't think there's anything inherently immoral in the action), although I know I'm digressing, is that he was helping us win. I always viewed flopping - in the 90's, at least - in the same way (with the prevalence of replay and social media commentary, I think it's not nearly as beneficial as it once was, and can even backfire). I thought at the time that it was much to Stockton's credit that he was an effective flopper. I believed that not flopping, if you had the ability to do so, was to give your team less than you could give.

Back to Rodman, I always viewed his antics as a skill - a double-edged skill, sure, but a valuable one.

Not to be that guy, but can you explain your early support for Hayes in this context then? I don't get why Hayes got such an early push from you if you value titles THIS much. Tiny for example was an useful player on the celtics in 81, second in minutes played which is something Rodman was never there for, both regular and playoffs.

You brought Hayes up as 35th all time!

Your reasoning. MVP voting. Rodman has a top 10 (10th in 92). You bring up he had a scoring title, but I mention Tiny had a scoring title AND assist title in the same year and that's not important? You say you don't value allstars but you used his 12x allstar selections. And the KICKER for me "Production for a championship team". Which I totally get as I've made that argument, but I've said leadership vs production. Rodman isn't a production guy outside of rebounds. He was a great defender without a question. But I don't see how hayes was for you 35th (or better give none of us decide the earlier picks) and yet you have Rodman over Worthy, Over Horry, over other high production non winners. I don't follow the logic and I'm ok with you change your logic if you explain why.

As for if teams would be better without rodman, we're talking top 100 all time players. That's silly, these are guy who are value adds. My point with Rodman was that he was possibly not even a top 3 player on some of his title teams. Horry who I brought up was often a top 3 guy, so again clarifying that they are comparable if titles if your context as neither were leaders or best players on a team and both were always value adds to their title teams.

I personally add extra value to winners, but I really want them to 1 or 1a or MAYBE a close 2 for that. If you're not a top 2 player on a team, why should you get credit for the titles? At that point in the modern nba I'm thinking you just took a cheap contract or had a bad agent.

[dhsilv2]

I'm sticking with before, and I'm at this point pretty firm on Webber. Tiny is still iffy. I struggle with Nance from a peak level. I'm actually however really REALLY thinking about Sheed here. RAPM likes him over Wallace who we just put in. He doesn't get credit for his play on the blazers...and as I said earlier those teams were a train wreck for anyone, he was just the worst case guy to be there. I also think he was a pretty good off the bench role guy on the celtics for his run there. Anyway he's there and then worthy who feels like I guy I should have already supported but I just guess the "story" of his career didn't motivate me. Rodman is likely a few more down from here and I could see pushing a few other players before him. Though I'm open to why his personality issues weren't really an issue.

I'm also interested in a push for Lenoard. I've already said walton won't make my 100 and I was telling myself leonard with LESS games was out, but I've changed my mind there. He's got the resume to be in with a peak near walton level but without all the missed games and a LOT more quality years. I just need a case that makes me feel he isn't too soon.

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

[scrabbarista]

Not to be that guy, but can you explain your early support for Hayes in this context then? I don't get why Hayes got such an early push from you if you value titles THIS much. Tiny for example was an useful player on the celtics in 81, second in minutes played which is something Rodman was never there for, both regular and playoffs.

You brought Hayes up as 35th all time!

Your reasoning. MVP voting. Rodman has a top 10 (10th in 92). You bring up he had a scoring title, but I mention Tiny had a scoring title AND assist title in the same year and that's not important? You say you don't value allstars but you used his 12x allstar selections. And the KICKER for me "Production for a championship team". Which I totally get as I've made that argument, but I've said leadership vs production. Rodman isn't a production guy outside of rebounds. He was a great defender without a question. But I don't see how hayes was for you 35th (or better give none of us decide the earlier picks) and yet you have Rodman over Worthy, Over Horry, over other high production non winners. I don't follow the logic and I'm ok with you change your logic if you explain why.

As for if teams would be better without rodman, we're talking top 100 all time players. That's silly, these are guy who are value adds. My point with Rodman was that he was possibly not even a top 3 player on some of his title teams. Horry who I brought up was often a top 3 guy, so again clarifying that they are comparable if titles if your context as neither were leaders or best players on a team and both were always value adds to their title teams.

I personally add extra value to winners, but I really want them to 1 or 1a or MAYBE a close 2 for that. If you're not a top 2 player on a team, why should you get credit for the titles? At that point in the modern nba I'm thinking you just took a cheap contract or had a bad agent.

Hayes is easy:

You mention that Tiny was second in minutes on the '81 Celtics. Hayes was first (RS) in minutes by huge margins (an average of 500 minutes) on three Finals teams, one of which won it all. He also has gigantic career totals. Those two pillars pretty much sum up Hayes' case for me.


I don't always post my own reasoning. Instead, I post things that I think others might consider to be relevant. My own "reasoning" is just my formula. I find it pretty funny how rgmers so often ask me, "How can you have so-and-so above so-and-so when you have so-and-so above so-and-so?" when I literally apply the exact same formula to every player's career to derive my rankings. The idea of a good formula, in my opinion, is that it doesn't overvalue any one aspect of a player or a career. Every time someone asks me this kind of question, I pat myself on the back.

You said that I mentioned that Rodman won a scoring title. Um... no, I didn't. I mentioned his seven rebounding titles. I don't care about titles of any kind, other than championships, but by mentioning the seven straight rebounding titles, I was just hoping to emphasize that Rodman was an insane rebounder - probably the GOAT. You also said I used his "12x all-star selections." I'm about 90% sure I've never mentioned anyone's all-star selections (if I have, it was just because I thought someone else would care, not because I do), and certainly not Rodman's "12x," considering he only had two.

Not sure how you consider Horry "high production" if you don't consider Rodman so:

Rodman's career scoring average: 7.3. Horry's? 7.0. Rodman's career WS: 80. Horry's? 66.
To call Horry "often a top three guy on title teams..." Honestly... to me... sounds... kind of... fetish-y. If it is true, which I by no means concede it is (I almost wonder if you've got Horry confused with someone else, tbh), in almost every case there would have been a massive drop off from #2 to #3, the one conceivable exception being 1994.

1's, 1a's, 1b's, and (much less so) 2's get the bulk of the credit on title teams in my formula, but every member of such teams gets some credit. In Rodman's case, a guy who won five titles - a very large number, five - that credit adds up to about 10% of his career value, as my formula sees it. Some people would surely say 10% is a very high number in Rodman's case, but I don't feel that it is, because I just value championships that much.

[dhsilv2]

Not to be that guy, but can you explain your early support for Hayes in this context then? I don't get why Hayes got such an early push from you if you value titles THIS much. Tiny for example was an useful player on the celtics in 81, second in minutes played which is something Rodman was never there for, both regular and playoffs.

You brought Hayes up as 35th all time!

Your reasoning. MVP voting. Rodman has a top 10 (10th in 92). You bring up he had a scoring title, but I mention Tiny had a scoring title AND assist title in the same year and that's not important? You say you don't value allstars but you used his 12x allstar selections. And the KICKER for me "Production for a championship team". Which I totally get as I've made that argument, but I've said leadership vs production. Rodman isn't a production guy outside of rebounds. He was a great defender without a question. But I don't see how hayes was for you 35th (or better give none of us decide the earlier picks) and yet you have Rodman over Worthy, Over Horry, over other high production non winners. I don't follow the logic and I'm ok with you change your logic if you explain why.

As for if teams would be better without rodman, we're talking top 100 all time players. That's silly, these are guy who are value adds. My point with Rodman was that he was possibly not even a top 3 player on some of his title teams. Horry who I brought up was often a top 3 guy, so again clarifying that they are comparable if titles if your context as neither were leaders or best players on a team and both were always value adds to their title teams.

I personally add extra value to winners, but I really want them to 1 or 1a or MAYBE a close 2 for that. If you're not a top 2 player on a team, why should you get credit for the titles? At that point in the modern nba I'm thinking you just took a cheap contract or had a bad agent.

Hayes is easy:

You mention that Tiny was second in minutes on the '81 Celtics. Hayes was first (RS) in minutes by huge margins (an average of 500 minutes) on three Finals teams, one of which won it all. He also has gigantic career totals. Those two pillars pretty much sum up Hayes' case for me.


I don't always post my own reasoning. Instead, I post things that I think others might consider to be relevant. My own "reasoning" is just my formula. I find it pretty funny how rgmers so often ask me, "How can you have so-and-so above so-and-so when you have so-and-so above so-and-so?" when I literally apply the exact same formula to every player's career to derive my rankings. The idea of a good formula, in my opinion, is that it doesn't overvalue any one aspect of a player or a career. Every time someone asks me this kind of question, I pat myself on the back.

You said that I mentioned that Rodman won a scoring title. Um... no, I didn't. I mentioned his seven rebounding titles. I don't care about titles of any kind, other than championships, but by mentioning the seven straight rebounding titles, I was just hoping to emphasize that Rodman was an insane rebounder - probably the GOAT. You also said I used his "12x all-star selections." I'm about 90% sure I've never mentioned anyone's all-star selections (if I have, it was just because I thought someone else would care, not because I do), and certainly not Rodman's "12x," considering he only had two.

Not sure how you consider Horry "high production" if you don't consider Rodman so:

Rodman's career scoring average: 7.3. Horry's? 7.0. Rodman's career WS: 80. Horry's? 66.
To call Horry "often a top three guy on title teams..." Honestly... to me... sounds... kind of... fetish-y. If it is true, which I by no means concede it is (I almost wonder if you've got Horry confused with someone else, tbh), in almost every case there would have been a massive drop off from #2 to #3, the one conceivable exception being 1994.

1's, 1a's, 1b's, and (much less so) 2's get the bulk of the credit on title teams in my formula, but every member of such teams gets some credit. In Rodman's case, a guy who won five titles - a very large number, five - that credit adds up to about 10% of his career value, as my formula sees it. Some people would surely say 10% is a very high number in Rodman's case, but I don't feel that it is, because I just value championships that much.

Scoring title and allstars were rodman, not hayes quotes by you, sorry for the confusion.

Since you're using a formula, can you post it or a link to where you posted? I'd be interested in how it has rodman here.

And to be honest to have rodman over a few guys in this list I'd have assumed titles were 50%, not 10%. 10% seems really low here honestly.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #36:

Larry Nance - 3 (Outside, pandrade83, trex_8063)
Dennis Rodman - 1 (scabbarista)
Chris Webber - 1 (dhsilv2)
Carmelo Anthony - 1 (Clyde Frazier)
Mel Daniels - 1 (penbeast0)

Well, shucks. Despite the big lead, much of Nance's contingent again didn't show up (LABird----when makes an appearance----has been voting Nance with his primary vote for some time; Doctor MJ, too, iirc, and perhaps one other poster I suspect would be voting Nance, but hasn't voted). Nance does have TWO secondary votes as well; it seems a foregone conclusion that Nance is going to take this spot, I almost want to just give it to him. That could have saved us 24 hours or so by avoiding the runoff for the first time in I can't remember. But as is, I don't have any means of narrowing the runoff (none of the others have a secondary vote to differentiate them).

Thus----as we did a couple threads ago----we're going to have to extend this thread substantially by first entering a ballot point system runoff (FIVE-way). If not already explicit from your preliminary vote, please state your top pick and your second pick among these five individuals (preferably with some reasoning), so we can progress.

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[trex_8063]

For clarity/reminder of how this works: you state your 1st and 2nd choice among those five. Your 1st-place pick is worth 2 points, your 2nd pick is worth 1 pt. We'll use this point system to [hopefully] narrow this down to two candidates for a more standard runoff (unless someone actually has a majority of all points, in which case we'll end right there).
For some of you, I already have your picks (e.g. Clyde has voted Melo #1 and Nance #2, penbeast has voted Daniels #1 and Nance #2, etc). For others, I only have who your top pick would be. IF YOU DO NOT specify who your 2nd pick would be, I can only award 1 pt to your top pick. I'd really like to conclude this ballot runoff by late this evening (CST), if possible.

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[dhsilv2]

2nd is nance here. I want to vote rodman here, but Nance is too solid. He's kinda the perfect 4 from that era, perhaps Grant being comparable, while Rodman gives too many highs and lows to move him past Nance. The only case for Rodman is playoffs, but even the gap in stats there isn't enough.


1st Webber
2nd Vote Nance

[trex_8063]

1st ballot: Larry Nance (as stated in my vote post #4)
2nd ballot: Dennis Rodman (reasons again already stated in post #4 itt, as he was my initial alternate; I'll just revert to him here)