RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #17 (David Robinson)

[LA Bird]

Question was in the #16 thread, but that went real wonky on me, so answering here.

@LA-Bird: I think Bob Davies was almost certainly the second best player in the late NBL/Early NBA, all the indicators of the first offensive dynasty while he was at the helm of the Royals. (Kurland/Haynes both with claims to second best player in the world status though)

Thanks, I knew I was forgetting someone. But unless you rank him highly compared to later 50s stars, Bob Davies still seems to be a low bar when it comes to 2nd best player in the league.

[penbeast0]

Mikan is clearly the strongest candidate here in terms of making it likely for your team to win multiple titles. He had an 8 year prime where he was probably the best player alive for all 8 and certainly for a good half of it (plus a short, ugly comeback that we try to ignore, like MJ's Washington years). His league was relatively weak compared to any other eras, even the 70s, and it was segregated (though he seemed better than the best of the Globies or Rens when they played against each other from what little anecdotal evidence I've read) so depending on the degree to which you discount it, that is certainly a factor. His playoff performances were strong. He had no out of prime years to speak of to pad his stats, and in fact the stats we have are problematic but for me, an 8 year prime is about where I quit worrying about short careers and I count prime years a lot more heavily than post or pre-prime years where the player is below All-Star level. I don't say every should vote for him, I do think everyone should at least consider his candidacy; when you signed up for this project you agreed not to say, "I don't look at players who played before . . . . since I haven't seen enough of them to judge." I never saw Mikan either. But by the best evidence we have, he's by far the most dominant guy left.

The next two spots are a lot closer and a lot more problematic. I have Karl Malone over Dirk in that debate; the lesser playoffs are an issue but his level of play was so strong and his incredible ironman act and motor to me are a major leadership plus. I have him over Moses both for his longer prime and better passing; Moses was bigger and even more physical but the passing is a problem. In terms of shorter careers, I have David Robinson, another player whose main knock (other than shorter career) is his playoff resume, and Steph Curry. Julius Erving is also definitely in the mix here for me. If I want to win a title with this guy as my best player, Curry or ABA Erving are my first choices and Julius played a longer time though his first years in Philly where he was trying to fit in rather than take over as the primary are an issue. David Robinson played longer and was a super high contributor as primary defender and capable of Kevin Garnett like impact when he had another scorer. STill love Curry, but changing my #3 from Curry to Robinson

1. George Mikan
2. Julius Erving
3. David Robinson

Again, written in sand rather than set in stone.

[The-Power]

He had one of the most significant drops. Among superstars, he was definitely one of the worst.
In his best 3 season span, '94-'96, he went from 6.6 obpm to 4.0 obpm in the playoffs.

I don't think anybody is arguing the general drop-off. The thing is: he dropped from close to GOAT-level RS performances. If he didn't have a notable drop-off then he'd be a lock for top 10 and a candidate for top 5 of all time. Currently, this project is at #17. At some point, simply noting that he dropped off more than most stars in the playoffs isn't going to cut it anymore because of the high level he himself established during the RS to which his playoffs are being compared. Which is not to say that other players don't still have arguments over him, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore Robinson at this point..

[penbeast0]

In 1954 Neil Johnston might be better than Mikan.
I don't like longevity but most current Realgm people think Longevity is a big deal and Mikan kind of fails at longevity. Is it fair to expect guys from Mikan's era to have longevity. They were not even being paid all that well.

Then there is the question of whether dominance of an era should be the standard with complete disregard for the quality of the era. It looks like the voting pattern of this project is making some sort of compromise between dominance of an era and more modern capabilities. I watched a little video and decided Mikan probably would be a useful player in the modern era if he could adjust. He would need to learn that traveling is legal now.

I think Johnston (and/or Macauley) is generally considered a weak defensive center. The Warriors didn't seem to miss him much when he was out where they did miss Arizin. He was probably the league's most efficient scorer for a couple of years but he didn't bring much else. I can see him top 100 but not above the likes of Mikan . . . it's like Amare v Duncan. Amare may be a more efficient scorer but even in a down year for Duncan, he brings so much more to the table.

[Dutchball97]

Nobody on my ballot got in, so here it is again:

1. Kevin Durant - Looks like I might be doing this for a while haha. I had a ghost vote last round but if it came to it I'd have chosen Dirk over Karl Malone as well. I've mentioned my argument for KD over Karl Malone already. I think KD peaked higher in the regular season than Karl Malone, Malone does have a substantial longevity advantage but I think KD was better in his prime by quite a bit as well. The real kicker is the play-offs where KD and Karl Malone have accumulated a similar amount of WS and VORP but KD did this in 139 games, where Karl Malone needed 193 games. Because of that I don't see a significant longevity edge for Malone that could bridge the peak/prime advantage of KD.

2. Julius Erving - I'm still not quite sure if I prefer KD or Dr J here tbh. Dr J is the GOAT ABA player and he had a legitmate argument to be the best player in the NBA from 80-82 as well. Dr J's 1976 peak didn't come against terrible competition. The ABA at that point was a serious league and not far behind the NBA at all. You've got to wonder what would've happened if the NBA stars of the 70s had to adapt to the ABA style/rules instead of Dr J having to adapt to the NBA. What ifs are just what ifs though so I'm going with KD for my pick but if any of my votes are going to count this round it's probably going to be Dr J.

3. Stephen Curry - Another guy I'm very high on already even if he still has more elite years ahead of him. He has an argument for the best regular season peak ever and while his numbers in the play-offs might not be as impressive as his regular season numbers, Steph is still one of the most proven play-off performers we've seen. Making the finals 5 years in a row, winning 3 of those, is very impressive by any standard. I prefer KD for now because his prime is a bit longer but Curry definitely has been gaining on him the last years.

[trex_8063]

How do you view KD vs Moses? Durant doesn't have long prime but it is decent (2009-19). Although Moses has longevity egde and longer prime (1978-90), most of his post-prime seasons aren't that valuable. Durant has overall clearly better team success, but Moses spent most of his prime years in weak teams (outside of 1983-86, basically non of his teams were title-worthy).

Edit: how about Barkley vs Durant? I view Barkley as better offensive player with better and longer prime, but I don't see many votes for him.

Personally I think Durant had the highest peak of the three though they're all close enough that any order is debatable imo.

But he also has the shortest prime/career of the three so he potentially comes in last among them for me; but very close (all these guys reside somewhere in roughly the 19-23 range all-time for me).

btw sorry for run-on sentences......the comma key is broken on this keyboard .

[Odinn21]

He had one of the most significant drops. Among superstars, he was definitely one of the worst.
In his best 3 season span, '94-'96, he went from 6.6 obpm to 4.0 obpm in the playoffs.

I don't think anybody is arguing the general drop-off. The thing is: he dropped from close to GOAT-level RS performances. If he didn't have a notable drop-off then he'd be a lock for top 10 and a candidate for top 5 of all time. Currently, this project is at #17. At some point, simply noting that he dropped off more than most stars in the playoffs isn't going to cut it anymore because of the high level he himself established during the RS to which his playoffs are being compared. Which is not to say that other players don't still have arguments over him, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore Robinson at this point..

Where he dropped to also matters. The extent matters.

If you look at the page I linked, you'd see Robinson's drop was significant, regardless of the rank he's getting argued for.
Also, his competition for #17 is not all bad playoff performers.

Curry went from 8.1 obpm to 6.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 2015 to 2019, -1.3 change.
Barkley went from 6.3 obpm to 6.7 obpm in 69 playoff games from 1989 to 1996, +0.4 change.
Wade went from 5.8 obpm to 6.2 obpm in 74 playoff games from 2005 to 2011, +0.4 change.
Durant went from 7.1 obpm to 5.9 obpm in 91 playoff games from 2010 to 2016, -1.2 change.
Erving went from 4.5 obpm to 5.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 1977 to 1982, +1.3 change.
Moses went from 4.0 obpm to 4.5 obpm in 67 playoff games from 1979 to 1987, +0.5 change.
Robinson went from 5.4 obpm to 3.9 obpm in 53 playoff games from 1990 to 1996, -1.5 change.

Not only Robinson has the lowest change among those names, his drop off is by far the most significant one in terms of percentiles. That's almost 30% regression.

Robinson; -27.8%
Durant; -16.9%
Curry; -16.0%

And that time frame is really generous to Robinson because at his peak seasons, he went from 6.6 to 4.0 over 29 games.

There's absolutely no reason to overlook this just because he was a goat level regular season force or it's now #17 on the list. Why would we ignore the parts that'd go against a player's case for the sake of what'd go for him?

Also, this was the thing said for Robinson;
"Yes he wasn’t the most consistent playoff performer due to a variety of reasons but overall I think he was still pretty good."
Robinson was not a good playoff performer for a player on that level. Saying Robinson was a pretty good playoff performer is just inaccurate.

[Hal14]

17) Moses Malone
18) Julius Erving
19) Elgin Baylor

As far as Moses over Dr. J, I posted in the other thread, but if Dr. J put up those numbers and had all of those accolades in the NBA, he'd have a stronger case. But his fist few years he did it in a slightly weaker league, the ABA - I only say slightly though. The ABA did have some very good teams and have a good amount of talent, but wasn't quite as good as the NBA, as evidenced by the Doctors individual stats and team success suffering a little bit after he went from ABA to NBA.

Moses meanwhile, matched up very well vs Kareem (the no. 3 GOAT according to this board), leadings his team to wins over Kareem's Lakers in the playoffs in both 81 and 83, leading his team to the finals in 81 and sweeping the defending champs Lakers in 83. Yes, Dr. J was on that 83 Sixers team but Moses was the MVP of the league that year and finals MVP. Moses won 3 NBA MVPs compared to 1 for Dr. J. Yes, Dr. J won 3 ABA MVPs, but again, it depends how much you value the level of competition in the ABA. IMO, 3 NBA MVPs is just as impressive as 3 ABA MVPs and 1 NBA MVP - possibly more.

Dr. J was a better defender and passer, but he was by no means GOAT level at either defending or passing, whereas Moses was a GOAT level rebounder.

Also - it certainly seems like I have Baylor ranked higher than most on here, but in terms of scoring and rebounding numbers in his prime - he was not far off at all from Wilt Chamberlain, despite the fact that Baylor was 8 inches shorter than Wilt. Wilt got voted in the no. 6 spot, so I see no reason why Baylor can't be no. 19. Also, while I do have West ahead of Baylor, I think the gap between those 2 is very close, much closer than what most people think. Often times when they were teammates, Baylor was simply the better, more dangerous player who was bigger, stronger, more powerful and more athletic. Baylor was an exceptional passer and defender. Again, I have West ahead of Baylor, but it's very close. West got voted in at no. 13, so I see no reason why Baylor can't be no. 19.

[The Master]

How do you view KD vs Moses? Durant doesn't have long prime but it is decent (2009-19). Although Moses has longevity egde and longer prime (1978-90), most of his post-prime seasons aren't that valuable. Durant has overall clearly better team success, but Moses spent most of his prime years in weak teams (outside of 1983-86, basically non of his teams were title-worthy)

I don't think Moses has longevity edge in a sense that I find valuable - Durant's 6th-9th-best seasons are definitely better than those of Moses, and then M. Malone has like two more good seasons, but in general I feel that in their non-peak seasons (Durant 09-13 v. Malone 84-89), Durant gave more value. I get post-87 Bird vibes with Moses after '83 campaign, Sixers 84-86 were still pretty decent, and Moses was still in great age to succeed, but had subpar year ('84) and then was absent in postseason ('86). And I don't like Durant's longevity neither, his '09 was putting empty stats, in '10 he definitely wasn't ready, in '15 he was injured and missed playoffs, and in '19 he got injured in postseason. Regarding 78-83 v. 14-19 comparison, I see arguments for both: Durant had better team success with Malone having better individual accolades, but Durant played on much better teams, BUT he lost MVP race twice to peak LeBron, BUT his portability and versatility were probably better BUT he's never had as dominant season as Moses had in '83 BUT his boxscore production was off the charts. I'd have KD higher based on a fact that I believe his 'worse' part of a prime was better. If you give extra points for how player X would play in different era, this comparison leans towards Durant even further.

[trex_8063]

He had one of the most significant drops. Among superstars, he was definitely one of the worst.
In his best 3 season span, '94-'96, he went from 6.6 obpm to 4.0 obpm in the playoffs.

I don't think anybody is arguing the general drop-off. The thing is: he dropped from close to GOAT-level RS performances. If he didn't have a notable drop-off then he'd be a lock for top 10 and a candidate for top 5 of all time. Currently, this project is at #17. At some point, simply noting that he dropped off more than most stars in the playoffs isn't going to cut it anymore because of the high level he himself established during the RS to which his playoffs are being compared. Which is not to say that other players don't still have arguments over him, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore Robinson at this point..

Where he dropped to also matters. The extent matters.

If you look at the page I linked, you'd see Robinson's drop was significant, regardless of the rank he's getting argued for.
Also, his competition for #17 is not all bad playoff performers.

Curry went from 8.1 obpm to 6.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 2015 to 2019, -1.3 change.
Barkley went from 6.3 obpm to 6.7 obpm in 69 playoff games from 1989 to 1996, +0.4 change.
Wade went from 5.8 obpm to 6.2 obpm in 74 playoff games from 2005 to 2011, +0.4 change.
Durant went from 7.1 obpm to 5.9 obpm in 91 playoff games from 2010 to 2016, -1.2 change.
Erving went from 4.5 obpm to 5.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 1977 to 1982, +1.3 change.
Moses went from 4.0 obpm to 4.5 obpm in 67 playoff games from 1979 to 1987, +0.5 change.
Robinson went from 5.4 obpm to 3.9 obpm in 53 playoff games from 1990 to 1996, -1.5 change.

Not only Robinson has the lowest change among those names, his drop off is by far the most significant one in terms of percentiles. That's almost 30% regression.

Robinson; -27.8%
Durant; -16.9%
Curry; -16.0%

And that time frame is really generous to Robinson because at his peak seasons, he went from 6.6 to 4.0 over 29 games.

There's absolutely no reason to overlook this just because he was a goat level regular season force or it's now #17 on the list. Why would we ignore the parts that'd go against a player's case for the sake of what'd go for him?

It depends on how you're evaluating this.....

Suppose we have Player A and Player B: these two players are EXACTLY the same in the playoffs but Player A "suffers" a more substantial drop-off from his rs performance because he was a clearly better player in the rs. If you are rating Player B as the better in this comparison [because he has a smaller playoff regression] that's sort of bass-ackwards: you're basically penalizing Player A for being better than Player B in the rs (and again: they're exactly the same in the post-season).


And you're citing only OBPM (and occasionally PER) which are both [basically] offensive metrics (which isn't even where the bulk of DRob's value comes from unlike players like Curry or Durant). Though even there he's still "pretty good" [as Matt said]: you cited a PER of 24.6 in the playoffs for '94-'96 (in the rs that would have been good enough for 4th in the league in '94 and 5th in '95-'96); his OBPM was still +4.0 (which would be roughly top 12(ish) in each year during the rs.

So basically he dropped to a fringe top-10 offensive player in the playoffs while still being the arguably *BEST defensive player in the league........that is indeed still "pretty good" (to say the least).
*Another poster in the prior thread had pointed out that as amazing as his defensive presence appears in the rs.....the Spurs defense in the post-season actually [on average] marginally OUT-performed expectation (by approximately -0.2 rDRTG).

[70sFan]

Thank you for the answer

I don't think Moses has longevity edge in a sense that I find valuable - Durant's 6th-9th-best seasons are definitely better than those of Moses, and then M. Malone has like two more good seasons, but in general I feel that in their non-peak seasons (Durant 09-13 v. Malone 84-89), Durant gave more value. I get post-87 Bird vibes with Moses after '83 campaign, Sixers 84-86 were still pretty decent, and Moses was still in great age to succeed, but had subpar year ('84) and then was absent in postseason ('86). And I don't like Durant's longevity neither, his '09 was putting empty stats, in '10 he definitely wasn't ready, in '15 he was injured and missed playoffs, and in '19 he got injured in postseason.

Yeah, I get the same feelings. Still, if you value 1987-89 Moses seasons then you can give him edge. I don't think he was superstar anymore, but he was still decent in these years (better than 2009 KD in my opinion).

Regarding 78-83 v. 14-19 comparison, I see arguments for both: Durant had better team success with Malone having better individual accolades, but Durant played on much better teams, BUT he lost MVP race twice to peak LeBron, BUT his portability and versatility were probably better BUT he's never had as dominant season as Moses had in '83 BUT his boxscore production was off the charts. I'd have KD higher based on a fact that I believe his 'worse' part of a prime was better. If you give extra points for how player X would play in different era, this comparison leans towards Durant even further.

Again, I think it's close so I agree with you. As to your last point - Moses would be clearly more valuable before 1980 and I'd take him over KD in 1990s as well, so it's not a given that portability across eras is his argument here.

[penbeast0]

...
Robinson was not a good playoff performer for a player on that level. Saying Robinson was a pretty good playoff performer is just inaccurate.

You make a very good case against Robinson but I think you are leaving out a big part of his impact. Do you have any indications that his DEFENSE dropped as well? It's half of the game and for David Robinson, more than any of the others on your list, it's the bigger half of his impact.
I hadn't read trex's post yet, he brought up the same point.

I did notice that Erving went up the most on your list, I am a bit surprised, I would have guessed Barkley.

Also interested to see if any analysis done to see if a guy like Barkley, known for not putting in consistent effort or focus on his defense, was harder working and more focused defensively in the playoffs. I know that players like Jordan and Kobe were more focused defensively in the playoffs from watching them but I don't remember enough of Barkley's effort there to trust my eye test v. what I saw from his regularly. If someone can show me that he played defense at the level he was capable of rather than continuing to dial it in, he moved from someone who is probably in the 30-50 range for me to someone who would be considered here in the 15-25 range which is a big jump.

[penbeast0]

...Baylor was an exceptional passer and defender. ....

Still looking for any backup for this statement, particularly defensively. It's not the reputation I think of for him, though I would say he is okay at both rather than poor, but never heard he was particularly good.

[70sFan]

...Baylor was an exceptional passer and defender. ....

Still looking for any backup for this statement, particularly defensively. It's not the reputation I think of for him, though I would say he is okay at both rather than poor, but never heard he was particularly good.

In two full prime games we have (one from 1959/60 RS, one from 1963 finals), Baylor looked very good (in 1959) and solid (in 1963) defensively. I agree that I don't see any evidences of him being "exceptional" but I do think he was definitely above average (at least before injuries).

I kind of view Baylor as exceptional passer, but it's all relative - he was fantastic for his position, but I wouldn't compare him to someone like Nash or Paul - he's not close to them.

[LA Bird]

Spoiler:

I don't think anybody is arguing the general drop-off. The thing is: he dropped from close to GOAT-level RS performances. If he didn't have a notable drop-off then he'd be a lock for top 10 and a candidate for top 5 of all time. Currently, this project is at #17. At some point, simply noting that he dropped off more than most stars in the playoffs isn't going to cut it anymore because of the high level he himself established during the RS to which his playoffs are being compared. Which is not to say that other players don't still have arguments over him, but it's getting harder and harder to ignore Robinson at this point..

Where he dropped to also matters. The extent matters.

If you look at the page I linked, you'd see Robinson's drop was significant, regardless of the rank he's getting argued for.
Also, his competition for #17 is not all bad playoff performers.

Curry went from 8.1 obpm to 6.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 2015 to 2019, -1.3 change.
Barkley went from 6.3 obpm to 6.7 obpm in 69 playoff games from 1989 to 1996, +0.4 change.
Wade went from 5.8 obpm to 6.2 obpm in 74 playoff games from 2005 to 2011, +0.4 change.
Durant went from 7.1 obpm to 5.9 obpm in 91 playoff games from 2010 to 2016, -1.2 change.
Erving went from 4.5 obpm to 5.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 1977 to 1982, +1.3 change.
Moses went from 4.0 obpm to 4.5 obpm in 67 playoff games from 1979 to 1987, +0.5 change.
Robinson went from 5.4 obpm to 3.9 obpm in 53 playoff games from 1990 to 1996, -1.5 change.

Not only Robinson has the lowest change among those names, his drop off is by far the most significant one in terms of percentiles. That's almost 30% regression.

Robinson; -27.8%
Durant; -16.9%
Curry; -16.0%

And that time frame is really generous to Robinson because at his peak seasons, he went from 6.6 to 4.0 over 29 games.

There's absolutely no reason to overlook this just because he was a goat level regular season force or it's now #17 on the list. Why would we ignore the parts that'd go against a player's case for the sake of what'd go for him?

It depends on how you're evaluating this.....

Suppose we have Player A and Player B: these two players are EXACTLY the same in the playoffs but Player A "suffers" a more substantial drop-off from his rs performance because he was a clearly better player in the rs. If you are rating Player B as the better in this comparison [because he has a smaller playoff regression] that's sort of bass-ackwards: you're basically penalizing Player A for being better than Player B in the rs (and again: they're exactly the same in the post-season).

And you're citing only OBPM (and occasionally PER) which are both [basically] offensive metrics (which isn't even where the bulk of DRob's value comes from unlike players like Curry or Durant). Though even there he's still "pretty good" [as Matt said]: you cited a PER of 24.6 in the playoffs for '94-'96 (in the rs that would have been good enough for 4th in the league in '94 and 5th in '95-'96); his OBPM was still +4.0 (which would be roughly top 12(ish) in each year during the rs.

Agreed. Comparing postseason performance is more important than comparing postseason drops if you are just penalizing players for doing more in the regular season. If Robinson half-assed the regular season and only put up a 1 OBPM, he would have a +3 OBPM improvement by posting the exact same 4.0 OBPM in the playoffs. That doesn't make him a better player. It would be the equivalent of people intentionally tanking their standing reach to have a higher vertical measurement.

And a 4.0 OBPM isn't even that bad in the first place. 93-95 Hakeem also had a 4.0 OBPM in the playoffs.

[Jordan Syndrome]

Spoiler:

Where he dropped to also matters. The extent matters.

If you look at the page I linked, you'd see Robinson's drop was significant, regardless of the rank he's getting argued for.
Also, his competition for #17 is not all bad playoff performers.

Curry went from 8.1 obpm to 6.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 2015 to 2019, -1.3 change.
Barkley went from 6.3 obpm to 6.7 obpm in 69 playoff games from 1989 to 1996, +0.4 change.
Wade went from 5.8 obpm to 6.2 obpm in 74 playoff games from 2005 to 2011, +0.4 change.
Durant went from 7.1 obpm to 5.9 obpm in 91 playoff games from 2010 to 2016, -1.2 change.
Erving went from 4.5 obpm to 5.8 obpm in 93 playoff games from 1977 to 1982, +1.3 change.
Moses went from 4.0 obpm to 4.5 obpm in 67 playoff games from 1979 to 1987, +0.5 change.
Robinson went from 5.4 obpm to 3.9 obpm in 53 playoff games from 1990 to 1996, -1.5 change.

Not only Robinson has the lowest change among those names, his drop off is by far the most significant one in terms of percentiles. That's almost 30% regression.

Robinson; -27.8%
Durant; -16.9%
Curry; -16.0%

And that time frame is really generous to Robinson because at his peak seasons, he went from 6.6 to 4.0 over 29 games.

There's absolutely no reason to overlook this just because he was a goat level regular season force or it's now #17 on the list. Why would we ignore the parts that'd go against a player's case for the sake of what'd go for him?

It depends on how you're evaluating this.....

Suppose we have Player A and Player B: these two players are EXACTLY the same in the playoffs but Player A "suffers" a more substantial drop-off from his rs performance because he was a clearly better player in the rs. If you are rating Player B as the better in this comparison [because he has a smaller playoff regression] that's sort of bass-ackwards: you're basically penalizing Player A for being better than Player B in the rs (and again: they're exactly the same in the post-season).

And you're citing only OBPM (and occasionally PER) which are both [basically] offensive metrics (which isn't even where the bulk of DRob's value comes from unlike players like Curry or Durant). Though even there he's still "pretty good" [as Matt said]: you cited a PER of 24.6 in the playoffs for '94-'96 (in the rs that would have been good enough for 4th in the league in '94 and 5th in '95-'96); his OBPM was still +4.0 (which would be roughly top 12(ish) in each year during the rs.

Agreed. Comparing postseason performance is more important than comparing postseason drops if you are just penalizing players for doing more in the regular season. If Robinson half-assed the regular season and only put up a 1 OBPM, he would have a +3 OBPM improvement by posting the exact same 4.0 OBPM in the playoffs. That doesn't make him a better player. It would be the equivalent of people intentionally tanking their standing reach to have a higher vertical measurement.

And a 4.0 OBPM isn't even that bad in the first place. 93-95 Hakeem also had a 4.0 OBPM in the playoffs.

Garnett from 02-04: 4.0 OBPM

[Joao Saraiva]

How do you feel about Dr. J and his ABA days? How much credit do you give him for those?

[Doctor MJ]

Question was in the #16 thread, but that went real wonky on me, so answering here.

@LA-Bird: I think Bob Davies was almost certainly the second best player in the late NBL/Early NBA, all the indicators of the first offensive dynasty while he was at the helm of the Royals. (Kurland/Haynes both with claims to second best player in the world status though)

Thanks, I knew I was forgetting someone. But unless you rank him highly compared to later 50s stars, Bob Davies still seems to be a low bar when it comes to 2nd best player in the league.

Bob Davies was Mikan's primary competition. If that seems like a low bar to you, well, yeah.

For the record, there are two stars I'm aware of who had winning records against Mikan, and both on average outscored him when they played:

Paul Arizin
Bob Pettit

While we can debate whether this should be held against Mikan or not, I do think these two guys were pretty clearly the two best basketball players in the NBA who were contemporaries of Mikan.

In the case of Arizin, a few things:

1. Arizin's NBA is career is messed up because of his time in the military.
2. Early in their matchups Mikan outscored Arizin. I don't want to imply that the bigger scorer "wins" but just so we're clear on that.
3. I think it is worth noting that Arizin's Warriors got the best of Mikan's Lakers in '51-52 when they played, and it's entirely possible that had they played in the playoffs the Lakers don't win the title. But they didn't play and the Lakers won the title.
4. I think there's basically zero doubt that by '55-56 when Arizin was all the way back and his Warriors won the title, Arizin was the superior player.

I'll also note that in '55-56, the Warriors and Lakers didn't play because the Lakers lost to Pettit's Hawks, where Pettit clearly dominated the series over Mikan or anyone else.

I look at all of this and what I'll definitely say is that I think circa '55-56, the 27 year old Arizin and the 23 year old Pettit were better players than the 31 year old Mikan. And now a question to consider:

How often do you see a 31 year old as clearly inferior to a 27/23 year old and think "Oh yeah, but he was old, clearly he would have done a lot better if he weren't an ancient 31 when they played?"

Yes it's different now compared to back then, but to the notion that Mikan dominated everyone and then retired before being surpassed, not so much. And this pertains to why I've tended to have Pettit ahead of Mikan in the past, and likely would entertain Arizin over Mikan if he'd just have been able to have a normal career.

[Whopper_Sr]

I'll go with the PG trio here. Doctor J and Admiral would be next up. No one else is a serious candidate for me.

Paul's longevity and defense puts him ahead of Nash and Curry. I wouldn't say Paul is a full tier behind Nash/Curry offensively, but still behind. All 3 are all time offensive engines (Nash and Curry are locks for top 5) and the 3 best offensive players left.

Erving: Nothing really speaks all time level or super elite. MVP caliber peak with a decent prime and longevity. Concerns about his ABA days and what role suits him the best. He's in between the GOAT level wings and the 3rd tier of wings (Durant, Pippen, etc).

Robinson: I have him ahead of Mailman due to his much superior defense but the story reads similarly. Both had perennial struggles in the PS and their offenses didn't hold up. Was his career defensive value enough to outweigh Malone's longevity advantage? I'd say so. I still prefer the guards though.

1. Chris Paul
2. Steve Nash
3. Stephen Curry

[Odinn21]

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Robinson was not a good playoff performer for a player on that level. Saying Robinson was a pretty good playoff performer is just inaccurate.

You make a very good case against Robinson but I think you are leaving out a big part of his impact. Do you have any indications that his DEFENSE dropped as well? It's half of the game and for David Robinson, more than any of the others on your list, it's the bigger half of his impact.
I hadn't read trex's post yet, he brought up the same point.

I did notice that Erving went up the most on your list, I am a bit surprised, I would have guessed Barkley.

Also interested to see if any analysis done to see if a guy like Barkley, known for not putting in consistent effort or focus on his defense, was harder working and more focused defensively in the playoffs. I know that players like Jordan and Kobe were more focused defensively in the playoffs from watching them but I don't remember enough of Barkley's effort there to trust my eye test v. what I saw from his regularly. If someone can show me that he played defense at the level he was capable of rather than continuing to dial it in, he moved from someone who is probably in the 30-50 range for me to someone who would be considered here in the 15-25 range which is a big jump.

I remember running some numbers about how well Nash's offense and Ewing's defense translated to postseason performances as Rtg numbers. (They were pretty much on par with each other)
When I did that, I was also curious about Robinson's defense and even though right now I don't have the numbers (I don't keep worksheets), I remember the defenses Robinson led were not on par with Ewing's led defense numbers. But I didn't take it as a direct knock on Robinson. Rather, it made me move Ewing up on my goat defenders list. Though, that situation created a direct gap between Robinson and Olajuwon/Duncan.
Also, it's worth noting that Robinson did not have a coach like Pat Riley to dictate such effective defense. So, Ewing's numbers did not make up for the entire gap between him and Robinson.

[I decided to run the numbers again to see if I'm mistaken but I guess not. This part is like an edit in advance.
Ran the numbers again to see how well Robinson led teams performed on defense in the playoffs.
From 1990 to 1996, it was -2.6 rDRtg for the Spurs.
With excluding the best and the worst to see more about distribution; it was -1.8 rDRtg. (The best; -11.2 rDRtg against the Lakers in '95, the worst +2.0 against the Jazz in '94.)
Not that great. It's good. But not particularly great or historically great.]

The code in the spoiler has the numbers I ran if someone is curious about it;

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Opponent / Opponent's ORtg in regular season / ORtg against the Spurs / difference / # of minutes played
DEN / 108.0 / 105.2 / -2.8 / 720
POR / 110.5 / 107.2 / -3.3 / 1755
GSW / 111.9 / 111.7 / -0.2 / 960
POR / 108.3 / 105.1 / -3.2 / 985
PHO / 113.3 / 109.9 / -3.4 / 1440
UTA / 108.6 / 110.6 / +2.0 / 960
DEN / 109.1 / 103.1 / -6.0 / 720
LAL / 109.1 / 97.9 / -11.2 / 1490
HOU / 109.7 / 110.6 / +0.9 / 1440
PHO / 110.3 / 109.3 / -1.0 / 960
UTA / 113.3 / 114.1 / +0.8 / 1440

Defense is half of the game. Sure. I don't deny anything about that. But Robinson was not Russell.
Anyone that made the list other than Russell and Garnett, are also better offensive centrepieces than Robinson. And if you saw my arguments, I was also against Garnett being that high on the list. I argued against him as well.
Robinson's defense yielded goat level defensive results in playoffs when he did not have to carry his team's scoring / offense.

Going back to postseason resilience on offense; it is the thing what puts a team over the hump.
I mean haven't we seen enough of Harden in recent years to know that if your team designed by scoring XX amount but you can't match that in the playoffs?
And we're yet to run out of those guys.

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As for Barkley's situation

This is the criterias I go by;
Peak (single season peak and extended peak as two or three seasons peak)
Prime duration
Average prime level
Longevity
Intangibles
Career resume

The main thing about Barkley will be prime duration and intangibles for me. Due to his laziness, his prime lasted shorter than it should and that's also an intangible issue obviously. I'd probably have Barkley over Robinson though. I'd take Barkley's offense over Robinson's defense. The level change from regular season to playoffs in Barkley's defense and Robinson's offense, I'd go with Barkley. Though we could argue over Barkley's elevated defensive level not matching Robinson's dropped offensive level, but the gap between Barkley's offense and Robinson's defense is more significant to me. Barkley's shorter prime is not an issue against Robinson.