RealGM 2017 Top 100 #87 (Elton Brand)

[trex_8063]

Thru post #20:

Carmelo Anthony - 3 (Outside, Clyde Frazier, trex_8063)
Elton Brand - 1 (SactoKingsFan)
Tim Hardaway - 1 (pandrade83)
Mel Daniels - 1 (penbeast0)


Couple people didn't specify their secondary votes, but it still looks like it's to be a Melo v Brand runoff (as Brand currently also has TWO secondary votes, while Timmy and Mel have zero; dhsilv2 had also implied he'd be voting Brand, fwiw, though he never did return before deadline).

Carmelo Anthony - 3 (Outside, Clyde Frazier, trex_8063)
Elton Brand - 2 (SactoKingsFan, penbeast0)


If your name isn't shown here^^^, please state your pick between Melo and Brand with reasons why. Will conclude within 24 hours. And Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all! May the spirit of the Super Bowl bring you all many chips, dips, beers, exciting plays, and good commercials. Cheers....

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[dhsilv2]

Knew I was going to forget with things going on this weekend.

Anyway vote is Brand. When you look at their peak advanced stats, the gap is rather significant here. RAPM similarly is very favorable to Brand.

These are two guys without much success in the playoffs. Brand still has a career games played year counting even this year (which isn't part of this project). He also again even if we give Melo this year a lead in WS and VORP.

Peak Melo BPM was topped by Brand 6 times.
Brand has the peak PER, though Melo's top 2 are better than Brand's best.

5 year peak (hard to pick on melo, but used 10-14 and Brand really had 6 years, but used 02-06.

PER Brand 23.6 Melo 23.0
WS Brand 56.3 Melo 42.2
VORP 26.4 vs 13.4

The argument would be that Melo is the better scorer/creator but if we look at ORtg Brand is painted as the more efficient offensive player. Peak average was 115 to melo's 110. Career 110 vs 108. That said while Brand has a reasonably high usage in the mid 20's, melo during his peak was over 30%. It's a solid 9% more gap there which is really hard to comment on, as Melo's usage was staggering, and based on the data perhaps far higher than it reasonably should have been. For me it's unquestionable that Melo is a significantly better scorer, yet he wasted too many possessions taking difficult shots.

Then we come to defense where Melo is truly an awful defender and Brand was decent all be it, as I recall a bit under sized.

Vote Brand

[dhsilv2]

Vote: Carmelo Anthony

I'm going with Carmelo due to his pluses outweighing his negatives a bit better than the other candidates being considered at this point.

Scoring -- he's a solid scorer, averaging at least 20 PPG every season until this one.

Efficiency -- his shooting efficiency is decent for a volume scorer, and he has a low usage rate compared to his high usage peers.

Rebounding -- he was a good rebounder during his prime.

Defense -- doesn't rate well as a defender, though I think he was a decent post defender in his prime.

Playmaking -- not a relevant playmaker.

Longevity -- has has good RS longevity.

PS -- he doesn't have near enough decent playoff runs for my liking, making it out of the first round only twice, though he has good PS production. He was never on teams good enough to be championship contenders.

Overall, this seems like a good place for him to land.

What are Brand's negatives that are pushing behind Melo?

[Outside]

Vote: Carmelo Anthony

I'm going with Carmelo due to his pluses outweighing his negatives a bit better than the other candidates being considered at this point.

Scoring -- he's a solid scorer, averaging at least 20 PPG every season until this one.

Efficiency -- his shooting efficiency is decent for a volume scorer, and he has a low usage rate compared to his high usage peers.

Rebounding -- he was a good rebounder during his prime.

Defense -- doesn't rate well as a defender, though I think he was a decent post defender in his prime.

Playmaking -- not a relevant playmaker.

Longevity -- has has good RS longevity.

PS -- he doesn't have near enough decent playoff runs for my liking, making it out of the first round only twice, though he has good PS production. He was never on teams good enough to be championship contenders.

Overall, this seems like a good place for him to land.

What are Brand's negatives that are pushing behind Melo?

It's razor thin. Carmelo's the better scorer, Brand is the better defender. They have similar TS% and TOV%. Carmelo has a longer, more consistent prime. As i mentioned on a prior thread, Brand deserves bonus points for dragging the moribund Sterling Clippers into the second round for the first time since they were the Buffalo Braves. I really, really liked him on the Clippers, but his post-Clipper seasons aren't very good.

I'd have no problem with Brand getting in here. But I think Carmelo's consistent scoring production and exceptionally long prime gives him the edge.

[pandrade83]

I'm good with either but - one thing worth pointing out - one of the bigger arguments for Melo is the supposed longevity edge - and yet, Brand is the one with more career WS - despite being in some pretty awful situations.

We've talked about players who are only ranked as highly as they were because of their team context; the more I look into Brand, I feel the opposite is true. Brand is one of the biggest losers of the situation lottery that will make this list.

I think Brand has the better peak - getting the Sterling era Clippers to the 2nd round (over Melo btw) is meaningful, & I think alot of Melo's longevity edge - may be just perception when the actual impact isn't quite there to the extent that it appears on the surface.

Run-off vote: Elton Brand

[Doctor MJ]

Runoff Vote: Elton Brand

In this comparison it's actually pretty close. Both box score data and +/- data tell pretty similar stories. Good, but really more in line with how Brand was thought of than how Melo was thought of.

So how do I choose? Well, Brand accomplished what he did in spite of Donald Sterling - having tried to leave but basically getting boxed in by NBA rookie contract rules, he still played hard and had a good run. Melo by contrast threw away the Denver situation which was quite good for him, then fought against MIke "most influential coach of modern NBA offense" D'Antoni along the way, brought Phil Jackson to his lowest self, and then gone to the Thunder just to prove for us that he wasn't a Ray Allen type who could extend his career taking on a smaller role really effectively.

Sigh. I'm sorry guys, I'm honestly not sure when there's going to be a runoff where I end up siding with Melo. I'm not trying to keep him off the Top 100 list, but realistically, he's not in my Top 100 so this will happen indefinitely.

[dhsilv2]

Vote: Carmelo Anthony

I'm going with Carmelo due to his pluses outweighing his negatives a bit better than the other candidates being considered at this point.

Scoring -- he's a solid scorer, averaging at least 20 PPG every season until this one.

Efficiency -- his shooting efficiency is decent for a volume scorer, and he has a low usage rate compared to his high usage peers.

Rebounding -- he was a good rebounder during his prime.

Defense -- doesn't rate well as a defender, though I think he was a decent post defender in his prime.

Playmaking -- not a relevant playmaker.

Longevity -- has has good RS longevity.

PS -- he doesn't have near enough decent playoff runs for my liking, making it out of the first round only twice, though he has good PS production. He was never on teams good enough to be championship contenders.

Overall, this seems like a good place for him to land.

What are Brand's negatives that are pushing behind Melo?

It's razor thin. Carmelo's the better scorer, Brand is the better defender. They have similar TS% and TOV%. Carmelo has a longer, more consistent prime. As i mentioned on a prior thread, Brand deserves bonus points for dragging the moribund Sterling Clippers into the second round for the first time since they were the Buffalo Braves. I really, really liked him on the Clippers, but his post-Clipper seasons aren't very good.

I'd have no problem with Brand getting in here. But I think Carmelo's consistent scoring production and exceptionally long prime gives him the edge.

Well the one metric we have to combine TS% and TOV% and basically look at offensive efficiency is ORtg. As I brought up Melo in both peak, top 5, and career is behind Brand. It paints a pretty clear gap between the two in terms of being an efficient offensive player.

Melo has 10 years with a 20 or better PER. Brand has 8. I'm not seeing a huge gap in their prime length. If we look at other metrics say BPM, just having a BPM of 1 (which isn't that great) brand has 10 years to Melo's 9.

As for Brand post clippers, he posted in 2011 a 9.4 WS and a 3.1 VORP. Along with a respectable 18.5 PER. That season would be tied for Melo's second best season in WS, it would be Melo's second best VORP season, and as you'd expect with PER it would be Melo's 12th best.

2012 of course is our strike season and Brand posts a stat line of 18 PER, 6.1 WS and a 2.2 VORP.

However had he played 74 games (he was on pace for 74.5 that year had it not been a strike season), the WS goes up to 7.5 an the VORP up to 2.7. That would be Melo's 7th best WS and 4th best VORP. Brand was 45th in RAPM in 11 and 45th in NPI RAPM in 12.

Full disclosure coming into this project I wasn't thinking about Brand at all, but Owly's mentioning of him and subsequently reviewing some highlights and the stats, in all honesty I think he should already be in.

[Clyde Frazier]

My post on carmelo vs. brand from a previous thread, which I almost thought got deleted it took me so long to find...

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.

[Clyde Frazier]

Runoff Vote: Elton Brand

In this comparison it's actually pretty close. Both box score data and +/- data tell pretty similar stories. Good, but really more in line with how Brand was thought of than how Melo was thought of.

So how do I choose? Well, Brand accomplished what he did in spite of Donald Sterling - having tried to leave but basically getting boxed in by NBA rookie contract rules, he still played hard and had a good run. Melo by contrast threw away the Denver situation which was quite good for him, then fought against MIke "most influential coach of modern NBA offense" D'Antoni along the way, brought Phil Jackson to his lowest self, and then gone to the Thunder just to prove for us that he wasn't a Ray Allen type who could extend his career taking on a smaller role really effectively.

Sigh. I'm sorry guys, I'm honestly not sure when there's going to be a runoff where I end up siding with Melo. I'm not trying to keep him off the Top 100 list, but realistically, he's not in my Top 100 so this will happen indefinitely.

A) Do the mike woodson seasons just not count in NY? Knicks management found a blueprint for success to build around carmelo in the 54 win 12-13 season, and failed to replicate it in the following seasons. This blueprint was not complicated, and did not require signing "big 3" level star free agents.

B) It became quite clear early on in phil's tenure that phil jackson the coach and phil jackson the executive did not possess the same acumen. Phil's mind games with players, working the media and fixation on the triangle were distractions. Denouncing 3PT shooting publicly, rumors about falling asleep at draft workouts, and ultimately giving carmelo a no trade clause were awful decisions.

As was bringing in a broken PG in rose who had no interest in passing and throwing an absurd amount of money at a player past his prime in noah. Not to mention the nail in the coffin: publicly taking trade offers for porzingis, the only hope the franchise had for future success. Melo legitimately acted as professionally as you possibly could given the situation, and it was his right to decide where he wanted to play. Phill foolishly gave him that right.

C) You can't use anything that's happened this season to sway your vote... the project spans from 46-47 to 16-17 seasons only.

[Owly]

C) You can't use anything that's happened this season to sway your vote... the project spans from 46-47 to 16-17 seasons only.

This is not my understanding of it. (In my head ...) The comment has always been to the effect of we are measuring their career up to that point. So career value is only up to that point for the sake of consistency (so that career value is set at the same point - not advantaging good seasons for guys on the back end of the list and ignoring the same at the top). It isn't that information gained during this season which you use to interpret hypotheticals can't be used. Of course this is still inconsistent, however the cost is much smaller (uneven new marginal information for participants on active players rather than uneven career length for active players) and ultimately leads more practicable and better project (in terms of debate/discussion) than the alternative (if no new information since the start of the season for ultimate consistency you'd crush debate because any new information brought to light that wasn't available in prior threads loses consistency so you might as well just all send in individual lists and have a program spit out the results).

That's my take on it anyway.

[Doctor MJ]

Runoff Vote: Elton Brand

In this comparison it's actually pretty close. Both box score data and +/- data tell pretty similar stories. Good, but really more in line with how Brand was thought of than how Melo was thought of.

So how do I choose? Well, Brand accomplished what he did in spite of Donald Sterling - having tried to leave but basically getting boxed in by NBA rookie contract rules, he still played hard and had a good run. Melo by contrast threw away the Denver situation which was quite good for him, then fought against MIke "most influential coach of modern NBA offense" D'Antoni along the way, brought Phil Jackson to his lowest self, and then gone to the Thunder just to prove for us that he wasn't a Ray Allen type who could extend his career taking on a smaller role really effectively.

Sigh. I'm sorry guys, I'm honestly not sure when there's going to be a runoff where I end up siding with Melo. I'm not trying to keep him off the Top 100 list, but realistically, he's not in my Top 100 so this will happen indefinitely.

A) Do the mike woodson seasons just not count in NY? Knicks management found a blueprint for success to build around carmelo in the 54 win 12-13 season, and failed to replicate it in the following seasons. This blueprint was not complicated, and did not require signing "big 3" level star free agents.

B) It became quite clear early on in phil's tenure that phil jackson the coach and phil jackson the executive did not possess the same acumen. Phil's mind games with players, working the media and fixation on the triangle were distractions. Denouncing 3PT shooting publicly, rumors about falling asleep at draft workouts, and ultimately giving carmelo a no trade clause were awful decisions.

As was bringing in a broken PG in rose who had no interest in passing and throwing an absurd amount of money at a player past his prime in noah. Not to mention the nail in the coffin: publicly taking trade offers for porzingis, the only hope the franchise had for future success. Melo legitimately acted as professionally as you possibly could given the situation, and it was his right to decide where he wanted to play. Phill foolishly gave him that right.

C) You can't use anything that's happened this season to sway your vote... the project spans from 46-47 to 16-17 seasons only.

A) I'm confused. Woodson was there for 2 full seasons. The first year was good, the second one was bad. You make it sound like the Knicks veered hard against what was clearly going to work fantastically well for years to come, but that's not what I see, and what I do see is one great season and a bunch of other seasons that where things just never clicked.

B) "Poor Melo, he had the misfortune of signing for an executive so dumb he gave Melo a no-trade clause." Huh.

C) My apologies.

[Outside]

Well the one metric we have to combine TS% and TOV% and basically look at offensive efficiency is ORtg. As I brought up Melo in both peak, top 5, and career is behind Brand. It paints a pretty clear gap between the two in terms of being an efficient offensive player.

Carmelo career RS (1,028 gams): 54.3 TS%, 10.8 TOV%, 31.1 USG%, 108 ORtg
Brand career RS (1,058 games): 54.8 TS%, 11.8 TOV%, 22.8 USG%, 105 ORtg

Carmelo career PS (66 games): 51.3 TS%, 10.4 TOV%, 32.6 USG%, 105 Ortg
Brand career PS (40 games): 55.3 TS%, 8.1 TOV%, 21.4 USG%, 116 ORtg

From the info on BBRef, Carmelo has the better ORtg for the RS and Brand does for the PS. Both have a small PS sample size, but Brand's is really small. I'm not sure where you're getting Brand as being ahead of Carmelo in career ORtg unless you're talking about PS only.

Brand does have the higher peak and top 5, but he also has the most at the bottom end. A feature of Carmelo's longevity is steady production over a much longer period, thus resulting in the higher career ORtg.

Carmelo also has a much higher usage rate, so he was responsible for a much larger part of the offense than Brand.

[dhsilv2]

Well the one metric we have to combine TS% and TOV% and basically look at offensive efficiency is ORtg. As I brought up Melo in both peak, top 5, and career is behind Brand. It paints a pretty clear gap between the two in terms of being an efficient offensive player.

Carmelo career RS (1,028 gams): 54.3 TS%, 10.8 TOV%, 31.1 USG%, 108 ORtg
Brand career RS (1,058 games): 54.8 TS%, 11.8 TOV%, 22.8 USG%, 105 ORtg

Carmelo career PS (66 games): 51.3 TS%, 10.4 TOV%, 32.6 USG%, 105 Ortg
Brand career PS (40 games): 55.3 TS%, 8.1 TOV%, 21.4 USG%, 116 ORtg

From the info on BBRef, Carmelo has the better ORtg for the RS and Brand does for the PS. Both have a small PS sample size, but Brand's is really small. I'm not sure where you're getting Brand as being ahead of Carmelo in career ORtg unless you're talking about PS only.

Brand does have the higher peak and top 5, but he also has the most at the bottom end. A feature of Carmelo's longevity is steady production over a much longer period, thus resulting in the higher career ORtg.

Carmelo also has a much higher usage rate, so he was responsible for a much larger part of the offense than Brand.

Must have gotten my tabs criss crossed on the career ORtg. For some reason I thought Brand was 108 and Melo 105.

[Outside]

Must have gotten my tabs criss crossed on the career ORtg. For some reason I thought Brand was 108 and Melo 105.

It's happened to me more than once during this project

[Owly]

Well the one metric we have to combine TS% and TOV% and basically look at offensive efficiency is ORtg. As I brought up Melo in both peak, top 5, and career is behind Brand. It paints a pretty clear gap between the two in terms of being an efficient offensive player.

Carmelo career RS (1,028 gams): 54.3 TS%, 10.8 TOV%, 31.1 USG%, 108 ORtg
Brand career RS (1,058 games): 54.8 TS%, 11.8 TOV%, 22.8 USG%, 105 ORtg

Carmelo career PS (66 games): 51.3 TS%, 10.4 TOV%, 32.6 USG%, 105 Ortg
Brand career PS (40 games): 55.3 TS%, 8.1 TOV%, 21.4 USG%, 116 ORtg

From the info on BBRef, Carmelo has the better ORtg for the RS and Brand does for the PS. Both have a small PS sample size, but Brand's is really small. I'm not sure where you're getting Brand as being ahead of Carmelo in career ORtg unless you're talking about PS only.

Brand does have the higher peak and top 5, but he also has the most at the bottom end. A feature of Carmelo's longevity is steady production over a much longer period, thus resulting in the higher career ORtg.

Carmelo also has a much higher usage rate, so he was responsible for a much larger part of the offense than Brand.

Must have gotten my tabs criss crossed on the career ORtg. For some reason I thought Brand was 108 and Melo 105.

Unless I'm doing something seriously wrong here, Brand is ahead. Brand 110 for career (only 105 in Dallas), Melo is 108 as Outside has it.
Brand: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/brandel01.html
Anthony: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/anthoca01.html

And this, measured in raw terms, gives a slight pro-Carmelo bias. In Brand's four seasons before Carmelo, the league average Ortgs were 104.1; 103; 104.5 and 103.6 - in 2017, post Brand, Carmelo played in a league that was 108.8. Then too Brand peaked and played his most minutes in the lower norm Ortg league. Using relative Ortg would mitigate some of the problems (though probably not easy to get a minutes weighted career average for that) or comparing too Drtgs would mitigate bias.

[Clyde Frazier]

Runoff Vote: Elton Brand

In this comparison it's actually pretty close. Both box score data and +/- data tell pretty similar stories. Good, but really more in line with how Brand was thought of than how Melo was thought of.

So how do I choose? Well, Brand accomplished what he did in spite of Donald Sterling - having tried to leave but basically getting boxed in by NBA rookie contract rules, he still played hard and had a good run. Melo by contrast threw away the Denver situation which was quite good for him, then fought against MIke "most influential coach of modern NBA offense" D'Antoni along the way, brought Phil Jackson to his lowest self, and then gone to the Thunder just to prove for us that he wasn't a Ray Allen type who could extend his career taking on a smaller role really effectively.

Sigh. I'm sorry guys, I'm honestly not sure when there's going to be a runoff where I end up siding with Melo. I'm not trying to keep him off the Top 100 list, but realistically, he's not in my Top 100 so this will happen indefinitely.

A) Do the mike woodson seasons just not count in NY? Knicks management found a blueprint for success to build around carmelo in the 54 win 12-13 season, and failed to replicate it in the following seasons. This blueprint was not complicated, and did not require signing "big 3" level star free agents.

B) It became quite clear early on in phil's tenure that phil jackson the coach and phil jackson the executive did not possess the same acumen. Phil's mind games with players, working the media and fixation on the triangle were distractions. Denouncing 3PT shooting publicly, rumors about falling asleep at draft workouts, and ultimately giving carmelo a no trade clause were awful decisions.

As was bringing in a broken PG in rose who had no interest in passing and throwing an absurd amount of money at a player past his prime in noah. Not to mention the nail in the coffin: publicly taking trade offers for porzingis, the only hope the franchise had for future success. Melo legitimately acted as professionally as you possibly could given the situation, and it was his right to decide where he wanted to play. Phill foolishly gave him that right.

C) You can't use anything that's happened this season to sway your vote... the project spans from 46-47 to 16-17 seasons only.

A) I'm confused. Woodson was there for 2 full seasons. The first year was good, the second one was bad. You make it sound like the Knicks veered hard against what was clearly going to work fantastically well for years to come, but that's not what I see, and what I do see is one great season and a bunch of other seasons that where things just never clicked.

B) "Poor Melo, he had the misfortune of signing for an executive so dumb he gave Melo a no-trade clause." Huh.

C) My apologies.

D’antoni’s teams have only been successful with elite primary ball handlers to run his offense. The blueprint for success under woodson was having multiple guards on the court who helped move the ball and a defensive anchor at center. This put melo in the position to still iso, but make quicker decisions on that end and be featured more as an elite spot up shooter.

In my original post in this thread, I detailed the knicks historically awful PG rotations outside of that 12-13 season, largely contributing to their lack of success in the melo era. I feel like i’m repeating myself ad nauseam, but at the same time it tends to get glossed over repeatedly.

I clearly wasn’t saying “poor melo” re: the no trade clause. I was pointing out that phil was a failure as an executive for a myriad of reasons, none of which had to do with melo being on the knicks roster.

I’m not expecting to change your mind, but do feel like you’re painting an exaggerated negative picture of his career. Good players are allowed to have their flaws. Otherwise they’d be top tier stars.

[Clyde Frazier]

Runoff Vote: Elton Brand

In this comparison it's actually pretty close. Both box score data and +/- data tell pretty similar stories. Good, but really more in line with how Brand was thought of than how Melo was thought of.

So how do I choose? Well, Brand accomplished what he did in spite of Donald Sterling - having tried to leave but basically getting boxed in by NBA rookie contract rules, he still played hard and had a good run. Melo by contrast threw away the Denver situation which was quite good for him, then fought against MIke "most influential coach of modern NBA offense" D'Antoni along the way, brought Phil Jackson to his lowest self, and then gone to the Thunder just to prove for us that he wasn't a Ray Allen type who could extend his career taking on a smaller role really effectively.

Sigh. I'm sorry guys, I'm honestly not sure when there's going to be a runoff where I end up siding with Melo. I'm not trying to keep him off the Top 100 list, but realistically, he's not in my Top 100 so this will happen indefinitely.

A) Do the mike woodson seasons just not count in NY? Knicks management found a blueprint for success to build around carmelo in the 54 win 12-13 season, and failed to replicate it in the following seasons. This blueprint was not complicated, and did not require signing "big 3" level star free agents.

B) It became quite clear early on in phil's tenure that phil jackson the coach and phil jackson the executive did not possess the same acumen. Phil's mind games with players, working the media and fixation on the triangle were distractions. Denouncing 3PT shooting publicly, rumors about falling asleep at draft workouts, and ultimately giving carmelo a no trade clause were awful decisions.

As was bringing in a broken PG in rose who had no interest in passing and throwing an absurd amount of money at a player past his prime in noah. Not to mention the nail in the coffin: publicly taking trade offers for porzingis, the only hope the franchise had for future success. Melo legitimately acted as professionally as you possibly could given the situation, and it was his right to decide where he wanted to play. Phill foolishly gave him that right.

C) You can't use anything that's happened this season to sway your vote... the project spans from 46-47 to 16-17 seasons only.

A) I'm confused. Woodson was there for 2 full seasons. The first year was good, the second one was bad. You make it sound like the Knicks veered hard against what was clearly going to work fantastically well for years to come, but that's not what I see, and what I do see is one great season and a bunch of other seasons that where things just never clicked.

B) "Poor Melo, he had the misfortune of signing for an executive so dumb he gave Melo a no-trade clause." Huh.

C) My apologies.

D’antoni’s teams have only been successful with elite primary ball handlers to run his offense. The blueprint for success under woodson was having multiple guards on the court who helped move the ball and a defensive anchor at center. This put melo in the position to still iso, but make quicker decisions on that end and be featured more as an elite spot up shooter.

In my original post in this thread, I detailed the knicks historically awful PG rotations outside of that 12-13 season, largely contributing to their lack of success in the melo era. I feel like i’m repeating myself ad nauseam, but at the same time it tends to get glossed over repeatedly.

I clearly wasn’t saying “poor melo” re: the no trade clause. I was pointing out that phil was a failure as an executive for a myriad of reasons, none of which had to do with melo being on the knicks roster.

I’m not expecting to change your mind, but do feel like you’re painting an exaggerated negative picture of his career. Good players are allowed to have their flaws. Otherwise they’d be top tier stars.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #37:

Elton Brand - 5 (Doctor MJ, pandrade83, SactoKingsFan, penbeast0, dhsilv2)
Carmelo Anthony - 3 (Outside, Clyde Frazier, trex_8063)


Calling it for Brand. Will have the next up shortly.

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[dhsilv2]

Carmelo career RS (1,028 gams): 54.3 TS%, 10.8 TOV%, 31.1 USG%, 108 ORtg
Brand career RS (1,058 games): 54.8 TS%, 11.8 TOV%, 22.8 USG%, 105 ORtg

Carmelo career PS (66 games): 51.3 TS%, 10.4 TOV%, 32.6 USG%, 105 Ortg
Brand career PS (40 games): 55.3 TS%, 8.1 TOV%, 21.4 USG%, 116 ORtg

From the info on BBRef, Carmelo has the better ORtg for the RS and Brand does for the PS. Both have a small PS sample size, but Brand's is really small. I'm not sure where you're getting Brand as being ahead of Carmelo in career ORtg unless you're talking about PS only.

Brand does have the higher peak and top 5, but he also has the most at the bottom end. A feature of Carmelo's longevity is steady production over a much longer period, thus resulting in the higher career ORtg.

Carmelo also has a much higher usage rate, so he was responsible for a much larger part of the offense than Brand.

Must have gotten my tabs criss crossed on the career ORtg. For some reason I thought Brand was 108 and Melo 105.

Unless I'm doing something seriously wrong here, Brand is ahead. Brand 110 for career (only 105 in Dallas), Melo is 108 as Outside has it.
Brand: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/brandel01.html
Anthony: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/anthoca01.html

And this, measured in raw terms, gives a slight pro-Carmelo bias. In Brand's four seasons before Carmelo, the league average Ortgs were 104.1; 103; 104.5 and 103.6 - in 2017, post Brand, Carmelo played in a league that was 108.8. Then too Brand peaked and played his most minutes in the lower norm Ortg league. Using relative Ortg would mitigate some of the problems (though probably not easy to get a minutes weighted career average for that) or comparing too Drtgs would mitigate bias.

well I just give up then, lol. I vividly remember 105 and 108, but thought Brand was ahead. Now I'm seeing 108 and 110 still with brand ahead.

Brand behind ahead however is what I would expect. Melo's "value" is in his ability to be that high usage guy. I however have been debating here if that's a plus or a minus from him.

[Outside]

Must have gotten my tabs criss crossed on the career ORtg. For some reason I thought Brand was 108 and Melo 105.

Unless I'm doing something seriously wrong here, Brand is ahead. Brand 110 for career (only 105 in Dallas), Melo is 108 as Outside has it.
Brand: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/brandel01.html
Anthony: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/anthoca01.html

And this, measured in raw terms, gives a slight pro-Carmelo bias. In Brand's four seasons before Carmelo, the league average Ortgs were 104.1; 103; 104.5 and 103.6 - in 2017, post Brand, Carmelo played in a league that was 108.8. Then too Brand peaked and played his most minutes in the lower norm Ortg league. Using relative Ortg would mitigate some of the problems (though probably not easy to get a minutes weighted career average for that) or comparing too Drtgs would mitigate bias.

well I just give up then, lol. I vividly remember 105 and 108, but thought Brand was ahead. Now I'm seeing 108 and 110 still with brand ahead.

Brand behind ahead however is what I would expect. Melo's "value" is in his ability to be that high usage guy. I however have been debating here if that's a plus or a minus from him.

I think I'm in the same boat -- I would've sworn in court that I saw Carmelo ahead for RS, 108-105. Only had two tabs open for this. Geez.

Now I have a follow-up question -- why is Brand's ORtg higher? I believe posters in both this and the POY threads have proposed skipping listing TS% and TOV% separately and just listing ORtg as a single efficiency stat. However, assists are also part of the mix, and it's a complicated calculation.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ratings.html

However, with the career RS numbers of Carmelo and Brand, it doesn't make sense that Brand comes out ahead.

TS% Carmelo 54.3, Brand 54.8
TOV% Carmelo 10.8, Brand 11.8
USG% Carmelo 31.1, Brand 22.8
AST% Carmelo 15.8, Brand 11.7
APG Carmelo 3.0, Brand 2.1

The only category Brand leads in is TS%, and that's by 0.5%. Carmelo leads in all the other categories by more significant margins than that.

So how does Brand wind up with a higher ORtg?

Looking at the formula more closely, it also includes offensive rebounds, and Brand is considerably better in that area. That seems to be the difference.

Not that I've done a deep dive into the ORtg formula, but I've at least identified the components -- shooting efficiency, turnovers, assists, and offensive rebounds. So while I can see how it's trying to measure a player's overall contribution to the offense, I'm not sure I equate that with offensive efficiency in the way that most people think of it. A relatively low usage player can end up with a really high ORtg by being a good offensive rebounder, and that's why Steven Adams, Clint Capela, and DeAndre Jordan are in the top five for ORtg this season. But those aren't the guys who drive their offenses, and while they have very good TS percentages, that's because their offense consists of finishing lobs and converting putbacks.

Offensive rebounds are great and obviously help an offense by extending a possession, but when trying to gauge a player's efficiency, I think most people think of what a player does when he has the ball -- scoring per attempt, turnover rate, assist rate. Knowing what I do now, I find listing the component parts of efficiency as more informative than just deferring to ORtg.