Owly wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:Runoff Vote: Bill Walton
I'm not going to try to convince people that Kawhi over Walton is unreasonable. I totally get it, and may regret this vote.
What's undeniable though:
Walton was a far more valuable player at his peak than Kawhi, and this is despite the fact that Kawhi was groomed by the GOAT coach in the GOAT setting. Put Kawhi almost anywhere else and his "off the radar" prospect status and utterly unstarlike lack of initiative and leadership tendencies make it very likely he never gains the skills and opportunity he needed to actually become a star.
There's really no doubt how made a bigger dent in the NBA's story.
"GOAT coach" and "GOAT setting" for what though?
Popovich has "developed" one other star wing and, honestly, that guy was 25 before he played an NBA game (having already claimed a FIBA silver medal including a victory over the US etc etc European trophies etc).
Dennis Rodman had this same guidance from the GM position and sunk a team. And made Pop out to be the big villain. I'm not saying I believe him (at all) but ... if you take the correlation to causation jump one way ... . And if that's not what's happening with Kawhi then what are we pointing at - a good shooting coach (which was neither a secret to other players nor a magic 10% 3 point shooting boost) ...
I think it's a mistake to try to make the "If Pop only did it once, then it's just about that player and it says nothing about Pop" argument. Kawhi's growth over his career makes the marks of his teachers quite clear on him.
Kawhi deserves a lot of credit for a lot of things and I don't think you're crazy to vote for him over Walton, but I don't think it's that controversial of a statement to say that players who develop slowly are heavily influenced by the environment they are in, and hence that a player in a great environment developing slowly but consistently could easily have stagnated in his growth without good teachers.
It's also just plainly a different career growth arch than Walton. Walton was a player with the rare type of instinct that you just can't teach. Kawhi is something other than that.
Should that matter when considering the scale of the on-court achievement? Debatable. There aren't many things I feel comfortable ignoring though.
Owly wrote:Then too, Kawhi's abilities coming in are somewhat undersold. His most common predicted draft spot was sixth, he was the player most cited to be taken sixth, and in the ranking of the mean average mock draft positions he was seventh (all per NBA.com's composite mock as of May 19th 2011). Leonard may have arrived late on team's radars - but for whatever this is worth in ranking a player's career - by the time all the information was in the perception was that Leonard was or would be a mid-lottery pick.
That's a distinction without significant difference. The fact remains that Walton was way ahead of Kawhi on that front.
Owly wrote:Aside for the fairness of deciding whose career was lucky at what stage (was MJ lucky to have a growth spurt, or competitive older brothers, or having that percieved slight of not making the varsity team as a sophomore, or playing for Dean Smith - hey, thinking about it 3rd pick, behind a guy who was injury wracked and played his best season over three years prior, doesn't sound like a blue chipper) there's the chicken and the egg question. Did he benefit from being on a smart team, or did a smart team trade up for him because they saw how good he could be. (An additional one that doesn't even require anyone to have raised MJ's basketball potential - what if MJ had been a bit better at baseball ... pushed a bit more towards that ... etc).
You're essentially asking, "Who can we know what the true cause was?"
The answer is clear: We don't know with certainty, we just do our best.
Refusing to consider a "most likely truth" simply because certainty is less than 100% biases your opinions toward some halfway point which has no merit other seeming "fair". I prefer to own my subjectivity. It is flawed, but I'll try my best, keep learning, and in the end I believe I get a more accurate and precise worldview over time for it.
Owly wrote:On the "story" angle ... I get that some people do include it. I get that there's no single, "right" way to rank players. I just struggle with "story". Just one example: the narrative has long ignored the '71 Milwaukee Bucks as a great champion. Now whether you put that down to less data available at the time; Milwaukee being an unfashionable market; Milwaukee not being a great parable for sharing and the sum being greater than the parts; that Bucks team having, iirc, just one white rotation player or just dumb luck ... "the NBA's story" as far as I can tell that it means something specific, seems very tightly tied to conventional wisdom. Maybe that's not what you mean ... Then too, for whatever it's worth Kawhi is close double Walton's MVP shares (0.980 to 0.522 - though otoh, not sure how comparable they are across eras), so maybe the bigger NBA story isn't so simple (not something I'd care about but putting it out there - also fwiw Walton I think is still ahead on RealGM player of the Year shares, which would factor in the postseason)?
Sorry if tone seems hostile here, just putting where I am out there.
Nah, it's cool.
Let me context it a different way:
I always say that how you interpret peak vs longevity weighting is something for each person to assess for themselves. It is inherently subjective. Now, it goes best when you try to anchor it to some objective landmarks, but in the end you can't escape subjectivity entirely.
When I talk about story, I'm essentially talking about peaks I particularly admire.
Now, I think that probably sounds disingenuous, or at the very least precarious. I'll grant the latter and simply hope I haven't crossed into the territory of fooling myself. But let me take the opportunity to just gush:
What Walton and his Blazers had begun to do was, in my opinion, a clear cut dynasty in the making. Yes the SRS may not look impressive compared to other eras, but for that era it was huge. And when I see that, along with stylistic uniqueness, to me it's an exceptionally noteworthy accomplishment.
Walton distinguished himself from the league around him in a way that Kawhi just hasn't. That isn't everything, but it's not a minor thing either.
Will try to decide soon.
