RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 (George Mikan)

[wojoaderge]

My semi issue with Moses is that he was only 28 in 83. Yet he started declining from there and most all of the advanced metrics we have don't see him as being an elite player after that.

He had 9 years under his belt though

[Hornet Mania]

Two of my three are still left from last round, to briefly summarize why they remain my choices:

-Mikan is still tops for me, best in-era dominance left on the board by far. His era was weakest but every other similarly dominant player is already in so it's time he joins them. I think putting him just behind the other true dominators of other eras is the spot that balances reverence for pioneering the game and acceptance of the fact he was playing in a time when the game was still very raw.

-Moses certainly has his faults, but when he got rolling he could contribute greatly to a team's success so I'm sticking with him at my second spot.

For the last spot I'm going with Charles Barkley. Barkley was one of the most unique players I've ever seen and a real offensive force of nature. His offensive rebounding and interior scoring were all-time great, and when you account for size they are even more massive outliers. He was also a freight train on the fast break, certainly on the short list when discussing GOAT fast break scorers. His defense left something to be desired but he wasn't an awful liability.

My vote:
1. George Mikan
2. Moses Malone
3. Charles Barkley

[Dutchball97]

Right, forgot I hadn't officially voted yet. Thanks for the heads up.

1. Kevin Durant - I've been voting him for a while now so this shouldn't come as a surprise. He has proven to be elite in both the regular season and play-offs. I also don't think his prime is short either. He's been elite for nearly a decade. Injuries have slowed him down at some crucial points, which is why I don't mind him not making the top 15 yet. To me it's less of an issue though.

2. Steph Curry - Another guy that has a peak good enough to be much higher and enough prime years to show he can be elite on a consistent basis. It's understandable people leave him out for now for longevity reasons but it's not as much of a concern for me with 5+ prime seasons already in the books. He has arguably the best regular season ever and some great play-off runs as well, making the finals 5 years straight. There aren't a lot of guys left that match Curry's dominance and impact on the game.

3. Moses Malone - This spot came down to Moses and Barkley for me. I'm also getting to a point where I'd consider Pettit and Mikan but I'm not sure if I'd take them over Moses or Barkley at the moment. I think Barkley played at a high level for a long time and he has some good play-off runs as well but he never managed to win a title and even in his MVP season, few people would say he was the best player on the team. Moses has an argument to be the best player in the early 80s with 83 as a year where he's almost certainly the best on a dominant title winning team.

[canada_dry]

I'm not questioning Nash's offensive impact. All I'm saying is you can't analyze Nash's impact without mentioning the Offensive environment he played in. Nash's prime came in Mike D'Antoni's system which emphasized Offense by sacrificing defense. The same thing in Dallas with Nellie, another offensive minded coach. He played in a system that played to his strengths. The Suns played at a high pace, shot an absurd amount of 3 pointers, and he played after the handchecking ban came into effect.

Stockton's prime otoh came during handchecking, in a slow offense, and with oaf centers clogging the basket (Ostertag and Eaton).

Do you know where the Jazz were ranked in 3 point attempts during their 2 finals years? Last place both seasons even though they shot well from deep. Despite that, the Jazz finished 2nd and 1st in O rating. In 97, the Jazz shot just 11 3 Pointers per game with a shortened line. In 1998, they shot a measly 8 3 pointers per game. It was absurd how Jerry Sloan was holding back the Jazz from shooting 3's. Stockton was shooting just 2.2 3 pointers even though he was shooting over 42% from 3 and the line was shortened that year. Freakin Gary Payton was shooting over Double the amount 3 pointers and barely hitting above 30%. Their Pace in 1998 was 90 during those years, very slow.

Compare that to Nash's MVP 2005 year. The Suns were 1st in 3 point attempts at 24 per game (3x as many as the 98 Jazz). They played at a 96 pace, 1st in the league.

How does Nash do in an offense where he isn't allowed to shoot as many 3's, his teammates don't shoot 3s, the pace is slowed to a crawl, he has Greg Ostertag clogging up the paint, and teams are allowed to be physical with him? He would struggle. And that's what happened when Nash played from 96-2000.

How would John Stockton fare if his coach allowed him to release the shackles, shoot 3s, play with 4 3 point threats spacing the floor, no handcheck, with an uptempo offense? He would thrive in that scenario.

I'm all for asking how Stockton would do in a D'Antoni-like situation. I'm less interested in asking how Nash would do with a dumber coach because I see "good coaching" here as essentially just a) use strategy we now see as obviously correct and b) letting make the on-court decisions.

I don't see Stockton as having demonstrated the ability to do what Nash did.

I don't think Stockton was the same level of shooter as Nash. Nash was a drastically superior free throw shooter, more established shooting 3's at greater volume, and far more comfortable shooting basically anywhere in the half court with his arsenal of floaters and off-balanced shots.

I don't think Stockton was the same level of passer as Nash. You can argue that they were comparable in transition and that Stockton wasn't given the same chance to improvise in the half court, but Stockton wasn't probing and manipulating the defense on the regular like Nash was, and Nash was doing that long before his MVP season.

Can't forget that Stockton dribbled with his left hand maybe 5 times in his 20 year career. He wasnt breaking defenders down or creating separation for his own kooks like that moreso because he wasnt that good at it.

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

[Cavsfansince84]

My semi issue with Moses is that he was only 28 in 83. Yet he started declining from there and most all of the advanced metrics we have don't see him as being an elite player after that.

He had 9 years under his belt though

Those 9 years prior weren't all that great though. Yes, he won 3 mvps and those were great years but in his entire career he only had 3 seasons with a bpm over 3.0 which isn't even that good. 6 seasons with a vorp above 3 which generally speaking is good but not great. The thing I question with Moses is how much you are actually gaining in his prime years compared to most other players who are thought of as top 30 players of all time.

[Cavsfansince84]

1. Bob Pettit
2. Moses Malone
3. Kevin Durant

Voted for Pettit in previous threads, I think he has best mix of peak play in his time, accolades and solid longevity

I have gone back and forth on Moses in the past, but I respect the 3x MVP, the passion he played with, and he dominated some centers one on one in his time. Solid longevity as he continued to play well after 83 for the rest of the decade.

Durant I don't have as a top 20 regular season player, and I don't love his personality (narcissistic) but he makes up for a lot by stellar finals performances. His scoring game translates really well to that environment as he is hard to stop by any defense.

My semi issue with Moses is that he was only 28 in 83. Yet he started declining from there and most all of the advanced metrics we have don't see him as being an elite player after that. Good to very good but not really great. So I'm just not that high on his prime in terms of overall value despite it being fairly long. Also don't like his lack of passing ability and defense for a big man compared to most of his contemporaries.

I agree but he's still a perennial all-star from 84-90, 85 is a pretty strong season (1st team All NBA, top 5 in WS). I think there is value in that in addition to the 5 superstar seasons, and he was a solid player his first four years. I suppose his longevity should be looked at a bit like Nash (post title Moses vs Mavs Nash being not as strong) but I value peak Moses more than Nash. Or to make another comp if you take away Barkley's 5 best years (88-91, 93), he drops off as well, I'm not any bigger fan of 94-96 Barkley than I am 84-86 Moses.

I am because Barkley every year from 94-97 still had a higher bpm than Moses' career high and was a much better playmaker while still remaining an elite rebounder and playing on winning teams. I'd much rather build around 94-98 Barkley than 84-88 Moses despite him being a few years older.

[penbeast0]

...
Also, 5 ppg difference is huge... It's not something to scoff at like "big deal".

Unlike, say, 90+ points of shooting efficiency and 13 points of assist% which apparently mean little.

[Doctor MJ]

I swear winning bias is a real thing.

It absolutely is and we're all swayed by it, it's just a question of how we attempt to mitigate for it.

[Jordan Syndrome]

I swear winning bias is a real thing.

It absolutely is and we're all swayed by it, it's just a question of how we attempt to mitigate for it.

Winning bias is also the reason Chris Paul and Steve Nash aren't seen in a higher light. It cuts both ways.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:

1. Steph Curry
2. George Mikan
3. Steve Nash

Yup, you read that right, I'm breaking for Mikan, though still not quite as hard as I could.

Let me speak to the two Stephens first.

I consider the most glorious basketball I've ever seen to be the '15-16 Golden State Warriors led by Steph Curry. I think they absolutely went for it in the regular season, which is the basketball we get from October to April, and produced what will likely be the best regular season performance for all eternity, in part because of what happened to them in the post-season. I respect what they did in '15-16 a great deal, and the fact that it's surrounded by 3 championships and the most dominant 5 year team run since Russell's Celtics doesn't hurt either.

I don't ignore the fact that they came up short, and that Curry himself came up short to end that season, nor the other times where Curry's seemed to slip in and out of the zone. I hold the specific events against Curry, but I'm not convinced Curry has a fundamental inability to do his thing in the playoffs. I've just seen too many awesome playoff games from him to assume that he couldn't keep it up over an entire playoffs.

On his game, I think that we need to understand that the impact that tend to call "gravity" exists in the head of your opponents. If they don't know Steph Curry is Steph Curry, they give him more space and he thus scores more easily, but his gravity impact goes down. I would argue that the fear of Curry's shooting is so great that it's allowed Curry to have new forms of impact off-ball, and his ability to play either on or off ball without at an MVP level makes him incredibly portable and scalable. He had help in '16-17 obviously, but when you are the foundation upon which the greatest team in NBA history is successfully assembled, this is a really big deal.

I admire Nash a great deal, but while Curry was influenced by Nash's game in what where Nash is superior, there's a dimension we've seen from Curry that puts him over the top for me as I look at things now.

Alright, on to Mikan. Well, I watched this video:

Watch on YouTube

I have to say, he looks different than he did on the game that we saw. I'm quite taken with his passing and his quick thinking as well as his aggression. He seems considerably more aggressive than, say, Artis Gilmore.

My assessment of Mikan remains quite formative, but as I find myself comparing MIkan to Moses Malone (the next center on my list), I find myself thinking Mikan might be more impressive as a player, and that's putting Mikan in some rare air. Once I accept Mikan's ability to perform at that level, the fact that Mikan sustained major impact his entire career coming back from injury is a testament to conscious grit.

Alright so above Nash but below Curry?

Well, with regards to Nash: If Moses Malone was an outstanding passer who could run the break while being a DPOY, he'd be ahead of Nash too in my mind. Not saying Mikan is Moses' equal in all respects, but Mikan has some significant extra dimensions.

Curry? I've spoken before about how Mikan & Curry are analogues. Spearheads who have been, or who have the potential to be, surpassed dramatically. And well, to this point Mikan has been surpassed while Curry has not, and that's why Curry became the foundation of the best team ever assembled, and I don't really think that's possible with Mikan. That tends to be how it goes - the one who can revolutionize the later, more mature version of the sport is more of an outlier than the one who did it earlier on - but time will tell. We know about how big we can expect a human to grow before his size holds him back at basketball. We do not yet know how good human beings can be at shooting basketballs.

[Franco]

To quote myself from the previous thread, I’ll just replace my 3rd place vote since Dr. J got i

I know I haven't actively participated in the project (as I knew I would be unable to do), but I have some time free for the first time in a while so I'll give my votes and reasonings:

1) George Mikan

The dominance of Mikan's Lakers is something we basically have never seen outside of the top 10 (and even more than a few inside of the top 10), and he was unarguably the game's best player for a long period of time. While I do agree that the 50s was very different game compared to basically every decade moving forward, I don't think it's enough to penalize Mikan out of the top 20. From the period of 1949 to 1954 he led the league in DWS (except 49) and came out in the top 5 of WS every season, led the league in scoring on (relatively) mind-blowing efficiency.

As Eminence pointed out earlier, plenty of bigs came along before or during the same time period and didn't find anywhere near the same success, and I'm fairly convinced he would've led Minneapolis to 6 straight titles if it wasn't for his injury in the 1951 postseason. In the grand scheme his resume looks short (and it is), but it's dominant enough for me to give him the vote

1) Mikan
2) Moses
3) Curry

[LA Bird]

Here are the same numbers in year by year on/offs:

Malone vs Stockton (Regular season)
1994: +17.4 vs +7.3
1995: +9.6 vs +6.4
1996: +13.5 vs +14.5
1997: +21.9 vs +7.6
1998: +17.4 vs +12.4
1999: +13.0 vs +10.5
2000: +14.4 vs +14.6
2001: +6.2 vs +18.5
2002: -0.6 vs + 6.9
2003: +2.5 vs +6.2

Malone vs Stockton (Playoffs)
1997-99: +19.0 vs +3.1
2000-03: +12.3 vs +17.7

Malone had the better numbers when both were in their primes and the Jazz were at their best.

First off, both of them weren't in their prime at that time. Stockton's prime was 88-92 when we don't have data. However, those years were Malone's prime. It's no shame for Stockton to be behind Malone during that timeframe. Those were Malone's best years. He won 2 MVP's during that span. He won an MVP over frickin Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. So having impact stats 95% of the guy who finished ahead of MJ is not a bad thing. That shows just how good Stockton was.

You literally wrote in the previous page that Stockton's prime lasted until 1997:

During his prime years of 1988-1997, He averaged 16-12-4, 57.4 TS%, 2 stl, 6.6 BPM. Those are pretty good numbers.

You are just changing the definition of Stockton's prime now so you can dismiss the on/off data as non-prime. Stockton was never a top 5 player in the league so if he really only had a 5 year prime as you said, he has absolutely no business being discussed within the top 20 all time.

And secondly, Stockton does not have 95% of the impact stats of Malone from 94-99. If you take a plain average of the on/offs, it is +15.5 for Malone vs +9.8 for Stockton. In the specific year you mentioned when Malone won MVP over Jordan, it was +21.9 vs +7.6. You are making it sound like these Stockton on/off numbers show him to be close to Jordan-level when they weren't even better than Mookie Blaylock's during the same time span.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #111:

George Mikan - 6 (DQuinn1575, eminence, Franco, Hornet Mania, penbeast0, sansterre)
Moses Malone - 3 (Hal14, Joao Saraiva, Odinn21)
Kevin Durant - 3 (Dutchball97, Joey Wheeler, Magic Is Magic)
Charles Barkley - 2 (Cavsfansince84, trex_8063)
Stephen Curry - 2 (Doctor MJ, freethedevil)
Chris Paul - 1 (Whopper_Sr)
Steve Nash - 1 (Jordan Syndrome)
Bob Pettit - 1 (Dr Positivity)


Another nice turnout with 19 counted votes, requiring 10 for a majority.
We'll first eliminate all three of Paul, Nash, and Pettit. This transfers one vote each to Moses, Barkley, and Curry.....

Mikan - 6
Moses - 4
Durant - 3
Barkley - 3
Curry - 3

So we next have to eliminate all three of Curry/Durant/Barkley. This transfers 3 votes to Moses, 2 to Mikan, and the other four are "ghosted"....

Mikan - 8
Moses - 7
(ghost votes) - 4

I am one of the ghost votes, though anticipating this I had stated in my original vote post that if it came to choice between Mikan and Moses, that I give my support to Moses, making the count 8-8.
I now call upon the three remaining ghost votes (freethedevil, Jordan Syndrome, and Whopper_Sr) to please state your choice between George Mikan and Moses Malone (ASAP).
If I haven't heard from these guys in the next couple hours, I will resort to the Condorcet method to decide a winner, as done previously.

Fwiw (although this does not guarantee victory via the Condorcet method), if we were doing a ballot system (pt values of 5/3/1 for 1st/2nd/3rd-place votes), the scores would be:

Mikan - 39
Moses - 30
Barkley - 24
Durant - 20
Curry - 19
Nash - 15
Paul - 10
Pettit - 8
Stockton - 3
Baylor - 3

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Jordan Syndrome]

Mikan--I am not positive on his ranking, to be completely honest. Both sides have presented strong cases one way or another and he is a player whose comparison is Apples to Oranges. Moses is a player I am not very high on and since I am confident in both Nash and Barkley ahead of Moses I will vote for Mikan as he is someone I dont have any qualms about.

This is at least my second time and perhaps 3rd time in being a deciding factor. It feels nice to have the power!

[trex_8063]

I've heard back (either here or in PM) from Jordan Syndrome and Whopper_Sr; both of them opted for George Mikan. So regardless of what freethedevil says, Mikan has the 10 necessary votes. A little higher than I would have him, personally, but I cannot argue the consensus: he'd have won if we were doing a single-vote system, he won a tenuous battle via our ranked vote system, and as I noted in prior post he would have won via a ballot system as well.

Been retired more than a half-century, yet he continues to climb the ranks! Congrats to the original Mr. Basketball.

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

[70sFan]

I'm actually glad that Mikan got the respect he deserves. I'm not very comfortable with ranking him, but the more I think about it, the more I'm into the idea that Mikan simply should have been inside top 20.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Im not really involved in the project cuz i feel my criteria are really different from most people on the board (not saying mine our better cuz its all subjective) and i get the mikan pick for in era dominance stuff, but at the same while its def fair for him to be that high in terms of greatness, its kind odd for me to see someone thats prolly not better than our USC center last year in the top 20 lol

[wojoaderge]

Been retired more than a half-century, yet he continues to climb the ranks! Congrats to the original Mr. Basketball.

This warms my heart

[70sFan]

its kind odd for me to see someone thats prolly not better than our USC center last year in the top 20 lol

Come on, Mikan was better than that...

[MyUniBroDavis]

its kind odd for me to see someone thats prolly not better than our USC center last year in the top 20 lol

Come on, Mikan was better than that...

I mean the usc center last year could end up as good as bam lol

I mean you know i respect older eras but like late 40s early 50s they just werent very good lol

I get alot of it is rules and thats fair, but its kinda like, for example ball handling, because of the rules they were taight to handle the ball differently, but because of that they dont havw the skills in that department of someone today

I know this sounds like a super cocky thing to say but in terms of just pure dribbling i do genuinly feel like i know alot of guys that arent even college levelnplayers that are better than players 40s and early 50s, given that because of the rules of the game they simply never worked on things people work on today. Id say whether it be from palming rules or whatever, dribbling is whats changed the most, more than shooting even

Like i do think players got more talented as the talent pool got bigger as a whole, but for the most part the top guys were the same level since thats the creme of the crop, but like 40s-50s vs now is kind of an absurd difference that isnt just the rules